Tag: can't stop this feeling i got

Purple Rain, 1984

Baby I’m a Star

1999 tour, circa 1983; photo stolen from Prince Off the Record.

“The MUSIC segues into a fierce BEAT.
The CROWD lets out a ROAR! Prince
strips off his guitar, streaks center-
stage. The Band launches into ‘Baby,
I’m A Star.’
“…And the CROWD laughing, dancing,
shouting and loving. The CLUB is ALIVE!
“And the MUSIC continues…forever…”
Draft screenplay for Purple Rain by Albert Magnoli, 1983

In the spring of 1983, Prince’s contract with managers Cavallo, Ruffalo, and Fargnoli was up for renewal. They had, on the face of it, little reason to worry: the 1999 tour was selling out arenas, “Little Red Corvette” was in the Top 10 of the pop charts, and 1999 was well on its way to Platinum certification by the RIAA. By the end of April, Prince would make the cover of Rolling Stone: a coveted opportunity for which his managers had netted a Richard Avedon photo shoot without granting an interview. “I thought we did an incredible job, we had a creative relationship, I’m sure he’s gonna sign another contract,” Bob Cavallo later told music journalist Alan Light. But Prince sent his main handler, Steve Fargnoli, back to Cavallo with a surprising ultimatum: “he won’t sign with us again unless we get him a movie” (Light 51).

Tags 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1999 tour, 2004, 2016, 2020, alan leeds, albert magnoli, apollonia 6, baby i'm a star, beautiful ones book, beyonce, bird, bloomington, bob cavallo, bobby z, bodyheat, brown mark, bruce springsteen, can't stop this feeling i got, capital centre, cary grant, cbs, chanhassen, chocolate, chuck statler, clarence williams iii, controversy, dan piepenbring, dance electric, david coleman, david lynch, david z, dez dickerson, dirty mind tour, don batts, dr fink, duane tudahl, elvis presley, eraserhead, eric leeds, fame tv series, first avenue, forum, francis ford coppola, free, gary l coleman, grammy awards, greg brooks, highway 7, i just wanna be rich, i wanna be your lover, i would die 4 u, inglewood, james brown, jerome benton, jill jones, joe ruffalo, john l nelson, jonathan melvoin, jungle love, keith murphy, kiowa trail, kurt loder, lake minnetonka, landover, let's go crazy, linn lm-1, lisa coleman, little red corvette, los angeles, louis b mayer, love me tender film, lovin spoonful, madonna, mattie shaw, met center, mia bocca, miami, mike melvoin, minneapolis, minnesota dance theatre, modernaire, moonbeam levels, morris day, motown records, new power generation, piano & a microphone tour, prince, promise to be true, purple rain, purple rain film, purple rain tour, radio city music hall, revolution, richard avedon, rolling stone, roots tv series, second coming film, sexuality, sheila e, simmons sds-v, soft and wet, st louis park, starr company, starwood, steve fargnoli, stevie wonder, sunset sound, susan rogers, susannah melvoin, swept away, teena marie, texas chainsaw massacre, time, too tough, under the cherry moon film, uptown, vanity, waldorf salad, wally safford, warehouse, warner bros records, we can work it out, wendy melvoin, west hollywood, william blinn, woody allen, wouldn't you love to love me, wrecking crew

Uncategorized

Press Rewind: “Horny Toad”

Post author By Zach
Post date January 21, 2020
No Comments on Press Rewind: “Horny Toad”

An actual horny toad, a.k.a. the Texas Horned Lizard; photo stolen from the Dallas News.

I was focused on finishing up my “Lady Cab Driver” post when it came out last week, so I’m a little late in sharing my latest appearance on Jason Breininger’s Press Rewind podcast, talking about one of my biggest guilty pleasure B-sides from 1982:

Press Rewind: “Horny Toad”

And speaking of 1982, there are only two official posts left before d / m / s / r leaves that year behind and moves into 1983! I was initially planning to go straight into “1999,” but I decided to take a short detour into “No Call U” first: partly because I already know “1999” is going to be a huge, time-consuming post to write, and partly because I think it will end up making a little more “narrative” sense. So you can expect “No Call U” at the end of the week on Patreon/late next week on the blog, with “1999” following at the beginning of February. I also may try and sneak a Patreon exclusive on one of the 1999 Super Deluxe bonus tracks in there, too. We’ll be starting in on the Purple Rain era before you know it! I’ve also got a few ideas cooking for the podcast relaunch, so stay tuned for that. Later!

Tags 1982, 1999 song, all the critics love u in new york, can't stop this feeling i got, delirious, dirty mind, do me baby, elvis presley, horny toad, jack u off, jason breininger, lady cab driver, little red corvette, no call u, press rewind, prince, yah you know, you're all i want

1999, 1982

Delirious

Post author By Zach
Post date August 23, 2019
No Comments on Delirious

Courtship rituals of early '80s French rocker gang the Del Vikings; photo by Gilles Elie Cohen, stolen from VICE.

After a string of songs exploring, to various degrees, the darker side of his emotional spectrum, Prince capped off his late April and early May 1982 sessions at Sunset Sound with something light and frothy. Sonically, “Delirious” is cut from the same cloth as most of its predecessors on the album that would become 1999: from the driving Linn LM-1 beat to the sparse, but infectious synth line. Yet where songs like “Automatic” and “Let’s Pretend We’re Married” assemble these building blocks into complex, ever-shifting structures, “Delirious” offers more straightforward pleasures: it’s a simple eight-bar blues, as pure and elemental as Leiber and Stoller’s “Hound Dog” or Jesse Stone’s “Shake, Rattle and Roll.”

With its solidly retro foundation, “Delirious” is arguably the pinnacle of Prince’s brief, but intense infatuation with 1950s rock ‘n’ roll: an “obsession,” according to guitarist Dez Dickerson, that began when the band caught a show by rockabilly revivalists the Stray Cats while in London on the Dirty Mind tour. “We were all blown away with them,” Dickerson told Nashville Scene magazine in 2014, “the look, [singer] Brian Setzer’s amazing sound, just the sheer authenticity of it.” The experience inspired a handful of songs–most famously “Jack U Off” from 1981’s Controversy, but also tracks like the unreleased “You’re All I Want.” Perhaps even more notably, according to Dickerson, it also inspired both him and Prince to style their choppy punk hairdos into Little Richard-style pompadours (Shawhan 2014).