I can remember when I was in high school, back in the 80's, my friends used 2 think I was weird 4 listening 2 Prince; they thought he was weird as well. This is after the Purple Rain period.

Then I found out that in my school, these 2 real geeks, nerd-types, that I never spoke 2, even though I was also one loved Prince. I learned that they even travelled 2 C Lovesexy in more than 1 city.

I thought DAMN, there are others who R really in2 him. They were the same people who introduced me to cassette and video bootlegs. I got 2 watch the Pittsburgh and Cincinnati 88 shows that way.

How about ya'll, if U care 2 share?

college.

when i first moved into the dorms, i bought a huge lovesexy tour poster and a guy across the hall noticed it and he just so happened to be a big ol' prince freak...and he had BOOTLEGS.

i'd never heard a prince bootleg before, other than maybe a really awful copy of the black album on cassette. the guy across the hall introduced me to the classic studio outtakes and some of the great live recordings.

then a few years later, i met another prince freak in college, and she and i bonded over horrible sounding cassette bootlegs and UTCM quotes.

back then, friends like that were super rare. now, it's rare to have a prince geek friend nearby, but at least stuff like the org can bring folks together.

I bought my first home computer in 1996. I didn't know what Prince had been up to but I had heard that he was married on Valentines Day to Mayte. I hadn't heard much of his new music because I was out of the main stream for a while. Searching for anything Prince related, I found a chat room called "Paisley Park." I was amazed to hear the excited enthusiasm there. Evidentially Prince had put out much more than Purple Rain and Batman.

Everyone kept talking about these 'parties' and 'jams' at Paisley Park until i found out how to get on a list. Before Prince started putting out invitations on his site, a super great guy from the Minneapolis Music site, would send out emails letting people know that there'd be a party.

When I'd arrive at Paisley Park, sometimes in freezing weather there'd always be others there waiting in line. Sometimes loyal fans would wait for hours only to find out that nothing was going to happen and the doors weren't going to open. Among the people there, many had traveled from a distance. Yet, in a week or two we'd all be back just in case this time Prince would let us in. The times that Prince showed up and jammed, many times til dawn, always made up for anytime that he didn't.

Anxiety said:

Positive! I agree with what U say about the org, coz I was thinking about asking ppl how they felt when they 1st learned about this site.

When I 1st found out about Prince org, I couldn't believe it, really. Prince freaks like information about him, and here, THERE'S SO MUCH!

Sometimes I wonder things about Prince and his music and have ?'s. I've never asked a question here and have not had it answered.

mzflash said:

LAWD, I can only imagine how much fun those of U who have been 2 Paisley Park have had.

from showing my love 4 prince damn near everywhere i went from teen years till now...u are bound to find someone that can feel the vibes

prettymansson said:

you know what's funny? in six years of living in new york city, i never met ONE prince freak. even after i started posting on the org. nada. it was like a little secret interest that i had because nobody i knew gave a crap about prince.

then i moved to chicago and WHOOSH! org invasion!

Anxiety said:

well, im a musician and i travel a lot...i also play funk so if your funkin right and not trying to be the typical macho asshole of the year you are sure to run into some music lovers that dig P !!!
i was born and raised in nyc and yes its true...prince aint the hottest thing in that town...BUT, i often met friends (musicians) that told me about prince freeks they met on the road... i even met one of my closest friends that way...she was at a gig and my bass player friend jonathan told her u need to meet my friend in new york..he collects prince and u guys could talk for hours...we did talk and we still are talking 7 years later !!

Anxiety said:

Were u in NYC in '93? Late '92 and early '93 is when I met other Prince fans. Prince was coming back 2 tour the US with the Act I tour. I met a bunch of people. From the place where I got the tickets from, at the concert, the aftershow. There was this 1 store on W8th St in the Village where I bought all of my... "special CDs" from and became cool with 1 of the guys that worked there. He would hold all the latest stuff 4 me.
1 day I walked in and he yelled out "there he is!" It so happened 2 be that he just was telling these 3 girls about me because they had came in 2 look for Prince stuff. They were cool girls, they would always find out what hotels Prince would be at everytime he came 2 NYC. I wonder if they r here on the org

Anyhow, it was during Prince's return 2 touring the states that I found about other Prince fans/ freaks.

Anxiety said:

Sounds like me. Back in '89 in my first year at Uni I met a guy on my course who was a big Prince fan and gave me a tape full of rare 12 inches and later a copy of the Black Album. My first introduction to bootlegs!

