Edshugeo The GodMoor

If you have good taste in music, set your DVRs, VCRs or whatever. If not, please disregard this message.

Source: Housequake

Addendum -
The performance, courtesy of Hulu (hat tip: Undercover BlackMan):

Labels: Anticipay-yay-shun..., music, Prince, tv, youtube and other video

Prince is being a dick, again. Is there no end to his dickery?

Labels: bullshit, Prince

Prince responds in song (recorded last night) to the shitstorm he started. And what a funky ass song it is. It seems he's still being an ass in the lyrics (or so it's been interpreted), but who cares? Listen.

Labels: bullshit, civil rights, downloads, music, Prince

Prince is being a dick again. He has to be stopped.

Labels: bullshit, Prince

http://www.3121.com/jam/

Niiiiice! I like it much better than the version on 3121 (the album).

Tip o' de hat to Housequake, as usual. I'd not know if not for them.

Labels: music, Prince

A video, that is. Up for 21 days at his website, 3121.com. Joy In Repetition , AnotherLover, and Peach.

Discussed at Housequake.

Labels: music, music video, Prince

There's a backstory to this, but I don't quite know where to begin. One day I may try to sort it out best I can. To make a long story short, there's an upcoming "Prince" album, Swell Tree Lens, that will revolutionize the way music is experienced. "News" about this album has been posted on the usenet group, alt.music.prince such as the following message which includes mention of George Benson's involvement in Matreshka...

Prince actually called at my house briefly in the wee hours of this morning.
He wanted a wee. Also he wanted to vomit up some bad vegetarian tripe he'd
eaten. Before he left, he managed to tell me a few more details about Swell
Tree Lens v.2 (he did struggle to talk inbetween the dry heaving).

Prince is apparently rather concerned about the modified record, as the
apartment housing made from the jewel case has, in tests, caused spontaneous
skin-peeling. Unless the host lark carrying the antibodies to this condition
can be located amongst the 12 billion larks on his Ohio farm, he will have
to instead release Swell Tree Lens version FOUR (version three caused the
extinction of the pigme echidna).

Version 4 contains all the same songs and surprises as originally intended
but with some new inclusions. The track "Matreshka What A Doll" has now been
remixed to include the sound of George Benson being horse-whipped in place
of a guitar solo, and one of the other songs (he didnt tell me which) is now
three songs.

The packaging is hoped to turn into a giant frisbee of death that gouges
people with spinning blades when thrown, although safety testing is still
underway.

Darrell

More here...

It's basically just a long running spoof of rock star self indulgence, but aimed at Prince fandom, sort of.

Labels: funny-ass shit, music video, Prince, youtube

Yikes! Got a heads up from the Undercover Black Man that the recording in question is Albert Brooks, not Nick Nolte, and as a result not quite as funny. A link to an interview with Mr. Brooks is posted in the comments section. Cue my own Krusty groan. My apologies to all, especially to Mr. Nolte and his family.

Back in the early nineties, James Brooks shot a musical called I'll Do Anything. The cast, which included Nick Nolte and Tracey Ullman sang and danced to songs mostly written by Prince. Test audiences weren't crazy about the result, and the movie was re-edited into a dramedy. I saw it on cable years ago and didn't think it was that bad of a movie, but I always wanted to see the original version out of curiosity. As a Prince fan, I'd be compelled to purchase a special edition DVD with the musical on it, if it were ever made available.

A non-Prince tune stayed in the film and the lyrics to Don't Talk To Strangers was used as dialog (or was it the other way around?).
A number of the songs appeared on the bootleg Platinum, and then (3 songs) on The Vault: Old Friends For Sale (officially released and excellent). Don't Talk to Strangers was covered by Chaka Khan on Come To My House. The Prince version of that song and I'll Do Anything hasn't been released officially, I think.

Recently, 30 Years Of Unreleased Funk Vol. 3 appeared on usenet. I haven't listened to the whole thing yet (and may be missing a track or two), but I jumped right to the I'll Do Anything tracks, particularly the one's with Nick Nolte. Man, it would be tough to try and sell this soundtrack. He even does a Krusty The Clown like groan somewhere in there. Using the mug shot pic above will probably seem like a cheap shot till you hear this tune... (took that down out of fairness)

I'll Do Anything - Nick Nolte Albert Brooks

I'll Do Anything - Prince Demo

I'll Do Anything - Prince from Platinum

The above are megaupload links. I don't know how long they'll last...

Labels: downloads, funny-ass shit, movies, music, oops, Prince

Recently, some rare-ish (never before released on CD) 80's b-sides and extended versions from Prince were made available from 7digital (and iTunes?) in Europe*. Fans are expressing some disappointment that these tracks are badly encoded vinyl rips complete with audible scratches, pops and surface noise. Read here to see what one fan had to go through to get some of his money back.

