Okay...Let's play fill-in the blank. All these years high quality bootleggs of Prince's materials from rehersals, video's, music, etc. are being bootlegged.

U tell me who U thank is the PP insider...

Let's play Sherlock Holmes and Watson...let's all keep to the facts to unravel this mystery. On your mark...get set..now go!!!

It was Jesse Johnson with the guitar pick in the Vault!.

You see, Jesse always hated it when people thought that was Prince on the cover of The Time's albums. (you know they look so much alike on those covers). So when Prince wasn't looking one time, he snuck into the vault using his guitar pick to pick the lock and stole all of Prince's unreleased material!

Prince awoke the next morning only to see his vault had been ratted out and let go a mighty scream...

"I'll get you next time Jesse...next time!"

'tis true, I was there!

Toejam is utterly wrong on this one.
It was that sneaky cat, Paisley. I always said never trust no

Incidently, that was what inspired the whole "control dat pussy" song on TGE

keepinitreal said:

Who I thank it is? It's not just one person.

c'mon guy's we all know it's Jamie Starr aka. Camille, aka...

toejam said:

that was some of the funniest shit I ever read!!!

It went like this:


Susannah was layin in the bed. While Prnince was thinking that she was dead asleep from all that good funkin...Susannah looked under the bed and found some mysterious tapes, and cool pictures.

As soon as Prince came back in, she hurried back 2 pretending she was sleeping...

After that, mysteriously, Prince heard fans playin and selling his boots, he blamed her, kicked her out, made Strange Relationship. She ran off and gave copies 2 Wendy & Lisa. And u know Wendy & Lisa was furious after bein fired...so then they just said,"FUCK IT RELEASE THEM ALL!!!"

And the story goes on from there!

keepinitreal said:

I don't know...but I always thought that something fishy was going on,how else could tour rehearsals,and studio outtakes be so easily available?

JimmyNothing said:

Is Paisley still alive,has anybody ever seen him or her...I LOVE CATS!!!

Prince himself??

you guys got it all wrong, it's obviously jerome, he was one of Prince's closest friends.
It went like this:
during the "parade" tour, those two were sharing a dressing room, one day jerome found a shaped key, on it was written "the vault". As soon as they got back to minneapolis, Jerome sneeked into a dark room in paisley park, used the key, and there was tons of tapes just laying around, so jerome, with the help of Lisa and Wendy, took all of the tapes out of the vault, Wendy told Susannah to "distract" Prince. While those two were gettin' busy, Jerome, Lisa, and Wendy took all of the tapes out of the vault. Once Prince had realized what had happened, Jerome, Wendy, Lisa, and his beloved Susanna were long gone.
When The Time reunited in 1990,Prince confronted Jerome, Jerome blamed it all on Wendy and Lisa (this explains why there has never been a reunion between those three) He didn't blame Susanna though, 'cause Sue was his girl.
Jerome still proceeded to take tapes out of the vault.

His motive: he was pissed at Prince 'cause he added Wally and Greg to the act, therefore he was not #1 dancer anymore. Wendy helped 'cause she didn't have a big role in "under the cherry moon" and 'cause Miko had just joined the band.
Lisa helped 'cause Wendy did, and they did evrything toghether. And Sue helped 'cause it gave her an excuse to sleep with Prince, and Prince happens to be very good in bed.

So there'ya have it

rainbowchild said:

chickengrease said:

nope, not directly.

If you really want to know how all the early outtakes began circulating, there's really only one name you need to know.

And that name is John McClain.

And I don't mean that Bruce Willis character in 'Die Hard'...


...How many of y'all are old school enough to know who that is???!!!

-SWANGwannahearfrommyoldskoolMinneapolisfreeks

...by the way, the Jesse Johnson thing ain't far off the mark!!!

-SWANG'sgettinlooseupinyeeeahhh

I know John McClain is but how did he fit into the equation?

rainbowchild said:

that seems doubtful to me.. if he wanted to intentionally leak songs, why are so many poor sound quality?

I (and others) have raised this very question several times before.

I personally believe Prince is/was behind the bootlegging. I reckon he "owns" Sabotage. Why?

1) Because they get soundboard recordings and high quality outtakes.

2) Because Prince has never actually tried to shut them down.

3) Because by doing this Prince was getting his music out AND 'sabotaging' Warner Bros but could claim innocence

I mean you don't just walk into the Vault and take away the tapes. Prince often works alone in the studio so who is taking the tapes then? He works with the same engineers for years, if he thought they were stealing then they would be sacked and even prosecuted (never heard of that ever happening)

Also, has anyone noticed how the bootlegs were MOST prevailant during the mid 90s (when Prince was arguing with WB)
[This message was edited Wed Feb 26 4:38:06 PST 2003 by jaypotton]

We've had this discussion many times before,and I STILL think that Prince is responsible for at least some of this stuff getting out.I think he realizes that,in his lifetime,he may never be able to release all this stuff through normal channels.So he's probably thinking,why not let some of these songs just "leak out" to the fans? He has said himself that,when he was a kid,he collected every James Brown bootleg he could find.So he understands a fan's need to hear this stuff.

In the past, Prince didn't have his own pp studio. So, working in other studio's, there were other people around. People like technicians and others.
Those people had (if they wanted) access to the recordings that were made in that studio. The tapes were there, so with Prince leaving to get diner or something, they could make copies.

Nowadays, with Prince owning the studio he works in, he controls what happens and little to nothing leaks out.
The only way some songs make it to bootlegs (like I am the DJ, and 2020) is because he carries around copies of the songs so DJ's can play them at afterparty's. DJ's are not dumb, so they can easily copy them and get them released.

As far as the soundchecks and live recordings go. Well, concerts are easy: get a ticket, get a recording device...done.
Soundchecks is way more difficult, but not impossible. There are a lot of venue-people ín the venue when Prince is rehearsing. Those people are no saints, they know they can make a nice extra when they record it, so they do.

Anybody's guess, really. I highly doubt this person would be revealed, for obvious reasons.

John McClain?

Any relation?


Who is this guy?

yamomma said:

John McClain is a record exec who worked for A&M Records in the 80s.He worked closely with Janet Jackson and Jesse Johnson back then but as far as I know,he has no direct connection to Prince.

jaypotton said:

I am so with you on this one!

DavidEye said:

Ask Jesse...

-SWANG'snotgoinganyfurtherthanthat