Hey Morris, try turning in your limo for a van and take the show on the road. Kid, you need to do the same with your bike. There's other venues in other cities. Then you don't have to deal with some fat club owner threatening to ditch your band !
shareTouring is not cheap. I think bands need professional management to organize and subsidize a tour. The Revolution seemed to be unofficially managed by Prince. The Time and Apollonia 6 were managed by Morris. With all due respect, they weren't exactly corporations.
Chicago is about 400 miles from Minneapolis. The Minneapolis bands could have been totally unheard of there and not a good live draw. The internet was invented in 1969, but hadn't taken off in 1984 when "Purple Rain" took place.
Billy was the owner and/or manager of First Avenue. Billy was played by Billy Sparks, Prince's road manager. That is a little ironic. Has there ever been a movie with more typecasting than "Purple Rain"? "Purple Rain" is Sparks' only acting credit listed on imdb. A youtube "Purple Rain" Where Are They Now video is unsure of his whereabouts. Please click on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxk-RRJEKSs&feature=related
I was just thinking that recording was not discussed in "Purple Rain". Some local acts made a few bucks selling their independent recordings. They sold nothing like major label records, but the artists kept a bigger piece of the profits. Keeping four dollars each on a independent album that sold 100,000 units was nothing to sneeze at. And I think a self produced album also served as a demo for major labels.
Maybe touring was like a lot of things in movies. Just because you don't see it didn't mean it didn't happen.
Take a walk back in time with me my son. Before MP3s. Before studio quality sound piped out of your phone. If you wanted to hear really good music you went to a club. If your band was good enough to draw people in every weekend, you'd headline a club as a regular gig. Yeah, you could listen to a hissing tape or scratchy record, but if you wanted a really good musical experience, it was all about the live show.
As the club owner says, his joint is a jumping off point for the really good bands. Part of the animosity Morris feels towards the kid is he knows he doesn't have what it takes to make that jump to the next level (touring, record deal).
Amy: I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Let me tell you something son. There's no such thing as an ambitious band who plays in only plays in one single club. It has absolutely nothing to do with music piping out of my phone. Yes, bands have residencies with clubs and play there regularly. But if they have any kind of ambition to become true stars (as everyone in this movie says they do) then they at least play at more than one club. And if they are in a small city such as Minneapolis then they tend to hop in a van. Yes, they sold vans allllll the way back in the 80's before phones played music.
shareYou're spot on. But this was just a movie and had little to do with their real career paths. For example, Prince already had several albums (one that went platinum), videos on MTV (Little Red Corvette, 1999, etc.), and there are concerts on youtube from all over the place that were pre Purple Rain.
shareA lot of bands book dates at venues across the country that could be clubs or even houses when they scrape together enough cash to go from town to town. A lot of times they barely make enough to pay for gas and usually sleep at the house of a friendly fan in that town's local scene or in their vans while on the move taking turns driving. This has been going on forever and continues now. I saw a lot of this ten years ago even before small town bands had their music on MySpace (before YouTube) and would be amazed how they had such a huge following and name recognition with the local "scene kids." They would often take homemade t-shirts, stickers, and burned CDs (or pressed CDs) of their music to sell or give away.
As for this somewhat hyper-realistic movie where we're not supposed to wonder how these people make money to support their glitzy nightclub stage lives, where everyone dances in unison and looks cool, fighting for a prime spot to play at this club every weekend like it is the most important place to be makes for a plot element in what is basically an extended music video.
In real life Prince released his breakthrough "1999" album in 1982 then toured with The Time and Vanity 6 as opening acts. The late Denise "Vanity" Matthews was replaced in "Purple Rain" by Apollonia Kotero. She also inherited the lead role in Vanity 6, which was renamed Apollonia 6. Please click on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Tour
The Time also opened for Prince on his previous Controversy Tour.
There is some pretty grainy but cool video clips of both Prince and Morris Day at the Capitol Theater in NJ from Jan 1982. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88R38d-YMZU
Dez Dickerson was still his lead guitarist...crazy to think he's gone, and that was 34 years ago, yikes.
Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?
Thanks for the link. The Capitol Theatre was in my hometown of Passaic, NJ. The Capitol was known for its in house video system which resulted in a number of good quality, black and white bootlegs. After it closed the building fell into disrepair and was demolished in 1991. A small strip mall now occupies the site.
Please click on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAYQUbh8HHA
for the full show.
Good stuff, thanks for sharing. Great to see him sing some of the great older stuff, which was obscure to much of the general public at the time, but pure gold to Prince fans.
I saw Prince and the Time, together and separately many times over the years.
I sat in the "Purple Circle" in early 1985 in the heart of the Purple Rain tour at the Cow Palace in the SF Bay Area. Prince was so huge, there was nothing but other musicians and celebs all around me in the VIP circle of seats. As I recall, Greg Kihn was sitting next to me....how random is that?
Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?