Hold on to those bootlegs. They won't be obsolete for a long while.

*these may not be available in the U.S.

7 Digital sells DRM'd wma files, by the way.

Labels: bullshit, downloads, music business, Prince, ripoffs

Planet Earth - The title track is epic, breathtaking and, for the first few times I heard it, a little exhausting. The rest of the album is almost unnecessary. Prince could do a whole show on this one song and just about get away with it. Just about. Luckily, most of the tracks that follow are strong enough to avoid the type of disappointment that could result from trailing behind a show-stopper like this. Do I know what it's about? No, but who cares? Don't pollute. Do unto others, blah, blah. It's fucking epic, and thats all that matters.

Guitar - I dug this version when it emerged about a month and a half ago. The song keeps the momentum Planet Earth built up, by continuing the six stringed assault on our senses. I'm almost embarrassed I wrote that. I'm just trying to say it rocks, man. That's all. And it does.

Somewhere Here On Earth - 2nd favorite track here, though this is the better song. Slightly reminiscent of Heatwave's Always And Forever and old school slow jams in general ("No, my brotha. You got to buy your own.") This song's a thing of beauty, though not as good as Adore. Then again, what is? If Prince does a video for this, he needs to sport an Afro-Sheen wig. Don't let him too close to the fireplace, though.

The One U Wanna See - I don't dislike this Shania Twain sound-alike as much as I did initially, but I still don't really like it at all. Country fans like their performers to be a bit more fan-friendly, so I'm not sure where he's going with this. He's covered Shania once with You're Still The One. If I remember correctly, only a snippet of that song was released. He must be a huge fan, though.

Future Baby Mama - Another nice, groovy slow jam. More contemporary in feel than "Somewhere".

Mr. Goodnight - Prince in Playa mode. Fun. I thought it was corny at first, but it grew on me big time. Video with he and Morris Day competing for a woman's affections? Would be cool. Maybe Kat Williams if Morris don't wanna do it. Do they still make music videos?

All The Midnights In The World - The return of whimsical Prince. A Wendy & Lisa contribution? I don't have the CD, yet, so I dunno. I like this.

Chelsea Rodgers - A nice, funky, and energetic groove. Disco influenced, but not disco. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Lot of speculation about who she is. Real or fiction? New protege, or long hidden love child? ChelseaRodgers.com shows a model showing off his new perfume. Just to be irresponsible, I'll suggest that "Might as well dance" isn't just a throwaway line, and points to this girl (whatever her real name is) as last year's Lolita from 3121. All that's beside the point, of course. The only thing that matters is that this is yet another great song. Go on Chelsea.

Lion Of Judah - Ugh! What the fuck is this? This isn't good enough to be filler on a stellar album like this. Not diggin' it. Not diggin' it at all.

Resolution - Another track that sounds like it's got Wendy & Lisa's influence on it and makes me appreciate at least some of what their fans have been saying for years. A great track to end the record on. Start with a torrential rainstorm, end with sunshine and a rainbow.

Overall, Planet Earth, despite two bad songs out of ten, has turned out to be my favorite Prince Album in the last few years. If I delete One U Wanna See and Lion Of Judah (and I will), it might even be better than The Rainbow Children, but it's too early to tell.

The CD hits U.S. stores on Tuesday. I'll get it Wednesday or Thursday.

Labels: music, Prince

Swiped from Housequake from Music Week;

Sony BMG pull Prince album in covermount row
28 June 2007 - 17:03:03

Sony BMG has ripped up its UK contract to release Prince's (pictured) new album, Planet Earth, after it emerged that his management company has agreed a deal to give it away as a free covermount with The Mail On Sunday.

The newspaper’s Stephen Miron confirmed to Music Week today that the album will be offered to all readers, even before it ships to retailers in the UK. "The first time anyone will be able to hear Planet Earth will be exclusively through The Mail On Sunday," he said. "No artist has ever given away a new album by launching it free with a newspaper and clearly the music retailers will be up in arms."

Explaining the decision to renege on the deal, a spokesman for Sony BMG says, "Before the deal [to release his album through Columbia in the UK] was set in place, [Prince and his management] had a number of other deals in place, including the deal to give away the album to people attending his shows at the O2 in London.

"At that time the Mail On Sunday deal was not something that we were aware of - that came to light a few days ago. With that in mind it, we decided it was ridiculous to have a UK deal when 2m albums are going out free with papers. We don't want to muck around our retail partners, so out of respect for them we're not going to release the album over here."

"It doesn't change the fact that we're delighted to be working with him though," the spokesman adds, "and the global deal remains unaffected; this is a UK-only exemption."

News of the initiative caused widespread anger among many music industry executives at today’s London Calling conference in London.

