THE TOFU HUT

purple glisten

Forty little memories:

Prince in the "Batdance" video, the assless pants dance on the MTV awards, audio taping half of my collection for an old lover while my new lover disapprovingly watched, shucking and jiving across college campus to "Pope", arguing over Prince with friends/strangers/boyfriends of friends, blowing fifty dollars on my first Prince boot, watching bad "Kiss" karaoke, buying a 0+-> earring, being overjoyed to discover that my new dorm room was #319, being accused of resembling Prince (multiple times, especially after a particularly bad haircut), shaving lightning bolts into my goatee after seeing the "Slave" cut, listening to Tori cover "Purple Rain" live, crying over "Another Lonely Christmas" after my girl left me, having my first doubts of Prince's purple badness after buying the 1999 Remix CD, digging through piles of thousands of cassingles looking for "Cream" and the "Horny Pony" B-side (found it, not a good cut after all), taping Prince on the Muppet Show, fingerbanging a platonic highschoolfriend at her house while we were both listening to the "Diamonds and Pearls" album playing in the background, looking for www.emale.com, loudly shouting the words to "Billy Jack Bitch" out the window of a moving van, asking my folks for the "Hits and Bsides" box for Xmas (didn't get it), discussing the grammatic disorder of "Darling Nikki" with a flirty gay man at a bar, teaching myself the accompanying sign language for I (point finger at self) Would (3 fingers up in a "W" shape) Die (finger slashes throat) 4 (4 fingers) U (point at you), dancing naked in the shower to "Housequake", buying TLC's "Crazysexycool" after discovering that they covered "If I Was Your Girlfriend", being embarrassed about forcing myself to buy a Martika CD, spending two days unsuccessfully P2P hunting for the extended version of "Shockadellica" (the B side to "If I Was Your Girlfriend", can ANYONE dropload?), "what the fuck is Kirstie Allie doing on this?", ecstacy when I found the Prince Interactive CDRom (where'd I put that damn thing?), lost and driving around looking for a party with "A Love Bizarre" playing on the Walkman, going through a brief period in which "you" was spelled U and "for" spelled "4", numerous frustrating redneck confrontations over a Tshirt with a picture of a mostly naked writhing Prince, talking Prince with a girl who would later let me follow her to the bathroom of the club, calling for a taxi in New York while listening to "All the Critics Love You In New York" just as Prince yelled "Taxi!" and tripping on the synchronicity, freaking out my roommate with "Papa", bargaining a copy of the "Bright Lights, Big City" off of a friend for the "Good Love" track (primo shit, shoulda posted it) in exchange for my Fu-Schnickens CD (so worth it), a few years where all new flirtations would begin with the litmus: "So do you like the Simpsons? Do you like Prince?", being horribly sad when I heard Prince's child had died after only a few days but being unable to not wonder how this might affect his music, being confused that it DIDN'T seem to affect his music, "Seriously? A Jehovah's Witness?", being disgusted when I heard that he thanked Warner Brothers in his RockNRoll Hall of Fame speech.

Oh, Prince. You're the complicated "Everlasting Sunshine" relationship: you piss me off; you intrigue me; I'm embarrassed, protective, exasperated, amazed, confused. I don't know whether to write you off or hype you up.

What sort of a death jackpot will the fabled vaults yield? Shit, you think Tupac albums keep coming; Prince should have new releases in 2104.

No one in popular music has been more influential, more frustrating, more prolific, more daring and more enduring than Prince. He is a singular force, music made in the shape of a man.

For better. For worse. He my boy.

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Prince - "7 (Acoustic Version)"

Cleaner, more Bolly-ed out, organic and claptracked to tha' max. I find this preferable to the official release.

"7" is a real galvanizer of a Prince song; I've met a few fans who think it's his best work. I wouldn't go THAT far, but it deserves room on the mantle.

Prince's official home on the internet is also the place to DL his new CD, Musicology.
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Buy the "7" CD single from Amazon
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The Times weighs in.
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A list of Prince composed songs.
Can you think of ANY other major artist who's penned so many hits for others?
A few: "Nothing Compares 2 U", "Jungle Love", "Toy Soldiers", "Manic Monday", "Round and Round".

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Prince - "Ballad of Dorothy Parker (Jazz Version)"

Again, no clue from whence this came, but the new vocals makes it sound like a first party mix. Anybody know anything?

Sorry about the sound quality, but too good not to post.

Buy "Sign O the Times" from Amazon
Surely Prince's most fully realized album. Maybe 90% classic.
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Beautiful Strange Discussion forum
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Hammer's Prince Page
I started reading Hammer's page back in college and am gratified to see he's still around, even if he ain't updating too often.

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Prince - "Irresistable Bitch (Live)"

I will jitterbug up to your house and fuck your momma and you cannot stop me, for I am Prince.

I will take a shit on your kitchen table, lace it with birthday candles, light it up and make you blow that turd out. I am Prince and you will do it.

I will blatantly lift the hook from "Sex Machine" without apology, but with such pinache and style that you will shake your ass like a chimpanzee with piles and you will boogie gratefully goddamn it, because I am Prince.

I will carry on conversations with my bandmates while I play. I will stop the song cold in its tracks just long enough for you to call your friends and tell them what a badass I am and then I'm gonna slap that Nokia out yo' hands and make you massage my feet with your tongue.

You know why? Say it.

What's my name, bitch?

Buy "The Hits and the B-Sides" from Amazon
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Mayte, Prince's ex-wife's site
Rumour has it Mayte is engaged to Tommy Lee. Strange.
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Want to meet 1,290 Prince fans?

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Prince - "Sexy Dancer"

When Prince's second and eponymous album dropped in 1979, Jimmy Carter was president; the Berlin wall was still up; Michael had just released "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough"; Margaret Thatcher took over Parliament and Sony introduced the Walkman.

He was 21.

Twenty five years later? A Carter in the hand was worth two gens of Bush; Glasnost led to Russia's splintering and financial depression; Michael has a few children and no nose; Tony Blair bears slight resemblance to the Iron Lady; iPod nation 0WNZJ00...

And Prince is still funky.

Buy "Prince" from Amazon
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Would you believe Doctor Fink has a website?
Dude, get a new shtick. Those scrubs are getting dirty.
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On the other hand, Sheila E is improving with age.
Cuuuuuuute! And she can cook!

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clicky

Just one clicky tonight, but it's a great one.

Went down to the local comic book shop a few weeks ago to rifle through the quarter box for bathroom reading and was pleasantly surprised to find a big pile of Savage Henry. It was mostly stuff that I already owned but that had been in storage for years, so I ponied up the five bucks and bought the lot of 'em. BOY are they great!

Matt Howarth is the writer and illustrator of Savage Henry and one seriously cool cat. Savage Henry is the story of a band called the Bulldaggers that exists and plays in a separate branch of reality known as Bugtown. It's neato scifi stuff, expertly delineated by Howarth, but here's the kicker: Howarth is a big music geek, so much so that he actually writes his favorite artists INTO THE COMIC. He also posts a whole bunch of reviews in comic strip form, effectively COMICMUSICBLOGGING, if you can believe it.

As obsessed as he is with electronic music, it should come as no surprised that Howarth has a great site up with lots of free comix and literally YEARS of reviews.

Go check it out; you won't be disappointed.

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spiffy

New Random Ten

Started with Lil Flip: "Rainbow Colors" (My choice)
De La Soul: "The Magic Number"
The Dixie Hummingbirds: "Is There Anyone In Heaven That You Know?"
The Four Aces: "St. Louis Boogie"
CB4: "I'm Black, Y'all!"
Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet: "The General Jumped at Dawn"
Sticks McGhee: "Drinkin' Wine, SpoDeeODee"
Clarence Williams: "Worn Out Blues"
Orbital: "Funny Break (One Is Enough Weekend Ravers Mix)"
Funkadelic: "Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad (The DooDoo Chasers)"

Now THAT'S a hot playlist! I'm proud of my iTunes!
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Watching Spree and Gollum kill Sacramento in the last few minutes here. Worth mentioning in so far as it's Prince's hometown.

If Cassell is Gollum, Kevin Garnett is Aragorn. That mufugga is CRAAAAAZY intense, MJ eyeofthetiger style. They're gonna be great to watch in the playoffs.

Is Cheryl Miller raiding Prince's wardrobe? Are Charles and Ernie _seriously_ sniping at each other these days? ("If I go to church witchoo Ernie, what they gonna call me? Spot?") It's getting harder to tell on both of these.
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That'll do it for purple glisten. I'd like to hear about YOUR Prince stories; leave me a note in the comments.