But then, I didn't meet anyone who was a Prince geek for over a decade. Finally the internet came along and looking for info I first came across Uptown and later the Org, and then I realised there were still a lot of fans out there, but it wasn't until the tour in 02 that I finally met some proper Prince geeks in person queuing for the sound-check.

Well, it's funny, cuz I don't know any other Prince fanantics. I didn't even know there were as many fans as there are, until I got a computer and googled Prince (1st thing I EVER did online). Anyways, in highschool and afterwards to this day, friends and family know me for loving Prince. It's like MY thing that makes me unique. They'll walk in my house and hear him playing and laugh, and be like....."oh, man.....fucken Prince". I think if I ever did meet another fan in person, I would be like WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!?! HE'S MY MAN! Know what I mean?

I'm from NYC and I can totally relate to the other New Yorkers that Prince hasn't been the biggest thing, even though when I wore my Musicology shirt out there last summer, I had a few people come up to me and ask about Prince and the tour. Lots more looked at my shirt and one kid started sing Purple Rain while I was on the subway (#1 train) headed to MSG.

I met people who liked him off and on as a kid and a teen but it wasn't till I found the org in 99 and was learning more about the internet that I even know that there was a fan community. Thanks to this site, I learned a lot about Prince, the music, the films and the bootlegs. I even got hooked up with boots thanks to one of the member here. I didn't start to meet people until the ONA Aladdin show in Dec 2002 that I met a whole bunch of people and made a couple of lifelong friends in the process. All of this has made being a Prince fan such a great thrill.

Dugen said:

I MISS REVOLVER TOO !!!

prettymansson said:

How'd u know , That store was the best! And Ray was such a cool guy

In college, in the dorms. I met a red bone (a red bone is a light skinned, thick, African-American or Latina, with lots of curves, frequently over 160 lbs with all the excess weight proportioned in all the right places) that was a huge Prince fan. When I seen her, my jaw hit the ground, she was extremely sexy. Then I saw her CD collection and my jaw hit the ground again, she had tons of rare Prince stuff (bootlegs and imports mainly). I learned that some Prince fans are sexual freaks, boy did I learn I miss freshmen year.

one of my friends mums is into P heaps i remember when we were younger and i would go over there we would look at his cds and laugh at the cover art well im sure u all have! especially his days man his done sum weird stuff but soo cool at the same time. Its cool cause my friends r into P as well so thats really cool we all dig his funkiness! So im happy that i have close friends and we can all dig P i mean ur a fool if u cant dig him his just soooo good!
although im only starting 2 get into P hardcore now i was into him a little when i was younger, i had Diamonds and Pearls on tape and probs still do have it sumwhere if i could b bothered looking for it.....actually i have a good idea where it is now that i think of it, its just a matter of going through boxes ny1 wanna help?

mostly thru the internet -- way back to the compuserve and prodigy boards
and of course AMP tho i haven't been there in years now
also, aol boards and chats... then holy river chat, etc.

in my own neighborhood, i only knew a couple people who liked him
but with as many albums as he was selling, i knew there were more like me

I know some Prince fans but the only Prince "freaks" I know
are reading this post right now.

However I do like this really cute guy who's a big Prince fan
but as my luck goes, he's got a girl

Biah said:

That's me, in my world...suburban life, mother of 4. I am it.No one I know is a fan, a REAL fan anyways. My only funny story is...outside of my office building where I work, for months there was a guy, oh about 20, white, unkept,did not look very stable to put it nicely, scary even.He sat outside my window for hours at a time listening to his c.d.player, talking to himself. One day as I am walking by him, trying to not stare, I notice a symbol tattoo!! I asked him about it, turns out that is all he listens to, all day long. Interesting guy, just goes to prove you can not judge a book by it's cover.

Everyone I knew had been big Prince fans as far back as "I Wanna Be Your Lover" in 1979. They all dropped Prince beginning with "Around The World In A Day" and me and only one other guy remained. However, throughout the years, the two of us have remained friends and have both have bitched and complained about every single album after "Purple Rain" being good but nothing compared to the ones before "Purple Rain".

