26 Apr You Sexy Muthafucka + Matador Playlist(s)
The Purple One has left the building. Unbelievable. At the age of 57 the sudden passing of Prince Rogers Nelson strains credulity in a year that has already seen the losses of David Bowie, George Martin, Keith Emerson, Glen Frey, Merle Haggard, Paul Kantner, Paul Bley, Phife Dawg, Pete Zorn, Nana Vasconcelos, Maurice White, Dan Hicks, Prince protégé Vanity, Frank Sinatra, Jr., Papa Wemba, Billy Paul, and Lonnie Mack. 2016 has been a tough year for music greats and it’s only April.
In all honesty, as much of a shock as the loss of Prince is it didn’t hit me nearly as hard as David Bowie’s passing, artsy fartsy white boy that I am, but back in the ’90s I was sufficiently inspired to record a minimalist Prince homage, ala Cream (the song is Prime Time Baby and can be found on the ‘Music’ page of this site). Whether you were tuned into Prince’s groove or not, there’s no denying that he was one of a very small, elite group of significant artists whose musical talent seems/seemed boundless—the true genius artists who write great songs, play a dizzying range of instruments, sing with expressiveness, passion and distinction, and know how to handle the technical aspects of the recording studio. It’s a short list: Bowie, Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Todd Rundgren, Prince… that’s about all I can think of.
Take the hard-edged funk and uber-showmanship of James Brown, add the otherworldly psychedelic virtuosity of Jimi Hendrix, mix in the multiracial glam soul of Sly Stone, add a dash of Little Richard, shave off a few inches, and you end up with something pretty close to Prince. But despite his undeniable debt to these epochal forebears Prince’s groove was a unique thang. He shrewdly crafted not only his own hyper-sexualized persona but an entire purple cosmology where people drove Uptown in Little Red Corvettes wearing their Raspberry Berets to party like it was 1999. Once he achieved success he established Paisley Park as his live/work headquarters and he was ferociously creative there, pumping out albums at a rate of just under one a year for most of his career (between 1978 and 2015 the only gap of more than one year without a new Prince release was 2011-2013). He was a one-man band but he liked to share the stage with his collaborators—the Revolution, the New Power Generation, 3rdEyeGirl—and with protégés such as Morris Day and the Time, Vanity, Sheila E, Apollonia, the Family and others. In a manner similar to Bowie, after the glory days of the 1980s Prince was never quite the massive draw that he had been but he didn’t let that slow him down. One event that brought Prince back into the spotlight in a big way was his half-time performance at Super Bowl XLI in 2007. Typically, few things are lamer than Super Bowl halftime shows but Prince just tore that shit up. There he was in all his purple badness, whirling like a dervish in his high heels, singing in that amazingly fluid four-octave voice, ripping off yet another face-melting guitar solo—all in a driving rainstorm. He was an almost absurdly commanding performer with a scorched-earth philosophy of stagecraft: Burn it ALL the way down, no quarter offered or given.
I did see Prince in concert once, back in his Purple Rain heyday in March, 1985, at the Pan Am Center in Las Cruces, New Mexico. It was a memorable event in more ways than one. Sheila E opened the show and at one point she performed a song from her first album titled Next Time Wipe the Lipstick Off Your Collar. Ms. Escovedo was wearing a diaphanous catsuit that left little to the imagination and she had two Chippendale-type muscle men (tuxedo shirt front, bow tie, no shirt) onstage with her. For this particular song she pulled a participant out of the front rows and had one of her muscle boys hold him down in a chair while she performed a lascivious lap dance for her victim. The lucky victim was a gangly kid with floppy blonde hair and glasses. He was a perfect dupe for Ms. E and sat there grinning like a maniac while she rubbed every inch of her bodacious self all over every inch of him. She threw him back into the audience when it was over and everyone was thinking ‘Who was that lucky bastard??’ A few months later a gangly kid with floppy blonde hair and glasses wandered into the Albuquerque record store that I was managing and I thought to myself ‘This kid looks familiar, but from where…?’ After pondering it for a bit I realized where I had seen him before. ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘Were you at a Prince concert in Las Cruces…’ Not waiting for me to finish the sentence the kid yelled ‘THAT WAS ME!!!’ That kid was the Buzz and now, 31 years later, we are still besties. Thank you, Prince.
