UPTOWN Magazine was amazing. The Vault, etc. are still considered to be the Prince bible. Controversy was great for a while, but I think that Prince took it over and it went downhill fast. My other favorite was Prince Family Newletter. Seriously, that was incredible to have if you were a fan. It was every article out there about Prince, etc. Great times. I'd also say that 7 Magazine (from Australia) was worth reading. There were a lot of bad ones (Purple Underground for example) but the fan mags that made a difference really made that period great. If you combine that with the music that was available (both released and the glut of bootlegs) it was a great time to be a Prince fan.

there was also a 900 number like PRN-1999 it had a recording of news...

OnlyNDaUsa said:

SoulAlive said:

I used to read Uptown....Controversy.....and various other Prince fanzines.Remember this one called Prince Thang? I even had a few issues of that.

haha i had those too! I had a really bad poem in one of them! In fact I had sent it to Eileen Murton but she sent it back with a lovely note... i need to see if i still have the note.

Thats really cool and also somewhat funny.

BigChick said:

OnlyNDaUsa said:

haha i had those too! I had a really bad poem in one of them! In fact I had sent it to Eileen Murton but she sent it back with a lovely note... i need to see if i still have the note.

Thats really cool and also somewhat funny.

lol yeah it is

madhouseman said:

UPTOWN Magazine was amazing. The Vault, etc. are still considered to be the Prince bible. Controversy was great for a while, but I think that Prince took it over and it went downhill fast. My other favorite was Prince Family Newletter. Seriously, that was incredible to have if you were a fan. It was every article out there about Prince, etc. Great times. I'd also say that 7 Magazine (from Australia) was worth reading. There were a lot of bad ones (Purple Underground for example) but the fan mags that made a difference really made that period great. If you combine that with the music that was available (both released and the glut of bootlegs) it was a great time to be a Prince fan.

I agree.Those fanzines made it alot of fun to be a Prince fan.This was before the Internet and in many cases,those fanzines were the only way to get constant news on Prince and his associates.

This turned into a really great thread, with some nice stories and memories I'm gonna have to double down and root around my boxes of memorabilia this weekend to see which mags I can put my hands on cuz now I'm super curious to see them again.

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I'm totally gonna keep an eye out for that poem OnlyNDaUSA submitted to Controversy mag.

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SoulAlive said:

Prince Thang was a pretty good fanzine,huh? The first issue I got was in the fall of 1991,just right before the Diamonds And Pearls album was released.So there was alot of cool info about the album.I also recall an excellent analysis of the song "Old Friends 4 Sale".Gonna have to look thru all the boxes in my garage and pull these issues out

Bluu said:

I was just searching online for issues of Prince Thang (PT) about a week ago... Was this the fanzine started by Tracy Stokes? It was actually through Controversy or Uptown magazine that I initially met Tracy as she was listed as an area organizer in Philadelphia. IF PT was her project, I think it only had about four issues before she had to stop work on it for reasons I can't remember. Maybe I'm tripping, but swear I wrote a small piece of commentary on Prince's writing for Sheila E., and submitted it for issue #3 or #4, which is why I'm looking for them (my original copy is probably semi-lost in storage).

Regrettably, when searching for PT last week, I found a 2011 obit for Tracy Stokes, hoping beyond hope it was another woman of the same name in Philadelphia, but the photo looked like it maybe could have been the lovely and generous Tracy I met back in the 90s. Last time I saw her was around...late 90's so I may not recognize her properly now. We ran into each other as we were preparing to camp out all night for tickets to see Prince (the Academy of Music I think it was?). There is a Twitter follower of the same name currently following 3EG so I really do hope I'm wrong (and that I've not alarmed her or anyone who knows her with this message!).

SoulAlive said:

SoulAlive said:

OMG ya'll made me pull out my Uptown magazines and this one was on the top with the head title--"I've Got two Sides And They're Both Friends!" How about that gun under the trousers?!

purplethunder3121 said:

purplethunder3121 said:

OMG ya'll made me pull out my Uptown magazines and this one was on the top with the head title--"I've Got two Sides And They're Both Friends!" How about that gun under the trousers?!

