Sign ☮ the Times

This album has always been bittersweet 4 me
Back then I never knew of the Dream Factory album or the Camille project, but it was really exciting to view this 'concert', I was ready 4 him when he brought the show 2 the States, ...but sadly he decided to release it as a concert film. The visuals are so stimulating.
My favorite stage set up, he could continue 2 use this one and there is so much there that I would never get tired of it.

Jill Jones Sheila E. Taja Sevelle Madhouse
Camille Project
Hard Knock Life film



Sign o the Times©1987 Paisley Park Records
3.30.1987 released composed of 3 unfinished projects:Dream Factory(w/the Revolution) Camille Project & the Crystal Ball
http://prince.org/msg/7/331997 Dream Factory is an amazing album



Susannah Melvoin: Backing vocals on "Sign o' the Times" & "Starfish and Coffee"; co-lead vocals on "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night"
"Starfish And Coffee", Lyrics co-written by Susannah
Eric Leeds: All saxophones
Atlanta Bliss: All trumpets
Sheena Easton: Co-lead vocals on "U Got the Look"
Sheila E.: Drums and percussion on "U Got the Look", drums and "Transmississippirap" on "It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night"
Clare Fischer: Arranger of strings for "Slow Love"
Wendy Melvoin: Guitar and backing vocals on "Slow Love"; tambourine & congas on "Strange Relationship"
Lisa Coleman: Backing vocals on "Slow Love"; sitar & wooden flute on "Strange Relationship"
Miko Weaver: Lead guitar on "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night"
Jill Jones: Co-lead vocals on "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night"
The Revolution: Performance of "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night"
Gilbert Davison, Todd Hermann, Coke Johnson, Brad Marsh, Mike Soltys, Susan Rogers and "the Penguin": Party voices on "Housequake"
Greg Brooks, Wally Safford, Jerome Benton and "6000 wonderful Parisians": Backing vocals on "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night"
Susan Rogers, Coke Johnson, and Prince: Engineer
Prince: All other vocals and instruments

"Slow Love" lyrics co-written by Carol Davis

It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night" music co-written by Dr. Fink & Eric Leeds.



[Edited 4/15/10 6:35am]

the band: l-back 2 l-front
Eric Leads [sax]came n2 the Prince camp in 1984(Prince manager Alan Leeds is Erics brother also seen in the movie PR) 2nd half of the PR tour he would play sax on some songs. He was grafted n2 the protege group the Family and later into the extended Revolution for the Parade era. a jazz fusion (protege) group called Madhouse was formed around him via 1986/1987

Atlanta Bliss[trumpet]a friend of Erics performed on the Parade tour and was a sessions musician heard on Jill Jones album and a few other songs from the camp

Wally Safford[dancer/singer]friend of Prince and I believe previously a bodyguard. Appeared on the Parade tour and the videos Mountains Girls & Boys & Another Loverholenyohead. Prince constructed a song around his name.

Sheila E.[drums/percussion/vocals] met Prince in the early 1980's, the became friends and she became a protege via the Glamorous Life 1984 PR yrs she also sang colead on Erotic City and prior 2 SOTT released Romance 1600 & Sheila E. Her band toured with Prince opening mostly for the Purple Rain tour from there into the 1986 Parade years the bands combined on a good number of occassions to performs songs especially A Love Bizarre

Greg Brooks [see Wally Safford]

Dr. Fink[keyboards/synth]the band member with the seniority he started out with Prince's 1st live band for his album For You, credited with partial song writing, adding synth pieces, what more can I say about the Dr. Fink recorded toured appeared with Prince from For You till Diamonds & Pears/Nude Tour

Levi Seacer jr[bass]joined Sheila E's touring band for Romance 1600 and played occasionally with Prince's band on some 'Flesh' recordings

Boni Boyer[piano keyboards vocals]a member of Sheila E's SHEILA E band

Mico Weaver[guitar] started out as a sessions musician in 1984 the earlies poss 83 he toured with Sheila E's Glamorous Life band, played guitar on the Family album, rhythm guitar on Mountains also appearing in the video, and was engrafted in2 the extended Revolution for the Parade tour he continued with Prince until the Graffiti Bridge/Nude tour.

