Prince has been one of the most respected artists in the world for decades now, but it wasn’t always so. As a hungry and ambitious musician out of Minneapolis, there were a few years there when Prince was just another performer with some great songs and a whole lot of promise, just like many others. In 1980 Prince opened for Rick James on his Fire It Up tour, a tour that was not without its share of acrimony and represented, in the eyes of many, a symbolic passing of the mantle from one “punk-funk” superstar to another.

To this day that tour is known as the “Battle of Funk” tour.

James’ two autobiographies, The Confessions of Rick James: Memoirs of a Super Freak and Glow: The Autobiography of Rick James, are both great reads and they are rife with the kind of backhanded compliments and disses that you might expect to come from an older star who had so obviously been usurped by a younger rival. For instance, this from The Confessions of Rick James:
 

The first time I saw Prince and his band I felt sorry for him. Here’s this little dude wearing hi-heels, playing this New Wave Rock & Roll, not moving or anything on stage, just standing there wearing this trench coat. Then at the end of his set he’d take off his trench coat and he’d be wearing little girl’s bloomers. I just died. The guys in the audience just booed the poor thing to death.

 
In Glow we get the same episode worded differently, but this time he ends it with, “The crowd booed. I felt sorry for the cat.” Sure, Rick, you felt sorry for Prince.

Later on in Glow, one of James’ musicians tells his boss that Prince has been “copping all your licks.” James decides to check it out—turns out “my guy was right. Prince was emulating my mic moves like a motherfucker. He was calling out my funk chants and even flashing my funk sign.” (That reminds me. I really need to work on my funk chants.)

In the same section James calls Prince’s band “a bunch of snobs.”
 

 
James clearly had Prince on the brain for a while there. He told Rolling Stone magazine that Prince was “a mentally disturbed young man” who “sings songs about oral sex and incest.” In 1983 he told Blues & Soul, “He doesn’t want to be black. My job is to keep reality over this little science fiction creep.”

According to Teena Marie, James stole Prince’s programmed synthesizers and used them on his own 1981 album Street Songs, and then sent them back to him “with a thank-you card.”

In early 1982 Street Songs won an American Music Award for “Favorite Album—Soul/R&B,” at the afterparty hosted by Dick Clark (who had invented the award in the first place) the following story took place, at least as James tells it in Glow. James was in attendance with his mother.
 

Mom was beautiful. She was impressed with stars and never tried to hide it. In fact, she collected autographs.
“Guess who I just saw, James?” she said to me.
“Who?”
“Prince.”
“You didn’t ask him for his autograph, did you?”
“I sure did.”
“Why?”
“Because I like his music, son. I think he’s great.”
“Okay. So now you have Prince’s autograph.”
“Wish I did. When I asked him, he just turned around and walked away.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I guess he don’t like giving out autographs.”
That’s all I needed to hear. I chased after that little turd. I caught up with him and was about to lay him out when his manager stepped in.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Rick?” asked the manager.
I told him Prince had dissed Mom and that I was gonna kick his scrawny ass. Prince explained that he didn’t know who Mom was.
“Well, now you know, motherfucker,” I said.
“Prince will be happy to apologize to your mother,” said the manager, “and he will be happy to apologize to you.”
Prince apologized to Mom and apologized to me. I was a little disappointed ‘cause I really did wanna kick his ass.

Continues after the jump…

James Dean in the bathroom “multitasking”
 
Here’s another installment of a series of posts I’ve become “known” for doing here on Dangerous Minds that features photos of famous folks hanging out and doing mundane things like we all do. This time your eyes will be treated to images of writers, artist, celebrities and musicians that were taken in, well, the bathroom.
 

Pablo Picasso, 1956
 
In this massive post, I’ve got over 30 pictures of famous faces (and their bodies in varying stages of undress) such as Serge Gainsbourg, Toni Iommi of Black Sabbath (as well as his pal Ozzy), Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen (snapped in the loo of Thin Lizzy vocalist Phil Lynott) and Pablo Picasso taking baths, spending time in a bathroom stall, or seated on the toilet. Some of the images date back to the late 30s, and others appear to have been snapped under somewhat candid circumstances. Go figure.
 

