Milty said:

I'll try to be more objective in my Gold article.

Now where's that nekkid pic of yourself you promised to orgnote me years ago? I'm still waiting.

BartVanHemelen said:

What about the Batman soundtrack?

jn2 said:

From Uptown presents Days of Wild:

The worldwide sales of 4,4 million for Batman were the largest for any Prince album since Purple Rain.

So not quite 5 million.

Huggiebear said:

Love Sign will be covered in the Ultimate Gold article.

PoomPoom is from the first half of 1995.

I just included a bit of additional info about the April 1994 configuration of Come. See if you can spot it.

And don't forget to print the article for inclusion in your personal Prince library.

That was a great read, thank you.



Now I'm off to find my Come CD...

scififilmnerd said:

I talked with Virgo about it and she thinks it was the one for Endorphinmachine that impressed us. She's probably right.

when's the next part coming! cant wait!

RumAndRaisin said:

I'm aiming for a Monday release of Part 3, because I've noticed that nothing really happens on the org in the weekends anyway.

scififilmnerd said:

Thanks

Wow. thanks for posting that!

scififilmnerd said:

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

Cut it, I can't wait anymore!

Part 3: http://prince.org/msg/7/318315

Please enjoy the experience.

NB!
I just made some changes to the Back in the studio-chapter to correspond with the discoveries I made during my Gold research.

scififilmnerd said:

It was my experience that it was a lot easier to be objective about Gold, because I guess Gold just doesn't excite me as much as Come.

^I am very excited by both albums,

I just love Come and Gold, brilliant music....

scififilmnerd said:

well, there is the birthday performance from 07-06-1994 at glam slam miami,
which was simulcast to glam slam los angeles at the same time.

he performs a version of space there that i have not heard anywhere else.
it's not exactly a rock version but it's different from the ones i know on
the album and singles.

as usual with a lot of the glam slam shows from that era there's a backing
tape running along and it features keyboard riffs/stabs and other fills
that are completely new to me.

the npg operator is at the very beginning, stating "welcome 2 the space
experience, please enjoy" and right after that the well know "switching
command 2 internal" bit begins. the backing synths that make the plush
"tapestry" for the verses are notably different here.

prince sings the song slightly different as well, with a less 'romantic'
tone but with a more raw edge. once again, the difference is not too big
but it's significant enough.

the rest of the song sounds pretty much the same, although in parts the
backing vox, which sound like mayte are more prominent.

at 03:29 there's a bit of a break with the space engineer bit repeated,
then there's a tommy b solo that's live and runs over a lengthy bit of
just the basic bare bones beat and the usual backing vocals of "oooooh
the space, the space" on the backing tape up until 05:03, when prince,
i assume, kicks in with a guitar solo that lasts until 06:02.

that's also when the backing tape stops, at 06:17 with the sound of an
aeroplane flying over.

all of this coupled to the live drumming over the backingtape beats, i
assume that this is the closest thing we've got to that illusive 'rock'
version of space.

IstenSzek said:

Thank you for the throrough description, Isten. It's like we've heard it, even if we've never heard it ourselves.

And I have quite a few concerts from 1994, but not that particular one, though.

this is a really great article. i waited until now, being completely bored at work with nothing much to do, before i read it all. i'm gonna read the other similar "ultimate" threads too

the 94/95 NPG period was one of my favourites. it's a toss up between that and the 85/86/87 period, but 94/95 was perhaps a more exciting time

i did my very first prince nite party on the day prince changed his name on a tuesday on the 7th june 1993. i didn't know that's what he was going to do, i was just managing a club and wanted to have a prince party on his birthday. long before the internet was popular or in my grasp, so advertising was limited to flyers, posters and local press mentions. i later got involved with another guy who put prince nites on in town, with me djing. again, no internet, he just made A1 size posters with the big symbol saying prince nite, and we had up to 300 people attending when we did them, and on a thursday nite. everyone who attended was from town, no-one outside of town knew about them

