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Podcast

Podcast: New Power – A Conversation with Takuya Futaesaku, Author of Words of Prince

I gave myself a little hiatus from the dance / music / sex / romance podcast after Celebration 2018, but now we’re back in business with guest Takuya Futaesaku, author of the book Words of Prince. Takki and I talk about his book and his experiences as a Prince fan in Japan; it was a pleasure to speak with him, so hopefully it will be a pleasure to listen, too! Special thanks this episode go to Crystal for helping me track down the Japanese shows you’ll hear during the podcast.

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Uncategorized

Prince Track by Track: “Life Can Be So Nice”

Over the weekend, I once again had the opportunity to appear on Darren Husted’s podcast Prince: Track by Track. The topic this time around was “Life Can Be So Nice,” one of my dark-horse favorite tracks from one of my dark-horse favorite albums, Parade:

Prince Track by Track:
“Life Can Be So Nice”

I was unfortunately too slow to get on Darren’s schedule for Sign “O” the Times, so the next time I appear on Track by Track will be next month, talking about another dark horse favorite from Lovesexy. In the meantime, you’ll just have to settle for hearing my voice on my own podcast–the next episode of which will be live by the end of next week.

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Ephemera, 1979-1981

Lisa

While Prince was starting work on the album that would become Dirty Mind, 19-year-old Lisa Coleman was in Los Angeles, working on the shipping dock of a documentary film company and teaching classical piano part-time. Lisa, born in the San Fernando Valley in 1960, was as much a product of L.A. as Prince was of Minneapolis. Her father, Gary L. Coleman, was a percussionist for the legendary session team the Wrecking Crew, with credits most notably including the Beach Boys’ 1966 single “Good Vibrations.” When she was 12 years old, Lisa played keyboard in a bubblegum pop band, Waldorf Salad, alongside her younger brother David, older sister Debbie, and another Wrecking Crew kid: Jonathan Melvoin, whose own younger sister, Wendy, would form the other half of Lisa’s longest-lasting creative partnership. The band was a little like the Partridge Family, Lisa later told journalist Neal Karlen, except “we all actually played our instruments” (Karlen 1986). As a teenager, Lisa attended Hollywood High and appeared in a bit part as a teenage pianist in the 1975 made-for-TV drama Sarah T. – Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic, starring Linda Blair and Mark Hamill.

According to the official narrative, it was 1979 when Lisa heard from a friend in the offices of Cavallo, Ruffalo, and Fargnoli that Prince was looking for a new keyboardist. But this date seems off, for a couple of reasons: first, because in 1979 Gayle Chapman was still very much a part of Prince’s band, and there are no other accounts from that period to suggest she was being replaced; and second, because Steve Fargnoli wasn’t made a partner in Cavallo’s and Ruffalo’s firm until 1980. Whatever the year, however, Lisa submitted a tape, and was summoned to Prince’s home in Orono, Minnesota for an in-person audition. “When I got to Prince’s house,” she told Karlen, “he sent me downstairs and said he was going to change clothes. There was a piano down there, and I just started playing, trying to relax. I got the feeling he was eaves-dropping at the top of the stairs, so I whipped out my best Mozart. He finally came back downstairs, picked up his guitar, and we started jamming. From the first chord, we hit it off” (Karlen 1986).