From alt.music.prince....
[pre:0deadbeef0]
Mon May 24 08:26:37 1999
From: ricketay@aol.com (Ricketay)
Newsgroups: alt.music.prince
Subject: VAN GOGH: The story as requested.

A few weeks ago, I was asked to relate the story of how we
came to be given a previously unreleased song, written by
Prince/ /The Artist. I apologize for the delay. We've
been busy traveling and performing.

Before I get to the story, I'd like to take a moment to
thank all of the Prince fans around the world (literally),
who have written us such encouraging letters. Your
overwhelmingly positive responses have been a blessing.

Apparently, most people ordered our cd just to have the
"Prince tune", but ended up (much to their surprise) liking
the other songs as well.

Thank you all for being so open minded, and so supportive.

Below is the story (taken from our newsletter) of how the
song found us. I can't answer the often asked
question,"What did he think of your version?", because
we've never been told. So, if you should run into him (at
the mall, supermarket, McDonald's, etc..), ask him. And if
you get an answer, be sure you let us know.

Thank you. And, God Bless.

FORMER PRINCE GIVES A VAN GOGH.
The BIG Buzz

Back around March, we were contacted by a mysterious caller
who said, the head of the organization she worked for was a
songwriter who was thinking about giving us a song (we
thought, that takes a lot of nerve, what's wrong with the
songs we write?). She said she could not tell us who it was
right then but, soon, we would be told. She said they found
us through the Coalition of Disabled Musicians in New York
(www.disabled-musicians.org).

We told her to check out our web site, which she did
(calling us later that same night, excited about what she
had seen).

She then told us the secret songwriter was none other than
"The Artist" formerly known as Prince. Of course we didn't
believe her, at first. But, we went along (not wanting to
get too excited, in case it was a hoax).

Then we checked out "The Artist" site at
www.love4oneanother.com and heard her voice on a spoken
word clip on the site. !!!!! IT WAS FOR REAL!!!! We can't
describe what it felt like to realize all of this was fact,
not fiction.

It turns out that "The Artist" wanted to give a song to a
professional grade artist with a disability. After much
searching over the net, and any means possible, it turned
out that we met all of their criteria and would get a
song.. It all happened over the course of a few days and,
on the 10th day, a FedEx package arrived at our door with a
cassette tape of a demo of "The Artist" doing a song (we
had always heard "opportunity knocks". not that it is
delivered by FedEx!)... We opened the package right away
and put in the tape. The song sent was called "Van Gogh"!
It had a really cool groove, and was about 6 minutes long.
It seemed to be a midi demo and had no guitars on it. There
was no mistaking his voice, though.

Our musical background has always been British pop/rock
like Queen, the Beatles, Pink Floyd etc... and this was not
that type of pop song. It had all "The Artist's" elements
in there, and we quickly realized we would have to make it
our own, not just try to copy what he sent us.

Robby took it home, to start listening to it for a few
weeks to decide what he would do with it musically. After
listening to the song over and over, at home and on the
road, he got started on our demo of the song.

The first goal was to get it down to around 4 and a half
minutes long, without cutting out any major parts.
Next he decided to speed it up a little and add heavy guitars.

We realized we do not have the same kind of style "The
Artist" has, and could not deliver the song the way he
could (read: he's cool, we're not).

There is one verse we left off originally because it was
real jazzy and had "The Artist" doing his falsetto vocal.
We ended up taking that, at the last minute, and making it
a spoken word piece at the front of the song. We also took
his spoken intro of "can u give me true love?" and made it
a singing part with a couple of girls.

Robby decided that the style of the song didn't exactly fit
his style of vocal dilivery,so he decided to sing it
through a megaphone (to give it a psychedelic touch).

We recorded the song 3 times and ended up going with the
first take, using Robby's demo tracks.

Our new drummer, Scott Robertson, (who is also in a
wheelchair) got together with Robby and added some sampled
beat elements to complete the track.

Steve Stone (who is the guitarist for the Atlanta Rhythm
Section) was our guest lead guitarist on the song.

Robby says, "This was the hardest thing I've done,
musically. Taking something that was so different from what
we do, and making it our own."

We wrote and recorded the entire album in about 8 weeks,
from start to finish.

We would like to thank that mysterious female caller (who
shall remain unnamed) and Love4oneanother.

We would also like to thank "The Artist" for the boost he
has given us. I don't think he will ever know how much it
means to us. We are quite honored to have been chosen for
this. Check out his site at www.love4oneanother.com Tell
him, thanks from Van Gogh!

The new CD "Van Gogh" includes 11 original tracks, as well
as the song written by "The Artist". It has elements from
our previous CD's as well as forays into new musical
territories, to make it our freshest yet! The cover was
done by California artist Said Abdelsayed.

For more info on Van Gogh, be sure to check out our web-
site at www.vangoghmusic.com
[/pre:0deadbeef0]