Entertainment Retailers Association co-chairman Paul Quirk says, "It would be an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career. It would be yet another example of the damaging covermount culture which is destroying any perception of value around recorded music."

Quirk also hinted that record stores may now boycott Prince’s back catalogue, quipping, "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behaviour like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores."

When I first read this I thought it was going to be packaged with the newspaper, The Mail on Sunday (meaning this weekend). Didn't realize the name of the paper was Mail On Sunday. I was hoping for an internet leak of the new album, soon.

I'll still buy the CD, assuming it's not complete crap, as I did with his last after getting an early download.

Update: Slashdot readers respond to music industry douche-bags.

Labels: funny-ass shit, good deal, Heroes, music business, Prince

Albums

A Weekend In The City - Bloc Party
Didn't care much for this when I first heard it, but I've since warmed to it. What did I mean by "mellow"?

Eat Me Drink Me - Marilyn Manson
Nothing he's done has been as good as Mechanical Animals (my favorite MM cd), but since then, Manson has rocked with a consistency not unlike ACDC back in the day. Something's different about this one. A lot more guitar solos. What else? Jury's still out.

Grinderman - Grinderman
I know almost nothing about Nick Cave, save an appearance in Wings Of Desire (watched the DVD a few months ago). Time to find out more, maybe.

Still Stuck In Your Throat - Fishbone
They're back! And they actually sound like Fishbone. Good Fishbone. Oh, shit!

Supreme Clientele - Ghostface Killah
Just starting to get into this one. If nothing else, it's good to have the theme from the Iron Man cartoon. I'm forcing myself to not listen to Fishscale for a little while.

Songs

Too Sexy - Sheila E
Instrumental b-side. I wonder who plays guitar on this.

Still A Thrill - Jody Watley
Funkiest guitar ever? Almost.

Myung Theme and Voices by Yoko Kanno
From the Macross Plus soundtrack. Beautiful.

Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nothing To Fuck With - Wu-Tang Clan with Rage Against The Machine
'Nuff said!

ルパン三世 '80 [Sunaga T Experience 9849 Mix]
The Lupin III theme played in a similar fashion (if not a variation of) the jazzy theme from the car chase in Cagliostro's Castle. From the 30th anniversary remix album, Punch The Monkey.

Catch My Disease - Ben Lee

Guitar (2nd version) - Prince

The Imperial March - John Williams
Before I realized that James Earl Jones was providing his voice, I figured the reason Darth Vader walked like a Black man was the kick ass pimpin' theme he was given in The Empire Strikes Back.

New Toy - Lene Lovich

Pleasures (Old Denim Mix) - Pushim
Japanese reggae. This song triggered all sorts of emotional chemical reactions the first few hundred times I listened to it. That was before I even realized she was singing in English. Powerful stuff.

People Get Ready - Jeff Beck And Rod Stewart
As great as Curtis Mayfield is, I still prefer this version (which was the first I heard). Love Beck's playing on this.

Scandalous: The Passion and The Rapture - Prince
From a CD single. The original version is from the Batman soundtrack. I normally just listen to The Rapture, which is mostly an awesome guitar solo. The Passion appears to be a mash-up of Scandalous and some other unknown Prince song. Possible, but I'm guessing it's just a really interesting embellishment that almost sounds like an altogether new song. Also love how the two pieces (Passion & Rapture) flow together as one.

沧海一声笑
This song can be heard in the movie Swordsman, sung (lip-sync'd) onscreen by Wu Ma and Lam Ching Ying (if I remember correctly) aboard a boat. Always loved this song. Listen to it on this page. Swordsman was based (loosely) on Louis Cha's Smiling Proud Wanderer.

All on my PSP, of course.

Labels: music, Prince, wu-xia

Now this is much more like it. Guitar is the first single from Prince's new album Planet Earth, coming out in about a month or so. This song was first released a little while ago on Prince's website, 3121.com for 2 bucks. This tune, available through Verizon if you have one of their phones, is a different, much better, much live-r version. The video above ain't too bad either.

I'm getting my hopes up that Planet Earth won't be the disappointment that 3121 was.

I don't have a Verizon phone, so I found the song through "alternative" means.

Labels: downloads, music, music video, Prince, youtube

Some of these were obviously jokes:

"I find it highly unacceptable to have a family watching a sporting event only to find Prince stroking, manipulating and fondling his guitar behind the curtain. This image only made him look extremely large which made the rest of us feel small, and unable to perform this evening."


Some others, I'm not so sure of. Funny stuff, in any case.

These and more at The Smoking Gun.
Thanks Housequake.com.

