Prince said this song was made for a guitar mag to show his skills but i can't find it. I have the vid though.

Yes, The Undertaker album.

There's an official promo that will set you back a few hundred quid.

Or a bootleg/rip from that, that will cost nadda.

The undertaker is an amazing album get it one way or the other!

Well there was an official VHS and Laserdisc released. The CD wasn't really officially released, it was yanked at the last moment.

organgrinder said:

I hear that.

mikek1 said:

I don't think it was recorded for a mag. I remember reading in a guitar mag interview with Prince that he had recently got bored during a break over Christmas and ended up getting his band-mates over and recorded what became the Undertaker album.

The VHS video was officially released, the promo album version is pretty much identical to this performance.
[Edited 11/2/05 15:55pm]

NouveauDance said:

Nah, only $150.

metalorange said:

I'm pretty sure that, in said magazine, Prince explained that he had this album recorded and would love to be in a position where he could give it away free with the magazine.

History has since proved that Prince would never ever do anything of the kind and clearly hates the thought of giving any music away for nothing.

Are we talking about the same song that appears on Mavis Staples' CD???

Enigmoid said:

You still have that magazine? I'd love to see a scan/transcript of the article.

Well, Prince may hate given music away for free now (well, arguably apart from the Musicology album included in the concert ticket) but back then he might have been envisaging it once he got free of his contract - certainly I got The War cassette for free sent by the 1800 New Funk when no one was forcing them to.

Revolution said:

Yes, he gave the song to her. Though his version is a fantastic stripped down blues version wiht only guitar, bass and drums.

Enigmoid said:

LOL very true. It's sad we all know Prince's lawyers name so well.

metalorange said:

- I am holding it now....it´s Guitar World from Nov. 1994. Actually referred to Gold Experience. Michael B said:

"We don´t know where it´s gonna go, except for into the hands of fans. There is a possibility that we might just give the record away. It´s about time that we actually gave something back to our fans who have supported us for so many years"

The article talks a lot about The Undertaker too. But both Prince and Levi said they didn´t know if it would be released or not. Michael B said:
"Picture this. A DAT machine, a 32-channel board, two techs, three players. It was about three o´clock in the morning. We got our sounds together and just let the DAT roll. We took about one hour to make that record, from start to finish, playing straight through with no overdubs. The sequence of songs on the record is exactly the way we played it. The guitar segues from one song to the next, like when we do live stuff".

It´s a shame that it was never released....let´s hope, like the Black Album, that it´s released someday

GustavoRibas said:

Why is it a shame when you can still enjoy the music in perfect quality?

GustavoRibas said:

Cheers for that. Michael B forgets to mention that it was filmed so I guess there were a few additional personnel there apart from the music techs.

There's no way those songs were completely made up on the spot. Prince's musicians are good, but they're not psychic! Clearly they must have been previously rehearsing the songs before doing the final 'show' where they were recorded to DAT.

metalorange said:

there is more...

" Prince tends to go for spontaneous, first-take, live-in-the studio tracks - even when he is cutting a complex, episodic piece like the "Three chains of gold" (...)
´That´s one of many that we had to do in one take´, Michael Bland remembers. ´We had to cut all that in one big hunk, and it was murder, man. All Prince had was all these little sections that he had written while he was in Paris. We had to piece it all together and then play it"

RepoMan said:

- Not exactly...I only had it in VHS....but my VCR is broken, and it´s harder for me to enjoy it. I had some Mp3 of this album but the quality wasnt even near good as it would be if it was released officially

And, last but not least, there are tons of people who never even dreamed of hearing this (including some fans). Like Levi said "it deserves to be heard"

GustavoRibas said:

I had a couple of the original discs, but even if you're not able to get your hands on those there are still a few bootleg releases of it which were taken straight off the original CD so it's absolutely perfect. Even so, the album still sounds kinda "thin". That's my only complaint about the disc. It's pretty cool stuff, but I don't see what the point of releasing it after all this time would be. It's not THAT great....then again compared to his recent output it's a masterpiece.

RepoMan said:

- I agree...it´s not that great. To be honest, non-guitar players wouldnt dig it, and even I, being an amateur guitar player and guitar lover, sometimes get tired of it...I think it should have been released at that time, for the fans. You know, if he released NEWS and Xpectations (which are ´jam albums´), why not release this one?

mikek1 said:

I don't think that anyone mentioned that all original pressed discs were ordered by Warners to be destroyed. The way that they were rendered useless was by coating them with a resin. So there are actual copies of the disc in circulation that have been "restored" by removing some or all of the resin. Of course, some of these may have been damaged in the process, so buyer beware.

squirrelgrease said:

Beautiful Strange Would Of Been A Nice Song On Disc Also O+>

boston3 said:

Someone with good taste - love that song. And it's on cd - if you can put up with the rest of "Rave in2..."

squirrelgrease said:

There are also a few that never got threated with lacquer. Those are more expensive of course, but the cleaned up ones should sell for about $150.

RepoMan said:

- That´s the reason I said it was a shame it wasn´t released or given away.....paying $ 150 for an album is absurd...only collectors would do it. Is it what "free the music" is about? Then, they complain about bootlegging...

GustavoRibas said:

Right, but what really matters is the music. You can get perfect copies for a few bucks or even for free.

PS: free the music was never supposed to be synonymous with free music (as in free of charge).

squirrelgrease said:

I never understood this way of destroying the discs - isn't that a little costly? Why not just throw them in a trash compacter? Or have someone take an hour to snap each copy in half? Or take a sharp knife and scratch the music side of each disc?

booyah said:

I thought it was actually the first step and that they were supposed to be really destroyed after that, but somehow some discs ended up on the black market.

RepoMan said:

Huh? That would be like wasting time laquering wood before throwing it on the bonfire! Does seem illogical, but how else do you destroy cds on a mass scale? Trash compactor might miss a few at the bottom, being so thin... employing someone to damage them might take days if there were thousands to go through... burning them might give off toxic funes...

RepoMan said:

I have the one without the lacquer.