i remember one day i went to work and my boss handed me a vhs tape and wouldn't tell me what was on it. i stuck it on when i got home and it was the beautiful experience, taped in hifi stereo from sky one from the night before. back then cable and sky was fairly new in the UK and not that many people had it. with the lack of internet, i never even knew it was on, so i was amazed to be handed a first gen hifi stereo (as again in those days, hifi stereo players were expensive and few had them) video full of brand new prince songs and videos. it's hard to convey how exciting that was, as these days you know about albums in advance, get previews etc all from the internet, and being a big fan or artists you rarely get a surprise, so to be given a hours plus of new material with sound AND video was amazing. the face that it was one of his best periods with some of his best work, was just something else

i remember the next prince night i did wasn't too long after then, and i carefully recorded the tracks and edited them to a useable format on standard compact cassette, and played pretty much then all mixed in with the rest of the prince music i played during the 5 hour prince nite. this was a proper club that i used to attend every week for the excellent house and garage nights, so they had a really fantastic sound system, and half decent club lighting, so you had long term fans who relied on the likes of controversy magazine for news, turning up and hearing these new tracks not only for the first time, but blasting out loud from a decent PA. exciting times for fans

later in 94 i took a trip to london and visited the prince store in camden, which is currently one of my favourite locations. i remember it was also a tuesday, and i was the only customer at the time. i explained i was a huge fan, and i spent some time looking through the place, and playing interactive cd rom downstairs, discussing the gold experience which hadn't been released yet. then the person in the store said they had a video i should see, and they took me upstairs to the cafe area, i got some chips (french fries) and coke (a cola), sat down, they gave me the remote control and said play it as loud as you want, pressed play and it was the original O{+> version of the undertaker. i just sat still for 40 minutes watching it. i never even knew of it's existance, so again to be sat watching another video of 40 minutes of new prince material, yet again some of his best work, and something which is one of my all time favourites, was just amazing. it's really hard to get over just how exciting it was to be served up all this great new material without warning

i did another prince nite in stoke on trent a few months later, it was in a really big venue, and they had installed a 10k sound system. that might not mean much, but in a club for say 200-300 people you might have a 2k system if you want it REALLY loud for a dance event, in a club/bar you might have a 1k system. in the days of raves, the flyers used to list 10k or 20k system on the huge events that were held in massive tents for 10,000 people. so we had a PA system fit for putting on a HUGE rave. there were four speaker stacks, one in each corner like a square. this was an impressive sound system. i just had to try it out... so i put on the undertaker album on cd, and let it rock for the full 40 minute duration. the place literally sounded like prince was onstage performing. this was before doors opened, so just organisers and people setting up were there, and they were all impressed by the sound, and the music they had never heard before (this was before the vhs was released)

when i later did another prince nite back home, we had a cool little venue that myself and friends used to go clubbing in every week. we did another prince nite on a thursday, and for some reason i ended up with a 4k system instead of the usual 2k system the club used. i can't quite figure out why, they didn't have a 2k system, but had a spare 4k for the same price. i was playing some live material, filled the place with the smoke machine, set the lights to something best described as an epileptic mix of the 2001 stargate sequence and close encounters of the third kind, so you couldn't see a fucking thing, but with the music blasting, the smoke and lights you felt that prince could have literally been onstage playing, the entire place was vibrating from the subwoofers, so you literally felt the sound hitting your chest, but it just sounded so great as the speakers weren't breaking a sweat