Robert Plant
 
I mean, did you ever think you’d see a photo of one of the greatest rock vocalists of all time, Robert Plant chilling out on the crapper? Well, if you didn’t (and as I often say in my posts), today is your lucky day! As always, I’ve tried to nail down dates and places whenever possible. Also, since we’re talking about images that were taken in the bathroom, it’s likely that some of what you’re about to see after the jump could be considered NSFW. But that’s why you clicked this link in the first place, now isn’t it? Enjoy!
 

Nirvana (L-R Krist Novoselic, Dave Grohl, and Kurt Cobain)
 

Prince in the bathtub (from the 1986 film, Under a Cherry Moon)
 

The late, great Joan Rivers, 1966
 

Duke Ellington
 
Many more after the jump…

 
“A revolutionary story of guitars, motorcycles, cell phones – and the music of a new generation” is how director Christopher Kirkley describes his West African re-imagining of Purple Rain. Set in the Saharan city of Agadez in Niger, Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai (Akounak for short) is a visually sumptuous and musically thrilling movie that works splendidly with or without the Purple Rain mythos. But riffing on Prince’s tale locates Purple Rain’s universal heartbeat.

Like the lone, nameless gunslinger in a Sergio Leone western, the central character in Kirkley’s film, musician Mdou Moctar, travels through the desert with a guitar instead of a rifle or Colt 45. And instead of a horse, he rides a motorcycle… a purple one. The gunslinger analogy is apt because guitar players in Agadez and surrounding areas battle among themselves to gain status as the fastest gun in the west, with six strings replacing six bullets. It’s a rivalry that is rooted in a culture where young men still embrace old school notions of masculinity. The whole cowboy thing has been transposed to musicianship. If wars are to be fought then let the bullets be musical notes.
 

 
Moctar is a self-taught guitarist who plays in the Tuareg style of artists like Bombino and Tinariwen. Guitar-driven, rhythmic and often wildly psychedelic, Tuareg music taps into something deep within the listener’s body and soul. It resonates on a higher plane. Moctar’s playing has an almost alchemical effect. It puts me in a zone where magic happens. The fact that this magic is stored and shared on cell phones by West African music fans is a fascinating collision of cultures. In an area where personal computers and high speed internet are scarce to non-existent, cellphones have become the medium through which music is collected and broadcast. Fans swap files wirelessly via Bluetooth. High tech crate digging in a desert as old as time.

Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai translates into English as “Rain the Color of Blue With a Little Red in It,” which is a poetic mouthful. For its theatrical release it’s simply titled Akounak.The combination of Moctar’s live performances, the otherworldly beauty of the Sahara, Jeremy Fino’s luminous cinematography and Kirkley’s intimate and supple style of direction make Anounak one of those rare fictional films about music that has the pulse of real life and the resonance of great art. Additionally, it’s a milestone in that it’s the first fiction film shot in the Tuareg language. 

Akounak is the creation of visionaries who are attempting to—in the lyrics of the song “Purple Rain”—“reach out for something new.” In my view, they’ve succeeded. I’ve never seen a movie like Akounak. It’s a revelation.
 

 
For more information about Akounak and to purchase the movie’s soundtrack, among many other fabulous West African recordings, visit Sahel Sounds. The site also has Mdou Moctar’s current European touring schedule. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he extends the tour to the USA.

Update: WFMU radio is presenting a screening tonight (Nov. 14) of Akounak. If you live in the Jersey City, NJ area get your tickets here.

Director Christopher Kirkley generously allowed Dangerous Minds to share this clip from Akounak

 
Photos: Jeremy Fino.

Prince Swedish paper doll (1989)
 
While I was in the process of my very important “research” for a post I did for Dangerous Minds last week on a vintage collection of Swedish bubblegum trading cards, I came across more curious Swedish pop-culture artifacts - paper dolls that were made in the late 60s and 70s of various movie stars and musicians. Groovy.
 