Labels: bullshit, funny-ass shit, Prince, tv

The only team I'm rooting for is Prince's band. He better kick ass tonight.
The picture above is of the late Kwan Tak Hing, the actor who portrayed Wong Fei Hong from 1949 'till about 1972 or something (not counting cameos in Magnificent Butcher and Dreadnaught). I put it up because I think he kinda resembles Prince in this photo. Also it's been a few days since I've mentioned kung fu movies.

Labels: kung fu, music, Prince, tv

Prince's new song is up at 3121.com. It's called Guitar and it's a buck ninety-nine for a tune slightly over three minutes. I've made it clear that iTunes is too expensive at ninety-nine cents (cant use iTunes songs on my PSP anyway). There's no fuckin' way I'm payin' two dollars on an mp3, not even one by Prince. So I'll have to wait 'till I can "find" it. If it's on a new CD, I'll end up buying it, anyway. Sometimes, that man is not very bright.


Feb 4th, 2007 - Having heard the song a few times now, I rather like it. It's not great, but even if it was, I wouldn't pay two bucks for it. Looking forward to this evening's halftime show.

Labels: bullshit, downloads, music, online retailers, Prince, ripoffs

Gettin' kinda heavy with the guitar, there. Which is good news for long time fans, as well as football fans. Prince gave a "press conference" this afternoon on the NFL network, that consisted of a performance of three songs, Johnny B. Goode, anotherloverholeinyohead, a little bit of a B-52's song (?) at the end of AnotherLover, and Get On The Boat. The latter is one of the better songs on his last album 3121, but didn't come across so good here, in my opinion. Go to the title above to watch the performance. It's at Housequake.com and will probably require you to sign up. It'll show up on YouTube eventually, but won't look or sound as good. Tomorrow should see a new song available for download, called Guitar. Sunday, he plays the Superbowl during halftime. I expect awesome-ness! In addition to the millionth playing of Let's Go Crazy and Purple Rain.

Update: 2/2/07 - Somebody camcordered the event; here's the vid...

Labels: music, music video, Prince, tv

Guitar is the name, and it'll be downloadable at 3121.com (his website) sometime on Friday. The NFL Network is supposed to air a press conference held by Prince on Thursday afternoon, at which, he is gonna perform some music, but answer no questions. This will be followed up by his Superbowl Halftime show, which will likely be a hits set with some new music thrown in for good measure and hopefully the release of a new album or something.

via: Housequake.com
The best source for Prince news

Labels: downloads, music, Prince

I said a bit about how I felt about this record, before. Having listened to it for over a month now (actually bought the CD 2nd week of it's release - no purple ticket), I'm gonna say just a little bit more.

The songs -

3121

Solid but soulless drumming by Michael Bland. Among Prince-fans, I'm in the minority with many of my opinions. One of them concerns Michael Bland. A very powerful drummer, sure, but to me, he feels like a machine playing a preset. There may be some exceptions, but at the moment, I can't think of any, and this song isn't one of 'em.

Don't like the keys nor the horns.

Vocal flows (at first) a bit like Chubb Rock, which is okay, and it's pitch shifted to evoke memories of Camille, but like the drumming, there's nothing here.

Nice guitar work, rhythm, bass (Sonny Thompson) and lead.

Don't really care for this one. A bad intro for the album. A good theme song for a vampire film named 3121, cuz this song is dead and soul-less. Skip this track.

Lolita

This is much more like it. This actually sounds like music. Nice, organic (sounding) and fun.

Te Amo Corazon

Warmed up a bit to this one. Didn't care for it when the video was first released. Nothing wrong with the video as far as I can tell, except that it does nothing for the song which sounds better without the visuals. Still, it's decent album filler, and not much more than that.

Black Sweat

Annoying as hell. I've gone from kinda liking it, to kinda not and sometimes back. The Dre/Snoop G-Funk synth has to go. Where's the remix? It's a skipper.

Incense And Candles

One of two songs included to make the record company happy, I think. Still, I like it

Love

the second of the two I just mentioned. The Timbaland (or somebody) like intro makes me think of those MTV promos for Sucka Free Sundays from a coupl'a years back. The first few times I heard this I half expected to hear Sway's loud, annoying ass voice.

The rest of the song sounds like it might've been written for Michael Jackson, the verses especially. However, I like this one as well, though I didn't at first.

Satisfied

Not as good as the live version from last year's NAACP Awards, but not bad.

Fury

Not as good as the recent performances on Saturday Night Live or The Brit Awards. Actually, it's just a little weird hearing the studio version. The keys are way more up-front here than in the live versions. I still like this, for it's live band feel (though, as with Lolita, all the instruments were played by Prince). Great guitar playing.

The Word

I think it's about the bible or something. I dig it, though. I previously spoke about an alternate track sequencing for this album which had this song play first. Not a good idea. I think I had it switch places with Get On The Boat.

