oldpurple said:

There's quite a few of us on that list.

Both from the old "Revolution" days and loads got caught again in the 90's with "The Truth" magazine

At first, through magazines like "Right On", "Black Beat", and "Rock and Soul". Then magazines like "Rolling Stone" started writing Prince articles. Radio DJs throughout the entire 1980s were the best source for when a new album was coming out.

When the 1990s rolled around, I had stopped reading the music magazines since most of them were filled with bullshit artists anyway. A good friend of mine used to have a lot of info for me that he saw in magazines and the media. Also, VH1 was a good source in the 1990s.

i started chatting online back in '84/'85 (they charged by the minute) -- newsgroups and bbs -- dial-up compuserve, prodigy, aol, etc., calling the managers, writing to fans, getting friendly with friends of friends, writing to television shows, subscribing to controversy fanzine, talking with eileen, watching mtv news (they had a lot on prince back then), usa flight night, friday night videos, going to the record stores, reading magazines and researching past articles, getting on mailing lists, being a member of the fan clubs, etc.

all pre-internet

Snap said:

Don't newsgroups and bbs count as part of the internet?

ElCapitan said:

then UNIX does too, and that goes back before I was born

GoldTimer said:

Dream Nation now theres a name i haven't heard off for a long time

Snap

said:i

wow talk about OLD school. man the AMP did not even eiist then (well maybe it did i first remember it in 93 or so) but yeah my dad had one of the dial ups from work. i got caught trying to make a nasty post! that was the last time in a long time i ever got on line.

ElCapitan said:

well yeah... but i think MOST people mean the WWW (as in mosic, netscape, IE) when they say internet. the internet started in the 60's!

SlamGlam said:

Realistically, I think most people would think that this discussion is asking about how you got Prince info. before you could get it on a computer hooked up to a modem.

ElCapitan said:

yeah that is what i was getting at. sure there may have been some way to get info online in 85 but it was very limited and not many people had regular access.

SlamGlam said:

Which is what I was geting at. newsgroups and bbs was getting Prince info. online, which is why I wouldn't call that "pre-internet".

Damn, we're getting bogged down in minutae...

Back in the day though, Prince was massive. he was current and everyone had heard of him. Today you can turn to the internet and find anything you want, but Prince's name rarely shows up in current music mags, gossip columns in papers etc. back then he was always in a magazine, his tunes were always playing on the radio... It wasnt as easy to get info as it is now, but the info was out there and quite accessible...

NouveauDance said:

Yes, I remember going to second-hand record stores end of 80s/early 90s. In Germany you had people "in the know" who told you were to go when in New York and Boston so that you can buy boots, and then you passed this on to others or made copies. Record fairs were also great when I was a student in London, some "hidden" stuff, some quite openly sold.

But it was great fun to hunt, also the excitement if the sound quality was good or bad (mostly it was bad)...

oldpurple said:

the guy that ran this was called David ????

I forgot about record stores. That used to be my main source above all else. I would ask from time to time...."Any word on a release date on a new Prince album?"

RECORD CONVENTIONS, indie record stores, magazines.... other collectors....

It was actually much cooler to buy a record without having heard all about it for six months ahead of time. There were no expectations, and everything was a surprise. You might even hear a Prince song on the radio without even knowing he had something coming out.

I don't know how he got it, to this day, but my brother's best friend had hipped me to a mix of Tricky/Irresistable Bitch....BEFORE PR

And here I am like...where did you get THAT?!?!