Steve Priest of The Sweet vintage Swedish paper doll
 
The dolls originally appeared in various Swedish magazines. Personally, whoever is responsible for thinking it was a good idea to create a paper doll in the image of Prince (pictured above which is actually dated 1989) in his underwear ready to be dressed up in his finest purple paper suit, is a damn genius.

I’ve included a shit-ton of paper dolls of famous folks like Brigitte Bardot, Bianca Jagger (?) and lollypop enthusiast Telly Savalas (!) after the jump that you can print out yourself and dress up (if that’s how you get your kicks - I don’t judge and neither should you) at home or at work if you’re bored. You can also purchase some of the actual vintage cutouts (which don’t come cheap) on eBay or Etsy.
 

Björn Ulvaeus (ABBA) 1976
 

“Kojak” (played by actor Telly Savalas in the 1970s television cop show Kojak)
 

Michael Nesmith of The Monkees
 

 
From what I can tell, Alter Ego, the three-issue story originally published by Titan Books in Great Britain in 1991 and then re-published by Piranha Music/DC Comics, is a subtle piece of work. The comic appears to present Prince’s own famously bad self in the frame of a superhero, but it’s unclear whether he has any superhuman powers or anything like that. In effect, it’s the Prince origin story, a la Purple Rain, but with a big superhero-style archenemy plot thrown in. It’s a glib comparison, but writer Dwayne McDuffie and penciler Denys Cowan appear to borrow liberally from the Batman mythos, and in 1991 no name was bigger in the Batman comics world than Frank Miller. (For the record, the lettering was done by Bob Lappan, Noelle Giddings did the coloring, and the covers were by Brian Bolland.)

So basically, if you took Purple Rain and mashed it up with The Dark Knight Returns, you’d have something an awful lot like Alter Ego (which, yes, is available on Amazon).

According to a 2008 post from commenter “robinesque” on the Prince.org message boards, “It is basicly the story from the love symbol album. the princess and the three chains of gold.” In that same thread commenter “jonnymon” summarizes the contents of the three issues:
 

The 1st to come out is the one with Prince on the motorcycle. It’s basically a comic book history of Prince’s musical career. Best part is at the end where the book says there is a huge rivalry going on between P and MJ, and that they hate each other. Even says that at the end of the Batdance song, Prince is screaming “MICHAEL JACKSON”....when we all know he is saying “DON’T STOP DANCIN’!”

2nd book, with the yellow cloud guitar, has P as a muscian/superhero saving the world from a rival musician called “Spooky Electric” and his mind controlling beats. Best scene here is when Prince steps up to a group of thugs and basically threatens to beat their ass, to which the cowar like dogs. Gotta admit, Jet Lee wishes he had some of the kung fu moves P displays in this book.

Last book is semi-based off of the song “7”. Prince is on tour and must save Princess Mayte from evil-doers that wish to cause her harm. Wish I could remember a scene from this one, but I know P is more James Bond/Jason Bourne than the androgonist rock star we know in this title.

All three are great, and as a side note, I believe the Cloud Guitar cover won an award for the best comic cover for that year. Brian Boland is the artist and really did a great job.

 
Earlier today James Harvey tweeted several panels from the Alter Ego sequence, which is how I came to hear about it. Here are his tweets in chronological order:
 

In 1991 DC put out a comic starring Prince in which he stops two gangs from killing each other pic.twitter.com/vGRRz4evgU

— James Harvey (@jamesharveytm) September 23, 2015

What I like about this is that everyone, including the cops, is on first-name terms with Prince pic.twitter.com/ardBW8cQaH

— James Harvey (@jamesharveytm) September 23, 2015

 
More after the jump…

 
Next Saturday His Royal Badness himself, Prince, will be playing a concert in Louisville, Kentucky, but fascinatingly, the venue has not yet been disclosed. Tickets go on sale Monday, March 9, at 10 a.m. local time through Live Nation.

Prince made it known that a series of similarly scheduled dates on short notice are in the works. Dates and times will be announced and then it’s up to you to bust out the credit card and pounce. Suitably, he’s calling it the “Hit and Run” tour.

