When I read that Prince passed away last Thursday I’m sure I had the same reaction as just about everyone else: It’s a hoax!
Nope. Well we certainly didn’t see that one coming, did we?
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“1999” was the first song of his that I ever heard, sometime in 1982 when the album by that name came out. I’m guessing it was on Twin Cities radio station WLOL. I would sit and listen non-stop and wait for them to play some KISS. It never happened (mainly because that was one of the lowest points in their career) but as I was tirelessly waiting I was exposed to a lot of what is now some of my favorite music from that era. Men At Work, Michael Jackson, Stray Cats, and Duran Duran to name a few.
In the summer of ’83 an NBC show called Friday Night Videos emerged and I watched it religiously. It instantly became my second favorite show – sorry, FNV, but nothing could knock Solid Gold off of that throne. We wouldn’t have cable TV for another few years so that show was essentially my MTV for 90 minutes a week. 1983 happened to be when KISS took off their makeup, so the show provided my first mind-blowing glimpse of the band in motion with naked faces courtesy of the “Lick It Up” and “All Hell’s Breakin’ Loose” videos. All I had to go by back then were a few magazine clippings and the Lick It Up album cover, so seeing them rocking out in videos for the first time sans makeup was the most amazing thing ever.
I had to wake up early for swimming lessons one Saturday morning in February… early enough to where I knew it wouldn’t be wise to stay up the night before for Friday Night Videos. What if they aired some new KISS footage that I hadn’t yet seen? Psh. Hell if I was going to miss that because of dumb swimming lessons. When the Letterman show was over I threw a blank tape in the VHS machine, hit record when Friday Night Videos started, and went to bed.
My young brain’s Dez Dickerson math: Headband + pointy guitar with his name on it + sort of looks like he could be a Jackson = Yep. He’s a cool dude.
Before leaving for swimming the next morning I fast forwarded through everything looking for some sweet KISS footage. Of course there wasn’t any… there never was, but toward the end of the show was the video for 1999. I watched, and I thoroughly enjoyed everything from Prince himself, to the cool stage show, to sexy Wendy & Lisa, to super cool-looking guitarist Dez Dickerson – I was oFISHally fished in. My Aunt Lucy is a HUGE fan of his (like I am to Ace) and used to go see him all of the time before he made it big. She’s got a lot of cool photos she took of him at those concerts, and if I recall correctly I think she even blew a few up into posters and framed them. I thought that was super rad, and after seeing the “1999” video I clearly understood why she was so into the dude. I can only imagine how awesome it must have been to be at those early shows before everyone and their mama knew his name and music. Color me jealous.
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There’s that sticker!
In the summer of ’84 Prince’s new album Purple Rain was released into the wild. My sis bought it and left it out in front of the family hi-fi, complete with cellophane still on the cover. She cut a slit in the side to access the album but the cellophane remained intact otherwise. There was a sticker on the front informing the buyer that the album’s music was from Prince’s movie by the same name. “When Doves Cry” was ALL OVER Friday Night Videos and I wanted to hear more so I started listening to the whole record, eventually recording it onto a cassette so that I could listen to it in my room. There were so many crazy layers and sounds in that music that I didn’t even know how to start processing it. “Darling Nikki” caught my attention in particular; I instantly loved (and still love) the way that it sounds and the nice little backward message at the end. I had no idea what he was singing about but knew that it had to do with something naughty. That August when the fam went “up to the lake” and I asked one of the older kids what grinding meant, a lass named Jenny told me, “He’s talking about humping!” in those exact words, and I thought OH. I see. That only made me love it more. “Take Me with U”, “Computer Blue”, and his total spaz-out in “The Beautiful Ones” (which still gives me shivers every time I hear it) are other standout moments on that album for me. Soon after I added his other albums 1999, Controversy, and Prince to my collection. It was weird at first to let those albums hang out next to my KISS, Stray Cats, and Mötley Crüe LPs but they all got along just dandy. I’ve always made sure to absorb each and every one of his new records as they were released. Not all of them stuck with me, but the ones that did became permanent and frequently visited staples in my musical influence/listening diet.
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The Oberheim OB-8, one of the many synths Prince used. And one of the many things I can now make my guitar sound like thanks to technology!
A year and a half ago I acquired a device called the Fishman Tripleplay. In non-guitar nerd terms, it can make the guitar sound like any instrument you want it to. I immediately wanted to start a new 1-man computer-based music project with it, and that I did. Who was it influenced by? None other than PRINCE, of course. My main rule of thumb for the project was that I had to use “Prince drums” for every song, aka the Linn LM1 drum machine, and as many Prince keyboards as I could possibly re-enact. I gave the music a working/tongue-in-cheek name “Prints” (get it???????) and the first song, “My Name Is Prints”, was sort of a half silly/half serious experiment to see if I could make something that had that early 80s Prince sound, but with my own fucked up twist on it. It kind of worked, and I kind of became obsessed with making more tunes. Things quickly became a lot more fun and complex as I got more comfortable building music in this weird new musical landscape. I’m at over a dozen complete songs now. All of them are archived here. Soon after I started making this music I learned that other bands had already done the Prints wordplay thing so changed the name of the project to Planet Ekim, the name I gave the first abby-normal music that I ever recorded back in the 1990s. Not sure if I’ll keep it at that, but it works for now.
I’ve wanted to release these tunes as a full album for a while now but always felt like something was missing. After learning that Prince died I fired up the Planet Ekim/Prints music making machines and drowned my sorrows in making a tune in honor of all of the inspiration he’s given. “7 6” is the result, and I think the perfect way to tie a ribbon and bow around what now finally feels like a full album’s worth of stuff. I named the song “7 6” because the first few minutes the song alternate between 7/8 and 6/8 time signatures… not only that, and don’t ask me why I remember this, but Prince graduated in 1976. How convenient, and total coinky dink. My number obsession continued to rear its head when I realized that the tune clocked in at just over 4 minutes. I felt the need to stretch it out with some ambient noise to make it 4:21, the day that he passed away, and that I did. But wait! There’s more! I’m obsessed with the number 7 (which he mentions in “Let’s Pretend We’re Married”, FYI) so waited 7 days after his passing to post the song. Welcome to my brain.
“7 6” is done, and it goes like this:
