Recovering from a sudden week out of town for a family funeral.
And already I was salivating at the chance to post again, formulating words behind my shut eyes while flying back across the country to where home is now. Weird enough, that concept.
The first performer I ever saw at Paisley Park was NOT Prince. It was Tribe of Millions.
I remember hearing that weekend something about Halo Black. I guess they're another Minneapolis band. I heard some of their music eventually. I know there were remixes tagged with that name, too.
Thankfully StuArt shot me youtube links and I'm singing along with Tribe songs I haven't heard in a minute.
I can't help but wonder where Malo Adams is. If there are other videos or audio recordings of Tribe of Millions performances I could collect, share, listen to, play for my friends in silent appreciative amazement.
There's a video of the performance we saw at the Park. They played in the soundstage in front of the symbol doors and there's a bunch of us standing in front of them. I think I'd consider paying a heavy price to see that video.
Now I set about to find out who might have it...
But do yourself a favor and seek out Tribe of Millions music, youtube videos. These guys rawk my face off. I have demo tapes I collected from friends I had in radio. I have already digitized them.
Interesting days lay ahead, people. The dream is NEVER over!
Monday, May 16, 2016
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
NPG - Goldn-gga & another shirt
This was fall of 1993. No longer top-of-the-heap Senior in Hi Skool, now I'm just another anonymous Frosh at college. I'd just begun trading tapes internationally. New to the PML. Taking my basic classes, trying not to get bored or homesick. Actually making a few friends...
The Love Symbol #2 album had been getting mad spins. I couldn't stop listening to it. An odyssey that deserves far more appreciation than it got at the time, it should have spawned a comic book, a movie, and made Diamonds and Pearls look small by comparison.
Seems it didn't turn out quite that way.
I remember going into the NPG store again, this my 3rd or 4th time, dragging my dad along behind me like a disinterested pet. But one that had been through this ritual before and understood the pattern.
I had been sustaining myself on a diet of traded tapes. On those traded tapes of Act I and Act II tour live recordings were new songs credited to the NPG.
The band was on fire playing them. "Johnny" may be 'just' another extended funny funk jam, but I can't help thinking it was just a preview of what came ahead. The next NPG album ended with an absolute marathon funk workout even longer than this track. "Deuce & A Quarter" was also smooth and funky performed live in that era.
"No Black MFs In The House" might sound like a prerequisite for a Donald Trump rally today, but back then it was a lovely farce with Prince voicing a redneck character lamenting his lack of dance skills, among other ridiculous complaints.
I can see a straight line from this to Dave Chappelle's immortal Prince skit. The humor is so nuanced it seems simple at first blush. Impressively deep when you give it a second to sink in.
The title Goldn-gga is an attempt not only to invert and redeem the term n-gga but also a backhand to the idea of a gold-digger, rather intending to be an endless source of positivity instead of needing or taking anything from anyone.
For a kid who regularly got called a "dirty", got derided and even beaten up for being poor, I found empowerment in these ideas no matter how lily white my ass still is. Ask Chuck D. for more about appealing across racial lines in ways nobody quite expected till they happened...
Anyway, knowing that "Call The Law", which had been a b-side to a D&P single was gonna be on GN? It sealed the deal. I knew I had to have a copy. I remember having my discman in my pocket. Winter coats in Minnesota are puffy, fairly thick affairs.
Earbuds around my neck, I pulled out my disc player, popped the B-sides disc of the Hits/B-sides box set out of it and put GN into the player, placing the other disc in its case.
The dude behind the register said "it's kind of like the passing of the torch, from Prince to the NPG?" and we had a good laugh. I told him "I've heard some of these new songs, and they're awesome!"
I paid my $15 or $20 and still have that first pressing copy of GN to this day. Apparently there's a Paul McCartney / Wings song referenced in one of the first tracks, and it was yanked from any pressings after that. I just know I thought it was dope. And the back cover artwork? Seeing downtown Minneapolis made me feel special, like I wasn't from nowhere.
I remembered another shirt I have in storage. It has the "We Are The New Power Generation" graphic similar to the one on the front of the store, but across the back of a maroon colored t-shirt. The front was a collage of Prince's face and the Love Symbol and swirly designs, IIRC some features of the Minneapolis skyline?!? The design on that shirt seemed thick and I didn't want to wear it or wash it too often bc I didn't want to harm the artwork.