Prince’s show back in ’85 was everything that one might have wished—flashy, funky, soulful, virtuosic, orgiastic, bombastic and a little bit weird. One piano-based interlude featured Prince conducting an extended dialogue with the Almighty and I believe that therein lies the dynamic tension at the core of his music (and that of a significant number of his soul music forebears): The conflict between Faith and the Flesh. If there’s one concept that I think most accurately characterizes Prince’s groove it’s not exactly orgiastic, as in a carnal celebration—although that was an undeniable part of his mix. I think orgasmic is probably more accurate: The orgasm as both physical release and communion with a Higher Power, be it God or Love, if one distinguishes between the two. For the last 39 years no one worked both sides of that equation quite like Prince and it’s hard to imagine that anyone ever will again.
So, goodnight, sweet Prince. I hope that you have attained your final, greatest communion.
And, here, Gentle Reader(s), are my two jet-laggy post-Low Country tour playlists, the latter of which was offered up on the day of Prince’s passing by way of praise and celebration of his genius. If you—and yes, I do mean YOU—are reading this, please do be informed that Thursday, May 5, is the 9th Anniversary of Ye OIde Matador Lounge and I hope that YOU will be there. My esteemed colleague and fellow Matador DJ, Prairie Dog, will be cooking up special Matador anniversary t-shirts for this blessed occasion. Be there or be… like… elsewhere, maan.
Matador Playlist 4/14/16
Grammar of Life – Charles Bukowski
Miserlou – Dick Dale & his Del-Tones
Tell It Like It Is – Aaron Neville
A Perfect Day Elise – PJ Harvey
Girl Germs – Bratmobile
I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink – Merle Haggard
Science & Wine – the Shimmies
Forget You All the Time – Cloud Nothings
Minor Threat – Minor Threat
Funeral Pyre – the Jam
El Paso – Marty Robbins
Rock the Casbah – the Clash
Amsterdam – David Bowie
Thursday – Morphine
Bulldog – the Fireballs
Crush – Sleigh Bells (this is… odd)
Can’t Get Used to Losing You – the English Beat
Pierce the Morning Rain – Dinosaur Jr.
Fatty Boom Boom – Die Antwoord
Redneck Friend – Jackson Browne
Can Head – Fight Like Apes
Personality Crisis – the New York Dolls
Ozone Baby – Led Zeppelin
Suburban Home – Descendents
Clear Spot – Mark Lanegan Band
Are Friends Electric? – the Dead Weather
Spinners – the Hold Steady
Police & Thieves – the Clash
How Do I Know – Here We Go Magic
Teenage Lust – MC5
White Girl – X
Sunrise – New Order
Blank Generation – Richard Hell & the Voidoids
Blue Jean Blues – ZZ Top
Oh Baby Doll – the Pretty Things
Kiss Them For Me – Siouxsie & the Banshees
Tattooed Love Boys – the Pretenders
Breaking Glass – David Bowie
Wave of Mutilation – the Pixies
Ex Lion Tamer – Wire
I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (Live @ Monterey Pop) – Otis Redding
Surface Envy – Sleater-Kinney
Pale Bride – the Von Bondies
Hey Bulldog – the Beatles
Bad Baby – Public Image, Ltd.
