TrevorAyer said:

There is no doubt shiela leeds and bliss are outstanding ... Still when fink comes in with a keyboard solo with the lovesexy band .. I get chills .. It sounds like prince again ... . A fair comparison would be small club vs the birthday gig with rev ... Both are one off shows with rarities and jamming rearrangements .. The fact is the birthday show wipes the floor with small club . The notion that rev could not improvis is nuts and likely fueled by ego and not fact. . Fact is most of prince grooves came from improv jams with the rev . P just had the tape rolling while it happened .. Either that jam became the final record with overdubs, and the full jam being the extended mix that was eventually edited down to single length .. Or p mimicked what took place in those jams but recorded the parts himself . Bottom line is lovesexy band was a great band but was never as good as rev I would gladly listen to wendy or lisa singing over bonnies flem screams ... And with the rev the jams go somewhere .. P's other band jams just go nowhere .. Very monotonous and lacking any real melody or hook

No love for Levi and Miko?

paulludvig said:

TrevorAyer said:

There is no doubt shiela leeds and bliss are outstanding ... Still when fink comes in with a keyboard solo with the lovesexy band .. I get chills .. It sounds like prince again ... . A fair comparison would be small club vs the birthday gig with rev ... Both are one off shows with rarities and jamming rearrangements .. The fact is the birthday show wipes the floor with small club . The notion that rev could not improvis is nuts and likely fueled by ego and not fact. . Fact is most of prince grooves came from improv jams with the rev . P just had the tape rolling while it happened .. Either that jam became the final record with overdubs, and the full jam being the extended mix that was eventually edited down to single length .. Or p mimicked what took place in those jams but recorded the parts himself . Bottom line is lovesexy band was a great band but was never as good as rev I would gladly listen to wendy or lisa singing over bonnies flem screams ... And with the rev the jams go somewhere .. P's other band jams just go nowhere .. Very monotonous and lacking any real melody or hook

No love for Levi and Miko?

I think a lot of focus during the 1987-88 yrs were on Prince + Cat + Eric + Sheila E

I think Atlanta Bliss trumpet sound really did a lot for certain songs, more than Eric's sax. But Atlanta is hardly spotlighted among fans.
I think Miko really stood out on the Glamorous Life shows, more than he did during 1987-1988(outside of his swirl patterned outfits) I wonder why he didn't make Miko a full(VISUAL) member of the Family

And after seeing some Madhouse performances and definately the Madhouse video, Levi always stood out there. Madhouse had a very interesting niche that could have been very good if it had a permanent band from the beginning. Seems like Eric had 2-3 other musicians at 2 diff times to add to the band but they kept backing out.

OldFriends4Sale said:

paulludvig said:

No love for Levi and Miko?

I think a lot of focus during the 1987-88 yrs were on Prince + Cat + Eric + Sheila E

I think Atlanta Bliss trumpet sound really did a lot for certain songs, more than Eric's sax. But Atlanta is hardly spotlighted among fans.
I think Miko really stood out on the Glamorous Life shows, more than he did during 1987-1988(outside of his swirl patterned outfits) I wonder why he didn't make Miko a full(VISUAL) member of the Family

And after seeing some Madhouse performances and definately the Madhouse video, Levi always stood out there. Madhouse had a very interesting niche that could have been very good if it had a permanent band from the beginning. Seems like Eric had 2-3 other musicians at 2 diff times to add to the band but they kept backing out.

My guess was always that Miko was an afterthough, as in "oh, crap, we got no guitar player in the band, who's gonna be credited for guitar on the record and be onstage with the band?". He gets credits for guitar on the booklet but not as an offcial bandmember, I would assume had there been a second album that he'd have been made an official member. That's all pure speculation though, but I don't see what else could explain it.

OldFriends4Sale said:

databank said:

I was talking about their creative input, of any kind: live, studio, impro, arrangements, the band's sound.

.

Gayle makes folk/country music.

André was into new wave and now seems to be into rock.

Dez was into hard rock and new wave as well, later did christian rock.

Bobby's album was virtually a Bryan Ferry album.

Fink's first solo album was a Beatles tribute, then some atmospheric keyboard records.

Wendy & Lisa made pop records, then moved to a rock and soundtracks.

The only pre-1985 Revolution member who released proper R&B/funk was Mark.

I think that says it all!

.

On the other hand most -not all but a vast majority- of the bandmembers that came aboard after the release of PR, to this day, had/have a funk/jazz/R&B background and, for those who released solo albums or were involved in other bands, it was mostly R&B or jazz stuff.

Cool.

I still don't understand how that translates 2 POP. I mean, the 1978-1986 band members did Prince's music, they didn't do their albums till afterward. When they did Head it was Head, it wasn't washed down, it wasn't 'pop' When they did Got a Broken Heart Again or International Lover or Let's Work, they didn't do 'pop' they did that sound. I agree. They definitely could jam and do the James Brown stuff. What I meant was that maybe it came less naturally to them than to later contributors, and that their contribs to arrangements or compositions where there was some was more pop and rock than R&B, and that they were (more or less successfully) trying to pull Prince in that direction, if only by exposing to the stuff they were listening to.

But one thing for sure, that 1983-1986 period we see a wide variety of sounds musical genre and instrumentation that came into 'purple music' the sax the timbales percussions finger cymbals oud violins violas accordians flutes steele drums harps etc

We need that shit on soundboard, though! DAMN YES WE DO!!!!

It is frustrating at times, even though I'm totally enjoying this conversation, that most people don't know what we are talking about. All the live shows (most of his best live shows are the ones he doesn't consider 'perfect'. All the unreleased music, the discontinued protege albums(the best were the 80s of course) the aftershows and birthday shows and award show performances, videos etc

Sad that we cannot upload a snippet of what we are talking about on PRINCE.ORG lol especially the released stuff and videos...c'est la vie I really wish I could sit with Prince and ask him what prevents him from releasing all those archives, or why he doesn't wish to. He must have good reasons whether we agree or not, but he never really explained it and journalists seem to avoid the topic.

paulludvig said:

TrevorAyer said:

paulludvig said:

No love for Levi and Miko?

To me they both come off as high end studio musicians and not essential contibutors with any unique voice

Levi, 2 me, never had a stage presence that fit well in Prince's band. Even in Sheila E's band he did not always... Benny did. But when I saw Levi with Madhouse he stood out to me...

OldFriends4Sale said:

TrevorAyer said:

paulludvig said: To me they both come off as high end studio musicians and not essential contibutors with any unique voice

Levi, 2 me, never had a stage presence that fit well in Prince's band. Even in Sheila E's band he did not always... Benny did. But when I saw Levi with Madhouse he stood out to me...

Levi really blew my mind when he became the guitarist. I dig his George Benson-like thing

callimnate said: