Tag: purple rain film

Podcast: It’s Time Someone Programmed You – Leah McDaniel on the Salford Purple Reign Conference

Podcast: It’s Time Someone Programmed You – Leah McDaniel on the Salford Purple Reign Conference

(Featured Image: The infamous “Prince’s Women” cover, Rolling Stone, April 1986; photo by Jeff Katz.)

For the third installment of my miniseries on the University of Salford’s interdisciplinary Prince conference, I’m talking to Leah McDaniel (née Stone), a businesswoman, world traveler, and lifelong Prince fan. Her paper was on the eternally unsettled question of whether or not Prince was a feminist; we reflect on that question, as well as the contrast between his artistic warmth and his sometimes-chilling approach to interpersonal relationships, and why even Prince at his worst was still better than R. Kelly at his best.

If you’re frustrated that we don’t issue a final verdict, come back in a few months, when I plan to host a round table discussion on the “was Prince a feminist” debate (and almost certainly still won’t offer a definitive answer). In the meantime, you can check us and our way-improved new logo out on all the major podcast services (iTunes/Stitcher/Google Play). Your reviews and subscriptions on your service of choice would be a big help in getting us more visibility. As always, thanks for listening–we’ll be back with another episode by the end of next week!

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Uptown

Uptown

(Featured Image: Lipps, Inc., circa 1979; © Casablanca Records.)

“MOJO: Growing up in Minne-wood, as it’s been now called, simply because that is the hot point on this planet right now…

“PRINCE: Well, it’s been called a lot of things, but it’s always Uptown to me.

“MOJO: Uptown?

“PRINCE: Yes.

“MOJO: What was it like growin’ up Uptown?

“PRINCE: Pretty different. Uh, kinda sad, to be exact. (laughs) I mean, the radio was dead, the discos was dead, ladies was kinda dead, so I felt like, if we wanted to make some noise, and I wanted to turn anything out… I was gonna have to get somethin’ together. Which is what we did. We put together a few bands and turned it into Uptown. That consisted of a lot of bike riding nude, but ya know…it worked.”

– Prince Interview with the Electrifying Mojo, Detroit Radio WHYT, 1985

“Uptown” is a real place in Minneapolis: a commercial district in the southwest part of the city, centered around the historic Uptown Theatre at the intersection of Hennepin and Lagoon Avenues. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was a bohemian enclave, part of the city’s burgeoning punk scene. The legendary record store Oar Folkjokeopus (“Oar Folk”), home of underground rock label Twin/Tone, was in nearby Lowry Hill East (“the Wedge”)–as was the CC Club, a regular haunt for punk groups like the Replacements. “It was kind of like this exotic mixture between rock ‘n’ roll, comedians, entertainers, and then just hipsters that worked in the neighborhood,” musician and author Paul Metsa told the City Pages in 2013. “A lot of writers and artists hung out there. And what I loved about it, it was very working-class, and still is. Everybody was equal in that place” (LaVecchia 2013).

But “Uptown,” as Prince commemorated it, was also a product of the imagination. Before he recorded the song, Prince was not associated with the neighborhood, nor with its accompanying art and music scene. In fact, he’d played only two solo dates in the Twin Cities: one at the Capri Theatre in north Minneapolis, and one at the downtown Orpheum Theatre; his gigs with Grand Central had been limited to the predominantly Black Northside. And his home in suburban Wayzata–credited, mythically, on the Dirty Mind inner sleeve as “somewhere in Uptown”–could scarcely have been further away, geographically or culturally, from the Uptown that existed in physical space. “Uptown,” then, is a place that Prince turned into an idea: a kind of inverse to Paisley Park, his most famous idea turned into a place.