Prince spent a big chunk of 2014 playing similarly spontaneous shows across the UK and Europe to promote his new solo album Art Official Age and his debut with 3rdEyeGirl, Plectrumelectrum.

Prince has a knack for doing this his own way, but he’s incredibly savvy and his eccentric interventions have a way of enhancing either his image or his bank account—usually both. With this announcement he has guaranteed a huge dollop of adoring press coverage, and you know the tickets, when they’re announced, ain’t going to be cheap.

Here’s Prince’s enjoyable appearance on Muppets Tonight from 1997 (watch it before Prince’s lawyers yank it down…..):
 

 
via Consequence of Sound

 
Ladies and gentlemen, Prince the jock.

Remember that sketch from Chapelle Show where they reenacted Charlie Murphy’s story about meeting Prince with his brother in the 80s? The one where The Purple One and his crew beat everyone from Eddie Murphy’s crew in basketball, and then served them all pancakes? I remember thinking the show had taken some artistic license, not because of the pancakes (I’m absolutely sure Prince is a very hospitable host), because of the basketball detail; Prince is a massive personality, but he’s physically really tiny.

But apparently, he’s got game! Who knew?

Not only was that story, in fact, true, Prince’s athletic prowess has been well-documented since junior high school, as you can see from the Afro-tastic photo above. Yes, young Prince Rogers Nelson was quite the baller despite his diminutive stature, and a recently recovered article from The Minneapolis Star Tribune archives has the quote from his coach to prove it.
 

 
I understand the disappointment of not making the starting lineup—especially when you’ve managed to work around that kind of height disadvantage, but I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say I’d rather have made Purple Rain.
 
Via UPROXX

 
In 2007, Prince threatened to file lawsuits against YouTube and other websites in order to “reclaim the Internet” and put a stop to the unauthorized use of his music and image on the web. Though the threat turned out to be just that, Prince still uses a legal team to monitor the Internet and issue takedown notices for material uploaded without his consent. Recently, one vintage Prince show was added to YouTube without his permission, but it won’t be removed any time soon.

This past summer, the website Music Vault uploaded more than 17,000 concerts to YouTube. Music Vault, a division of a company called Norton LLC, obtained the footage from a few different entities, including Clear Channel, who owned the video archive of legendary concert promoter Bill Graham.

The concert dates from January 30th, 1982, and was captured at a theater show in New Jersey during the tour for Prince’s fourth album, Controversy. Though he had a few hits under his belt by this point, this is still very much a young and hungry Prince. What a treat it is to see him on the cusp of his first major success with 1999, which was released later in 1982. Of course his career exploded a couple of years later with Purple Rain, and he’s now considered one of the definitive pop artists of the ‘80s. In this incredible black and white video recording we see the Prince the masses would soon come to love, one full of confidence and exhibiting the kind of showmanship he’d soon be known for worldwide.

Hopefully Prince is cool with this concert being available online, because it’s truly awesome footage of the man. I, for one, am way-thankful it gets to stay on the web for all to see. Enjoy!
 

 
In 1997 Prince appeared on ABC’s Muppets Tonight, on which he seems totally at home. This was the 1990s, so his Purple Badness was still in his “The Artist Formerly Known As Prince” phase—there’s even a joke about it here. This is the full video, complete with Dutch subtitles for your convenience. After a few amusing bits of business, including a weird one where Prince plays briefly with “The Hoo-Haw Ha Ha Ha Hayseed Band,” the real goodness begins around the 13:30 mark.
 

 
At the commissary, Rizzo the Rat challenges Prince to write a song about that day’s breakfast menu, and the result is “Starfish and Coffee.” It’s not exactly “Little Red Corvette,” but it’s pretty delightful.
 

 
Okay, I feel a bit late to the game with this amusing site Stories About Prince which started in 2012. It’s basically hilarious fanfiction where Prince buys a futon on CraigsList, Prince goes through a Bikini Kill phase, Prince beats the heat, Prince gets in shape, Prince buys tortillas and pretty much every mundane thing in the world Prince could possibly do.

Also note: “Any factual representation of Prince appearing here is purely coincidental.”

You can follow Stories About Prince on Facebook.

