As u all know, I am one of the younger P fams at the org (aged 18 ).

The first time I was moved musically by Prince's music was when I was just 8 years old. I was watching top of the pops one day (Im english) & I saw some crazy funky dude with a bandana over his face playing a song I now know as Get Wild Sex Machine. His band were awsome, his look, feel & everything was just as I like my music. My Dad says, that sounds just like Prince, to which I reply - it is Prince!!!

Trouble is that I was only 8 during this era of Prince's music & so know nothing really about it.

Does anyone know where I might find some information about Tora Tora & the NPG Exodus? Maybe a website or even recommend an album to me?
[This message was edited Fri Mar 8 15:34:38 PST 2002 by thecloud9mission]

Quite articulate for a 1-year old! I'm guessing you mean 18!

Moonbeam said:



Huh?
[This message was edited Fri Mar 8 15:37:12 PST 2002 by thecloud9mission]

Ah! Ben must have fixed it. Originally, the first line of your first thread had a cool smiley with shades in place of the 8 and right parenthesis, so it appeared that you had written that you were one of the younger fams on the org (aged 1 8). Sorry- I just thought it was funny! Hey, what kind of music do you have yourself? Anyone inspired by Prince has to have some interesting stuff! Take care.

Lol, I get it u thought I was 18) when Im 18 lol. That was pretty funny.

Im a soul funk type musician. Ive got about 500 songs writen & Im due to release an album in July where everything u hear is performed, composed & arranged by me. (theres that Prince influence showing again.

U can download my music free at my websight. Would love 2 know what u think.

Lewis

So Tora Tora???

Moonbeam said:

Just remembered. My arrangements of Purple Rain & (soon) Strange Relationship are on my site too, also free!

Enjoy

SexLovely said:

Consider it done dude! Really apreciate your support. Makes it all worth while in the end when someone compliments u like that. Thankyou mate.

Keep an eye on my site redesign coming up next week. Ive changed my hosting which means better website, lots more free songs, more Prince covers, a full length free single & the album will go on sale in July. Enjoy!

If ur not already in the email list, I suggest u do man. Its cooking in there now that I disabled the automatic email. It was getting a bit too much with all the messages sent to me getting sent out to the whole group lol. Fixed it now though. Lots of P fams in there coincidentaly.

Thanx Chrisypher

See u on Cloud9?

Hell, I was in my mid-20s when Prince was doing the Tora Tora thing, and I STILL don't completely understand what he was going on about.

Anxiety said:

Interesting to see Im not the only one.

Can anyone help???

Tora Tora is Japanese for Attack! Attack!. There is a movie titled Tora! Tora! Tora! for example.

Prince wanted to release Exodus on his own, after the sucessful release of The Beautiful Experience. Due to the already strained relationships Prince had with Warner over this type of distribution, and due to the success of Most Beautiful Girl in the World, Warner wanted a bigger cut. Prince decided to create NPG Records which was outside of the sphere of Warner's control. (Although, there is evidence that Warner did end up having some say over it, as it was thier money that funded a lot of promotion and development for NPG Records material). He sent The NPG over as the listed band name. I believe he used WEA or Bellmark to distribute this album in Europe. WEA is actually a conglom that includes Warner (in fact, didn't Warner absorb WEA and dissolve the name?). Again, he was trying to go around the system that Warner had in place, similar to events that caused the Undertaker fiasco that he was fresh off of.

Oddly, the songs are all published by Warner Chapell, if I recall.

Anyway, Prince was in the band, but covered his face so that there was no palpable evidence that he was actually in the band, although he eventually began wearing his name at the time all over the place and wearing sheerer and sheerer scarf wraps on his mug.

Like I said, there are two schools of thought on this:

1) Prince did this so that he could perform and promote the band without using his name and likeness that was under contract with Warner.

2) Prince did this with the consent of Warner but played it to his Slave tirades at the time. Something that probably wouldn't go over very well with Warner very well. Granted, Warner did release The Black Album...as far as I know, there was some back dealing there too.


The book _Days of Wild_ from Per Nielson at Uptown magazine goes into more (and probably more accurate) detail on this if I recall. I definately recommend picking it and _DanceMusicSexRomance_ (by the same author) up.

Cheers

Dauphin said:

Thanx man just what I wanted to know. Any sites on his one eyed bass. I think its a warwick thumb bass but Ive never seen it up close?

Lewis

PS. as far as the rude stuff goes, I was offended untill it was pointed out to me that many people enjoy it & that its all just a bit of fun. The posts on peadophilia Im still not in favour of but as for anything else, I understand the vibe now & its all good

Peace

Lewis

LEWIS--YOU RULE!!!

Nep2nes said:

Thanx Nep2nes. Bless u 4 those kind words.