i'm not sure if it was the same night or another one, but at the same venue we did another prince nite the day after the billboards ballet played town. we had flyers and posters over town, and had a bit of a following, again before we were online properly, and myself and friends went to the opening night of the ballet to see it and hand out flyers. i managed to blag some promo stuff from them, and i got a list of all the names of the dancers on that night. i also found out their hotel was about 200 yards from the club. after the performance and everyone left, we were hanging outside the theatre, about to leave, and i spotted some of the dancers leaving, and got talking to them, gave them flyers and i invited them to the party the next day. i had all the names and told them it was next to the hotel, and they were impressed that we knew so much and were so organised. i told them they could all come on the guest list for free. they said they would, that they only arrived the day before and were jetlagged, so were going to rest that night, but would come to the party. the next day at the party, 14 of the main dancers, including the big leads, all turned up, and they even paid to get in! i thought they might have been sick of dancing to prince, but they were asking for requests and dancing along! they absolutely loved it, particularly all the new and rare stuff, and different songs to what they danced to at the ballet

really, really cool and exciting times. i remember asking morris hayes what his favourite prince period was, and he agreed that the circa 95 era with the new music and gold experience not being released was the most exciting

unique said:

¨

What a great story! Thanks for sharing.

IstenSzek said:

I have just added a mention of it to the article, plus added some interview bits about Letitgo. Check it out.

musicolog said:

Great read, great work scifi. Finally something of substance in this forum. Are you going to add it to the princepedia?

I was there in 93 in Holland when he played Come, Endorphinmachine, Peach and Pope live, after the standard part of the Act II show. That was awesome. I remember the tension of that time so clearly. Prince was fierce, he was mad and he was determined to get this music out no matter what. The internet was just in its beginning stages and fans would still get their info from magazines, radio and from word to mouth, so we knew it was possible, but it was still a huge surprise to hear him play those songs live. Personally I do not think it's the best music he has made, but for sure it was one of the most interesting and exciting times of Prince's carreer to be a witness off. Props to you for writing this!
-
[Edited 9/13/09 15:16pm]

Tremolina said:

I might.

scififilmnerd said:

Well, maybe it would have helped if had made a promo video to go with that two million copies.

I completely forgot about the 2001 NPGMC Mix of Race. But better late than never. I've included it in the chronological recordings list now.

Hey.

According to The Vault, following the aborted collaboration with David Henry Hwang on the Come musical, began working on Glam Slam Ulysses, updating existing tracks etc. this was reported to have been completed by late May 1993.

My theory has always been that Mayte's fax refers to Glam Slam Ulysses and not Come, and this adds fuel to my fire!! Surely would want to proudly boast of a project he recently completed??? Mayte's fax states the 'sequence' was completed two days before.

The word one titles don't quite match, but as I've stated previously Strays of the World could have been called just Strays etc. and /or these tracks weren't included in the sequence?? In any case, Strays of the World was written for the Come musical, according to The Vault.

All this fits in with the fact that the show premiered on the 21 August 1993.

Certainly possible, and even plausible?????

KAB said:

And What's My Name would have been called What...?

Those tracks were included in the Glam Slam Ulysses sequence, so obviously "Mayte" wasn't talking about that one when (s)he said "all one-word titles."

KAB said:

Like it says in my article.

I don't have The Vault, but I do have Days Of Wild, and it's a great source of information. But it isn't exactly a great source for information on the 1993-1996 era, which is why I wrote my articles - to make up for their short-comings.

Just a few things to add to the singles from the album..

'Come' was also going to be the original B-Side to the 'Letitgo' single.
This was changed to 'Solo' prior to release as WB considered 'Come' a strong
contender for single and was planned as being released with 'Dark'
as the B-Side (though I don't know if this was due to follow 'Space', or
whether 'Space' actually replaced it).

Also, the full length versions for all the 'Letitgo' remixes all clocked in
at 7-8 minutes in length. But for some reason, only the single edits of the
mixes were officially released (leaving the 'full length' versions on the
shelf).

The version of 'So Dark' that appeared on Crystal Ball is actually an edit
too. The full length version is a good 2 or 3 minutes longer and includes a
breakdown section, false end and extended instrumental end section.

BorisFishpaw said:

Interesting. I might just add that to the article.

BorisFishpaw said:

I'm sure we didn't miss out on anything.

BorisFishpaw said:

I've always suspected that at least the ending was cut short.