Purple Rain is a little too forgiving of the Kid and Apolonia is annoyingly passive but I do think that the overall arc was what they described in that conference. The problem is that the writing wasn't strong enough to really make that arc totally convincing.

Juxtaposing the Kid's behavior with his dad's behavior (which in turn was upsetting to the Kid) obviously that is what they were going for. Unfortunately, there isn't enough time on the KId's redemption.

Militant said:

purplerabbithole said:

Apparently, one of the conference discussions was about whether Prince was a misogynist or a feminist. And the speaker contended that he was too complicated to be either. I agree for the most point except of the use of the word misogynist (that word is thrown around too loosely. Even Prince at his most sexist was never a woman hater.)

So I don't think I was at the specific talk you're referring to, but in the talks that focused on his movies, the question came up as to whether it's difficult to show Purple Rain to younger people now because of the sexist aspects - ie The Kid slapping Apollonia, Morris throwing the girl in the dumpster, The Kid co-ercing Apples to strip off and jump in the water, etc.

Of course, it was countered that the overall arc has The Kid struggling with perpetuating the cycle of abuse that his parents are in, and ultimately breaking away from it and finding redemption.

Question-- An article I just read about fans coming thousands of miles to see this conference stated that Dez implied that he was a better guitar player than Prince and that he kept talking about Prince's ego. Did you get that impression???? Or was he just kind of kidding around? The article also said that Dez said that Prince was creeped out by groupies and that there was a lot less sex tha people imagine.

Another subject...I really like that they said that Christopher was more Prince than the KID was. The kid was a misogynist at times. Christopher was not. I imagine however that Prince was a little bit of both. One could argue that the Kid and CHristopher were flip sides of his gemini personality.

Militant said:

So I put a bunch of photos up at The Violet Reality fb page if you guys are interested.

It was an absolutely fantastic three days. I'm going to do a full video review for YouTube over the next week which I'll post here but I just wanted to share some quick highlights :

- Dez's keynote speech was amazing, enlightening, and hilarious! He shared stories of his audition with Prince and Andre, and noted that recently he heard "the other side of the story" from Andre regarding the discussions Andre and P had after Dez left his audition. He noted that at the end of the audition, Prince asked him several very deep questions about life and he instantly felt P was wise beyond his years. He also talked about Prince had asked him for a 3 year commitment in 1983 and he just felt so exhausted with everything by that point that he felt he couldn't do it. What's interesting to me is that Prince had talked about this "3 year commitment" back in 1983 - as we know, P broke up The Rev in 86, which raises an interesting question as to whether that was always the plan, for The Revolution to only last 3 years. He briefly played guitar licks including the Little Red Corvette solo, I wanted more guitar though!


- As far as the talks, most were phenomenal, some veered too much towards academia, but for the most part were brilliant. I particularly enjoyed the talk about Prince as a transcendent poet, the talk/discussion about "Under The Cherry Moon" being Prince's "most authentic self", ie, the idea that Christopher Tracy is more representative of Prince's personality than The Kid was, and the idea that the main reason UTCM was a commercial flop was because people wanted more of The Kid, and weren't prepared for a character like Christopher Tracy to be coming from Prince. There was a great talk focused solely on "The War" and how the storyline portrayed in it "Microchip in your neck" etc compares and contrasts with other concepts of Afro-futurism like P-Funk concepts, etc.
My friend Sam Coley from Birmingham City University did a talk about online fan communities, where he mentioned things like the org, Peach & Black Podcast, and some folks called The Violet Reality - and another friend, Simon Barber also from BCU did a fantastic talk about his experiences attending the Celebration last month.


- Other great talks discussed Prince's love/hate relationship with the internet, Prince's spiritual journey, and a talk about humour and sexuality that focused on songs like "International Lover", and a talk by my friend Chris Aguilar-Garcia (aka madartista) talking about Prince and his "Revolutionary Queerness" which was fascinating!


Unfortunately due to the way the conference was structured, lots of talks happened simultaneously so I'm sure there were several fantastic talks that I missed, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.


- After the final set of talks, we were ushed to the Digital Performance Lab, and we had a Skype Q&A with none other than Prince's cousin Chazz Smith who was incredible! He is so proud and passionate about growing up with Prince and watching his ascent to fame and I'm so glad I got to ask him a question - I asked him to share stories about how Prince and Andre grew up idolizing Sonny Thompson as I'm always fascinated by that story and how Sonny ended up being in Prince's band years later, and is perhaps the singular example of someone that Prince grew up idolizing actually being in Prince's band (You could argue Larry as well, but he was never really a permanent bandmember) - Chazz lit up when I asked this question, and he said that he, Prince and Andre used to go over to Sonny's house and stand outside his window listening to him play, and would be blown away at his ability, not just on one instrument but several, which was massively inspirational to P and Andre.