Cat[dancer/singer] her dancers were created 2 Prince's music she met Prince in 1986 when invited to a dinner party at his house. She also appeared in Sheila E's Koo Koo video

Prince... Prince



[Edited 4/7/10 11:31am]

i dig it.

love the music, the band, the look.

Now that was a good show
I loved the intro of the band, how they went crazy 4 Dr Fink Sheila & Eric Leeds
Strange Relationships was my favorite song 4 that night



March 21. 1987
1st Avenue
Sign'O'TheTimes Open Rehearsal
1.Intro ...and 4 those of U on valium, my name is Prince...
2.Housequake
3.Girls & Boys
4.Slow Love
5.Hot Thing
6.Now's The Time *
7.Strange Relationship
8.Forever In My Life
9.Kiss
10.It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night

In France, a skinny man died of a BIG disease with a little name
By chance his girlfriend came across a needle and soon she did the same
At home there are 17-year-old boys and their idea of fun
Is being in a gang called The Disciples
High on crack and totin' a machine gun

Hurricane Annie ripped the ceiling of a church and killed everyone inside
U turn on the telly and every other story is tellin' U somebody died
A sister killed her baby cuz she couldn't afford 2 feed it
And yet we're sending people 2 the moon
In September, my cousin tried reefer 4 the very first time
Now he's doing horse - it's June

It's silly, no?
When a rocket ship explodes and everybody still wants 2 fly
But some say a man ain't happy unless a man truly dies
Oh why?

Baby make a speech, Star Wars fly
Neighbors just shine it on
But if a night falls and a bomb falls
Will anybody see The Dawn?

Is it silly, no?
When a rocket blows and.. and everybody still wants 2 fly
Some say a man ain't happy truly until a man truly dies
Oh why, oh why?
Sign "O" the times

Sign "O" the times mess with your mind
Hurry before it's 2 late
Let's fall in love, get married, have a baby
We'll call him Nate
If it's a boy

the 1st review I read of the Sign “☮” the Times show

PRINCE IN EUROPE: A PREVIEW OF HIS NEW SHOW

BY KURT LODER [Interview Magazine]




IT'S FOUR IN THE MORNING, May 15th, at Quasimodo, a small, black-walled Berlin jazz cellar, but the beer is still flowing, and fresh hash smoke curls languidly through the hot, stuffy air. Some 300 people are packed into the place, most of them lucky holdovers from a set much earlier in the evening by the expatriate American singer Joy Ryder. Now they are crushed around the club's tiny stage, staring in popeyed wonder at the totally unexpected mystery gig currently under way.

There are three men in long, hooded robes on stage -- one playing sax, another bass, the third wringing wondrous sounds out of a Fairlight synthesizer. There is an amazing woman playing drums -- it's Sheila E. And at center stage, wearing a rhinestone-spangled black leather jacket and at least three different kinds of dangling earrings, his heroically coiffed hair gathered into a small ponytail at the back, stands a little guy with a peach-colored guitar. Yes, it's Prince.

"Wanna go home?" he asks, peering out at the crowd with a coy smile.

"Nooo!"

"Me neither," he says, then glances at the band. "I think we oughta play the blues in G." A flurry of T-Bone Walker-style guitar lines suddenly fills the room, modulating quickly into a series of unmistakable Hendrixisms. The song is Jimi's "Red House," sort of. "There's a beach house over yonder," Prince sings, in a playful approximation of the original lyrics. "That's where my sugar stays...." He shouts out another verse or two and then takes off into a wild, glass-rattling guitar solo that makes jaws drop around the room and jacks up the temperature maybe another ten degrees.