Just trying to keep up with what flows out of my brain...
The Love Symbol #2 album had been getting mad spins. I couldn't stop listening to it. An odyssey that deserves far more appreciation than it got at the time, it should have spawned a comic book, a movie, and made Diamonds and Pearls look small by comparison.
Seems it didn't turn out quite that way.
I remember going into the NPG store again, this my 3rd or 4th time, dragging my dad along behind me like a disinterested pet. But one that had been through this ritual before and understood the pattern.
I had been sustaining myself on a diet of traded tapes. On those traded tapes of Act I and Act II tour live recordings were new songs credited to the NPG.
The band was on fire playing them. "Johnny" may be 'just' another extended funny funk jam, but I can't help thinking it was just a preview of what came ahead. The next NPG album ended with an absolute marathon funk workout even longer than this track. "Deuce & A Quarter" was also smooth and funky performed live in that era.
"No Black MFs In The House" might sound like a prerequisite for a Donald Trump rally today, but back then it was a lovely farce with Prince voicing a redneck character lamenting his lack of dance skills, among other ridiculous complaints.
I can see a straight line from this to Dave Chappelle's immortal Prince skit. The humor is so nuanced it seems simple at first blush. Impressively deep when you give it a second to sink in.
The title Goldn-gga is an attempt not only to invert and redeem the term n-gga but also a backhand to the idea of a gold-digger, rather intending to be an endless source of positivity instead of needing or taking anything from anyone.
For a kid who regularly got called a "dirty", got derided and even beaten up for being poor, I found empowerment in these ideas no matter how lily white my ass still is. Ask Chuck D. for more about appealing across racial lines in ways nobody quite expected till they happened...
Anyway, knowing that "Call The Law", which had been a b-side to a D&P single was gonna be on GN? It sealed the deal. I knew I had to have a copy. I remember having my discman in my pocket. Winter coats in Minnesota are puffy, fairly thick affairs.
Earbuds around my neck, I pulled out my disc player, popped the B-sides disc of the Hits/B-sides box set out of it and put GN into the player, placing the other disc in its case.
The dude behind the register said "it's kind of like the passing of the torch, from Prince to the NPG?" and we had a good laugh. I told him "I've heard some of these new songs, and they're awesome!"
I paid my $15 or $20 and still have that first pressing copy of GN to this day. Apparently there's a Paul McCartney / Wings song referenced in one of the first tracks, and it was yanked from any pressings after that. I just know I thought it was dope. And the back cover artwork? Seeing downtown Minneapolis made me feel special, like I wasn't from nowhere.
I remembered another shirt I have in storage. It has the "We Are The New Power Generation" graphic similar to the one on the front of the store, but across the back of a maroon colored t-shirt. The front was a collage of Prince's face and the Love Symbol and swirly designs, IIRC some features of the Minneapolis skyline?!? The design on that shirt seemed thick and I didn't want to wear it or wash it too often bc I didn't want to harm the artwork.
Just trying to keep up with what flows out of my brain...
Monday, May 2, 2016
77 days of Sacred Fire
Beginning to adjust to a world without my cousin in it. Can't help but think of what Syrio teaches Arya on GoT. "What do we say to death? NOT TODAY!!!"
I have decided that even if they aren't consecutive, I'm gonna post here for 77 days. Or 77 times. 77 stories. Some variation on that number. Gotta do what speaks to you, and that rings with resonance for me, so there it is. Don't like it?!?... go start your own blog...
There was for a brief time a wonderful chimera of retail space, creative space, and rich opulent beauty on the side of the street facing Calhoun Square mall in Uptown Minneapolis.
We Are The New Power Generation, this boutique was called. I remember being unable to stay away when rumor suggested that the Purple Rain motorcycle was on the premises, albeit behind a velvet rope. No pictures, no cameras or recording devices, please. Was posted just inside the door.
The first time I ever walked in there I was still 98% n00b. I remember being overcome by the atmosphere. The veils, beads, scents, the woodgrain, the artwork, the sense of it being decorated by someone with a top-shelf no-expenses-spared mentality.
In the coming years I remember going upstairs there for the Neo Manifesto poetry readings. More on that another time, once I find the fliers in my handbill collection. I still have things the NPG store mailed out to us with the address of the house I grew up in on the back side of them...
