From ?uestlove's myspace blog:
http://blog.myspace.com/i...1194415453


Wednesday, January 18, 2006

blog 27: ".....shall we begin"
Current mood: artistic

“hey”
“yo”
“whatcha doing?”
“flying back to philly”
“wait….you’re IN LA?!?!”
“well I was….but my meetings are don---
“turn around!!!!”
“huh? I can’t I got a gig in dc”
“well come back!!!! I got a session”
“no man…come on I got work to d—
“with stevie won—
“what time?”

this is the nature of most of the gigs I get.

An artist I work with gives me a moments notice on when im needed and play it as if life or death.

But of course mention stevie’s name and im there.

Well sorta….

I have this thing about working with my “heros”---I have a fear of the results being anti climatic and not holding a candle to their peak period work so normally I shun the idea. But since this isn’t album related (this is for a movie soundtrack so I don’t feel like it will be a risk all that much)

Being as though im in the eye of the storm right now lemme just bring you up to date:
I’m in the Palisades Studio in the valley. This song we are doing is a cover of Stevie’s “Keep On Running” its for a documentary about how fucked up the music business is. One of the artists in whom this docu focuses on is a monster guitar player named Doyle Bramhall. Doyal was once my labelmate and he was posed for superstardom. He had endorsements from ALL the guitar gods and critics…but of course Geffen lacked the will and pull to fight for him to “WIN”.

Well…..on some each one teach one/it takes a village thing all of us are working on this song with him for this soundtrack simply because he is a monster dude who got shafted from this “industry”.

Ok that was the lesson now here is the fun.

Jan 17th 7:24pm

I been here for 3 hours already and im having a fucking heart attack. Wendy and Lisa have walked in and im just friggin ---man blown away (for all you newbies they were the nucleus of the last great band ever: Prince & The Revolution. ---

This studio has not seen a drummer in it since 1989 when Natalie Cole used it for the “Unforgettable” sessions. So since its been a good 16 years (!!!) there are a LOT of kinks in the system.---kinks that have to be fixed…and the only way for that to go down is for me to just drum for 2 straight hours while they fix the glitches.

Near the second hour I was tired of playing hip hop/soul breaks and I decided to get my John Bonnam on (Led Zep) and was imagining I was in Zep when all of a sudden in mid “In My Time Of Dying” I open my eyes and ….

It’s Wendy.

I near did a colonic on myself. (Yes she is beautiful as ever yall)—she was like..”uh…go on!” of course I didn’t and stood up to hug her when suddenly she remarked “that is a one of a kind shirt”

FUCK!!!!!

This morning while rushing out my house I took my Stevie Wonder tshirt off for fear it was too ass kissy (friggin steve can’t SEE the shirt mcfly!!!!)---and reached up in the closet to grab another shirt in a rush before my taxi came.

A shirt very similar to the Beatles shirt I have on in my myspace pics: except this one read

Prince,
Bobby, Fink
Mark, Wendy,
& Lisa.

DOH!

(Quick ahmir think!!!!)

“uh uh… uh…um…thanks!”

Why do I always find myself in these fan/artist modes? Its so hard for my peers to trust people who act like “fans” and not just “regular” people. I myself always find myself chastising cats who make a big deal about me after a show. I just feel really uncomfortable in my own skin. And for that to be a “big deal” is just….well….—uncomfortable.

(engineer came back to me and said “she really digs yer shirt man!” so I guess I dodged that awkward bullet)

---ok…all that you guys have read took me an hour to write. So let me cut to the chase cause they are all walking in by the thousands:

Erykah Badu on vocals
Doyle Bramhall on Vocals and Guitar
Wendy Melvoin on Guitar and Vocals
Lisa Coleman on Keys and Vocals
James Poyser (my soulquarian collabo partner on keys)
Mike Elizondo (my fionna producer) on Bass

Erykah and Steve have yet to get here….

To be continued.

9:52pm

we just did a 24 minute “feel each other out/wait til erykah shows up” jam. It’s really hard to play while wendy melvoin is looking you in the eye. And as bad as I want to just fanboy her all over the place with revoulution trivia….im trying to keep my cool and the pocket.

After the jam we went over the format to “Runnin” for a bit---went over it twice and then erykah came.

And then Suzannah arrived.

Okay I’m really gonna die now. Most of you cats who followed post Purple Rain Prince should know she is wendy’s twin sister who was also a member of my all time favorite prince offspring groups The Family.

(hours later)

me and james are on the phone just like we were the day after will’s crib. I mean how fucking lucky are we this week?


We went to will’s crib this week
We saw our beatmaking Dali Lama this week (J dilla)
Made 2 bangers
And played with Wendy/Lisa/Doyle/Suzannah/Mike Elizondo….and Erykah too.
We both turn 40 this year.

RECORD SCREEEEETCH!---40?!?!?!?

Its soo funny….after each take everybody was running back to their computers/blogs to start bragging about how they just did a monster song with…so and so.

I’ll get into more detail later…I got an hour to spare and while my girl is looking the other way I shall be headed to roscoes chicken and waffles.

(pppppttttthhhhhbt!)

anyways….i gotta roll for part two.

Perhaps Mr. Morris shall show up.
[Edited 1/19/06 11:03am]

Okay,first of all reading that gave me a headache.
Second,I don't like that part where he's talking about how its hard to trust people who act like fans,whatever,why the hell should I have to pretend that I'm not someone's fan.
And third,I'm sick of hearing about this guy,ever since I read his interview in Modern Drummer where he is almost bragging about the fact that he doesn't play fills,I've been annoyed by him,I mean,who wants to hear a drummer who never plays any fills.

How come Wendy and Lisa haven't put out an album in forever? Is it becuase there last couple of albums sucked and they no longer have a record label?

I don't think they EVER SUCKEd...Problem is Most fans were into them with Prince and didn't care when they split so they lost alot of people right there. But I Dig them and have seen them in NYC 2x.Both times loving them.