I saw him in Phonex 97 (the first concert) and I was against the bar front row... and when he came out he must have been talking to Myte becase he was... I will say this that gun mic... not as lengthy.

MinorG said:

Does anyone know anything about a fanzine called the Truth? It came out in 1998 and had extremely high production values. It was very new age-spiritual, taking heavy cues from Prince interests at the time, ie egyptology, reincarnation etc. I subscribed and only received 2 issues but no refund. Still salty about that. Does anyone know what happened or who was behind it?

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Alledgedly the work of Chris Dawson, and of course a massive rip-off ensued when it became part of the official theme.

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It was also shite beyond words.

BartVanHemelen said:

jaypotton said:

Whatever happened to Eileen Murton? What she did with Controversy magazine and the club was amazing (pre-internet age kids). Such a wealth of information.

Does anyone (in the UK) also remember the Crystal Ball magazine by Chris Dawson? Wonder what happened to him?

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Both of them met Prince, both of them quit being a fan afterwards.

On the threads you link to, it seems Eileen Murton was still around as a fan for the Gold tour so maybe she didn't "quit being a fan" as soon as you said she did.

Aerogram said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

Both of them met Prince, both of them quit being a fan afterwards.

On the threads you link to, it seems Eileen Murton was still around as a fan for the Gold tour so maybe she didn't "quit being a fan" as soon as you said she did.

Come on now, Bart is always right

PrOnce Thang

Guitarhero said:

Aerogram said:

On the threads you link to, it seems Eileen Murton was still around as a fan for the Gold tour so maybe she didn't "quit being a fan" as soon as you said she did.

Come on now, Bart is always right

Maybe he knows the woman personally, it's just that I see people on the threads he quotes that say they met her again during the Gold tour so it looks like Mrs. Murton wasn't mad enough to stay away completely.

Aerogram said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

Both of them met Prince, both of them quit being a fan afterwards.

On the threads you link to, it seems Eileen Murton was still around as a fan for the Gold tour so maybe she didn't "quit being a fan" as soon as you said she did.

.

Fine, whatever. If that comforts you.

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These were people who spent extraordinary amounts of time and effort into this, and then one day they just stopped doing so. Which BTW is more or less the same story of numerous people who ran Prince fanclubs: they were doing great work, then Prince got involved and they ceased doing so.

.

But you focus on Eileen going to a Gold Tour gig. Ghee, I wonder why.

Bart is correct in this case. I'm sure Eileen carried on being a fan of Prince the musician BUT, when Controversy folded, she definitely issued a covering note (or maybe it was even in the editorial) explaining her disillusionment with Prince (the person) and his organisation.

I seem to recall reading between the lines and guessing from the subsequent (but short lived) release of the New Power Generation magazine, it was over the "control" of the Controversy official fan club magazine.

BartVanHemelen said:

KeithyT said:

Bart is correct in this case. I'm sure Eileen carried on being a fan of Prince the musician BUT, when Controversy folded, she definitely issued a covering note (or maybe it was even in the editorial) explaining her disillusionment with Prince (the person) and his organisation.

I seem to recall reading between the lines and guessing from the subsequent (but short lived) release of the New Power Generation magazine, it was over the "control" of the Controversy official fan club magazine.

He authoritatively stated that she stopped being a fan right after the meeting so he doesn't appear to be correct. Just because someone says something with a lot of conviction with no trace of doubt doesn't make it correct.

BartVanHemelen said:

Aerogram said:

On the threads you link to, it seems Eileen Murton was still around as a fan for the Gold tour so maybe she didn't "quit being a fan" as soon as you said she did.

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Fine, whatever. If that comforts you.

.

These were people who spent extraordinary amounts of time and effort into this, and then one day they just stopped doing so. Which BTW is more or less the same story of numerous people who ran Prince fanclubs: they were doing great work, then Prince got involved and they ceased doing so.

