Like just about everybody else in the world who is between the ages of twenty and sixty and who also has a genuine interest in pop music, I was surprised and saddened by the death of Prince Rogers Nelson. Just last month, we discussed Prince’s guitars on these pages. Now he’s gone. I put some of his most solo-acoustic-compatible stuff into my lunchtime set today (“Little Red Corvette”, “Kiss”, “The Cross”, “Diamonds And Pearls”, “Purple Rain”) and I made a fair bit of tip money as a result. Woo hoo!
There’s a lot of interesting stuff being written about the man himself right now, but I’m going to wait until the dust settles before I discuss it other than to say that I’ve lately been thinking a lot about the death of Prince’s son and the miscarriage his wife had afterwards as they tried to have another child. As with Robert Plant, who lost his son, Karac, when Robert was twenty-nine and Karac was just five, I don’t know how it’s possible to get up on stage and perform after your child dies.
Perhaps there’s some sort of kismet in the fact that I bought my first purple guitar just a week before Prince went to join his son.
Patrick the bass player found this on the Guitar Center used-gear site two weeks ago. It’s a V49K four-string fretless bass with a variety of expensive options. About two years ago, I ordered my last new Carvin, which was also a V49K with a bunch of expensive options. I can’t say I was thrilled about Jeff Kiesel’s decision to paint the back of the bass blue instead of clear, and I was even less thrilled by his obvious lack of enthusiasm about making it right. So I haven’t done any Carvin shopping since then.
When Patrick found this one at less than half of its brand-new price, though, I figured I’d give it a shot. As you can see in the photos, it’s a pretty extreme color combination of Carvin’s “antique ash” finish and a purple “option 50” burst, complete with a slightly transparent purple neck. In photographs it looks frankly bizarre but when you’re holding it the whole thing works somehow.
As has been the case with every one of the new-generation Carvin basses I’ve bought, this is a very high-quality item, with flawless fitting, a straight neck, and no dead spots anywhere on the fretboard. I’m not much of a fretless player, but Patrick has it down pretty well. I might have to cheat and add a couple of hints on the back of the neck so my intonation doesn’t scare children.
Maybe Patrick and I will come up with a Prince song to play this upcoming week after I’m back from Watkins Glen. Or we’ll play my favorite song for fretless bass: “Rio”.
I forwarded your story about Hohner TE to a guitar player colleague. How much is anything that looks like a Hohner TE now worth?
Another collectable. On Sunday night I handed over my collection of 33 or so year old West German and Japanese Prince and Time first pressing CDs to an old friend. I knew he would enjoy and cherish them.
Thinking of Mr. Nelson’s music I can’t understand his love of drum machines? Can somebody explain.
He played almost all of the music on his records himself — the “Revolution” and “New Power Generation” were touring bands. As quickly as he worked, I think he just figured it made more sense to use a drum machine than to play drums himself behind a click track.
That, along with his descent into 8-bit-sounding synthesis from “Sign O’ The Times” forwards, keeps a lot of the music from standing up to modern examination.
Mmm, fretless…
Having been a fan of “Flim” Johnson and his 5-string Alembic work as long as I have enjoyed Prince’s, the mixing of metaphors in your recent purchase pleases me.
I’ll catch blow-back for it, as the resident realist & pragmatist, but this culture of pop star/athlete/actor-actress/celebrity-in-general worship is quite lame.
In a world full of massive, real, imminent crises adversely affecting billions of people worldwide, the media spends a hugely disproportionate amount of time and energy enabling hero worship of the most flinty kind.
It’s one thing to note the passing of celebrities in human interest type spots, but to have a news cycle obsessed with such trivia is another indicator as to how society is either being dumbed down by the media, or the media reflects upon a dumbed-down population.
The Bread & Circus must go on, I suppose, to distract people from tendinitis real, substantive problems.
It’s a distraction tactic for the media, especially now as it allows them to dodge the increasingly obvious topic they’ve put off for years: why do the little people hate us - and why are they no longer paying attention to us?
Everything makes sense once you realize that what we call “news” now was called “entertainment” until 1975 or so.
EVERY fucking thing is BREAKING NEWS on CNN and the other “cable news” networks, too.
Little kids are going to grow up like tweek on South Park if their parents don’t explain to them that they don’t need to fear Wolf Blitzer’s constant ominous warnings and BREAKING NEWS 18 times a day.
” as the resident realist & pragmatist,”
try not to mess up your shoulder from patting yourself on the back like that.
Nice git-fiddle there Jack ! .
I’m waiting for some clueless drooler to chime in with ‘ liberal media ‘ tripe .
-Nate
*wipes slobber off chin*
Why them thar pinko commies at CNN wouldn’t know the right way to report something iffn it come up and smacked them upside their pointy little heads.
(am I doing it right?)
*Perfect* .
Thank you very much =8-) .
-Nate
I didn’t click the links, so I didn’t actually see Wolf Blitzer refer to Prince’s magnum opus as “Purple Haze.” The entertainment, it may not lie where you think it lies…