It has been a long and amazing night, and there's still no end in sight. Many hours before, Prince and his new ten-member group, fresh from warm-up gigs in Sweden (they'll reach the U.S. sometime in August) -- played the fifth show of their 1987 European tour at West Berlin's Deutschlandhalle to a riotous response. It was Prince's first appearance in the divided city, and local scribes were already clapping together reviews centered on such words as genius and fantastic and marveling at the show's tech data: the thirteen trucks required to carry the elaborate stage set, the 240,000 watts of lighting, the 110,000 watts of amplification, the fourteen wardrobe trunks, two for Prince alone. In short, the first of Prince's two sold-out concerts in Germany's hippest city was an unqualified success -- at least for the approximately 12,000 people who danced and cheered their way through it.

The Prince camp, however, was less than totally pleased. There were some minor missed cues, and the rhythms of the tour hadn't yet settled into a satisfying groove. It had also been a disconcerting day: several members of the band had spent the morning visiting East Berlin and were still weirded out by the ugly hassling they got from the Volkspolizei gorillas on the eastern side of the Checkpoint Charlie border crossing. (Backing singer Cat Glover, who had rather rashly made the trip wearing a hot-pink suit and a white navy officer's hat, had been detained at length over a visa foul-up.) There was a certain fatigue factor at work as well. Three of the musicians -- bassist Levi Seacer, saxaphonist Eric Leeds, and keyboard phenom Matt Fink -- do double duty in Madhouse, the jazz-instrumental quartet that opens each show, and might have been subconsciously husbanding their energies in anticipation of this postconcert surprise gig that Prince had laid on. So, while the first concert at the Deutschlandhalle had been extraordinarily good by any normal standard, it hadn't been great -- which is Prince's standard.

But this surprise set at Quasimodo has been wonderfully invigorating. Madhouse opened up, blowing straight, muscular jazz and feeling more at home here than in front of the rock-funk crowds drawn to Prince concerts. Then Prince popped onstage, commandeered a synth and led the group into a steaming rendition of "Strange Relationship," from the Sign o' the Times album. That evolved into an extended jam ("Just keep on top of it!" Prince shouted), followed by the Hendrix workout. Next came a red-hot version of "Bodyheat," the James Brown dance classic, followed by a delicate and beautifully sung "Just My Imagination," the old Temptations hit, with more band members crowding onstage to join in. "Housequake," another song from the Sign LP, with Sheila E. whomping out a monster beat, loosened the roof on the place, and the closer, "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night," with Prince briefly taking over on drums, blew the sucker completely off. The crowd was a puddle of glee, most patrons unable to believe what they'd just seen (and free of charge). Then, quicker than you could say, "Elvis has left the building," Prince was gone.

This hour-long off-the-cuff jam -- a rare up-close demonstration of Prince's sensational powers as an instrumentalist, an improviser and (lest we forget) a singer -- was apparently just the tonic the whole troupe needed. By the following night, considerably refreshed and still buzzing from the Quasimodo gig, Prince and his band were primed to kill -- and proceeded, unforgettably, to do so.

The Friday-night crowd, another sellout, was already on its feet and screaming as an ocean of smoke poured out onto the stage. From somewhere within this impenetrable fog there erupted an abstract barrage of Hendrixian guitar sirens. A purple spotlight cut through the haze, revealing Prince in a long black leather coat and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, playing his peach-toned axe. As the electro-thump drumbeat that animates the title track of Sign o' the Times boomed through the hall, he began singing, and a back-light spot flashed on, silhouetting Cat Glover -- clad in the black bra and bikini briefs she would wear through most of the show -- gyrating wildly on an elevated platform at stage right. As the number built to a crescendo, the rest of the group came trooping down a long, winding ramp at stage left, each pummeling a drum with marching-band precision. Joining Prince, they spread out n the stage, beating out a resounding tattoo. It was an exhilarating entrance.