.

But you focus on Eileen going to a Gold Tour gig. Ghee, I wonder why.

I'm not "focusing" on her, I just was curious to find out what happened. You provided a bunch of links and while reading one of the threads, it turned out she had not stopped being a fan as soon as you said she did.

A mature answer would be "Oh right, I forgot she still attended some concerts but trust me she hated the man with a passion after Controversy" to you which I would probably have replied "You're the expert on that so good enough."

I didn't bite for the whole Fansite Wars Saga because this thread is about Controversy and you've discussed the whole bitter experience often enough over the years thanks very much.

Aerogram said:

KeithyT said:

Bart is correct in this case. I'm sure Eileen carried on being a fan of Prince the musician BUT, when Controversy folded, she definitely issued a covering note (or maybe it was even in the editorial) explaining her disillusionment with Prince (the person) and his organisation.

I seem to recall reading between the lines and guessing from the subsequent (but short lived) release of the New Power Generation magazine, it was over the "control" of the Controversy official fan club magazine.

He authoritatively stated that she stopped being a fan right after the meeting so he doesn't appear to be correct. Just because someone says something with a lot of conviction with no trace of doubt doesn't make it correct.

Come on Aero that's semantics and you know it we all know to take Bart with a pinch of salt but he wrote afterwards that's all not "immediately" or "right after"

There was definitely some kind of disagreement and subsequent disillusionment about the official fan magazine at that point

jdcxc said:

BartVanHemelen said:

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Fine, whatever. If that comforts you.

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These were people who spent extraordinary amounts of time and effort into this, and then one day they just stopped doing so. Which BTW is more or less the same story of numerous people who ran Prince fanclubs: they were doing great work, then Prince got involved and they ceased doing so.

.

But you focus on Eileen going to a Gold Tour gig. Ghee, I wonder why.

What a surprise, your analysis has no pretense of objectivity. Without investigating all sides to the issue, including talking to Prince or his "camp", I don't know how you can jump to the conclusion that P is the bad guy in this supposed fallout. I could easily see a scenario where the "fanclub" over stepped their boundaries. Or they shut down because it was simply not financially feasible. But you automatically go to the "everything Prince evil" mantra.

.

Yes, it's pure coincidence that the same thing happened over and over again: people run Prince fan club/fan mag/fan site, Prince gets involved, fan club/fan mag/fan site shuts down in disgust. Pure coincidence. No pattern there. None at all. Don't believe what the people involved say, no, we must hold judgement until Prince and his cronies spread their lies and then we'll just put it down to "he said she said" and we'll give the benefit of the doubt to Prince because he's just a swell bloke who never ripped off anyone and who doesn't have a long history of burned bridges. Funny how you need to make up shit to defend Prince, whereas in reality there's plenty of evidence about what has happened and none of it comes close to your imagined bullshit.

agarze said:

Definitely, the close-down of Controversy was forced by the Prince camp in order to open the way for the NPG Magazine, a very short-lived and overall uninteresting project (bar some nice pictures inside).

The NPG magazine was a joke.I was so disappointed when I finally received my issues.

I recall that the first issue featured a "review" of the "Most Beautiful Girl In The World" EP.The writer gushed over the remixes and then said "after hearing this,I now know what the true meaning of beauty is" (or something really ridiculous like that,lol).

SoulAlive said:

I was an avid reader of Controversy, and I remember it being sold at Tower Records in Glasgow too.

The only correspondence I ever had with Eileen was when I had contacted my 'regional co-ordinator' for the tape bootleg trading and was frustrated at getting no reply. I sent a snotty note and got an equally indignant reply, before Eileen stepped in as mediator and wrote me a level headed letter to ask that we both got along.

At the time, realising there were songs I hadn't heard and that I could get a tape of them was just mindblowing - I was a very impatient teenager so I think I didn, with hindsight, go a bit overboard. I might even have called her incompetent. That probably tipped her over the edge.