This was followed by a live performance and party with a band jamming on loads of different Prince songs. I headed home at this point, it had been a long few days! Just as amazing as the talks, was the chance to connect with so many Prince fans, and people who actually critically and intellectually study his work. It was truly amazing and I really want to thank Dr Kirsty Fairclough, Dr Mike Alleyne, Dez, Hayley Drinkall, Prof Sarah Niblock, Ken Paulson, and Tim France for putting the event together, as well as all staff, speakers and attendees. Particularly given Monday's events in Manchester, and the very real possibility immediately after th event might not even be able to proceed, I'm sure they had one of the most stressful weeks of all their lives, but it all came off without a hitch (save a couple of technical issues here and there )

A truly, truly fantastic few days.

[Edited 5/27/17 8:20am]

Just for the benefit of some american folks, Salford is NOT a village outside Manchester (rather it's like St Paul is to Minneapolis). Manchester is NOT a village somewhere north of London. We DO use computers in England and we do NOT all live in castles!

Village just means town. Towns vary in sizes. I used to live in a 'town' of 250,000 people in the US. No one thought you lived in castles or without modern technology.

fortuneandserendipity said:

Just for the benefit of some american folks, Salford is NOT a village outside Manchester (rather it's like St Paul is to Minneapolis). Manchester is NOT a village somewhere north of London. We DO use computers in England and we do NOT all live in castles!

purplerabbithole said:

Village just means town. Towns vary in sizes. I used to live in a 'town' of 250,000 people in the US. No one thought you lived in castles or without modern technology.

fortuneandserendipity said:

Just for the benefit of some american folks, Salford is NOT a village outside Manchester (rather it's like St Paul is to Minneapolis). Manchester is NOT a village somewhere north of London. We DO use computers in England and we do NOT all live in castles!

Never thought i'd hear Salford described as a village lol

Sounds like an interesting conference, with work commitments I could not make it, amazing how many presentations there were around the world of Prince.

[Edited 5/27/17 9:54am]

purplerabbithole said:

Question-- An article I just read about fans coming thousands of miles to see this conference stated that Dez implied that he was a better guitar player than Prince and that he kept talking about Prince's ego. Did you get that impression???? Or was he just kind of kidding around? The article also said that Dez said that Prince was creeped out by groupies and that there was a lot less sex tha people imagine.

Another subject...I really like that they said that Christopher was more Prince than the KID was. The kid was a misogynist at times. Christopher was not. I imagine however that Prince was a little bit of both. One could argue that the Kid and CHristopher were flip sides of his gemini personality.

Militant said:

So I put a bunch of photos up at The Violet Reality fb page if you guys are interested.

It was an absolutely fantastic three days. I'm going to do a full video review for YouTube over the next week which I'll post here but I just wanted to share some quick highlights :

- Dez's keynote speech was amazing, enlightening, and hilarious! He shared stories of his audition with Prince and Andre, and noted that recently he heard "the other side of the story" from Andre regarding the discussions Andre and P had after Dez left his audition. He noted that at the end of the audition, Prince asked him several very deep questions about life and he instantly felt P was wise beyond his years. He also talked about Prince had asked him for a 3 year commitment in 1983 and he just felt so exhausted with everything by that point that he felt he couldn't do it. What's interesting to me is that Prince had talked about this "3 year commitment" back in 1983 - as we know, P broke up The Rev in 86, which raises an interesting question as to whether that was always the plan, for The Revolution to only last 3 years. He briefly played guitar licks including the Little Red Corvette solo, I wanted more guitar though!


- As far as the talks, most were phenomenal, some veered too much towards academia, but for the most part were brilliant. I particularly enjoyed the talk about Prince as a transcendent poet, the talk/discussion about "Under The Cherry Moon" being Prince's "most authentic self", ie, the idea that Christopher Tracy is more representative of Prince's personality than The Kid was, and the idea that the main reason UTCM was a commercial flop was because people wanted more of The Kid, and weren't prepared for a character like Christopher Tracy to be coming from Prince. There was a great talk focused solely on "The War" and how the storyline portrayed in it "Microchip in your neck" etc compares and contrasts with other concepts of Afro-futurism like P-Funk concepts, etc.
My friend Sam Coley from Birmingham City University did a talk about online fan communities, where he mentioned things like the org, Peach & Black Podcast, and some folks called The Violet Reality - and another friend, Simon Barber also from BCU did a fantastic talk about his experiences attending the Celebration last month.