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Podcast: Empty Room – Part 4 of a Conversation with Jane Clare Jones

Podcast: Empty Room – Part 4 of a Conversation with Jane Clare Jones

(Featured Image: April 14, 2016; photo stolen from prince.org)

I have to begin with another apology: I had hoped to get this last installment of the podcast up early in the week, but I’ve been busy with job interviews, house hunting, and most recently, an illness that is definitely audible on the outro I recorded last night. But here, at last, is the final full installment of my now month-old conversation with writer, philosopher, and fellow Prince obsessive Jane Clare Jones. This is the one we’ve been building up to for the last month: a reckoning with the psychological factors that led to last year’s deeply tragic, avoidable death. But in case you’re concerned this will be prurient muckraking in the Prince: The End/When Doves Cry tradition, please know that it’s coming from a place of genuine love, and is grounded in research rather than wild speculation. And if you’re also (justifiably) concerned that it’s going to be a depressing slog, I promise it’s not all as grim as it might sound.

And with that, the first wave of the d / m / s / r podcast is over! Jane will be back, probably sometime next month, to talk about the Purple Reign interdisciplinary conference at the University of Salford; I also still have a short, lighthearted chunk of our original conversation that didn’t quite fit this episode that I’d like to post at some point. But other than that, the future is a blank slate. I’d love to hear your thoughts on where to go with the podcast–topics to discuss, suggested guests, etc.–because it seems a shame to go to the trouble of making a feed, etc. just for one month of episodes. In the meantime, as always, you can find me on any of the major podcast services–iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play–where you’re invited to leave a rating or review; you can also listen to the podcast on Mixcloud. I hope you’ve enjoyed these as much as I have. Thanks!

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Electric Intercourse

Electric Intercourse

(Featured Image: Prince by Michael Ochs, 1985.)

It’s been a long five months since the release of 4Ever, the first posthumous compilation of Prince’s work, and “Moonbeam Levels,” the first “new” track to be officially released since his death last April. Many of us, I think, were expecting Paisley Park’s “Celebration,” a four-day event marking the first anniversary of his passing, to be the end of this drought. Certainly, with the long-promised Purple Rain reissue looming in the near future, the time felt ripe for some more concrete information, if not an actual release.

And, as it turned out, we did get new music that week–but not from Paisley Park, and not from the Purple Rain era. Instead, a former engineer named Ian Boxill surprise-released an EP of six previously unheard 2006 recordings–including the gorgeous, gospel-flavored “Deliverance”–implying that he had the blessing of Prince’s estate to do so. This turned out not to be true: within hours of the announcement, the estate had filed suit, and a United States District Court Judge had granted a temporary restraining order to halt the sale of the EP. Meanwhile, the Celebration came and went with no official mention of the Purple Rain set. Even after a fan group leaked what turned out to be an accurate track list, both Warner Bros. and NPG Records remained mum–until the following Friday, that is, when the announcement we’d been expecting finally came through, along with the second “official” posthumous track, “Electric Intercourse.”

I recount all of this, in part, to note that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Prince may no longer be with us physically, but his spirit clearly lives on in the capricious, contested, and scattershot handling of his music. In a weird way, this is also the most relevant Prince has been to the contemporary recording industry in decades: a drama-filled album launch, botched in part by the vagaries of online music services, puts him in the rarefied (if, in this case, dubious) company of 21st century pop titans like Rihanna and Kanye West.

But all facetiousness aside, I also want to explain why I’m writing about “Electric Intercourse” right now, and not about “Deliverance.” It isn’t necessarily that I disapprove of the EP’s release: I’m glad Boxill leaked it, just as I’m glad that more anonymous sources have leaked the hundreds of other non-sanctioned songs I continue to enjoy. But I broke my chronology with “Moonbeam Levels” last fall because it was an official and easily accessible release; and, while “Deliverance” as of this writing is still available for purchase on the iTunes store, the legal grappling around its parent EP doesn’t give me much confidence for the future. Besides that, I remain skeptical of Boxill’s claims that the majority of the proceeds for the song/EP will go to Prince’s estate: I’m no lawyer, but I can’t think of many cases where an individual successfully paid royalties to a group in the process of pursuing legal action against him. So, basically, I’m treating “Deliverance” like a bootleg: I’ll write about it, of course, but not until I reach the proper point in the chronology–so, at my current pace, our grandchildren should be able to enjoy it, provided we all survive the impending Third World War.

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