 
Via The World’s Best Ever

 
As an unabashedly “elite” pursuit, ballet has often struggled to find audience. Similar to opera only more so, ballet people have frequently obsessed about how to attract new demographic groups to its art. In 1993 the ballet world witnessed a fascinating experiment in crossing over: partnering with his Purple Badness himself, Prince—or, as he was known at that time, [unpronounceable glyph]—to create Billboards, mounted by the esteemed Joffrey Ballet. The legacy of Billboards is mixed, to say the least.

The Joffrey Ballet, founded in New York by Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino, has generally represented the more experimental end of the ballet spectrum. They were unafraid to commission works from figures from modern dance such as Alvin Ailey or Twyla Tharp. At some point, Prince caught some of the Joffrey Ballet’s “mixed rep,” and was so inspired that he pledged to compose some music for the troupe to perform to. Whether that actually happened is not entirely clear—the resultant 1993 ballet relies almost entirely on preexisting music, with the exception of a 10-minute orchestral version of “Thunder,” off of his 1992 album Diamonds and Pearls,which Prince did compose.
 

A still from the Joffrey Ballet’s 1993 work Billboards
 
Prince permitted the use of his catalog without asking for royalties. Billboards is a four-part piece, each part choreographed by a different person: Laura Dean, Charles Moulton, Margot Sappington, and Peter Pucci. Billboards raids liberally from Purple Rain, using the title track, “Baby I’m a Star,” “Computer Blue,” and “The Beautiful Ones,” as well as scattered picks off of Sign O’ the Times, Batman, Graffiti Bridge, Diamonds and Pearls, and Parade.

Here’s the breakdown of the pieces in Billboards and the songs they used:

I: Sometimes It Snows in April (choreographed by Laura Dean)
“Sometimes It Snows in April”
“Trust” / “Baby I’m a Star” 

II: Thunder (choreographed by Charles Moulton)
“Thunder” 
“Purple Rain”

III: Slide (choreographed by Margo Sappington)
“Computer Blue”
“I Wanna Melt with U” 
“The Beautiful Ones”
“Release It” / “Computer Blue” (Reprise)   

IV: Willing & Able (choreographed by Peter Pucci)
“For You” 
“The Question of U”
“It”
“Willing and Able” / “Gett Off”

 
Billboards premiered on January 27, 1993, at the University of Iowa’s Hancher Auditorium in Iowa City, Iowa. In November the piece moved to New York—where the critical reception was not altogether forgiving.

The first sentence of Anna Kisselgoff’s review in the New York Times of November 28, 1993, is “If only it had been better.” She continued:
 

“Billboards” is nonetheless an attempt to expand upon the company’s pioneering rock ballets of the past. ...

“Billboards” does not have the coherence and choreographic power of these works, but, like them, it sums up an era of pop esthetics. Similarly, its importance lies in an ability to interpret American youth culture to a mainstream dance audience—which should not be confused with its other goal of attracting new, young audiences.

“Billboards” could not have been done in the 1960’s; it evokes MTV with its frontal assault on the audience through loud sound and clever changes in lighting (by Howell Binkley). The choreography deliberately includes a great deal of posturing; there are also the coded gestures common to voguing, the dance style born in gay minority clubs and derived from fashion-model poses. ...

Rather than just exploit the varied range of Prince’s rhythms, they comment on the music and by extension, the rock scene as a whole.

Working from a 1990’s safe-sex perspective, the choreographers ignore Prince’s calls for salvation through sex. MTV’s crotch-grabbing comes in for considerable parody. The naughtiness is tame: “Billboards” is a family show.

In the end, “Billboards” is only as good as its choreography, and here Ms. Dean, in the first section, “Sometimes It Snows in April,” is the clear winner. Prince’s ambiguous ballad about a dead friend is treated abstractly but lyrically by the choreographer, as the male and female dancers slink into diagonals, repeating turns and plies. New movement phrases overlap with the old. Individuals pair up for slow and amplified ballet lifts (the women are on toe).

Tobi Tobias in New York magazine was considerably harsher:

There have always been two Joffrey Ballets. One of them loves history. … The other company pays the bills.