- Other great talks discussed Prince's love/hate relationship with the internet, Prince's spiritual journey, and a talk about humour and sexuality that focused on songs like "International Lover", and a talk by my friend Chris Aguilar-Garcia (aka madartista) talking about Prince and his "Revolutionary Queerness" which was fascinating!


Unfortunately due to the way the conference was structured, lots of talks happened simultaneously so I'm sure there were several fantastic talks that I missed, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.


- After the final set of talks, we were ushed to the Digital Performance Lab, and we had a Skype Q&A with none other than Prince's cousin Chazz Smith who was incredible! He is so proud and passionate about growing up with Prince and watching his ascent to fame and I'm so glad I got to ask him a question - I asked him to share stories about how Prince and Andre grew up idolizing Sonny Thompson as I'm always fascinated by that story and how Sonny ended up being in Prince's band years later, and is perhaps the singular example of someone that Prince grew up idolizing actually being in Prince's band (You could argue Larry as well, but he was never really a permanent bandmember) - Chazz lit up when I asked this question, and he said that he, Prince and Andre used to go over to Sonny's house and stand outside his window listening to him play, and would be blown away at his ability, not just on one instrument but several, which was massively inspirational to P and Andre.


This was followed by a live performance and party with a band jamming on loads of different Prince songs. I headed home at this point, it had been a long few days! Just as amazing as the talks, was the chance to connect with so many Prince fans, and people who actually critically and intellectually study his work. It was truly amazing and I really want to thank Dr Kirsty Fairclough, Dr Mike Alleyne, Dez, Hayley Drinkall, Prof Sarah Niblock, Ken Paulson, and Tim France for putting the event together, as well as all staff, speakers and attendees. Particularly given Monday's events in Manchester, and the very real possibility immediately after th event might not even be able to proceed, I'm sure they had one of the most stressful weeks of all their lives, but it all came off without a hitch (save a couple of technical issues here and there )

A truly, truly fantastic few days.

[Edited 5/27/17 8:20am]

Hey, that's me in that picture showing someone my Welcome 2 Europe tshirt!

It was a truly amazing event, I got much more out of it than expected. The theories and ideas that people draw from his work is truly fascinating and insightful. My firned worked on the event and I kept telling her how well it went and how pleased the attendees were, even though there were a few technical glitches here and there, I think we all got a lot out of it.

The last-minute Skype with Chazz was the perfect way to end the event. I spotted his name on an earlier skype session so had a feeling he was gonna pop up. It ended the event on a high and the house-band were pretty funky too!

\There were some VERY interesting comments from fans... Lovesexy Pt.2, the JW/Bria Valente situation... can't wait for some of the books to come out!!!

[Edited 5/27/17 12:26pm]

rlittler81 said:

purplerabbithole said:

rlittler81 said:

Hey, that's me in that picture showing someone my Welcome 2 Europe tshirt!

It was a truly amazing event, I got much more out of it than expected. The theories and ideas that people draw from his work is truly fascinating and insightful. My firned worked on the event and I kept telling her how well it went and how pleased the attendees were, even though there were a few technical glitches here and there, I think we all got a lot out of it.

The last-minute Skype with Chazz was the perfect way to end the event. I spotted his name on an earlier skype session so had a feeling he was gonna pop up. It ended the event on a high and the house-band were pretty funky too!

\There were some VERY interesting comments from fans... Lovesexy Pt.2, the JW/Bria Valente situation... can't wait for some of the books to come out!!!

[Edited 5/27/17 12:26pm]

JW/Bria Valente situation?

That she ended the relationship as Prince wasn't as commited to JW as much as she was.

antonb said:

ha so funny when you know the presenters no fuck all about Prince. A quick run through google to find some questions

I was one of the presenters and can assure you that the people who presented are hard core Prince fans. Like since the Dirty Mind tour, have a 1987 copy of The Black Album on vinyl, stuck with him through the SLAVE years, know the lyrics from an obsure outtake kind of fans. You're not going to spend the time to think about a proposal, write it, and travel all the way to Manchester (there were people from as far away as New Zealand, California, New Mexico), and pay for it all yourself (unless you are a professor with a travel stipend) if you don't LOVE Prince. I talked to one of the organizers who specifically told me they were hoping that "non-academic" people would submit papers; they wanted fans.
.

Also, as Militant pointed out, it's clear that many of you posting on this thread don't understand the purpose of academic conferences. It's to examine a topic through a variety of different perspectives and perhaps come to new ideas. I saw the talk by NuPwrSoul (at least I think I figured out who that is based on the info on this thread) and it was absolutely amazing; like nearly brought me to tears because it showed what a badass Prince was.

It is up to us, the fans, to keep Prince's legacy alive and to make sure that future generations realize Prince's impact. And he impacted far more than "just" music. That's why academic conferences like this are important.

There's another conference sponsored by the University of Minnesota taking place next April -- I'll expect all the people posting on this thread about how this confrence was full of people who really don't know that much about Prince just regurgitating facts to submit a proposal and have it accepted.

rlittler81 said:

purplerabbithole said:

rlittler81 said: JW/Bria Valente situation?

That she ended the relationship as Prince wasn't as commited to JW as much as she was.

ItsOnlyMountains said:

antonb said:

ha so funny when you know the presenters no fuck all about Prince. A quick run through google to find some questions

I was one of the presenters and can assure you that the people who presented are hard core Prince fans. Like since the Dirty Mind tour, have a 1987 copy of The Black Album on vinyl, stuck with him through the SLAVE years, know the lyrics from an obsure outtake kind of fans. You're not going to spend the time to think about a proposal, write it, and travel all the way to Manchester (there were people from as far away as New Zealand, California, New Mexico), and pay for it all yourself (unless you are a professor with a travel stipend) if you don't LOVE Prince. I talked to one of the organizers who specifically told me they were hoping that "non-academic" people would submit papers; they wanted fans.
.

Also, as Militant pointed out, it's clear that many of you posting on this thread don't understand the purpose of academic conferences. It's to examine a topic through a variety of different perspectives and perhaps come to new ideas. I saw the talk by NuPwrSoul (at least I think I figured out who that is based on the info on this thread) and it was absolutely amazing; like nearly brought me to tears because it showed what a badass Prince was.

It is up to us, the fans, to keep Prince's legacy alive and to make sure that future generations realize Prince's impact. And he impacted far more than "just" music. That's why academic conferences like this are important.

There's another conference sponsored by the University of Minnesota taking place next April -- I'll expect all the people posting on this thread about how this confrence was full of people who really don't know that much about Prince just regurgitating facts to submit a proposal and have it accepted.

purplethunder3121 said:

rlittler81 said:

That she ended the relationship as Prince wasn't as commited to JW as much as she was.

Indeed, I thought that was fascinating as well.

Context: The comment came from the lady who gave the talk on sexuality and humor. She mentioned that a fellow academic was researching Jehovah's Witnesses (her research didn't directly involve Prince), and during her research had talked to Bria Valente, and Bria had directly stated that that's why the relationship ended.

That was absolutely fascinating.

purplerabbithole said:

Question-- An article I just read about fans coming thousands of miles to see this conference stated that Dez implied that he was a better guitar player than Prince and that he kept talking about Prince's ego. Did you get that impression???? Or was he just kind of kidding around? The article also said that Dez said that Prince was creeped out by groupies and that there was a lot less sex tha people imagine.

Another subject...I really like that they said that Christopher was more Prince than the KID was. The kid was a misogynist at times. Christopher was not. I imagine however that Prince was a little bit of both. One could argue that the Kid and CHristopher were flip sides of his gemini personality.

Dez didn't imply it, he stated it as a fact - but did acknowledge it was a controversial statement. However, I think it's important to acknowledge that he was talking about the time he was in the band, and clearly Prince's guitar ability just a few years after that was far more well-rounded than anything we've ever heard from Dez.

I mean, Prince obviously felt Dez was at least as good a guitarist as him otherwise he wouldn't have had him in the band in the first place, or let him play the LRC solo, etc.

The references to Prince's ego were in a positive sense - Dez referenced his own ego several times as well, and the gist was that you need to have an ego to get anywhere in the music business.

And yes, the sex/groupies question was the final question asked to Dez (after mine, when I asked him if people in The Time such as Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis had any animosity towards Dez since Dez was getting to write songs for The Time like After Hi School, Wild & Loose, and the bandmembers themselves weren't getting the opportunity to contribute)

Dez did indeed say there was less "groupie love" going on that people thought because most of the groupies were pretty scary.

Militant said:

purplethunder3121 said:

Indeed, I thought that was fascinating as well.

Context: The comment came from the lady who gave the talk on sexuality and humor. She mentioned that a fellow academic was researching Jehovah's Witnesses (her research didn't directly involve Prince), and during her research had talked to Bria Valente, and Bria had directly stated that that's why the relationship ended.

