He died today and have been melancholy since. When Bowie died, I was sad too...did a deep dive into his life for many days afterwards and have been amazed at not only the outpouring of emotion since, but the deepness and length of that sentiment in social media. But Bowie was my sisters era. She lived for him for many years and while I had some first hand times with his oeuvre, his passing didn't hit me as much as Prince.
I first came into contact with Prince while visiting my brother in Palm Springs. Must have been 1979 give or take. He was 16 years older than I and we never really had a huge brotherly bond due to this age difference, but for some reason, my mom let me take the Greyhound to visit him for a few days one summer. His relationship with the family would be what one would call estranged, but we were polite to one another and cannot remember the motivation for the trip or why my mom let me go. I don't remember too much about it other than a few things. It was summer and Palm Springs was fucking hot...remember riding one of his bikes around town in the morning, and going for 31 Flavors in the afternoon. He had a old Ford pick-up and would just drop the keys on the floor when we would go into the store. I also remember that one morning, the dudes came around with the leaf blower at 7am outside the condo window and he lost his shit and ran outside to yell at them. And as it was so hot, I recall hanging out at his condo when he went to work and pawing through his records.
You can say a lot of things about my brother, and people have, and one of them is that he had a particular taste in music. One of the greatest gifts an elder sibling can give to their younger ones is opening their minds to music. His taste in music would probably now be referred to now as Yacht Rock. He gave me the Doobie Brothers 'Minute By Minute' for Christmas one year, and he sat me down to listen to Steely Dan's 'Gaucho' when it came out. I recall him saying it was one of the greatest albums ever. He also took me to see Kenny Loggins at the Universal Amphitheatre when one of his pals couldn't go. Went with these two smokin' hot chicks and it was a great show. After, these two girls (I mentioned they were hot, yes?) knew Kenny so we hung out and went backstage for an after party...the only time that happened in my life. For what its worth, I enjoy Loggins and the Doobies when they pop up on the radio or wherever, and worship at the alter that is Steely Dan, but think that Aja is their greatest album and that Gaucho is just pretty awesome
So I am of the age where music is everthing, but before I disovered what pot was all about and am digging into his records and come across Price's first album.
It stuck out as not being in tune with the other album covers and gave it a spin. I loved the groovy opener 'I Wanna Be Your Lover' and some of the other songs, but as a young teen, his image didn't jive with my sensibilities and am sad to say, did not become an instant fan. Still, logged it in my database for future reference.
Next time Prince came into my life was October 9th, 1981, Was just 16 and a couple of buddies and I skipped school (again, with my mom giving me the OK) to go see the Rolling Stones at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. We got there early with the intention of going in when the gates opened and pushing our way to the front. We weren't early enough and started around the 30 yard line but after a very long day, were at the barrier in the front row when the Stones came on. Epic by the way.
The line up that day was the Stones, preceeded by the J. Giles Band (Freeze Frame was everywhere at the time) and George Throrogood (Bad To the Bone was everywhere at the time). But opening for all of them was gawdamn Prince.
Controversy was the album he just put out and while the Stones, in their infinite wisdom, knew he was the shit, the assembled mass of white folk had no clue. When Prince came on, he was wearing a long purple coat (natch), purple boots, black panties and black stockings held up by garter belts. He launched into the title track of his new album and the crowd was not amused. Next came the song Sexuality and the barrage of whatever could be thrown at him came raining onto the stage. After a quart of orange juice landed near him, he threw his guitar down and walked off. A homophobic young me laughed and went on with the rest of a truly amazing day. I will still pull up Controversy (playing as I write this) and love it.
