Tag: peggy mccreary

Turn It Up

Turn It Up

(Featured Image: “This one goes to 11”; Nigel Tufnel’s custom Marshall stack in This is Spinal Tap, Rob Reiner, 1984. © MGM Home Entertainment.)

Along with the Time tracks and “International Lover,” Prince also cut a few orphan songs at Sunset Sound in mid-January 1982. The first, “You’re All I Want,” was recorded on January 16: the day after an unreleased Time song called “Colleen,” and three days before “Wild and Loose.” The recording has never leaked into wide circulation, though Prince Vault reports that its synth line would later be repurposed for the 1983 B-side “Horny Toad.” Prince reportedly gave a tape to Sunset Sound engineer Peggy McCreary as a birthday present; later, the song would reemerge (retitled “U’re All I Want”) as a potential track for his and Eric Leeds’ jazz fusion project Madhouse.

The second orphan had a shorter, but arguably more fruitful history. Prince recorded “Turn It Up” on January 20, the day after “Wild and Loose”; it was the second-to-last track he recorded in Los Angeles before resuming the Controversy tour in Richmond, Virginia. And, while it also hasn’t received an official release at the time of this writing, it is in circulation as a bootleg: quite possibly the most widely-heard 1999-era outtake this side of “Moonbeam Levels.”

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Prince Track by Track New Year’s Roundup

Prince Track by Track New Year’s Roundup

(Featured Image: European 12″ cover for “A Love Bizarre,” 1985; photo by Rebecca Blake, © Warner Bros.)

As usual, I took the last couple weeks of December off for the holidays, which meant I didn’t post the links to my last two appearances on Darren Husted’s Prince: Track by Track podcast. So here they are now: one of my favorite tracks from Prince’s extended universe, as well as one of the most forgettable. I’ll let you guess which one is which:

Prince Track by Track: “Hynoparadise”
Prince Track by Track: “A Love Bizarre”

With this bit of business out of the way, I’m now officially on track to kick off the blog for 2019. We’ll start tomorrow with a belated post from one of our alternate timelines, then it’s back to the Time’s second album next week. Happy New Year!

Podcast: 24 Feelings All in a Row – A Conversation with Duane Tudahl, Author of Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions: 1983 and 1984

Podcast: 24 Feelings All in a Row – A Conversation with Duane Tudahl, Author of Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions: 1983 and 1984

(Featured Image: Prince by Neal Preston, circa 1984.)

Last week, Duane Tudahl’s long-awaited book Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions: 1983 and 1984 was finally published, and I was lucky enough to speak to him about it. If you haven’t read the book yet, you need to listen to this podcast: Duane is a knowledgeable and passionate Prince fan-turned-scholar, and his enthusiasm for the project is infectious. And if you have read the book, you should still listen, because he has a lot to share not only about his research and writing process, but also about his experiences with the celebrated Uptown fanzine and his ideas for preserving Prince’s legacy moving forward. NPG/Comerica/Warner Bros., if you’re out there, give this man some consulting work; we can all benefit from someone with his dedication and expertise steering the ship.

Now, for those of you who haven’t read the book yet, allow me to sweeten the pot: I’ve already bought my copy, but I am planning to secure another one (hopefully signed by the author!) and gift it to a lucky listener who reviews d / m / s / r on their podcast app of choice (iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play). If you’ve never done this before, it’s easy: just subscribe, give the podcast a rating, and leave a short review, then leave a comment on the blog so I know you did it. In about a month, I’ll send my extra copy of Duane’s book to whoever wrote my favorite review. Note that this doesn’t mean your review has to be positive–if you hate my podcast and want to drag me, knock yourself out! As long as you leave a review and tell me where to look for it (and are willing to send me your mailing address, of course), you’re eligible to receive the book.

For now, I hope you enjoy this interview, and I hope you’ll check out Duane’s book–it really is phenomenal. Thanks for listening, and see you again soon!

Continue reading “Podcast: 24 Feelings All in a Row – A Conversation with Duane Tudahl, Author of Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions: 1983 and 1984” →

Prince Track by Track: “D.M.S.R.”

Prince Track by Track: “D.M.S.R.”

(Featured Image: The U.K. 12″ for “D.M.S.R.”; © Warner Bros.)

Over the weekend, I not only recorded an episode of my own podcast, but also a couple of guest appearances on someone else’s: Darren Husted’s Prince: Track by Track. If you haven’t listened to Track by Track, it’s another effort in song-by-song Prince chronology, albeit with much better time management than my own humble project: Darren is already done with Purple Rain and starting on Around the World in a Day this week. For my inaugural appearance on the show, we talked about a song that is obviously very near and dear to my heart: “D.M.S.R.” Check it out, and the rest of Track by Track, right here:

Prince Track by Track: “D.M.S.R.”

I believe I’ll actually be making another appearance on Track by Track before the week is out; I’ll also be posting my own podcast on Friday. And yes, at some point, I will write another proper post; Darren’s progress has filled me with the appropriate amount of shame to get my ass back into gear.