Dancing Days – Led Zeppelin
Hollywood Babylon – the Misfits
Players Balling (Players Doin’ Their Own Thing) – the Ohio Players
Ash Gray Sunday – the Screaming Trees
Go n’ Go – 18th Dye
The Love You Save – Jackson 5
Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine – the White Stripes
Swlabr – Cream
‘A’ Bomb in Wardour Street – the Jam
Kizza Me – Big Star
Downtown Train – Tom Waits
All This and More – Dead Boys
Dime Western – Screaming Trees
Highway to Hell – AC/DC
I Believe In Evil – Screaming Females
The Meek – Bad Brains
I’m Gonna Dry My Eyes – the Hillbilly Moon Explosion
Red – King Crimson
American Valhalla – Iggy Pop & Josh Homme
What A Wonderful World – Joey Ramone
Prince Johnny – St. Vincent
Kawasaki Z117 50 Rock n’ Roll – the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Springtime – Leatherface
Last Time Forever – Squeeze
The Lemon Song – Led Zeppelin
Fried My Little Brains – the Kills
El Matador – the Mel-Tones
Strange Mercy – St. Vincent
American Idiot – Green Day
Fear, Hate, Envy, Jealousy (Live @ Tip’s) – the Neville Brothers
Crazy – Patsy Cline
First It Giveth – Queens of the Stone Age
World Without Tears – Lucinda Williams
Buona Sera – Louis Prima
Happy Trails – Roy Rogers & Dale Evans (feat. Trigger on Wooden Shoe Bipedular Marimba)
Taxi – Bryan Ferry
Matador Playlist 4/21/16
Grammar of Life – Charles Bukowski
From Her to Eternity – Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
When You Were Mine – Prince
Black Grease – the Black Angels
Defecting Grey – the Pretty Things
My War – Black Flag
Sweet Leaf – Black Sabbath
Loose! – Prince
Mountain Side – Chris Whitley & the Bastards Club
Lexicon Devil – the Germs
Outside – David Bowie
Long Live the Borgne – Galactic
Screwdriver – Prince
Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others – the Smiths
Beautiful Future – Primal Scream
(Do The) Fuck Yourself – Nobunny
You’ve Got to Change (You’ve Got to Reform) – the Meters
The War – Bob Mould
Baltimore – Prince
Swampland – the Birthday Party
Honky Tonkin’ – Hank Williams
Under My Thumb – the Rollings Stones
Getting Older/Losing Touch – the Methadones
Angry Chair – Alice In Chains
No More Hot Dogs – Hasil Adkins
Gett Off – Prince & the New Power Generation
Fascination – David Bowie
Higher and Higher (feat. JJ Grey) – Galactic
Nothing Compares 2 U – Sinead O’Connor
Not Great Men – Gang of Four
Beechwood Park – the Zombies
Cream – Prince
Will It Go Round In Circles – Billy Preston
Cherub Rock – Smashing Pumpkins
Sign o’ the Times – Prince
Dive – Nirvana
Baby Your’e A Rich Man – the Beatles
Always A Friend – Alejandro Escovedo
Sexy M.F. – Prince
Barael’s Blade – the Sword
20th Century Boy – T. Rex
King Ink – the Birthday Party
Erotic City – Prince & the Revolution
1999 – Prince
Lola – the Kinks
Alien Blueprint – Rollins Band
Kiss – Prince
Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo – Ennio Morricone (for Serena)
Smokestack Lightnin’ – Howlin’ Wolf
The Wait – the Pretenders
Save Tonight – Eagle-Eye Cherry (request)
Jungle Love – the Time
Good Good Things – Descendents
One Way Out – the Allman Brothers
Come Around – Doctor Bison
When Doves Cry – Prince
In Dreams – Roy Orbison (for Serena too)
Rough Detective – Dead Weather
Çalifornia Stars – Wilco & Billy Bragg
U Got the Look – Prince
Detroit Rock City – Kiss
The Mad Daddy – the Cramps
Turn It Out – Death From Above 1979
Love Is The Drug – Roxy Music
Alphabet Street – Prince
Sometimes – My Bloody Valentine
Look Back and Laugh – Minor Threat
Valerie – Amy Winehouse (for Serena too too)
The Ocean – Led Zeppelin
German Days – Iggy Pop & Josh Homme
Kooks – David Bowie
FUNKNROLL – Prince & 3RDEYEGIRL
Dear Prudence – the Beatles
Purple Rain – Prince & the Revolution
World Without Tears – Lucinda Williams
Buona Sera – Louis Prima
Happy Trails – Roy Rogers & Dale Evans (feat. Trigger on Bruggerian Water Whistle)
Taxi – Bryan Ferry