That was absolutely fascinating.

That throws a totally different light on his more current relationship to the JW religion and chuch. And would seem to confirm what I thought might be a less dogmatic and more inclusive attitude toward spirituality on P's part in recent years...

NO shit??? Is it wrong that I am thrilled by this? I don't mind him being a JW but I am glad he was thinking for himself a bit more. Unless they are just talking about him being a womanizer or something? Props to her though for keeping to herself after his death.

rlittler81 said:

purplerabbithole said:

rlittler81 said: JW/Bria Valente situation?

That she ended the relationship as Prince wasn't as commited to JW as much as she was.

purplerabbithole said:

purplethunder3121 said:

Militant said:

Indeed, I thought that was fascinating as well.

Context: The comment came from the lady who gave the talk on sexuality and humor. She mentioned that a fellow academic was researching Jehovah's Witnesses (her research didn't directly involve Prince), and during her research had talked to Bria Valente, and Bria had directly stated that that's why the relationship ended.

That was absolutely fascinating.

That throws a totally different light on his more current relationship to the JW religion and chuch. And would seem to confirm what I thought might be a less dogmatic and more inclusive attitude toward spirituality on P's part in recent years...

Indeed

I'm glad that the conference was a success. The fact that Prince is the subject of academic study warms my heart because that says something about his greatness. Prince should be taught in university level music classes alongside the like of Mozart, Sinatra, and Louis Armstrong.

Militant said:

So I put a bunch of photos up at The Violet Reality fb page if you guys are interested.

It was an absolutely fantastic three days. I'm going to do a full video review for YouTube over the next week which I'll post here but I just wanted to share some quick highlights :

- Dez's keynote speech was amazing, enlightening, and hilarious! He shared stories of his audition with Prince and Andre, and noted that recently he heard "the other side of the story" from Andre regarding the discussions Andre and P had after Dez left his audition. He noted that at the end of the audition, Prince asked him several very deep questions about life and he instantly felt P was wise beyond his years. He also talked about Prince had asked him for a 3 year commitment in 1983 and he just felt so exhausted with everything by that point that he felt he couldn't do it. What's interesting to me is that Prince had talked about this "3 year commitment" back in 1983 - as we know, P broke up The Rev in 86, which raises an interesting question as to whether that was always the plan, for The Revolution to only last 3 years. He briefly played guitar licks including the Little Red Corvette solo, I wanted more guitar though!


- As far as the talks, most were phenomenal, some veered too much towards academia, but for the most part were brilliant. I particularly enjoyed the talk about Prince as a transcendent poet, the talk/discussion about "Under The Cherry Moon" being Prince's "most authentic self", ie, the idea that Christopher Tracy is more representative of Prince's personality than The Kid was, and the idea that the main reason UTCM was a commercial flop was because people wanted more of The Kid, and weren't prepared for a character like Christopher Tracy to be coming from Prince. There was a great talk focused solely on "The War" and how the storyline portrayed in it "Microchip in your neck" etc compares and contrasts with other concepts of Afro-futurism like P-Funk concepts, etc.
My friend Sam Coley from Birmingham City University did a talk about online fan communities, where he mentioned things like the org, Peach & Black Podcast, and some folks called The Violet Reality - and another friend, Simon Barber also from BCU did a fantastic talk about his experiences attending the Celebration last month.


- Other great talks discussed Prince's love/hate relationship with the internet, Prince's spiritual journey, and a talk about humour and sexuality that focused on songs like "International Lover", and a talk by my friend Chris Aguilar-Garcia (aka madartista) talking about Prince and his "Revolutionary Queerness" which was fascinating!


Unfortunately due to the way the conference was structured, lots of talks happened simultaneously so I'm sure there were several fantastic talks that I missed, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.


- After the final set of talks, we were ushed to the Digital Performance Lab, and we had a Skype Q&A with none other than Prince's cousin Chazz Smith who was incredible! He is so proud and passionate about growing up with Prince and watching his ascent to fame and I'm so glad I got to ask him a question - I asked him to share stories about how Prince and Andre grew up idolizing Sonny Thompson as I'm always fascinated by that story and how Sonny ended up being in Prince's band years later, and is perhaps the singular example of someone that Prince grew up idolizing actually being in Prince's band (You could argue Larry as well, but he was never really a permanent bandmember) - Chazz lit up when I asked this question, and he said that he, Prince and Andre used to go over to Sonny's house and stand outside his window listening to him play, and would be blown away at his ability, not just on one instrument but several, which was massively inspirational to P and Andre.