Then the lights went out, and the extraordinary stage set sizzled to life. An elaborate cityscape built on two levels, it echoes the cover of Sign o' the Times: a towering, impressionistic metropolis festooned with flashing neon signs -- UPTOWN, FUNK CORNER, BAR & GRILL, GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS. With all the lights popping on and off, the effect was that of a giant pinball machine. The band launched into the rollicking "Play in the Sunshine." On the stage level were Prince, bassist Seacer, rhythm guitarist Miko Weaver and backup vocalists Glover (whose picture on the sleeve of the "Sign" single has been widely mistaken to be Prince in drag), Greg Brooks and Wally Safford (two former Prince bodyguards). Elevated above them, and all but buried within her drum set, was Sheila E. And on the second tier, high above the stage, stood the two horn players, sax man Leeds and trumpeter Matt "Atlanta Bliss" Blistan, and keyboardists Fink and Boni Boyer.

Over the next ninety minutes, Prince and his extraordinary group ran, jumped, crawled and danced their way tirelessly through nineteen songs, ten of them from Sign o' the Times. Some numbers (the almost balladic version of "Little Red Corvette," for instance) were essentially abbreviated acknowledgments of past hits, but Prince did pull out the stops for certain oldies -- in particular a thunder-and-lightning performance of "Purple Rain" turned the house into a swaying sea of upraised arms. Equally memorable was the furious run-through of "1999" that closed the main part of the show, and the ultrafunk attack on "Kiss" that ended the first encore.

But in general it was the new material that was most powerfully presented. "Housequake" lived right up to its title and then some. The razor-riffed "Hot Thing" and the irresistibly exuberant "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" came across as instant and undeniable hits. On a steamier note, "If I Was Your Girlfriend" provided a perfect erotic set piece: as the song slithered to a close, Prince and the barely clad Glover, embracing before a giant, pink plastic heart, slowly went tilting back upon it into an unambiguous missionary positions as two neon signs high above the stage alternately flashed the words SEX and LOVE.

Throughout all of this, the band was spectacular. Prince has been listening to a lot of Duke Ellington and preelectric Miles Davis lately, and the show, while louder and maybe even funkier than ever, was also mightily enriched with jazz flourishes. The result, quite often, was an almost orchestral rock-jazz synthesis that was both harmonically exciting and (thanks to Sheila E. -- surely the world's hottest drummer in high-heeled pumps) relentlessly funky.

And the best came last. Prince started "The Cross" alone and shirtless, strumming the simple opening chords on his guitar as lighting effects flickered behind the darkened cityscape above him. Then the song started to build -- drums wading in, then fully cranked guitars, then the full band -- until the number attained an enormous, hall-shaking roar, with Prince soloing off into the stratosphere as a shower of mulitcolored silk flowers rained onto the stage. From there, the band jumped straight into "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night," which had the whole crowd chanting and stomping along with such abandon that certain far sections of the balcony seemed in danger off crashing to the main floor. Prince was out the stage door, into the limo and halfway back to his hotel before the cheering stopped.

rel January 21.1987
8 Madhouse
1. One
2. Two
3. Three
4. Four
5. Five
6. Six
7. Seven
8. Eight


rel February 19.1987

1. One Day (I'm Gonna Make You Mine) Listen
2. Wednesday Like a River Listen
3. Hold Me Listen
4. Faded Photographs Listen
5. Koo Koo Listen
6. Pride and the Passion Listen
7. Boy's Club Listen
8. Soul Salsa [Instrumental] Listen
9. Hon E Man Listen
10. Love on a Blue Train


May 26. 1987

1. Intro-Mia Bocca
2. G-Spot
3. Violet Blue
4. With You
5. All Day, All Night
6. For Love
7. My Man
8. Baby, You're a Trip



Rel September 22, 1987
1. Love Is Contagious
2. Wouldn't You Love to Love Me?
3. Popular
4. How Could You Do Me So Bad?
5. Take Me for a Ride
6. If I Could Get Your Attention
7. Infatuation
8. Baby's Got a Lover
9. Mama 16
10. Fly for Your Painted Rainbow
[Edited 4/7/10 16:02pm]

1987 was like a gold mine of material.