Along the stairs to the second floor were three, maybe 4-5 separate professionally framed image collages. Prince, in pictures I don't recall if I've ever seen elsewhere. Variations on flames, from candle flames to larger effects, cut and overlaid to create cover-style artwork.
The theme of them stuck with me because I was playing the Indigo Girls Strange Fire cassette over and over in my walkman while working the job I had at the time. (The other go-to tape I was slowly wearing out sat in the box for Strange Fire, and I dubbed it myself. It was a comp I've re-made several times over the years. Glam Slam Ulysses songs on one side and I'll Do Anything songs on the other. But again, another story 4 another time.)
These framed impressive pieces of art included the phrase Sacred Fire.
I will not forget them. I only recently remembered the specific term.
Maybe we'll see it someday, somehow. Maybe it was speculative art or a gift from a relative of a bandmate. I don't know any more about it than what I remember. I can't even imagine I would've asked the dude behind the register.
I was still 75% stuck in my shell and/or with my head up my own claven yet in those years. I might have thought about it, but overcoming my inner critic and actually saying anything? Not bloody likely...
I realize this is gonna be at least as much about me as it is what I'm recalling. But that's either a psychologist's and/or an editor's job. And I may have utterly run out of fecks to give when Cheri succumbed to her alcoholism.
If I'm lucky, I'm still getting the first draft down. Sometimes it ain't even that well put together. Art ain't pretty, plenty of people who make it say if it isn't making you even mildly uncomfortable it isn't serving its purpose.
If you want polished journalism, this may not be the place to get it. Just sayin'... the brain-scrapings shall continue. More occurs to me a little everyday.
I have decided that even if they aren't consecutive, I'm gonna post here for 77 days. Or 77 times. 77 stories. Some variation on that number. Gotta do what speaks to you, and that rings with resonance for me, so there it is. Don't like it?!?... go start your own blog...
There was for a brief time a wonderful chimera of retail space, creative space, and rich opulent beauty on the side of the street facing Calhoun Square mall in Uptown Minneapolis.
We Are The New Power Generation, this boutique was called. I remember being unable to stay away when rumor suggested that the Purple Rain motorcycle was on the premises, albeit behind a velvet rope. No pictures, no cameras or recording devices, please. Was posted just inside the door.
The first time I ever walked in there I was still 98% n00b. I remember being overcome by the atmosphere. The veils, beads, scents, the woodgrain, the artwork, the sense of it being decorated by someone with a top-shelf no-expenses-spared mentality.
In the coming years I remember going upstairs there for the Neo Manifesto poetry readings. More on that another time, once I find the fliers in my handbill collection. I still have things the NPG store mailed out to us with the address of the house I grew up in on the back side of them...
Along the stairs to the second floor were three, maybe 4-5 separate professionally framed image collages. Prince, in pictures I don't recall if I've ever seen elsewhere. Variations on flames, from candle flames to larger effects, cut and overlaid to create cover-style artwork.
The theme of them stuck with me because I was playing the Indigo Girls Strange Fire cassette over and over in my walkman while working the job I had at the time. (The other go-to tape I was slowly wearing out sat in the box for Strange Fire, and I dubbed it myself. It was a comp I've re-made several times over the years. Glam Slam Ulysses songs on one side and I'll Do Anything songs on the other. But again, another story 4 another time.)
I will not forget them. I only recently remembered the specific term.
Maybe we'll see it someday, somehow. Maybe it was speculative art or a gift from a relative of a bandmate. I don't know any more about it than what I remember. I can't even imagine I would've asked the dude behind the register.
I was still 75% stuck in my shell and/or with my head up my own claven yet in those years. I might have thought about it, but overcoming my inner critic and actually saying anything? Not bloody likely...
I realize this is gonna be at least as much about me as it is what I'm recalling. But that's either a psychologist's and/or an editor's job. And I may have utterly run out of fecks to give when Cheri succumbed to her alcoholism.
If I'm lucky, I'm still getting the first draft down. Sometimes it ain't even that well put together. Art ain't pretty, plenty of people who make it say if it isn't making you even mildly uncomfortable it isn't serving its purpose.
If you want polished journalism, this may not be the place to get it. Just sayin'... the brain-scrapings shall continue. More occurs to me a little everyday.
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