Beautiful, Loved And Blessed

One of the better songs on this set, but really doesn't belong here with Tamar singing most of the tune. I don't get putting this song both here and on her album. I'm deleting this from the 3121 tracklist along with Black Sweat and 3121. I'll listen to it with the rest of her CD when it comes out.

The Dance

A lush, over production of a track that was originally included in the internet only release, The Chocolate Invasion. Not bad.


Get On the Boat

Nice live sounding funk jam. It's not about New Orleans. That was S.S.T. and Brand New Orleans. Had to explain that to a friend.

Would'a liked to hear more songs like this, Fury and Lolita as far as the music/sound is concerned.

So the album has some decent songs, but overall, I find it disappointing. And where is drummer John Blackwell, dammit?

Labels: music, Prince

3121 isn't due until the 21st, but naturally it leaked a little early through the normal channels.

Wasn't that crazy about what I was hearing as a whole. I'd seen videos to Te Amo Corazon and Black Sweat. Corazon took me some time to warm up to, mostly by not watching the video. Black Sweat was okay. Princed performed Fury and Beautiful, Loved and Blessed on Saturday Night Live recently and those performances were great (Fury) and pretty good (BLaB). The album version of Fury doesn't quite sound right to me. BLaB sounds better here, though, than it did live, and I find it to be one of the albums better songs. Also pretty good are Lolita, Satisfied, and Get On The Boat.

A poster on alt.music.prince called Pharoah suggested an alternate track order for the songs which makes the record much more listenable. Still, I'm a bit disappointed in this effort. It's not bad. It just isn't as good as his recent output (Rainbow Children, Chocolate Invasion, or even Musicology).

It goes something like this (the altered track order, that is) :

01. The Word
02. Lolita
03. Black Sweat
04. Fury
05. Love
06. Incense and Candles
07. Get On The Boat
08. 3121
09. Te Amo Corazon
10. The Dance
11. Satisfied
12. Beautiful, Loved & Blessed

I'll still buy it to at least particpate in the Purple Ticket Lottery. Winners get to attend an intimate live performance.

Labels: music, Prince

I finally got homebrew running on my PSP (2.6 firmware), thanks to this article. Once that was done, I had to look for stuff to play with.

Among my favorites, so far...

KETM - Kill Everything That Moves: To me it's a pretty version of Space Invaders/Asteroids/Galaga, etc., but actually a port of some other game I've never heard of. Lot's of fun, though.

Art Of Fighting 3 - this requires a Neo Geo emulator called NeoCDPSP to run. There are a number of game ROMs available. I've only tried this one (which I like a lot) and Sengoku 2, which is okay, so far. I also have a GBA emulator, but it's slow and apparently soundless.

PSPRhythm - this one has me giddier than a schoolgirl. Here's a quote from it's creators:

Inspired by classic drum machines such as the Linndrum and Roland TR-series, PSP Rhythm has been created to use the simple, yet effective 16 step style drum sequencer. PSP Rhythm incorporates the use of audio sample playback instead of drum synthesis. PSP Rhythm has been directly influenced by one of our favorite modern drum machines, the Elektron MachineDrum. The most significant is our use of "parameter locks" (as used by the MachineDrum). Parameter locks enable you to change the pitch, volume, balance, start and end time per step to create moving, changing melodies and effects. This control over your sounds will give you much more creative freedom and allow you to not only use drums, but to use instruments in your music.

I've barely gotten started with this, and there's still much for me to figure out, but so far it sounds great. There's a great deal of potential here. My portable video game system/movie player/mp3 player/e-book/e-comicbook is now also a pocket song writing tool.

It also means that when Sony releases the next firmware update, I'll have to pass.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Other stuff on my PSP...

Andy Richter Controls The Universe - why the FUCK isn't this on DVD, yet? I'd downloaded a bunch of these a couple of years ago. I saw a few, but stored the rest. I watched the first ep from the second season, yesterday. Brilliant!

Romance Of the Three Kingdoms - The kung fu isn't all that great and the male bonding a bit over dramatic, I still find this entertaining so far (I've only watched 3/4 of the first episode).

A few bizarre Golden Age Comicbooks that are apparently in the public domain. A few of these characters have appeared in Alan Moore's Terra Obscura. I may lift a few myself.

Super Spy - I've read the first two and I have the third. There are four more up as of this writing. Got some catching up to do, and I still haven't finished MPD Psycho.