I was in the Navy that year, first year. SOTT came out while I was in boot camp, but imagine my surprise finding a new Prince cassette on the shelves at the Navy Exchange after I got out of boot camp!


Then I get to Philadelphia, and start going to the local stories, finding my way around town. I began looking for the Paisley Park logo on the CD and cassette racks. I find Madhouse 8, and 16. I find Jill Jones. I find Taja Sevelle. I find CD maxi singles. I find Sheila E. I couldn't wrap my brain around so much material. Instantly I loved 8, and the Jill Jones album. I dug Taja's, and enjoyed most of Sheila's (I love it all now).

I went to see the SOTT movie while still in Philly. I found a Lovesexy cassette in Philly just before we left to travel to San Diego, via around the tip of South America. I also had my SOTT VHS to keep me company after hours.

1987/1988 was one of the richest times musically for Prince. He was still creating a lot of music in a short amount of time (ie prolific), even after The Revolution split too soon. It was a fresh approach to things in his music, and I loved it. I used to hear "U Got The Look" around the Philadelphia Naval Ship Yard all the time.

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't this the infamous Dream Factory Era? If so, should we include bits of info from that Era?

PurpleLove7 said:

Well, wasn't CB and DF all whittled down into SOTT at some point? Just the released stuff alone is worthy of a thread too.

ernestsewell said:

I definately was twisted on how 2 approach it with Crystal Ball Dream Factory & Camille album. I definately want 2 include that one with SOTT

I still don't know outside of making background history of songs that were created during the Dream Factory sessions

There really is tons of music from that period that don't even fall under the DF heading. So much music that Prince used Susannah as background vocals, music that sounds like SOTT era music but is not:Make Yo Momma Happy, Crucial, Rock Hard In a Funky Place etc etc. There are a lot of songs that made the SOTT that I would have replaced with another from the DF album but again... like u even said a prolific time of creativity

But over all Dream Factory and songs like Go Splash Wonderful Ass weew were under 1986 or before and with Revolution members

Sign of the Times is a very difficult album era to deal with with all the possible albums and music that didn't fit anywhere yet.

I think another hard thing when dealing with albums like Sheila E or Jill even though released during the SOTT era each have songs whose texture is clearly of Purple Rain or Parade.

I always think bittersweat for this era even with Sheila E. because that album wasn't allowed 2 be worked out. Jill Jones was not connected visually with the whole SOTT/Madhouse happenings


[Edited 4/6/10 12:18pm]

I totally rhapsodize about this period. I was in high school and had settled in with a great group of friends, and this became the soundtrack for my life back then. I can't wait to see where this thread goes and all the pictures and memories it brings up.

PurpleLove7 said:

I think we should as much as the history of certain songs:
I thought about the same thing as u, I think it would be sorta unfair to credit a lot of that music 2 the SOTT era -& band members indirectly SOTT seriously rode the waves of the most creative period of 1986 (in my opinion)

Man can U imagine if he still had the Revolution the extended Revolution, + Madhouse Jill Jones Sheila E&band and Cat with the output that we probably would have gotten


[Edited 4/6/10 12:17pm]

OldFriends4Sale said:

Do you know the final track listings for CB and DF? There was a very recent thread about one of these records, and I posted the final track listing for one or both of them. I bet if you dig around on here, you can find it. Look for "Final configuration" and the name of either album.

ernestsewell said:

Oh right, thanks 4 the reminder I'll put a link and include of post of Dream Factory music that made it 2 SOTT and we can talk about the sott tracks from that connection


[Edited 4/6/10 12:20pm]

Prince

Sign O' The Times

RS: 5of 5 Stars

Play View Prince's page on Rhapsody
It begins as a great book would, with the setting. "In France, a skinny man died of a big disease with a little name." In 1987, when Prince's double-album masterpiece Sign 'O' the Times was released, no one had to be told he was talking about AIDS. The title track syrups on, mentioning crack and nuclear bombs -- painting the Eighties as if Revelations had arrived and no one had realized. The direct political address recalls Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On," but where Gaye was pleading for change, Prince is mournful, desolate and sadly accepting.

