Photo by Erik Hess

Tapes 'n Tapes' Josh Grier never wanted to be your weekend lover.

​One of the surprises of the Current's 7th Birthday festivities at First Avenue this past weekend was undeniably Tapes 'n Tapes' climactic cover of Prince's epic hit "Purple Rain." Our Gimme Noise correspondent called it a "faithful, emphatic" take on the classic, and added that when staffers joined the band (and members of the evening's other groups) onstage, "it was a stirring, unifying moment." But, was it a sound plan artistically? After all, the song is notoriously long, it stretches a range of dynamics, emotions, and octaves in a way that only Prince can, and it shares the name with a flawed, but iconic film that is a love letter to the Twin Cities' music scene.
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​Thursday on the George Lopez Tonight program, Prince announced via a phone call an imminent 21-date residency at the Forum arena in LA, starting next Thursday.

Similar to his 'Welcome 2 America' New Jersey/New York mini-residency in December, the show will feature "a whole gang of special guests," and hopefully/probably an androgynous, purple symbol rising from the floor of the stage delivering a lil' legend unto us. More >>

From the City Pages press archives

​Our dear friend Joel Bremer, the Minnesota music-loving fiddler from Sweden, posted a couple of amazing old Prince videos on his Facebook page recently. In addition to showing Prince and the Revolution playing "Purple Rain" live at First Avenue, which is already awesome, Joel points out that you can see familiar local music scene faces Jim Walsh and Chrissie Dunlap in the audience (2:49 in the first video is a good shot of the crowd).

According to the description in the video, the performance was part of the Minnesota Dance Theater Benefit Show on August 3, 1983, and was the first public performance of "Purple Rain." Watch it in two parts below.



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​As we previously reported last month, Prince was sued for backing out of a gig in Dublin at the last minute back in June of 2008. Today, a Dublin judge has ordered that Prince owes the Irish concert promoter $2.95 million for damages, and could raise the stakes even higher if Prince continues to ignore the promoter and legal system's requests for action.

From the Pioneer Press:
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​The mother of a toddler featured in a viral YouTube video dancing to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" went head-to-head with Universal Music Group... and won! Dancing baby FTW! (Video after the jump.)

Stephanie Lenz received a partial summary judgment from US District Judge Jeremy Fogel in the copyright case. Universal claimed Lenz was acting in "bad faith" and had "unclean hands" in her lawsuit. Now Lenz can collect attorney's fees in her case because rocking babies also win against whining music companies.

Universal sent YouTube a takedown notice for the dancing baby video in 2007. Her baby, 13-month-old Holden, is dancing to "Let's Go Crazy." Now any sane person could tell it's purely background music, barely audible most of the time. Universal claimed it was infringing on their copyright, but Lenz fought back.

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​As you've undoubtedly heard, earlier this week 89.3 the Current got their hands on an unreleased track by Prince, "Cause and Effect," and was given permission to debut it on their station. Understandably, the station was ecstatic about the opportunity, and have been hyping it up all week on air and on their site -- and guys, we're happy for you too, but after listening to the song this morning as it debuted on the station and then again on their website, we started to scratch our heads.

When the Current announced that they would air Prince's new track, the release was steeped in hyperbole, saying that the new song featured "a musically re-energized Prince," who was playing with "a vengeance unheard by the majority of his fans in years, or at least since that Super Bowl performance in 2007."

To our ears, this track is on par with the songs off one of his most recent albums, Lotusflow3r; in other words, there are some promising moments and a killer guitar solo, but there are also laughable, flat-out cheesy spots that kept us cringing throughout the song.


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​Remember when Prince set Twitter aflame by showing up at the Current's 5-year anniversary show last month? Well, it turns out His Purpleness is a fan of the station, and he has chosen 89.3 as the place to debut his latest song. Before you start flailing around with flashbacks of his horribly bizarre Vikings tune, read this description from the Current's website -- from the sound of it, Prince has got his groove back.
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Nice find, Daily Swarm! The popular music news site posted seven different Prince rehearsal videos this morning, shot in June of 1984. The quality isn't that great, but it's cool to see the Purple One working out the kinks in his material in a fairly casual environment.

Quick, watch these before they get taken down:



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Prince in Purple Rain

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A friend once told me a story about how he was driving in his car a few summers ago in Chanhassen near Paisley Park and a tricked-out purple motorcycle topped by a smallish guy wearing a purple helmet pulled up next to him at the light. My friend looked over, immediately thought this mysterious rider had to be Prince, and was then treated to a glorious head nod by the supposed Purple One, who revved his bike like a badass and sped away down the open road. 

Okay, now can you imagine this same man hunched over a smartphone, punching in letters one-by-one in tweets about what he was having for lunch that day via @Prince_Official? No, no you can't. Why? Because he's $%#^#$ Prince. 

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