the original 1985 Old Friends 4 Sale, was played on the radio as a promo for Prince's new movie Under the Cherry Moon. They played it regularly for the next years time.

I recorded it everytime I heard it on the radio

a CRAPPY casette dub of "The Black Album".. followed by the "Camille" album... and was confused the significence.. since the only rarity was the opening track...

That song "Others here with us" was my first underground song I owned, someone here on prince.org sentit to my naive ass back in 2006 as a soundwave file or something like that.

.

First boot I heard was a 1992 Show on some bootleg CD, a wrekka stow in Dunedin was selling for $50. I listened to it on the communal headphones posts they had in those days, of course one ear was broken and the boot sounded pretty muddy, it sounded okay But I was hardly going to spend $50 on it.

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I bought some dodgy looking tapes in 1997 off a guying selling them outof a box around his neck, 3 tapes for $7 each, one was songs like Others, Oldfriends 4 sale, Shockadelica and I think Neon telephone was on it, another was the 1985 interview where he was talking about love and water and the last tape was a bad audio copy of the VHS "Purple Rain Live at Syracuse". All I remember was that these cheep ass tapes ripped after a few listens, a total swizz.

.

Not until 2011, when one of my purple fams sent me a nicely made CD set of Dream factory did I really get hard core into boots. I loved it so much and told him, that next year I got sent his maxi drive with a whole tetraabyte of unreleased collections and bootlegs albums and DVDs and I got told to take what I wanted. I hada field day and are still exploring this stuff now.

[Edited 11/1/15 1:55am]

A friend of mine was a collector. I only wanted Purple Rain, so he gave me a cassette with PR and a cassette of the Live Sexy concert. I was hooked ever since and was flooded with boots and outtakes from the get go. Can't remember the first outtake I ever heard, though.

"The Black Album And More" bootleg - basically TBA with a few 85/6 out-takes tagged on the end. Back in 91/2 I think.

thedoorkeeper said:

A cassette of the Black Album. When the album was officially released I found the cassette was slightly faster. Took me quite some time to get used to a slower version after years of hearing the wrong version.

My first was a vinyl Black Album with the same sped up issue. A few weeks later I came across the proper vinyl bootleg and upgraded.

NouveauDance said:

thedoorkeeper said:

TRAIN. I was absolutely addicted to that song.

Wintness! It was 2001 and i was in 8th grade! I found it on Napster! I shit my self when i found it because i thought i knew every prince song at the time!

Mine was a cassette of The Black Album which I bought at a record fair in Edinburgh. I was hyped at finding a copy and loved the "grainy" sound it had, It felt like it was something I shouldn't be listening to.

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After that it was the vinly called "Sex Machine" which IIRC was a SOTT aftershow.

Probably from the alt prince newsgroup back in the day, some of the earlier versions of Gold Experience songs before the album came out. I remember the rough versions sounding a lot better than the ones that ended up on the album, Endorphinmachine in particular he way over produced.

TheDigitalGardener said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

Not sure about first song per se, but I think my first exposure to unreleased Prince music was a album length fan compilation of some unreleased songs called Purple Music that I found a few years ago online. There didn't seem to be any thematic or chronological coordination in terms of tracks picked and I think it was just compiled as a sort of beginner's entry into Prince bootlegs, but I remember being very impressed with the long version of Can I Play With U, both by the track itself (it has its detractors but I've always loved it, maybe because I heard the long version first) and by the mere fact that Prince was doing a song with Miles Davis, that was pretty mind blowing to me in that early stage of my fandom. Oh, and the irrepressible funk of Wonderful Ass made a big impression as well

I'm sorry my filesharing story doesn't have quite the romance of finding a dusty vinyl in a ramshackle shop in a barely-frequented part of town, but there you go, that's the world we live in nowadays

I got a tape of 'Heaven' in early 86. That was my first. Then the parade outtakes leaked a few months later. Within a few months, the vinyl boots market took off with Charade, Rotterdam Live, Wembley live, Chocolate Box and Crystal Ball.

A custom tape that I bought from Record Time in Roseville. Side A had the Black Album, Side B had "Intimate Moments" - the '82 Piano Rehearsal Tape. Tacked onto the end of that was "Around The World In A Day #1" and "Baby You're A Trip (Prince vocal). None of this was good quality, but I loved it just the same.

lwr001 said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

the original 1985 Old Friends 4 Sale, was played on the radio as a promo for Prince's new movie Under the Cherry Moon. They played it regularly for the next years time.

I recorded it everytime I heard it on the radio

The same old friends shitty cassette shit sound but couldn't have been more happy to have. Was the holy grail. 1987 [Edited 11/1/15 10:32am]

lol I always kept a Maxwell GOLD tape for Prince songs

But they had this playing on the radio and it sound really good

I should call up that station and see if they can find the 'Promo' album

I first heard it late 85 early 86

The Black album on cassette probably 10th generation..

black album on vinile 1988

G-Spot Prince's version.

The Black album was the next.
I was in a store in the City, and I heard this music that sounded like something Prince would do.
I was so distracted by this music that I was just wandering around the store listening.
Then the store owner announce "you are listening to the infamous Black album by Prince"

and all my senses went off the charts

I stayed until he was finished playing it. Then I contact a friend who I knew, knew the owner.
I bought a couple Maxwell tapes after he contacted the guy, and he made us some copies

1987 was a nice year

Charade the album on cassette. 1988 first time hearing it. My first unreleased Prince experience.

First "The Black Album", but when I found it in 1988 it was more a "shadow album" than an "unreleased one", if you understand what I mean.

You know, something "it exist and searchin' well around you could find it".

In that sense, my first unreleased Prince songs were the 10 tracks making up the LP "Chocolate Box", with "Joy In Rempatition" ( ) as the preferred one.

This was my real entry in the wonderful world of Prince unreleased vault.