Absent from the city for well over two years, … the Joffrey returned—for seven performances at [the Brooklyn Academy of Music]—with a single offering: the evening-length Billboards, to largely stupefying songs from Prince, its four sections choreographed separately. … It will find its audience, no doubt, but there will be few balletomanes in it. Indeed, one of the most horrifying things about this display is the murderous contempt it harbors for traditional dance values….

What else is wrong with Billboards? The choreography goes along with the premises of the music like so much visual accompaniment. Instead of providing a distanced irony or, at the very least, comment, it pretends to be part of Prince’s synthetically hip and orgiastic world and fails wretchedly; it looks like something resurrected from the sixties. Dean’s “Sometimes It Snows in April” is the only piece hurtling toward the junkyard of abandoned virtue that gives our old friends rhythm and pattern a backward glance. Still, it’s simplistic even for Dean and, as usual, opportunistic, incorporating her original trademarks, uninflected repetition and whirling; ballet conventions she annexed subsequently, working for the Establishment; and, to suit the present circumstances, her take on jazz movement, which is embarrassingly trite.

Margo Sappington’s “Slide” is the most viable entry, though I wouldn’t call it dancing. It’s a presentation in images of the teenage male’s romantic fantasies. A bunch of aw-shucks jocks from a past decade (the fifties that preceded Oh! Calcutta!?) conjure up a trio of sweetly lethal dreamboats for some inconclusive fooling around. Real choreography is irrelevant to the piece, which is essentially an amalgam of picturesque behavior and an effective set.

 
The show was a massive financial success, but just two years later the Joffrey Ballet found itself experiencing financial difficulties. According to The Oxford Dictionary of Dance by Debra Craine and Judith Mackrell, “In 1995 the Joffrey was suffering a financial crisis and had to relocate from New York to Chicago.”
 
Here’s an Australian TV piece about Billboards:

 
Here is a bit of Peter Pucci’s section of Billboards, “Willing & Able”:

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Prince’s ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ gets a hard rock makeover
Ultra-hip TV: Prince’s 1997 appearance on ‘Muppets Tonight’

 
I think it works, right?

 
Prince on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. Friday, March 1.

The new tune, “Screwdriver,” may not be much but the execution is pretty awesome. It’s nice to see Prince in guitar god mode and I do dig that band. Plus, hearing the 34-year-old (can you believe it?) “Bambi” is a gas.

Endure the ads. It’s worth it. It’s been awhile since Prince appeared to be having this much fun. “Move over rover and let Prince take over.”
 

 
Prince seems right home in this episode of the Muppets Tonight TV show which aired in 1997.

Things get positively psychedelic as the Purple One sings “Starfish And Coffee” and “She Gave Her Angels.”
 

’Blood on the Tracks’ - Robert A. Zimmerman

Fast-paced 1958 thriller: a jilted train driver hi-jacks his New York subway train to exact revenge upon his love rival, only to threaten the life of his ex-lover. The last 30 pages are missing. Don’t know if she survives.

 
Christophe Gowans is a Graphic Designer and Art Director, who once designed for the music industry (with Peter Saville Associates, Assorted Images, amongst others) and has since produced some stunning work for Blitz, Esquire, Modern Painters, Stella and The Sunday Telegraph.

Christophe is also the talent of a series of fun, collectible and original art works that re-imagine classic albums as book covers.

These fabulous Record Books are on display at his site and are also available to buy at The Rockpot.
 

’Abbey Road’ - The Beatles

Classic paperback. The story of two catholic sisters growing up in a swiftly changing post-war Britain. Guess what? It doesn’t end well.

 

’The Dark Side of the Moon’ - Pink Floyd

Alternative scientific textbook from the 60s. Californian professor Floyd achieved enormous success with this study of the moon’s influence on the menstrual cycle. Indeed, he was able to found his own college, specialising in the study of women’s fertility. The college no longer exists. It was shut down in 1972, having been razed to the ground by a mob of angry husbands.

 
More of Christophe’s ‘Record Books’, after the jump…