This was followed by a live performance and party with a band jamming on loads of different Prince songs. I headed home at this point, it had been a long few days! Just as amazing as the talks, was the chance to connect with so many Prince fans, and people who actually critically and intellectually study his work. It was truly amazing and I really want to thank Dr Kirsty Fairclough, Dr Mike Alleyne, Dez, Hayley Drinkall, Prof Sarah Niblock, Ken Paulson, and Tim France for putting the event together, as well as all staff, speakers and attendees. Particularly given Monday's events in Manchester, and the very real possibility immediately after th event might not even be able to proceed, I'm sure they had one of the most stressful weeks of all their lives, but it all came off without a hitch (save a couple of technical issues here and there )

A truly, truly fantastic few days.

purplethunder3121 said:

ItsOnlyMountains said:

I was one of the presenters and can assure you that the people who presented are hard core Prince fans. Like since the Dirty Mind tour, have a 1987 copy of The Black Album on vinyl, stuck with him through the SLAVE years, know the lyrics from an obsure outtake kind of fans. You're not going to spend the time to think about a proposal, write it, and travel all the way to Manchester (there were people from as far away as New Zealand, California, New Mexico), and pay for it all yourself (unless you are a professor with a travel stipend) if you don't LOVE Prince. I talked to one of the organizers who specifically told me they were hoping that "non-academic" people would submit papers; they wanted fans.
.

Also, as Militant pointed out, it's clear that many of you posting on this thread don't understand the purpose of academic conferences. It's to examine a topic through a variety of different perspectives and perhaps come to new ideas. I saw the talk by NuPwrSoul (at least I think I figured out who that is based on the info on this thread) and it was absolutely amazing; like nearly brought me to tears because it showed what a badass Prince was.

It is up to us, the fans, to keep Prince's legacy alive and to make sure that future generations realize Prince's impact. And he impacted far more than "just" music. That's why academic conferences like this are important.

There's another conference sponsored by the University of Minnesota taking place next April -- I'll expect all the people posting on this thread about how this confrence was full of people who really don't know that much about Prince just regurgitating facts to submit a proposal and have it accepted.

What the Hell! i was talking about the BBC breakfast programme interview! Someone has taken the line and mixed it up with this conference .

antonb said:

purplethunder3121 said:

What the Hell! i was talking about the BBC breakfast programme interview! Someone has taken the line and mixed it up with this conference .

Yep, I took it you meant the BBC interview with Dez, rather than the conference, I responded saying one of the presenters Naga knew abit more about Prince as he took a shine to her and had a dance in a club, Lisa Stansfield asked 'well, did you?', Naga was mortified on live TV, very funny.

Some crosslines going on.

[Edited 5/28/17 11:24am]

ItsOnlyMountains said:

antonb said:

ha so funny when you know the presenters no fuck all about Prince. A quick run through google to find some questions

I was one of the presenters and can assure you that the people who presented are hard core Prince fans. Like since the Dirty Mind tour, have a 1987 copy of The Black Album on vinyl, stuck with him through the SLAVE years, know the lyrics from an obsure outtake kind of fans. You're not going to spend the time to think about a proposal, write it, and travel all the way to Manchester (there were people from as far away as New Zealand, California, New Mexico), and pay for it all yourself (unless you are a professor with a travel stipend) if you don't LOVE Prince. I talked to one of the organizers who specifically told me they were hoping that "non-academic" people would submit papers; they wanted fans.
.

Also, as Militant pointed out, it's clear that many of you posting on this thread don't understand the purpose of academic conferences. It's to examine a topic through a variety of different perspectives and perhaps come to new ideas. I saw the talk by NuPwrSoul (at least I think I figured out who that is based on the info on this thread) and it was absolutely amazing; like nearly brought me to tears because it showed what a badass Prince was.

It is up to us, the fans, to keep Prince's legacy alive and to make sure that future generations realize Prince's impact. And he impacted far more than "just" music. That's why academic conferences like this are important.

There's another conference sponsored by the University of Minnesota taking place next April -- I'll expect all the people posting on this thread about how this confrence was full of people who really don't know that much about Prince just regurgitating facts to submit a proposal and have it accepted.

