Last night I dragged out a DVD of the Tokyo Nude Tour on DVD. I like that concert, its well funky. Especially the Future which then becomes Housequake. Awsome!

Anyway, at the end of the concert there is an old BBC Omnibus program made at around the time D&P came out. It’s a rockumentary on Prince with a lot of rare footage including backstage stuff, rehearsal stuff and parts of Paisly Park. Its basically a documentary of Prince’s career up until D&P. Its very flattering towards Prince and paints him as the kind of person a lot of us here on the Org know him to be – A genius. Theres interviews with the standard talking heads be they critics, journalists or whatever, but also interviews with band members past and present (present as in 1991).

I had completely forgotten I even had this. Anyway, just as it was starting a friend came round and she ended up watching it with me. She has always teased me about my Prince obsession (with good humour) and hasn’t really ever gotten into his music.

But heres the thing, she watched this documentary and was gob-smacked by the guy. She honestly had no idea (proving my years of banging on about it went in one ear and out the other!). She was mezmerised by what she saw. When Levi said that most of the trax on D&P were each laid down and recorded in their basic form in around 30 minutes she literally exclaimed “fucking hell!”. And she was completely in awe of some of the concert footage.

I tell you, I think ive converted my very first friend to our crazy world! Who knows, maybe she is signing up to the org this very second!

Anyway, It’s a bad copy I have, obviously copied from a deteriorating VHS tape. But it is a really good documentary on the man with some nice first-hand anecdotes from the likes of Sheila E, Eric Leeds, Levi etc… It ends with a journalist explaining how Prince told him the importance of staying in control, “if everyone left me all I would have is me!” and then mentioned how important his father was. Then it cuts to prince at what looks like a tour rehearsal sitting behind a piano, the band in the background as he sings The Ladder… His voice sounds kinda choked up and raw!... Goosebumps I tell you!

What would be great is if that same team got together and now made the second part of the story, from Symbol up to now. I imagine it would be a lot darker and give people even more insight into the genius world of Prince...

Funnily enough i re-watched my original VHS recording the other week. A v good documentary indeed. What i'd like to see is a proper DVD release of this and other documentaries that have been aired - but alas Prince seems to keep a very tight reign on these things.