squirrelgrease said:

Sorry.

I know I didn't make it up, so it may have been at NPGMC, but it was one of those sites.
One of those barely decipherable 'deep' things with a lot of U's and 2's and 4's and the like.

squirrelgrease said:

He said it on the Q&A on L4OA and/or NPGMC year 1. I almost have a feeling he said it in an interview on TV somewhere after that (in more recent years).

BriaVelveeta said:

I'm fairly sure the title 'In a large room with no light' is said on one of the npgmc Ahdio shows - it's a girl that says it though, not Prince

I think there's a photocopy of the recording sessions from 1985 to 1986 - like a log from the recording studio, in uptown magazine - and i think the title is on one of those pages too...i still have the magazine, i'll dig it out an double check

Not that you asked, but here is a little background on the creation of this track:

---
It was May of 1986 and Prince was going thru a period of renewal and change. Parade, his latest album was just released to good reviews and the first single, KISS, was #1 on the charts. At #2 was The Bangles MANIC MONDAY, which was also written by Prince, so he his professional life was going well. The second single, MOUNTAINS, was about to be released, and the world was waiting for his 2nd movie, “Under The Cherry Moon”. Not one to ever rest on his laurels, Prince had already begun creating his next project. The previous weeks had him holed up in Minneapolis, where he was recording a great deal and trying not to focus on the demise of his relationship with Susannah Melvoin. She had recently moved out of his home in Minneapolis and he decided to fly to Los Angeles and bury himself in his recording.

Saturday, May 3, 1986
Studio 3, Sunset Sound, Los Angeles

Prince asked his engineer Coke Johnson to set up the studio for a new batch of recordings. Because the Revolution was rehearsing and touring together during much of this period, they were invited into the studio.

Coke arrived at the studio at 11:30 and began the set up for a band recording, but it wasn’t until 4 that people started showing up. During group jams, it wasn't uncommon for Prince and whoever was invited in the studio to just groove and record the entire session. Sometimes Prince would be inspired, sometimes he would hear something amazing and that would dictate the direction of the session. It was not an exact science and sometimes people got left off of credits, depending on Prince's mood and generosity. On other occasions, a familiar song would come up in the groove and everyone would start focusing on recording a cover of that song. On this day, Wendy Melvoin, Lisa Coleman, Sheila E., Levi Seacer Jr., Eric Leeds, and Matt Blistan joined Prince to work on the classic song “Get On Up” by The Esquires (from their 1967 release on Bunky Records). After laying down the familiar jam, Prince led them into recording a new jazz-fusion song called “In A Large Room With No Light” (sometimes inaccurately referred to as “Welcome 2 The Ratrace”). The song was based on a jam by Wendy and Lisa.

Eric Leeds remembered this session:
“We also did … another song that Wendy and Lisa...we recorded live with Wendy and Lisa. I cannot remember whether Levi was there, I want to believe he was. Sheila played drums, the vocals, the background vocals were done by Sheila and Wendy and Lisa. Susannah might have been there but I don't remember. The horns were myself, Matt Blisston, and Norbert Stachel, who was Sheila's saxophone player by now, Eddie M having left. He was there for that session, playing alto sax, for a song called "Have you ever felt that love was like looking for a penny in a large room with no light”. It is like....Prince does Fifth Dimension. It was one of my favorite songs we ever did. It was an absolutely wonderful performance live, Sheila just absolutely kicked butt on it, it was just a great song, and unlike anything Prince has ever done. Very unique song, and a great song. It was another one of those cases where I thought, just really felt that we were part of something special on that one. And that's a song that I really hope sees the light of day some time, personally."

The recordings took place until midnight.

Sunday, May 4, 1986
Studio 3, Sunset Sound

Prince asked various members of the Revolution to show up for overdubs for yesterday’s session. Prince also included Sheila’s band member, Norbert Stachel to record various saxophone overdubs. From 3pm to midnight, additional layers were added to GET ON UP and to IN A LARGE ROOM WITH NO LIGHT. Prince and Coke spent the next 5 hours mixing the tracks.

At 5 in the morning, Prince realized the mixes were missing some additional vocals so he spent the next 7 hours adding his vocals as well as other background vocals to the tracks. If you listen closely to LARGE ROOM, you can hear the layered vocals behind the busy track.

Monday, May 5, 1986
Studio 3, Sunset Sound

The session didn’t stop. It was not uncommon for Prince to continue for hours at a time if he felt like he had a mission. This was one of those instances. From noon to 2:30 pm, Prince spent the time mixing the new vocals into the song and copying them on to cassette (2 TDK C-60 tapes).

Prince left the studio for a short time but soon afterwards, asked to be set up for some additional mixing. Apparently he wasn’t completely happy with the songs once he played them in the car and wanted to continue working on them. Although Coke set up for the next session, Susan Rogers was called in to take over for Coke now that he had been in the studio for over 24 hours straight.

Prince showed back up just after 8pm and he and Susan spent the next 5 hours working on crossfades and edits in the tracks.

Prince would continue to tweak the track over the next few days, eventually adding it to the collection he was compiling called “Dream Factory” but that is another story for another day.

- this information is from an early draft of PRINCE: The Studio Sessions.

ok, uptown magazine #33 page 17,18,19 has an article which has a picture of 2 pages of the work orders for sunset sound studios and a page which is apparently a hand written note by susan rogers of the track listing of dream factory - side 2 track 5 is listed as 'In a Large Room with no light'

according to the article 'in a large room with no light was recorded on 4th May 1985 - personal Wendy Melvoin, Lisa Coleman,Sheila E, Levi Seacer jr, eric leeds, matt blistan, and Norbert Stachet.

this is not necessarily fact, but the article seems really well researched, and they certainly have photos of studio documents from the time.

-----

The more i think about it, the more i'm sure it was listed as a Prince quote on npgmc as mentioned elsewhere in these posts, The way I remember it, Prince was using it as an example of how people get things wrong!(by calling that track Welcome to the rat race, rather than in a large room with no light) I'll keep looking for that, as i'll either have saved the web page, or at the very least printed the page or saved the text as a word doc...it'll just take me a while to find it....i have a feeling it's on a zip disc...remember those?!

Thank you folks for the diligent research. Seems we're getting somewhere.

Here's an interview with Eric Leeds from the "PRINCE: The Studio Sessions" rough draft:

madhouseman said:


Original thread: http://prince.org/msg/7/269370

So that's settled then! But why does one source say it was recorded May 5,1985 and another says 1986? I'm assuming '86 is correct...

squirrelgrease said:

Chills Chills Chills

the history oh man I love it
Like Eric said "we were part of something special" The Dream Factory album seemed to have a magic, I would love to hear more spots of history on these recordings and what I call the secret time

I love the recap of the recording of Power Fantastic:

Power Fantastic was recorded mid March 1985
a song based on a composition by Lisa Coleman called "Carousel"
according to engineer Susan Rogers
Prince sang in a corner of the room
It was some of the most intimate experience of her career:
She felt at the very center of artistic creation
Eric Leed, who played a lilting flute solo
walked out of the studio feeling goose bumps
"That's one of the greatest things we ever did," he remembered

Susan Rogers noted this song was "Nailed in one take"

Just listened to Large Room again. I know everyone hates when he messes with these trax but I was feeling the vocal would be better in falsetto. What do you all think?