Various mp3s from Hello Gina - standouts are
The Man Machine by Kraftwerk. Do I remember this song, or the song that sampled it in the early to mid eighties?
Catch My Disease by Ben Lee - there are some songs that cause these feel good secretions that I can sometimes feel happening in my brain. Adore and She Loves Me 4 Me by Prince, and Europa And The Pirate Twins by Thomas Dolby are among those. So is this. I love it.
Unite by Tiger Tunes - They can make you dance.

various mp3s from wherever, including:
Battle Without Honor Or Humanity by Tomoyasu Hotei - the fight song from Kill Bill.
Slave by Nadir - I still love this song.
American Woman by Lenny Kravitz - don't look at me like that.
Take Me To The River by The Talking Heads

Prince stuff like Black Sweat, S.S.T./Brand New Orleans, Beautiful Loved and Blessed as well as his recent performances on SNL and the Brit Awards.

and some of my own recent demos and projects as well as the originals to songs I covered by Cry For Life and Sinister Dexter.

Labels: comics, Crystal Walters, dead links, dorama, downloads, fun, music, music making, possibilities for creative expression, Prince, PSP, PSP Rhythm, video games

A great performance of Te Amo Corazon, Fury, Purple Rain and Let's Go Crazy. If you know how to use usenet, you can snag a DVD quality video from alt.binaries.multimedia.prince (much more enjoyable), but otherwise, there's this...


But not anymore. Video removed.

Labels: dead links, Prince, youtube

Couple of nights ago I dreamt Prince was trying to kill me. I don't remember why. I only remember the end of the dream. Prince had a gun, and he was gonna bust a cap upside my head. I manage to get a door in between me and him, but it didn't seem like it was gonna be enough. It seemed hopeless, but I was optimistic that there was some way out. Luckily, the cavalry came to the rescue in the form of "Morris day: NYPD".
End of dream.

I figured it was time I dusted off the Purple Rain DVD I bought in 2004 and give it a look see. I'd watched Graffiti Bridge and Under The Cherry Moon not long after I bought them, and made it a point to watch them first because they would likely pale in comparison to the movie that made Prince a star. Though I took a look at some of the special features on disc two, I hadn't before yesterday, watched this DVD. It's also been years since I watched the film in any form, despite being a huge Prince fan. The VHS copy I bought when it first came out (one of the first films released at a "sell through" price of $19.95) was loaned to someone I barely knew and was never returned. A DVD was released by Warners, but was full screen. While I'd been willing to put up with that shit with video tape, it wasn't happ'nin' for me on DVD, so I avoided that copy.
In 2004 Warners decided to put out some decent editions of Princes movies (except Sign O' The Times - available through amazon.ca) and I bought them all (except Sign*).

Purple Rain stars Prince as the son of an ex-cop turned failed musician (Clarence Williams III reprises his role as Linc Hayes from the Mod Squad, now known by his stage name, Francis L.). Linc spent a short career doling out beatdowns during the sixties and apparently suffered a breakdown of sorts. He retired from the force, settled down with some chick he must've met on a case and moved to Minnesota. He tried to leave the violence behind him, but he finds, not only do old habits die hard, but also that his son may inherit his curse, despite his efforts to raise him as a girly-man.

Visually the film is quite the spectacle (thanks to director Albert Magnoli), with Prince doing what he does best; sing, play guitar, dance and being a complete ass to the people around him. His acting would be easier to criticise if not for Appolonia Kotero and Jill Jones. In their defence, they do look hot (who was the chick next to Jill Jones during Computer Blue?) and I don't remember complaining about them when I saw this movie three times in 1984. Morris Day was potentially a star in the making, but didn't live up to that potential. Ditto Jerome Benton. If Morris had played Christopher Tracey in Under the Cherry Moon, that would'a been the shit.

Yes, this is Prince's film, but to me, this is a standout role for Clarence Williams III, who shows a willingness to commit 300% of his energy to Francis (Linc) Hayes despite an obviously shitty script. Good actors make bad movies all the time. Rare is the thespian who treats every role as though it were gold, and Clarence Williams III is that thespian.

Anyway, I recommend Purple Rain. Get the two disc special edition. The other one is crap.

*January 21st, 2008 - I now have the Canadian disc of Sign O' The Times and it is magnificent. Much better than I remember it being.

Labels: dreams, DVD, movies, music, music video, nostalgia, Prince

Heard a couple of audio samples from Te Amo Corazón over the last couple of days and thought I liked what I heard. I caught the music video here, and after watching it, I find I'm not so crazy about it after all. I still look forward to the new album, 3121, which is due sometime new year.
The girl who plays Jennifer Garner's half sister on Alias is the love interest in the video, which is directed by Selma Hayek. I think she does a good job. It's the song itself that doesn't bowl me over.

Oh, yeah. It has to be viewed in Internet Explorer, which is inconvenient for me. I have no intention of returning to that site, naturally.

Labels: music video, Prince

Prince has a new song for which proceeds will go to the efforts to help the victims of Hurricane Kartrina. Get it here, if you're so inclined. If not, there's http://www.redcross.org/ for direct donations.

Labels: downloads, music, Prince, society, solutions?