Unfortunately due to work commitments I could not make the conference, as one of the presenters, I was wondering if this is an event that has been ran as Prince died a year ago, would this conference have been ran if Prince was still alive? I think it's a shame people like Prince get this recongnition after their death, it would have been nice for Prince to get this recognition while he was alive, or would his notorious litigiousness have prevented a conference like this?

purplerabbithole said:

Village just means town. Towns vary in sizes. I used to live in a 'town' of 250,000 people in the US. No one thought you lived in castles or without modern technology.

fortuneandserendipity said:

Just for the benefit of some american folks, Salford is NOT a village outside Manchester (rather it's like St Paul is to Minneapolis). Manchester is NOT a village somewhere north of London. We DO use computers in England and we do NOT all live in castles!

Well, villages and towns are separate entities in the UK. And believe me, a friend of mine from Manchester, when he visited his sister in Texas, got asked by a local there "Do they actually have computers in England?" It was funny. And right where she lived there were imprints of various war planes on the ground, sidewalks if I recall correctly.

The world is a small place. Around 2010 I think I played football with that dead terrorist guy. My Bangladeshi friends called them the 'Angry Libyans'. They were the bad guys in 'Back to the Future', remember? It appears they're still bad guys now. It's terrible really, South Manchester has become like the Molenbeek region in Belgium.

I'm probably the only person to have played football with a dead terrorist AND the son of one of the members of Genesis. Double bad

ecnirp98 said:

ItsOnlyMountains said:

I was one of the presenters and can assure you that the people who presented are hard core Prince fans. Like since the Dirty Mind tour, have a 1987 copy of The Black Album on vinyl, stuck with him through the SLAVE years, know the lyrics from an obsure outtake kind of fans. You're not going to spend the time to think about a proposal, write it, and travel all the way to Manchester (there were people from as far away as New Zealand, California, New Mexico), and pay for it all yourself (unless you are a professor with a travel stipend) if you don't LOVE Prince. I talked to one of the organizers who specifically told me they were hoping that "non-academic" people would submit papers; they wanted fans.
.

Also, as Militant pointed out, it's clear that many of you posting on this thread don't understand the purpose of academic conferences. It's to examine a topic through a variety of different perspectives and perhaps come to new ideas. I saw the talk by NuPwrSoul (at least I think I figured out who that is based on the info on this thread) and it was absolutely amazing; like nearly brought me to tears because it showed what a badass Prince was.

It is up to us, the fans, to keep Prince's legacy alive and to make sure that future generations realize Prince's impact. And he impacted far more than "just" music. That's why academic conferences like this are important.

There's another conference sponsored by the University of Minnesota taking place next April -- I'll expect all the people posting on this thread about how this confrence was full of people who really don't know that much about Prince just regurgitating facts to submit a proposal and have it accepted.

Unfortunately due to work commitments I could not make the conference, as one of the presenters, I was wondering if this is an event that has been ran as Prince died a year ago, would this conference have been ran if Prince was still alive? I think it's a shame people like Prince get this recongnition after their death, it would have been nice for Prince to get this recognition while he was alive, or would his notorious litigiousness have prevented a conference like this?

The Minneapolis event scheduled for 2018 was in the planning stages before Prince died, so it is possible. Litigiousness is not an issue, since it is academic work. Copyright laws and such are a little more flexible for academic purposes under the "fair use" provision - but most academics are also quite mindful of intellectual property and ownership because of the ways it impacts their own work.

Texas is not America..LOL. Just kidding. Texas has plenty big cities and modern people; there are some morons in America (and some of the biggest ones comes from Texas), no doubt, but most of us know that the rest of the world uses computers.

fortuneandserendipity said:

purplerabbithole said:

Village just means town. Towns vary in sizes. I used to live in a 'town' of 250,000 people in the US. No one thought you lived in castles or without modern technology.

Well, villages and towns are separate entities in the UK. And believe me, a friend of mine from Manchester, when he visited his sister in Texas, got asked by a local there "Do they actually have computers in England?" It was funny. And right where she lived there were imprints of various war planes on the ground, sidewalks if I recall correctly.

The world is a small place. Around 2010 I think I played football with that dead terrorist guy. My Bangladeshi friends called them the 'Angry Libyans'. They were the bad guys in 'Back to the Future', remember? It appears they're still bad guys now. It's terrible really, South Manchester has become like the Molenbeek region in Belgium.

I'm probably the only person to have played football with a dead terrorist AND the son of one of the members of Genesis. Double bad

purplerabbithole said:

Texas is not America..LOL. Just kidding. Texas has plenty big cities and modern people; there are some morons in America (and some of the biggest ones comes from Texas), no doubt, but most of us know that the rest of the world uses computers.

fortuneandserendipity said:

Well, villages and towns are separate entities in the UK. And believe me, a friend of mine from Manchester, when he visited his sister in Texas, got asked by a local there "Do they actually have computers in England?" It was funny. And right where she lived there were imprints of various war planes on the ground, sidewalks if I recall correctly.

The world is a small place. Around 2010 I think I played football with that dead terrorist guy. My Bangladeshi friends called them the 'Angry Libyans'. They were the bad guys in 'Back to the Future', remember? It appears they're still bad guys now. It's terrible really, South Manchester has become like the Molenbeek region in Belgium.

I'm probably the only person to have played football with a dead terrorist AND the son of one of the members of Genesis. Double bad

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[Edited 5/29/17 3:35am]

fortuneandserendipity said:

purplerabbithole said:

Village just means town. Towns vary in sizes. I used to live in a 'town' of 250,000 people in the US. No one thought you lived in castles or without modern technology.

Well, villages and towns are separate entities in the UK. And believe me, a friend of mine from Manchester, when he visited his sister in Texas, got asked by a local there "Do they actually have computers in England?" It was funny. And right where she lived there were imprints of various war planes on the ground, sidewalks if I recall correctly.

The world is a small place. Around 2010 I think I played football with that dead terrorist guy. My Bangladeshi friends called them the 'Angry Libyans'. They were the bad guys in 'Back to the Future', remember? It appears they're still bad guys now. It's terrible really, South Manchester has become like the Molenbeek region in Belgium.

I'm probably the only person to have played football with a dead terrorist AND the son of one of the members of Genesis. Double bad

That's fairly Ironic as the first forerunner of the modern computer was built in Manchester in 1948, Alan Turing, the father of mordern computing was heavily involved in the design of this computer after his work during the war on codebreaking and using machinery to improve the code breaking speed for the war effort.

Prince has an interesting history with technology, he was one of the first musicians to put out an interactive CD Rom in the early 90's for PC, before most homes had a home computer, I was speaking to Paisley Park in the late 80's about a Prince game I was writing on the old 8 bit home computers, they were interested when I sent a demo of the game. There is a scene in Grafitti Bridge where Prince is using an Atari ST to record music, which was pretty much strandard then for MIDI recording.

Then with the Internet Prince had a few projects which never really took off, I think the problem with Prince is that he got bored and wanted to move on, something like Itunes was what he was fighting for in the Slave era, if he was coming through now he could put out his music through something like Itunes and retain the owership/not have a record deal, which is something in the 80's wasn't possible as you required a big record company to put a physical album like Purple Rain out to reach a mass market.

[Edited 5/29/17 4:09am]

ecnirp98 said:

Prince has an interesting history with technology, he was one of the first musicians to put out an interactive CD Rom in the early 90's for PC, before most homes had a home computer, I was speaking to Paisley Park in the late 80's about a Prince game I was writing on the old 8 bit home computers, they were interested when I sent a demo of the game. There is a scene in Grafitti Bridge where Prince is using an Atari ST to record music, which was pretty much strandard then for MIDI recording.

Agreed that many people were using an Atari ST at that time, including my older cousins who were actually also signed to WB in the mid 80's - but in Graffiti Bridge, Prince is actually using an Apple Mac SE.


My cousin actually has one, and has the exact same MOTU Performer software Prince is seen using as well.

Militant said:

ecnirp98 said:

Prince has an interesting history with technology, he was one of the first musicians to put out an interactive CD Rom in the early 90's for PC, before most homes had a home computer, I was speaking to Paisley Park in the late 80's about a Prince game I was writing on the old 8 bit home computers, they were interested when I sent a demo of the game. There is a scene in Grafitti Bridge where Prince is using an Atari ST to record music, which was pretty much strandard then for MIDI recording.

Agreed that many people were using an Atari ST at that time, including my older cousins who were actually also signed to WB in the mid 80's - but in Graffiti Bridge, Prince is actually using an Apple Mac SE.


My cousin actually has one, and has the exact same MOTU Performer software Prince is seen using as well.

Ahhh cool, not seen Grafitti Bridge in a while, never had Prince down as an I-sheep

Thank you for posting about this. I had toyed with presenting but couldn't get the time off work. I would have presented a corpus linguistic study of Prince lyrics entitled 'Baby, Love or God. What's it gonna be?'. I have to say that, even though I have been a fan of Prince for over 30 years, the thought of some of the questions that might be presented to me by the fams scared me massively. Those who have criticised the knowledge of the presenters would do well to realise that we have other day-to-day jobs and that, for the most part, our fundamental research does not revolve around Prince. Those presenting cannot be expected to be mocked because their knowledge of Prince is not all encompassing. Well done everyone who took part.