huh?
U GOtta Shake Somethin of course


what? A Unreleased Jem

who? by Prince baby bubba Eric Levi and them

whut? A song

how?
ASk the man

it's not a Revolution era outtake?

^
It's not "off" any album since the projected The Flesh album was never given a catalogue number.

it's not a Revolution era outtake?

sosgemini said:

It was recorded 30/12/85. It was a track recorded during The Flesh sessions, but wasn't placed on the album.

NouveauDance said:

what era is that? and whats all this talk of a "the flesh" sessions? this is new to me.

Right I took out Days Of Wild, here's what it has to say (don't worry, I'm a fast typer!):

28 December 1985
Prince gets together with Eric Leeds, Sheila E. and Levi Seacer Jr. to jam at Sunset Sound.
The quartet recorded a highly spontaneous "Paisley Jam" session. Eric played saxophone, Sheila drums, Levi bass, while Prince alternated between guitar and piano. Eight instrumentals were committed to tape:


"Slaughterhouse"
"U Just Can't Stop"
"Run Amok"
"Mobile"
"Madrid"
"Breathless"
"High Colonic"
"12 Keys"


They were given titles simply to facilitate their identification. Accordingly "Madrid" was named so because it had a kind of Spanish feel, while "Mobile" (referring to Mobile, Alabama) was a bluesy piece. Similarly "12 Keys" featured mmany key changes (the song incorporates a portion of the melody of "The Question Of U"). Eric went into the studio the next day to record saxophone and flute over dubs on some of the "Paisley Jam" tracks.

30 December 1985
Fired up by the results of the "Paisley Jam", Prince is back in the Sunset Sound studio with Eric, Sheila and Levi. They recorded "U Gotta Shake Something", "Voodoo Who" and "Finest Whisky" during another highly relaxed session. By now, Prince was beginning to realise that the music they were creating was highly exciting and perhaps worthy of release.

5 January 1986
Lisa Coleman, Wendy Melvoin and her brother Jonathan, join the line-up of Prince, Eric, Sheila and Levi in the Sunset Sound studio for an exhausting seven-hour session, the so-called "Everybody's Jam". Six of the pieces hat were recorded were given titles:


"Groove in C Minor"
"Slow Groove in G Major"
"Groove in G Flat Minor"
"Junk Music"
"Up From Below"
"Y'all Want Some More?"


During this session, Prince played primarily drums, while Sheila and Jonathan played percussion, Lisa piano and Wendy guitar and bass.

22 January 1986
An album is assembled from the instrumental sessions held in late Dec. 1985 and early Jan. 1986. Around 20 minutes of the 45 minute "Junk Music" was going to make up side one of the LP, while "Up From Below", "Y'all Want Some More?" and "A Couple Of Miles" were planned for side two of the LP. No test pressing of The Flesh LP was ever made, however, and the album was shelved when Under The Cherry Moon and other activities demanded Prince's full attention.

// So the tracklist for the LP was sequenced:

Side A:
1. Junk Music

Side B:
2. Up From Below
3. Y'All Want Some More?
4. A Couple Of Miles [This was recorded as a tribute to Miles Davis in late December]

//

Featuring largely improvisional music, the Flesh sessions allowed Prince to stretch out musically and develop his musical vocabulary. The Flesh can be seen as a forerunner to Prince's later Madhouse project in more wanys than one.
Much like Madhouse, the musical focus of The Flesh was on instrumental music, basically funk jams with a distinct jazz flavour added by Eric Leeds, who was given the opportunity to contribute more actively to Prince's music. And much like Madhouse the plan was to release The Flesh album "anonymously" with few details about the participants and certainly no mention of Prince's involvement.

The Flesh instrumentals remain unreleased, although part of the melody for "Madrid" was later re-used by Eric for "Andorra" on his 1991 Times Squared album. Additionally, some 30 seconds of "Junk Music" made it into Under The Cherrymoon as background music (in the scene where Tricky and Christopher are arguing over what type of man Mary Sharon prefers).

Further Sunset Sound sessions in January included work on several tracks for Jill Jones' album. Before leaving for L.A. in late January, Prince taped 2 songs for Dream Factory, "Last Heart" and "It's A Wonderful Day".


End. //

Eight instrumentals were committed to tape:

"Run Amok"

They were given titles simply to facilitate their identification.

I think it's interesting that all the material from the sessions that was placed on the album configuration was from the later sessions which included Wendy, Lisa and Jonathan, non of which is widely circulating (except for the clip of Junk Music in UTCM).

The earlier sessions which U Gotta Shake Something is from is almost a skeletal or proto-SOTT/Lovesexy band, and in my mind it always kind of reminds me of the New Power Trio and The Undertaker, how you have Prince using a more stripped back band lineup to record something quite unique.

You Gotta Shake Something

This is totally unrelated to "Shake" from GB right?

dannyd5050 said:

WAAAAAYYY not related. Its a big long 15 minute party jam with Levi Sheila Prince and Eric..not too far to be a cousin from a Madhouse production, but this is more funkier than that...and it has a live feel to it because there is a sampled audience in the background and prince sayin random things. Look 4 it.