No. Not about politics, the latest disasters, or terrorist attacks. We get that shit shoved in our faces whether we want it or not. I mean the other, important stuff, like...

Prince. Let's say you're like me, and you still find this musician's musician interesting and you wanna know what's happening in his world or Prince fandom. Where do you go? Well he's got a site, but it kinda sucks for a number of reasons I won't go into right now. Once in a blue moon, there is music there to be purchased and/or downloaded, but right now we're talking news so I recommend Housequake.com. It's unofficial, but it's the definitive Prince site. The thing is, his activity has kinda slowed down in the last few years, so there isn't a great deal to report until a record is announced and whatnot, but Housequake remains interesting throughout the year.


Movies. I've been told I have odd taste in film and video, but I think I'm fairly mainstream, though I lean heavily toward geek territory. In other words, yes I like foreign movies, but a lot of them have kung fu in them. Occasionally I go for the art film or two. General movie news, I get from Aint It Cool News, a site that gets it's name from a line spoken by John Travolta in John Woo's Broken Arrow. I have some issues with that site as well, but again, won't get into them today.
A lot of my favorite movies come from Asia so I often check sites like Kaiju Shakedown, Kung Fu Cinema, and Kung Fu Cult Cinema (or KFC Cinema). Kaiju Shakedown is connected to Variety.com and is described as an Asian movie blog. I only recently found this site and find it to be both hilarious (at times) and informative.

Comics. I don't read as much of these things as I'd like. I'd pretty much sworn off the old pamphlet format. Something so obviously disposable should not be close to three bucks a pop (or more), collectible or not. Twice a year (maybe) I binge on graphic novels, a fancy name for comics collected into hard or soft cover compilations, and sometimes I'll grab a couple of traditional comics to preview something I might like.
I hadn't kept up with comics news in a while, so I was glad to find Newsarama.com, a site connected to View Askew/Kevin Smith. I think I found them through Aint It Cool, or JamesHudnall.com. There's also The Alan Moore Fansite. As the name suggests, they concern themselves with all things (comics/movies/performance art) related to Mr. Moore. He's my favorite comics writer, so even though there isn't always a great deal of activity, I check the site often.

Hmm. I thought I'd had a longer list, but apparently I don't.

Labels: comics, movies, Prince

Just started listening to these fellas on the recommendation of a friend who suggested that I had a similar sound. I don't know how accurate the comparison is, but it's probably closer than comparisons I've heard before. Perhaps I say this because I like this music a lot and it's not too easy to describe. I'd be tempted to compare them to Radiohead, but that isn't quite right, either.

A video can be found here. Click on Featured Clips to watch "Staring At the Sun".

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Fox is broadcasting the NAACP awards tonight (03/25/05) at 8 pm (eastern). Why is this important? Prince is performing. Set your VCRs, DVDRs, TiVo's or whatever cuz you'll probably want to see it again.

Labels: music, music video, Prince, tv

On the show on which they reviewed Purple Rain (two thumbs up, if I recall correctly), Siskel and Ebert took some time to address the possiblity that Prince might direct his next feature. They practically begged him not to do it. Not so soon after making such a good first impression. Of course , he went ahead and did it anyway, after pissing off the film's original director, Mary Lambert.
Some see this film as an absolute disaster. Sure it's bad, but still very enjoyable, if you ask me. As with the later Graffiti Bridge, the cinematography is mostly well done. There are a couple of slow pans which seem a little jittery, only one of which was noticable on my li'l 19 inch TV and not as jarring as I remember it being on the big screen. The soundtrack is great, the comedy, not so great and the story, more than tolerable until the pointless ending.
Still, like I said, I enjoyed it, and I'm glad it's on DVD.

Now I have to get Luc Besson's Subway on DVD. This movie, which I think came out a year before Cherry Moon, is more like the film Prince should've made. It starred Christopher Lambert (Highlander) as a safe cracker on the run from both the law and the mob. He hides out in the Paris subway system, and while there, he seduces the mob boss' daughter and puts together a band using the local homeless musicians (one of whom, is played by Leon: The Professional's Jean Reno). Been a while since I've seen this. I wonder if it holds up?

Labels: DVD, movies, Prince

A cut and paste of a comment I made on alt.music.prince a day or two ago:

I hated everything about this movie when I first saw it. Having seen it
again a couple of days ago, I think the visuals were pretty good, actually.
The sets, while obviously artificial, look quite nice in most instances. I
also see almost nothing wrong with the cinematography. The only thing I hate
about this film now is, most of the music, and the FUCKING dialog. Bad
acting I can handle and sometimes find enjoyable. That the cast were able to
deliver their lines with straight faces (for the most part) is commendable.
The trailer was pretty cool, though. I don't remember that scene with
Morris and Jerome in the limo being in the movie. Where's the uncut GB?

