The following is an archive of a twitter thread detailing daily happenings at Prince Celebration 2022. Edited for clarity but maintaining the original format.
In the lobby waiting to ride the shuttle over to Paisley!
The chorus of soft “yaaay” that happened as Paisley Park came into view 😂💜.
Phones off! See you on the other side!
OH MY GOD IT HAS BEEN AMAZING TODAY! IMAGINE WALKING INTO STUDIO A. CHAIRS ARE THERE. HEADPHONES ON THE SIDE OF THE CHAIR WITH PERSONAL VOLUME CONTROL. NPG THERE IS PLAYING BUT YOU CANT HEAR UNTIL YOU PUT ON THE BOSE HEADPHONES AND THEY SOUND AMAZING! 😭😭😭😭😭
THEY PLAYED AN UNRELEASED SONG CALLED SON OF SEXY MOTHER FUCKER AND OH MY GOD!
VERY MUCH WORTH THE PRICE OF VIP ADMISSION WE WERE SKEPTICAL BUT THIS HAS BEEN THE BEST CELEBRATION SO FAR! 😭😭😭😭😭😭
OH AND IMAGINE THEIR PLAYING IS ACTUALLY BEING DIRECTED BY PRINCE’S OWN VOICE! 😭😭😭😭
I AM COMPLETE IF THE REST OF CELEBRATION SUCKS! 😭
(Sorry I was excited walking out of the building and have now had food to contain myself)
Okay let me back up to phones being off…recap of the VIP experience :
So we pull up, do the security stuff and are led into the NPG music club where there was a light breakfast of coffee, juice, fruit and baked goods.
We’re then introduced to the MC Robyne Robinson who you might remember from this.
Had a nice flow from her into into the Soundstage. Like really smooth the music lowering as she spoke to be raised again as we were ushered into the next room…
So we’re in the Soundstage and Duane Tudahl did a panel talk with @chrisjamespro (Engineer 2012+) Notes are as follows :
P would hide out in the catwalk and listen to the band have conversations
Re P recording music where he plays everything “No one bad can sound that funky because it’s 23 versions of Prince” (him on all the tracks).
Day in the life, Noon-2 pm arrive at PP. Wait at gate for someone to let him in, have a note to make a groove or program drum machine, P would come in and put something on top. Mostly in studio A.
3rdEyeGirl album was cut in studio C. Meant to sound rough, punky.”Not the best sounding room.”
First unreleased song is played, That Girl Thang with the full band. Shout out to @LalaEscarzega as the muse for that song. (My shout out). Song was previously shared as an acoustic version.
Next song “Stone Flower” played. It was recorded fully live in studio C.
Chris got to play guitar with P and the band on Jimmy Kimmel after P caught him playing/tuning his guitar. He also became an unofficial guitar tech for this show after the previous one failed to tune the guitar handed to P during soundcheck and was fired on the spot.
Rocknroll love affair rehearsal without horns was played. P changed the lyrics to “he gave up pizza for the stripes of the road”. Vs “he gave up women for the stripes of the road”.
Big ups to P for his arrangement skills which made it easier to mix. P also good at mixing himself, though he liked to slam studio sound making it distorted.
Most songs he engineered top to bottom in a day, 3. Longest marathon session, 2 days. Duane asked if he showered at Paisley Chris said “I would never disrobe here” 😂
Marathon session included Breakfast Can Wait and was recorded around Christmas. (*Makes a note to check Prince Vault).
Marathon session included Breakfast Can Wait and was recorded around Christmas. (*Makes a note to check Prince Vault).
Had to leave all the sessions he did except for the demo for Whitecaps. Had to use “Princestinct” to read his mind. (Prince Instinct).
On mixing Purple Rain Syracuse, lots of people on stage only so many tracks.
Syracuse happened pre surround sound so they had speakers on the sides of the venue to play different sounds. “Special effect speakers”.
Listening session Syracuse soundcheck of P testing these speakers.
Not me crying over Purple Rain anything! I got teary when he slipped in and out of singing Moonbeam levels while dryly correcting the sound guy
“these is money cues”
“Pencil head…”
“Brown Mark’s gray suit!”
P not always forgiving when things broke. Computer with pro tools crashed ones. P said “and so did your check for the day” and walked out. 🥴
Duane asked him about engineering the Live Out Loud tour and he did not wish to comment on this.
Last song: Boyfriend
End of Chris James Panel
Next we did our tour. Most exciting part? They set up areas for us to recreate these pics with his makeup setup!
📷 Shahidi and Gydesen
The makeup items on the table were Prince’s as well! I did not get a closer look unfortunately there was a long line to get these pictures and I wanted to take up the least amount of time as possible.
Saw Sheila E’s drums in the SOTT room, new D&P outfits in that room. Handwritten lyrics for Funky 4 No Reason, Call My Name, Musicology and Lolita.