Come back 2 the group one time if u can. I need to reignite regular discussion

Lewis

Dauphin said:

To clear it more up (hopefully lol)
I took this from the back-cover of Exodus
Distribution:
Germany: "edel" company
Austria: emv
Switserland: Phonag
UK: edel UK/Phinnacle
France: edel france
Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg for all y'all not knowing this lol): edel/Sony
Scandinavia (Norway, Denmark, Sweden): edel/Sony
Finland: edel/Sony
Italy: edel Italia
Spain: edel/Errece

printed and manufactured in Germany
P-1995 NPG records
C-1995 NPG records

Now that's a WHOLE lot of companies there! lol and no mentions of any Warner Bros. records involvement...
NPG records, his new record company next to PP at the time, owns the copyrights to Exodus, not Warner in some way.

But Paisley Park and Prince the artist were contracted to WB records at the time. Prince the author and composer was contracted to to Warner Chappel publishing untill 2000.
However Prince supposedly had nothing to do with Exodus and was supposed to be dead!! ( aahhh the good old Get wild dayz...lol)

Prince, or better actually did some cool stuff with releasing this record.



As far as I can remember they (The "NPG") made this deal with the Edel company from Germany and Warner was not invlolved. Edel took further care of the distribution using all those obscure sounding small distributors lol. Edel is, or at least was at the time, one of the biggest independed recordcompanies, operating mainly in Europe.
As far as I can tell from Exodus, WB had NO involvemnet in it.

But in 1994 there was also the mini-cd "The Beautiful Experience" by released even
before Exodus, there the distribution was done by:
[*]G: edel company
[*]A: emv
[*]Ch: Phonag AG
[*]Benelux: Red Bullet Productions B.V. (Lol really!)
[*]UK: Grapevine/terry Blood (who???? )
[*]Scandinavia: Mega Records
[*]Israel: IMP Dance
printed and manufactured in Germany by Optimal.

Here a couple of other small companies are also doing the distribution.

Again it says P & C 1994 NPG RECORDS

BUT also:

Appears courtesy Warner Bros. records.

Telling us that the name change did not really help him to get out of his contract right?
But Warner did go along with the name change, they did not like it, but neither did they let him out of his contracts.





Don't know for sure again about Exodus. The booklet from Exodus only says about the publishingrights: Copyright 1994 NPG Music publishing (ASCAP). That's the publishing from the NPG bandmembers that wrote those songs. No Controversy or Emancipation music mention there since the band NPG wrote the songs and noooo Prince wasn't in the band!! Lol. really??
In short no sign, mention or indication of Warner Chappel involvement, also hardly a sign of Prince involvement lol.

The booklet from The Beautiful Experience tells us: copyright controversy music: the publishing company Prince owns himself and that holds the publishingrights to his songs, but which was also contracted to Warner Chappel which administered these rights untill 2000, indicating that Warner Chappel as well as WB records (see above) could very well have been involved with this release...The name Prince adopted: was actually his SLAVE name during the entire period he was contracted to WB records and Warner Chappel publishing.

so there you have the two theories-more or less- like you said :


Like I said, there are two schools of thought on this:

1) Prince did this so that he could perform and promote the band without using his name and likeness that was under contract with Warner.

2) Prince did this with the consent of Warner but played it to his Slave tirades at the time. Something that probably wouldn't go over very well with Warner very well. Granted, Warner did release The Black Album...as far as I know, there was some back dealing there too.


The book _Days of Wild_ from Per Nielson at Uptown magazine goes into more (and probably more accurate) detail on this if I recall. I definately recommend picking it and _DanceMusicSexRomance_ (by the same author) up.

Cheers[/quote]

Cheers

during the Tora Tora Era 4 /Torra Torra & The NPG. put out some Monster Jamz & EXODUS was indeed an Xcellent Album.

we had:

Exodus - & The NPG
Child Of The Sun - Mayte
The Gold Expierence -

& some poeople even thought Prince or "Thought" he was Crazy. he even said it on a song named "MAD". he had em all fool'd

definately 1 of my Favorite Eras 4 Prince & The NPG, he was as Loose as he was back in the Prince & The Revolution Days. don't cha think???

PurpleLove7 said:

Me too. Im getting into bass playing more since I listened to it. Its been the most musically influential Prince albums for me.

Look out for my new site cos Im experimenting with two bass parts on one of the new songs. Its surprizingly hard to do. When I first listened to it, it just sounded like Sonny T was running tings while Tora Tora played slap solos in the uper register but theres a lot more to it rhythmically.

Can anyone tell me more about the set up. I know it was sonnyt & tora tora on the basses but thats all I know, although Im assuming Micheal Bland is on Drums. Anyone know who the spanish rapper is on the live NPGMC version of Get Wild Sex Machine?

Still also looking for anyone who has pix or links to websites about this. I really wanna see that bass up close. Let me know if u can help.

Thanx all
[This message was edited Tue Mar 12 4:08:40 PST 2002 by thecloud9mission]

Abrazo said:

Cheers[/quote]
WOW u know ur Prince dude

Thankyou

See! This is the beauty of the internet! Thanks for the corrections and fill-ins!

- Cheers

Where can I find a copy of Exodus or Gold Ni**a? I assume they are out of print. I was looking for the Tony Lemans album for a while, and I finally found it on e-bay, but NPG CD's aren't easy to find on e-bay.