But then he's upbeat and dancing, prancing with "Play in the Sunshine," washing away the doomsday reportage with childish glee. If 1999 showed off Prince's funk potential and Purple Rain made him a rock star, then Sign 'O' the Times is his soul assault, with ballads ("Forever in My Life"), midtempos ("I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man") and dance anthems ("Housequake"). After Purple Rain, Prince was moving toward guitar-god status, but here the bass is the star, so sweet it's giving up melodies, so expressive you know it's talking to you in another language, so funky that if you ain't groovin' you might be dead. On "If I Was Your Girlfriend," he ponders aloud, "Would you run to me if somebody hurt you, even if that somebody was me?" -- but, like a true philosopher of love, he never finds the answer and leaves the question for you to run with.

Both discs are heavy with songs about hot sex ("Slow Love," "Hot Thing"), but those songs are outweighed by the towering ballads about love and commitment. "Adore" remains one of the greatest love songs of all time and continues to make women weak and wet with its opening promise: "Until the end of time, I'll be there for you." Even in a world so hopeless, Prince seems to say, love can conquer all.

http://www.rollingstone.c...nothetimes

I remember seeing Sheena Easton's single "Eternity" as a cassette, never bought it, and now I assume it is a collectible?

I would love to blend all of that era's material, SOTT/DF/CB as one, but the released stuff vs. unreleased has too much sound difference so that it jumps from one to the other in volume.

Efan said:

yep. Totally.

cosmicday2010 said:

I got that on 12". Great guitars if I remember correctly.

Now I'm going to have to get home and listen to "If I Was Ur Girlfriend" which has to be a contender for greatest ever Prince track.

"If I was your best friend, would you run to me if somebody hurt you, even if that somebody was me, sometimes I trip on how happy we could be, please!"

Genius.

cosmicday2010 said:

It's only collectible for those few who'd want it. You're not going to see it for $100 on eBay or anything.

Cassette singles aren't made anymore, so that logic would dictate that all cassingles are collectible. Eh. Not so much.

My fav Prince era (Dirty Mind era comes second)

Love the album (best of the late 80s, for sure); the band (Sheila E, his best drummer ever), the european tour, the stage, the SOTT film, EVERYTHING. Prince at his peak, if you ask me...

Everything went "downhill" (sort of) after this era, I mean, despite the Black Album, D&P, Love Symbol Album and TGE, Prince never was as amazing & complete as he was during 1987...
[Edited 4/7/10 9:55am]

BTW, this is how the singles should have been released, in my opinion

1.SOTT (1987)
2.U Got the Look (1987)
3.Adore (Edit) (Late 1987)
4.Hot Thing (Club Charts only) (early 1988)
5.I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man (early 1988)
5.Starfish & Coffee (summer of 1988)
[Edited 4/7/10 10:00am]

This may sound like a dumb question, but is there a picture of the whole stage layout? I need a diagram! All this time, I have absolutely loved the stage design but been slightly confused about how it all was set up.

The stage was cluttered without looking cluttered and it brilliantly captured so many different looks and feels (I adore the neon signs hanging over the stage). Still, I always thought it was amazing how so many people managed to fit in there while playing instruments and dancing around and avoiding Prince while he was all over the stage.

Efan said:

That'd be nice to have.

JoeTyler said:

I agree it was his career peak, I actually believe the peak is the Parade -(Dream Factory)- Sign o the Times period. the reason things seemed to go downhill was because of the missing elements that got us SOTT which was 'the Revolution + the SOTT' people



[Edited 4/7/10 16:03pm]

OldFriends4Sale said:

While I'm at it, is this photo from the cover photoshoot? The other photos clearly show that both the drum kit and Prince's turtleneck were blue. So they were color-corrected afterward to peach and black for the cover? I had no idea.

Not that it's a big deal or anything. But it's little stuff like this that make me really love your threads, OldFriends4Sale.