(I was peeping those Lolita ones to see if things changed there 🧐)
Then we went into the Studio Session which was again…. AMAZING! So we walk in Studio A, again we see them playing but can’t hear until we sit down and put on the Bose headphones. Really cool that we each had our own volume as well.
Band was Morris Hayes
Mike Scott
Levi Seacer
Kirk Johnson
Sonny T
Chris Coleman
Tommy Barberella
The session was engineered by Tom Garneau (literally I kept turning around to watch him in the control room)
The song they did was again Son of Sexy MF which is unreleased. Song didn’t make it to lyrics but twas funky and featured a Mike Scott solo. They did it twice with P in our ears giving them directions each time (time travel P was on piano).
We did our part by clapping and they recorded us so we could hear our part with the song too! (Claps lead by Tony and Damon).
Q&A
Would you learn or rehearse elsewhere or was everything at Paisley? Everything at Paisley. Rehearse all day, record at 9ish then have “mandatory fun” parties.
How do you keep it fresh with the multiple takes? Play with the same intensity. You don’t know if the record is the 8th time or the first. Quality is for the fans.
What was the limit of what you could remember of his catalog? You just have to be ready for everything. A lot was improv. We know the key and tempo and go. Multiple songs and many had multiple arrangements.
Morris/Tommy had rigs of 10-12 keyboards off stage all with different samples. That’s why they had so many keyboards around when they play.
(Didn’t know this myself!)
P on not wanting to play TV arrangements straight “Can you imagine their faces when they hear all this funk?”
Again the absolute HIGHLIGHT of Celebration so far and I’m very excited for tomorrow’s show with the full band of 1992’s D&P pre show!
Eating now! We have 90 minutes to do so and change for Maserati tonight.
(Everyone and especially VIP is EXHAUSTED! We have been in sessions since 9 am and today is going until 2 am! I might need to tap out early because I need to be ready for my NPG tomorrow).
It was a bit chilly. There are a few food trucks… A pretzel truck, People’s organic have a tent, and southern cooking type place with catfish, mac and cheese, etc.
Super good to see @twinkiejiggles in the purple world again conducting trivia through his company Trivia Mafia. 💜💜💜
DJ Diamond is doing the tunes. Happy he played Muse 2 the Pharaoh! 💜🥰💜
This is also the first time everybody was together outside of the launch party between the different tiers. I have to say while my VIP experience has been pretty amazing and exhausting I felt like it was out of balance with general admission at this point in the day.
As VIP we had been there since 9:00 and they got there a few hours after us and had only done a limited tour and had otherwise been outside the whole time during the picnic part. I feel a way about that….
I hope the afternoon redeemed them though…next up. Ms. Jill Jones.
She addressed being banned from Paisley Park previously and noted that she was actually on the plane on her way when Appollonia “messed up”.
I believe the streets said she took a picture in the museum area which is not allowed.
She shouted out Don Batts as the original engineer they worked with at the house that was not yet purple. Peggy was in LA, Susan hadn’t started yet.
Note about Sandy the housekeeper vacuuming a lot because Prince didn’t like footprints in the carpet.
Recording 1999, woke Jill up at 3 am, called Lisa. Everyone in PJs. P was wearing a sweater and underwear himself. Thought it was a straightforward song and surprised it was a hit.
Lisa and Jill sang on the same mic to become “one woman”. Video for 1999 happened with Automatic not long after. P didn’t like storyboard videos at that time and they just did long takes.
Someone told Jill she tied P up like a rancher in the Automatic video
She mentioned singing with the late great Boni Boyer and gave her her flowers. 💜
In the G Spot demo, P played the saxophone part. He later told Andrea he quit playing sax because he did not want chapped lips.
Unreleased music clip, P and Jill in the studio recording Wednesday. Jill wasn’t expecting to hear this clip and she cried.
Another unreleased clip Baby Knows How to Love Me circa 1985.
She mentions it was tough to come up with her persona for her act because most of the known tropes were already taken by other Prince ladies.
She feels the songs that represent her vibe best are Mia Bocca and Violet Blue and that she attracts women fans who are intelligent with depth that have a dark side to their personality.
Unreleased song clip 77 Bleeker Street with her and Prince trading singing the words. She wrote this song about a crush she had and P was like 🧐.
She sent the song to P and he spruced it up to become what was on her released album.
Violet Blue…she and P were not getting along. Around this time P called her to the studio to do backing and Susannah was there directing it. She was like this but kept it cute.
On Graffiti Bridge, the last project she worked on with P, the magic of the music did not translate to the visual. “He looked damn good though!”
She noted that with all P did “he brought so much attention to the Black community” because of what he was able to accomplish to prominently demonstrate all we could be.
Jill also noted we were all here together connected through one man, Prince…and how because of him people have made lifelong friendships. This is when she mentioned the outpouring of love for @hoopen_mark 💜
Two more panels in these notes y’all! Looking around the room after this point, people were straight up sleep….some even snoring! Long day and cold in there too!
