Tag: susan rogers

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!

Advertisements

Dystopian Dance Party: The Prince Issue Podcast with Guest Erika Peterson

Dystopian Dance Party: The Prince Issue Podcast with Guest Erika Peterson

(Featured Image: One of Callie’s rad stickers for Dystopian Dance Party 1.)

As you may or may not know, Dystopian Dance Party is the other, more irreverent project I do with my sister Callie. We recently launched a physical magazine, the first issue of which is dedicated to art and writing inspired by the music of Prince. On this episode of the DDP podcast, Callie and I are joined by our friend Erika Peterson to talk about her work for the magazine–an exhaustive guide to the 3 Chains O’ Gold film–the most absurd/surreal moments of Celebration 2018, and our ongoing beef with Questlove. It’s definitely a bit looser and sillier than the average d / m / s / r podcast, but if you enjoy my other stuff, you should enjoy it:

Dystopian Dance Party: The Prince Issue Podcast with Guest Erika Peterson

For those of you who haven’t picked up the magazine yet, we’re also offering the opportunity to get it for free, along with a set of rewards otherwise exclusively made available to our Kickstarter backers. All you have to do is follow Dystopian Dance Party on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and/or Tumblr, and share a link to this episode with us tagged so we know you did it. Toward the end of May, we’ll choose one or two people to receive a free copy of the magazine, a sheet of custom-designed stickers, three buttons, and a poster of the cover art by Callie. None of this stuff is available anywhere else, so take advantage of this chance to get your hands on it!

And if you can’t get enough of Erika, remember that she also recently appeared on our friend KaNisa’s excellent Muse 2 the Pharaoh podcast. Take a listen if you haven’t already:

Muse 2 the Pharaoh #1

Finally, an update on my next post for d / m / s / r. I had been planning to get something out by the end of the week, but I decided to make some changes which resulted in a delay: basically, I was writing separate posts on “The Stick” and “Cool,” but I decided to combine the two and just write a longer post on “Cool” that also touches on “The Stick” (and “After Hi School,” in case anybody was waiting for that). I fully expect to have this post out next week–which means that we’re finally going to be done with the Time’s first album! After that, we’ll turn to another 1981 outtake, and then back to Controversy. I also have plans for a few podcasts in the pipeline, so there’s plenty to look forward to!

Podcast: 40 Years of For You

Podcast: 40 Years of For You

(Featured Image: Cover art for For You, 1978; photo by Joe Giannetti, © Warner Bros.)

dance / music / sex / romance is fast approaching its third year, so to celebrate, we’re going…backwards? That’s right, to mark the 40th anniversary of Prince’s debut album, I thought now was the perfect time to go ahead with an idea I’ve been toying with for a while: our own sub-series of review podcasts looking at each of Prince’s albums in isolation.

I’m doing this for a few reasons. First, it’s a way to bring those of you who have been listening to the podcasts but not reading the blog into the loop on my chronological Prince project–and also a way for me to work through some of these albums before I can get to it with my glacially paced writing schedule.

Second, I’ve known from the beginning of this project that if I really wanted to do Prince’s catalogue justice, I would need to incorporate more voices and perspectives than just my own. We all have our biases and blind spots, and as a Prince fan I am acutely aware that one person’s sentimental favorite can be another’s unlistenable mess (and vice versa). That’s why I asked my friends Harold and KaNisa, both of whose encyclopaedic knowledge of Prince’s career dwarfs my own, to join me. I think you’ll find that our tastes and opinions both intersect and diverge in a lot of interesting ways, which allowed us–and hopefully, will allow you–to take a different perspective on some of these songs and the context in which they were created.

I hope you enjoy this new approach to an album that remains underappreciated in Prince’s catalogue. If you do, I hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on your streaming app of choice (iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play), and if you’re so inclined, leave a review! No matter what, thanks for listening, and see you again soon.

Continue reading “Podcast: 40 Years of For You” →

Prince Track by Track: “Daddy Pop”

Prince Track by Track: “Daddy Pop”

(Featured Image: Prince on The Arsenio Hall Show, 1991; © Paramount Domestic Television.)

Happy New Year, everyone! I’m starting 2018 more excited about this project than ever, and I think you’ll enjoy what I have planned. But first, here’s something I did for another chronological Prince project: Darren Husted’s excellent podcast Prince: Track by Track. Our topic this time around is a bit of a guilty pleasure: the Diamonds and Pearls album cut “Daddy Pop.” But you should still listen, if only to hear my surprisingly spirited defense of Tony M:

Prince Track by Track: “Daddy Pop”

While I’ve got you here, I guess I might as well talk about a few of those things I have planned for the months to come. First up will be another, imaginative look at what might have been for Prince’s relationship with André Cymone; then, starting next week, I’ll be jumping into the songs that became the debut album by Prince’s first official protégé group, the Time. On the podcast, you can also look forward to an interview with Kimberly Ransom, whose work appeared both at last spring’s University of Salford Prince conference and in last fall’s special Prince issue of the Journal of African American Studies. I’m also in the very, very early brainstorming period for a series of podcasts on each of Prince’s albums I’ve covered in writing so far, beginning with the 40th anniversary of For You in April. If you have any ideas for that–including suggestions for possible guests–you know where to find me.

Podcast: Yes – A Conversation with Chambers Stevens

Podcast: Yes – A Conversation with Chambers Stevens

(Featured Image: Prince at the El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles, 2004; Chambers is behind him on the left. Photo by M. Caulfield.)

It’s been over half a year since the University of Salford’s interdisciplinary Prince conference, but I keep connecting with people who presented there and whose topics of research are too interesting not to discuss. This time, I’m talking to actor and playwright Chambers Stevens, who has a fascinating theory about the influence of improv training on Prince’s approach to life and performance. But we aren’t just retreading Chambers’ presentation from the Salford conference; he also has some hilarious stories to share about his own run-ins with Prince (and Chaka Khan), as well as some thoughts about the peculiar nature of Prince fandom. We had a lot of fun recording this–hopefully you’ll have fun listening as well!

And speaking of fun, there’s still a little more time to participate in my giveaway for a free copy of Duane Tudahl’s new book Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions: 1983 and 1984. The rules are simple: just subscribe to d / m / s / r on your podcast app of choice (logging into iTunes or Stitcher and searching “dance music sex romance” should do the trick), and leave a review. It doesn’t have to be a positive review; feel free to rake me over the coals if you want, just make it well-written. On Tuesday, December 12, I’ll look at all the reviews that have been submitted, pick my favorite–again, not necessarily the most positive!–and announce the winner on the next episode of the podcast. Oh, and speaking of that next episode, this is one you’re not going to want to miss: I was fortunate enough to speak to the one and only Marylou Badeaux, former V.P. of Special Projects at Warner Bros. Records and author of the upcoming memoir Moments: Remembering Prince. Come back and listen to it next week!

Continue reading “Podcast: Yes – A Conversation with Chambers Stevens” →