I don't think I was a bad kid, but my first host family sucked. They were this giant outfit of 6 kids and the mom was the domineering matriarch and all of the weekends were spent visiting the other siblings. To be fair, they were all very nice, but I wanted to explore more than having barbies in the suburbs with the family. At some point a couple months in, they were done with me and kicked me out of their house. Never found out why but have some suspicions. Perhaps I'll share those another day as that is a long story, but the result was that they found another family that happened to live 3 doors down from one of my "cool" friends named Damien Lester. I am sure I have mentioned him before...he had an old car and we would drive to school together. It was this old thing that he insisted on warming up in the driveway for 10 minutes and he had one cassette tape that we would listen to on repeat, the track listing I can still recall. One morning, he and the other people in our group, introduced me to coffee (a cappuccino with a dash of cinnamon, still my favorite coffee drink and flash back to the moment I tasted it the first time every time I have one). They introduced me to so much more, but back to the point. He lived a few doors away and had his own house, so I would go over there to hang out. MTV was a big thing in the states at the time, but hadn't hit Australia yet. They did have video shows and Damien would tape the ones he liked. Like his one cassette tape in the car, he had one VHS tape of videos that would run on a loop. The first two videos on that tape were Prince's 1999 and Little Red Corvette. While I had two significant encounters with him before, these hazy afternoons communing with the videos got me hooked. Fell out of contact with all those Aussies but try to find them on Facebook from time to time. Thought about them a lot today.
About 18 months later, Purple Rain was all over everything. My dad made me work in the yard all day on weekends and I'd have a boom box out to keep me company. Would listen to baseball games if they were on and if not, would turn on KROQ. I can still remember where I was in the yard when 'When Doves Cry' played for the first time. Unlike any song I'd ever heard for sure Back at school that Fall, the Purple Rain tour came to DC and we got tickets. Another acquaintance, whose name I cannot remember, had an idea of renting a bus and charging people to take it to the concert, which was in the deep 'burbs at the Cap Center. I may have been 18 or 19 at the time and in those days, DC and Idaho were the only places left where the drinking age was still 18, so we advertised around campus that we had this bus and were going to have a keg on board. We even bought the keg from the school...how cool were the old days? We sold out the bus, made a bunch of cash and saw a quintessential Prince show (Shiela E opened).
Flash forward a few years, November 6, 1998 to be exact, in LA and Prince was on the Lovesexy tour.. My old buddy Andy (who I've known since I was 8) and I were still into him then and we wanted to do the show right, so bought tickets in the second row for the outrageous sum at the time of $100. The show was in the round and was incredible. That link has a setlist...fucking great. Haven't seen Andy since 1994 and hope he is well...trying to get him to visit LA this summer when we're in town.
Not long after, Prince became the symbol, and I got heavy into indie rock and we sorta fell away from each other. In the summer of 2004, he announced a tour that was coming to Seattle and the promise was that he was gonna play all the old stuff. Loving the old stuff obviously, got Betty and I tickets to the August 31st show at the Key Arena. The boy was about to enter kindergarten and the school, a charming little Catholic one called St. John's had an afternoon BBQ on August 30th so the kids and families could all meet. He gravitated to a boy named Jon and we got to talking to his parents. They had to leave the BBQ early as they were going to the first Prince show that night. We were instant friends and still are. Our lives all intertwined for years in sports and fun and have to give Prince some credit for that.
The show was on the Musicology tour. They gave everyone that attended a copy of the album, which is quite good, but don't recall him playing a song from it but rather, ripped through every song from his catalog that I wanted to hear. Was a flawless performance...he sang, danced, did it all. Maceo Parker was his sax player for cryin' out loud. At one point, he gets all the sexy ladies from the audience on stage to dance with him...there must have been at least 40 of them...and we're watching the big screen and saddling up next to Maceo to do some hard core grinding is the Boy's teacher from his day care. Great night.
Never did see him live again, but always stopped to watch him whenever he popped up on things like the Super Bowl, universally acclaimed as the best halftime performance in that events history, or when he wrote a song about Baltimore's troubles last summer. I've been on a massive funk and soul kick the last few years and acquired a lot of the stuff of his that I missed the first time around and it fits in with the classics like a glove...James Brown, Ohio Players, Curtis, etc., etc., etc, The guy did it all...danced as well as anyone ever, wrote both catchy songs that were equally familiar but completely unique while exploring all the new genres of the day, and was a virtuoso musician. He was a true artist and was the soundtrack for so many great things and times of my life.
Thank you Prince. Rest In Sexy Peace.
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