Tom Garneau next! Full disclosure I was really excited about this panel because he engineered some of my favorite Prince albums (Symbol, Come, Gold Experience) but unfortunately we didn’t really get into them. 😔
I wanted to hear about sequencing for Come/Gold especially since the configurations for those songs swapped albums frequently…😮💨
Here’s what was discussed instead…
Tom started in 1988 as the assistant to the assistant in Studio C
Tom worked for a year with other clients that recorded at Paisley Park, learning the rooms and the equipment. First Prince experience was once again testing the guitar with Prince creeping up on him.
(Unlike @chrisjamespro, he was not asked to join the band, lol).
Unreleased Music Clip Flesh & Blood with P singing (considered for Jill Jones). Tom assisted Femi Jiya on this song.
P would tell Tom to get stuff out of the vault and mix it. He would spend time on it trying to figure out the composition of a song he has never heard that hasn’t been mixed. When playing it back for Prince, P would turn down all the faders and be like…
The structure of the song is this, this, and this….start from there.
(I feel like this was P’s version of teaching/developing engineers).
Tom mentioned he mixed Morning Papers, Damn U, Continental, Love 2 the 9’s, 7, Sexy MF and I was like HERE WE GO
But we left that line of conversation with nothing.
Story about asking to be taken off P’s gig because he needed time to be with his family. Everyone was shocked. P found out and asked if Tom wanted to mix his next record…Tom asked if Prince could wait 2 weeks. P agreed to everyone’s shock.
P liked to record in warm rooms and would be like “hot so girls would want to take their clothes off”
30 hour sessions was the average for engineers at that time and they would all cycle through to cover that time.
Unreleased song clip American in Paris with Tom and Michael Koppelman providing background vocals.
The harmonica in Thieves in the Temple is a sample of I Can’t Sand It (Listen to the beginning)
Tom’s longest week was 115 hours with 1 day off.
Eye Hate U…..again me ready to get into it!
Was cut totally live with the full band in Studio A. And then they moved on. 😓
Left P’s service in 96 because P liquidated Paisley Park. Last time he saw P, Tom was walking through a crosswalk and P just happened to be stopped at the light. They acknowledged each other and P flipped him off.
Old habits die hard!
And there ends the Tom Garneau panel!
Last panel y’all! Beautiful Collection Panel with Cos Kyriacou & Gary Kazanchyan, shoe cobblers for P and the Paisley Park staff responsible for archiving, preserving and presenting his shoes for the beautiful exhibit.
For the actual design of the shoes the wardrobe department/P would send Gary and Cos designs and they would be responsible for making them real. Both generally do traditional shoe making with leather but Prince wanted to use fabrics which was new for them.
For the Versace outfit, Cos collaborated directly with Donatella to discuss fabric and how they would work on shoes.
“How did you feel when you saw Prince jump off a piano in shoes that you made?”
“Complete confidence.”
“Enjoyed performance but nervous”
By that point Prince knew how to operate in shoes like that as per Cos.
For the first iterations of the light up heels, Gary reused lighting components from Payless shoes until Prince wanted different colors. He then worked with an electrical engineer to get it done.
For the fuzzy boots Gary and team didn’t know how high they should go they started above the knee and Prince said that was too much so they moved it down with each iteration.
Moving on to the Paisley Park archivists… This part was super cool because they were showing videos of shoes being prepared for display behind the panel.
The conservation plan was developed to identify, clean, stabilize, and protect the shoes. They found over 1200 pairs of shoes, 300 are in the exhibit.
The room itself has a lot of 3D printed pieces by @Stratasys, the largest 3D printing agency in the world located in Eden Prairie. They typically make operational type parts so the Prince projects really tested their technology which they welcomed.
The piano (working) guitar and the photo behind are all 3D printed… And the photo is 3D printed on denim!
Video of the making of these were behind the panel as well.
It took 3 and half days 24 hours a day to 3D print the guitar using carbon fiber.
6 and a half days 24 hours a day to do the piano.
For each project people had to watch it the whole time to make sure it stayed on track.
There was mutual respect between the cobblers and the archivists as everyone deeply knew the work that it took to create and preserve the shoes. 🥰
I think this was an important panel as I feel people don’t consider what actually goes on at @PaisleyPark. It’s a museum with professional archivists who are tasked to preserve and protect P’s belongings. An actual science is behind this & they are very methodological about it.
In the past couple of years they have also really been putting a lot of work into creating unique exhibit spaces to showcase aspects of P’s life. That’s what your tour tickets and this celebration pay for! The upkeep and preservation of P’s home in a way that pays for itself. 💜
Salute to those tasked to do this as part of their life work and thank you for being of service to keep P alive for future generations! 💜
END OF DAY 1
(for me Mazarati and party with DJ Rashida are happening now. Would love to see her but I’mma catch her tomorrow)