I spoke with him right after "The Rainbow Children" and he said "Dammitt, I MEAN it this time....Prince has lost it, I am THROUGH with him this time". I said "We have said this after each album is released since 'Purple Rain'. Listen to it some more and maybe something will grow on you". He must be finally getting tired of Prince because it is usually the other way around. I'm usually the one saying "I'm through with Prince this time" and he is usually the one saying "listen to it some more". The same thing happened with the "Musicology" album. He said "I'm getting tired of spending my money on the weird bullshit that Prince has been putting out for years". I think he's finally getting enough of it. I do think he will buy the next album though because we have been through this for 20 years but he's gotten more irritated than usual with the last two albums.
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[Edited 8/25/05 23:03pm]

PaisleyPark5083 said:

PPark5083 said:

That's me, in my world...suburban life, mother of 4. <<< Sooo Funki!

vainandy said:

It's wierd 4 me 2 read this becoz even though I knew I would never stop supporting Prince's music, I have felt the same way so many times. More so, WTF*%@ is going on in Prince's head.

Perhaps we expect 2 much from him. Perhaps, like he often says, some of us are caught in 1984. But, maybe also...we feel as if he is capable of putting 2gether (lack of words) a more solid project.

It all comes down 2 art as well. Accepting what the artist has created. Lawd knows.

Prince likes to throw around that people are stuck in 1984 as a cop out because he knows he will never achieve the same height of success that he did with "Purple Rain". This might be true for the fans that discovered him with "Little Red Corvette" and enjoyed the "Purple Rain" album and dropped him afterwards. However, when Prince makes statements like this, he fails to remember that he had a huge R&B following long before "Purple Rain" that could care less about a "Purple Rain Part 2".

Prince has always been very diverse from the very beginning and had his own sound. However, his music still was mainly funk and rock and could and did fit in very well with the mainstream funk of that era and even the mainstream pop/rock of that era when he finally crossed over. A lot of people left because he changed the game and threw in more and more diversities in his music such as psychadelic music, orchestras, foreign sounding music, etc. Prince seemed to develop an extremely wide taste in music and when people didn't have or like the same taste he did and dropped him for it, he wanted to accuse them of being "stuck in 1984".

As a huge Prince fan from back in the day (a bigger fan than most back in those days), I was not happy with it either but I was not ready to give up on him just yet. The only other person I knew, other than myself, that stuck with Prince all these years, was not happy with it either but he had a wider range of taste than I do so he could adapt easier. Each year, after "Purple Rain", we would buy the new album, listen to it, and call each other afterwards. Every year, we both gave the same response...."Prince has lost his damn mind". After several listens, some of the songs would start to grow on us and then eventually all of the songs of the late 1980s albums would start to grow on us, with the exception of the "Parade" album. That one was just too damn far out and we both hate the orchestras on the album.

What it was, is Prince was challenging and even expanding our tastes. My friend came to explore and love jazz because of Prince. I started exploring more rock because of Prince's branching out because I was strictly into funk and nothing else before him. I also can tolerate a little jazz now. Of course, with each new album purchase we both hoped Prince would return to his old self but by the time the 1990s arrived, we both had given up on that. I grew to love the late 1980s albums but would I give them up for more of the earlier Prince.....yes!

By the 1990s, we weren't expecting to hear the "old Prince" but with most of the albums, it was still the same process....listen to it, hate most of it, listen to it some more, more of it grows on us. Except in the 1990s, every single song of the entire album did not grow on us. Most of the songs did but not all of them. Mainly because of the hip hop.

Today, it's still the same process for the two of us.....listen, hate most of it, listen some more, some of it grows on us. Except this time, less and less of it is growing on him. I think he's finally getting enough of it after all these years. The only thing that really keeps me hanging in with Prince is that no one else is putting any music out worth a damn and Prince's new music is 50 times better than these new artists' so called music.
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[Edited 8/26/05 0:45am]

Dugen said:

u knew ray too ? wow !!!! i used to live in that shop...ray was the sweetest dude....that was the spot...the owner (the mean kinda heavy dude) got sick and collapsed in the store the same week the musicology tour was in nyc ...july 2004...they closed down...but im still in contact with the russian guy (AL) he hits me with list and connections from time to time...kool 2 know someone else is hip to the nyc SPOT !!!! c u

Dugen said:

i used to like going there, too. revolver, rebel rebel and bleeker st. records were my favorite places to go for the 'special' stuff...heck, i had a good time at bleeker st. records just last weekend.

Anxiety said:

So Prince.org is partially THC induced. I freakin' LUVIT!

Oliver said:

worse than THC. so bad that i can't even mention it in this thread.

When my brother first played me Daddy Pop that one, cold, boring day I discovered he was a Prince freak. I then met his friend, also a Prince freak. However they couldn't be my friends cause they were too old, and my brother's friends. I've never known any Prince fiends my age.

Anxiety said:

Oh Lawd!