Labels: DVD, movies, Prince

The post below contains some historical information that may be flat out wrong. For more information on Prince, visit housequake.com or order The Vault from http://www.uptown.se/ if you're looking for an informative book on the man. I haven't read or even ordered it yet. Just letting you know it's there.

For official news and occasional music, see http://www.npgmc.com/ http://www.3121.com/

Info on unofficial recordings by the man, see (again) housequake.com

Labels: music, Prince

Went to Best Buy after work to get the three Prince films on DVD; Purple Rain, Under The Cherry Moon and Graffiti Bridge. Unfortunately, GB was out of stock. Wouldn't be that big a deal except that there's an extra five bucks off for buying all three. So I didn't get any, went home and ordered them online from Overstock.com for just about the same price. Maybe less considering NY sales tax. That Best Buy under-ordered GB is understandable. That it's possible to sell out that movie is almost astonishing. Yes, it's bad, but I still want it.

Some bad movies are great but it often takes the passage of time (since the release of such a film, not the first viewing) to reveal it's true value. Most of the time that value is unintentional laughter. Jackie Chan's Fantasy Mission Force was probably less amusing in 1980 (or whenever it came out) than it is now. It happens to be a comedy, but not all the laughter is generated as intended. FMF was actually more of a (Jimmy) Wang Yu vehicle than a Chan film by the way. Chan owed Wang Yu a favor and repaid him by appearing in this bizarre movie and Island On Fire (U.S. title: The Prisoner) or maybe not. IMDB.com has a different story for IOF. Whatever.
Anyway I look forward to the Prince films and will probably watch GB first and PR last as this will be the most painless way to watch all three, saving the best for last.

Graffiti Bridge is supposed to be the sequel to Purple Rain, but in my mind, the sequel elements were thrown in to get what little financing this movie ultimately received. This story is less about Purple Rain: six years later, and more about Prince's state of mind following a rumoured bad ecstasy trip that inspired Lovesexy, a sort of spiritual album that took the place of the dirtier Black Album that was initially to be released. It seemed to me that GB was to be a sequel to the Lovesexy album, but with visuals. I don't remember what clued me into that possibility (song titles? The movie trailer?), but Lovesexy had been among my favorite Prince records (I think the Batman "soundtrack" followed) and I was looking forward to a development of those themes or perhaps I came to that conclusion AFTER hearing the soundtrack.

Anyhow, listening to the soundtrack was the first sign that something was wrong. I don't remember if this record followed or was released at the same time as The Time's Pandemonium, but those two albums were like night and day (no pun intended) especially where tracks on GB attributed to "The Time" were concerned. It should be noted that The Time is pretty much one of Prince's musical alter egos, but one that apparently has taken on a life of it's own. This may've been true as far back as the early eighties when they reportedly upstaged him as his opening act. It was certainly true in 1990 when these two albums were released.
The music on Graffiti Bridge is generally lifeless, due perhaps to the mis-use of computers which allow Prince to fullfill his perfectionism to a fault. Due also to some bad songwriting as well, though this album contains one or two of my all time favorites; Joy In Repitition and Question Of U. I think there were about four songs attributed to The Time, which as far as I know, in this case consisted of Prince and Morris Day. Prince is largely (though not completely) responsible for the music on the first three Time albums which are classics. The touring group which included Day, Jam & Lewis, Jesse Johnson and others had been long disbanded and it seems Prince was ready to re-team with Day to create another Time album without the guys everybody associated with the group. It sounded like a plan, but it just didn't work. Most of the songs on the aborted Coporate World sucked. The songs by "The Time" on GB sucked. Pandemonium was another story, though. It included songs written by Prince, as well as the "original" line-up of the band. The best songs on the album were written by Jesse Johnson while the Prince tunes were okay, but better than the one's on GB, except maybe Data Bank, and It's Your World or something. The original Data Bank recorded by Prince and the Revolution is excellent. Whoever's responsible for the re-working on Pandemonium deserves a flogging, as long as they're not into that sort of thing already.

Too late to make a long story short: The first full album by this assembled band produced better results than Prince's attempt to continue a tradition of pretending to be the band by doing everything himself and throwing Morris Day's vocals on top.

So the soundtrack was generally bad. I chose to avoid the theatrical release of the movie after reading a few reviews and after my best friend warned me to stay away; "Yo! This guy snuck into the movie, sat there for a while, and then snuck right back out."

I eventually rented the tape and saw for myself how bad it was. It became for me the worst movie ever, and remained that way untill I viewed a bootleg of Moulin Rouge.

Now I wonder how the passage of time will affect the way I enjoy this movie as well as the other two which I haven't seen in quite some time. I'll have to wait and see.

Labels: DVD, movies, music, Prince