The Way It Is

Friday is fun because it's music day and there's alway a playlist (or two)

Tomorrow I will be selling the last of my Prince records – vinyl copies of some of his best albums (1999, Sign O’ The Times, Lovesexy, rare promo copies of some of the forgotten or late-career gems, Come and Musicology). I’m keeping Parade – because I love soundtrack albums. And I’m therefore keeping Batman and Purple Rain too – but Graffiti Bridge is in the pile to be sold, along with Around The World In A Day and a few other gems. A brand-new copy of the Prince originals of so many of the songs he wrote for others is surplus to requirements now, so that’s going in the sale bin too.

I love Prince.

I think you know that.

But much like when I (eventually) knew it was time to sell up (almost) all of my Bukowski books – the same is now true with the Prince records.

When Prince died I wasn’t a mess, and I was surprised somewhat by that. It just never happened. It was a strange day, sure. And I wrote about it – the memory of (finally) seeing him (just two months earlier) still so fresh in my head – but I find it so much harder to listen to his music these days. I start an album and cannot finish it. Maybe because it comes now with the realisation that he’ll never finish the work. When I was at my peak as a Prince fan, I just imagined him, Willy Wonka-like, having the production line of music that never ended. A mad wizard concocting spells forever.

And, yes, that’s somewhat true. The archival releases are tumbling on out, some of them are even worth it. But it’s just different. The realisation is there now. I love Prince so much – push comes to shove he’s my all-time favourite I guess – but my relationship with his music is more different now than I could ever have previously known.

Recently, I became aware of the Tokyo Dome 1990 album. Which is to say I became aware of it being out in the world and available for anyone (Spotify, even). This is such a special show. I first knew it as a VHS tape; recorded my own version off late-night music TV, watched it after school on a loop within a loop. This is when I truly became a Prince fan.

I’d been into his music for a while already, and I’d seen the other concert films that were on the market, seen the Purple Rain movie and Sign O’ The Times, but it was 1990’s Tokyo Dome show, part of what he called The Nude Tour, that confirmed me a fan. Batman was out and I was all about that Batman movie. Prince’s involvement was just such special icing for that cake. And then, one night, we set the timer on the VCR and caught the Nude Tour, well, minus the very first song of course.

What a show.

I think about this show a lot. I always have. For over 30 years now. It sits in my mind as a benchmark. This is music. This is live performance. At one point Prince drops to the splits, while dancing on the lid of his grand piano. He was in his prime right here. All of the major hits in the bank but still on a creative roll. And with one of his very best bands. Okay, okay, Prince always had a great band. But when The New Power Generation first burst from the blocks it was like The Revolution 2.0 – and with just enough of a new edge. Prince’s own musical contributions are immense, still. But here he gets to cameo – picking at guitars just for the blazing solos, moving to the piano to do some extraordinary work but never as the full carrier of the tune. He’s less showy than he was on Sign O’ The Times, more adventurous though than on some of the tours.

At one point I had about 400 Prince recordings. Bootlegs of shows, B-sides that I didn’t even have the A-sides for, basically it was too much. Too much stuff. I pared it right back to the essentials – which was every single original album and a couple of compilations. It was one or two of the thousands of bootlegs that are about the place. And it was nothing more.

Now it’s just going to be a couple of records. And then anything else is at my fingertips for if I think I can make it through an album.

This week I have listened to Tokyo Dome 1990 every day. And I’ve heard something new in it each time. There’s about 60 seconds of piano that Prince adds to When Doves Cry – a wee soul-jazz outro. It also just occurred to me that it sounds like Bruce Hornsby & The Range. Specifically, that final set of flourishes from his big, big hit. Of course, it’s likely that Prince had clocked that, just absorbed it and this was him dealing with it, not so much dealing to it.

This is what Prince did.

And that he’s not able to do that anymore is more prescient for me when I do try to listen to his music; more so than with any other musician in recent memory. You might have had that feeling with Bowie or Chris Cornell. You might remember back to Stevie Ray Vaughan or John Lennon. I’m not discounting any of that, just saying that I’ve never felt it before on the level that I’m feeling it now. (Stevie Ray Vaughan comes close). To watch and hear Prince is to marvel. Always. But now there’s just such a strange and detached aura (and awe). I can’t reconcile it.

But I am finding my ways back in. This week, listening to Tokyo Dome was such a treat. And thinking, too, of that incredible footage from the time.

I recently read one of those deep-dive, nerd books about the studio trickery and recordings of Prince in his ‘purple’ period. The writing wasn’t great, but the knowledge was there, and the time was right. I was into it.

Far better though is Touré’s podcast. (Touré wrote one of the best books about Prince ever). So I’m going to take his word on this subject. And I’m enjoying his celebration of Prince’s spirit, his talent, his time on this earth. It reminds you how lucky we are to intersect in whatever way with these people. You have their records in your collection. At least for a while. And that is how you know them.

So, I’m still taken with many of the same Prince moments. That incredible show I saw – which I still have the audio from (someone was kind enough to find me and get me a copy of that exact gig, knowing I was a fan). That clip of him on the Musicology Tour knocking out DMSR and elevating it from endearing ole novelty track (1999) to vital, spirit-of-all-live-music concert centrepiece (see above). And seemingly just because he could. You get the feeling sometimes he could take any of his songs and spin them a new way to make them say something different. On the Nude Tour he treats the Lovesexy-Batman-Graffiti Bridge material not as token ‘new’ stuff but as hinges for the show, every bit as crucial as the material from Parade and Purple Rain and Sign O’ The Times.

I love Prince.

I know I’m making that more than clear – and once again. But isn’t it great to have such heroes to just mark out over; to let fandom spiral you towards a lack of control, ditching all critical faculty for – instead – the feeling? For it is feeling something that makes us alive. And that is what music can so often do, and is better at it perhaps than anything else.

Well, anyway, if you’re in Wellington, I’ll be at A Vinyl Affair – Wellington’s Record Fair tomorrow, 10am-3pm at the Rogue & Vagabond. I’ll be selling the last of the records I no longer need. Looking to re-home them. I’ve got some Prince. Some Aretha Franklin, some Stevie Wonder, my beloved Randy Newman, Ry Cooder, ELO and Hall & Oates records too. And plenty more besides. Even some of the kick-ass reggae I collected up over the first lockdown. It’s time for them to find some love elsewhere.

If I make any money from selling them, I’ll probably spend it nutting out on semi-obscure soundtrack albums. Lol.

Be sure to check out Prince’s Tokyo Dome 1990 show for a bit of feel-good Friday music.

And I’ve channelled the funk into a Prince-free playlist as the 64th volume of A Little Something For The Weekend…Sounds Good! So dig on that one as well.

And, if this all seemed a bit mopey or maudlin, it wasn’t meant to. Today is a day of celebration. Not just because I’m moving on my Prince collection in the right way, but more because there’s brand-new Kendrick Lamar music. We all get to dive in and find out what that is like right now.