Read it and weep, people. This summer marks a quarter-century since the release of Purple Rain—both the seminal Prince album and the movie of the same name. While it’s hard to imagine today, this slight man in eyeliner and his nine songs—especially the dramatically explicit Darling Nikki—struck fear in the hearts of parents everywhere, as he managed to subversively educate a generation of teenagers about masturbation, grinding, and Minneapolis.
If you live in New York City, consider yourself lucky, as there are many anniversary showings of Purple Rain on the horizon, starting this very weekend at the venerable Lincoln Center. (What's more American than Purple Rain on 4th of July weekend?) And THE free musical event of the summer will happen in Prospect Park on August 6: the Purple Rain Singalong. If you don’t live here, why not plan your own party? Get out the eyeliner, scare up some purple food, rent the DVD, and invite your friends.
Rather than wax cinematic about the lasting impact of the film (directed by Albert Magnoli—who?), the rousing power of the music, or the mercurial appeal of the man himself, we’ve decided to let the original fans (now "of a certain age") speak for themselves.
The show "Fin De Semana" was a great success. I was happy and pleased with the outcome and am also grateful of the hard work the FDS's put in to the show.
Having begun as a small, humble and casual show, the show sorta evolved to a more semi-formalized exhibit. It was definitely more than I had anticipated. The over all concept of the show was to experience a weekend paint session (hence Fin De Semana). BBQing, drinks passed around, painting, and chopping it up with friends and acquaintances, talking about old graff stories while signing blackbooks and slapping stickers. It was sure a great way to kick off the summer.
FDS - "From Da Street" was an uncut true street-like production. No matter how often we try to confine graffiti to galleries, sanctionize it and legalize it...in all of its recent hoop-la of commercialization and sensationalism...true graffiti is raw and From Da Streets!!
Here are some photos of what was exhibited by photographer: Eriberto Oriol. The images are of the L.A.'s very own FDS crew painting and rocking the wall.
PLEASE NOTE - All photos are by and copyrighted by Eriberto Oriol
PLEASE NOTE AGAIN - All photos are by and copyrighted by Eriberto Oriol
and here is are a jam that can very well be the theme song of the show. I will follow up with images of the day of the show soon.
And for those that came out to support. Thank you!
And maybe look forward to a Fin De Summer or Final Days of Summer exhibit similar to this towards the end of summer. Just a thought to start brewing.
Here are a few more videos of stuff I used to listen to in the early days... these songs bring it way back! too bad many of these songs do not have actual videos but listen to these jams anyhow -
This is the World Class Wreckin Cru - with Dr Dre and DJ Yella with Michell'e on the vocals. word...
This is Egyptian Lover again rocking the dope beats with "My Beat Goes Boom"
And this here is another cut by "Uncle Jamm's Army" oh yeaaah - "Dial-A-Freak"
I tell yeah - I wish I was pulling out my KDAY cardboard or my vinyl floor sprayed with pledge and bust.
Woke up yesterday thinking about my early days again. Don't know, but for some reason, I have been thinking about my old days a lot more recently. It is either a sign that I am getting old or just simply wanting to go back to them days when music such as the ones I will talk about and are posted here were first been aired on the radio.
All these groups were somewhat tied in and they all had cuts* and also legendary rappers that would later embark on their own projects and have successful musical careers. Rappers such as: Dr Dre and DJ Yella who both were in World Class Wreckin Cru and of course all know went out to form N.W.A.. The first gangster rap group to also place Compton on the map. Another such was Ice-T who used to be part of Uncle Jamm's Army and is attributed to actually spawning off the gangster rap sub-genre. Of course there were/are more like: Kid Frost, as I mentioned in one of my previous posts, DJ Pooh, Chris "The Glove" Taylor and so on.
I remember Friday Night Jams when KDAY used to play about 2 hours straight of just jams. I would pull out my boom box* and throw in a cassette tape(s) that would have the little holes on the top stuffed with napkin pieces or tape them up so I can record over them. I would rummage through my mom's tapes and would ask her is she still wanted them and/or just snag my dad's tapes and scratch off the artist's name and info. And I, thinking I was slick, would hope my dad wouldn't find out but of course he would and he'd beat my ass. LOL
Anyhow, as I type I remember more and more about them days like Bobby Jimmy and the Critters which was a Los Angeles comedy rap group. They had songs such as "We Like Ugly Women" and "Roaches" which was a parody of the song by Timex Social Club, "Rumors".
Those were some fun days. And once again, as some of my previous posts, I will continue about this more on future posts. LOL (or not) But here is why I was motivated to blog. I had recently spoken to my boy Earn-One and we spoke a little of old school cats like: Minus-UCA (R.I.P) and Easie-UCA/STN/LATT (R.I.P) and how we used to chill in those days. And every time I think of them, I also think of Dorsey High School. Yeah boyee...Dorsey. They used to have pep rallies during lunch and I must say they had the best pep rallies ever. I always remember heading out there on the bus to just hang with Minus, Skil, and Easie during school. Chase-UCA would often be around too. The wild thing about this is that although I was not attending the school I would sit in their classrooms as a student just so I'd be there for the pep rallies. LOL. I never really knew how some teachers would not know while a couple would be cool about it.
Dorsey would often have the LADT perform and they were the shizzle* with jams like "The Dream Team is the House" and the electro jam "Rockberry Jam". It'd get wild with hot cheerleaders dancing wearing short skirts and everyone freaking in front of the stage getting down to the sounds of LADT.
Sadly, after their quick success, about 4 years later, I ended up working with Chris Wilson of the LADT at the Universal Cineplex Movie Theater. It was sorta surreal to be working with him and could never really comprehend how he was working as an usher for minimum wage after being on tour and all that. I guess it happens more than often as we have seen with many musicians and child stars. right?
So here are the videos: hope you listen to them. Some don't actually have videos per se but you can still listen to the jam.
L.A. Dream Team - "The Dream, Team is in The House"
L.A. Dream Teaam - "Rockberry Jam"
Bobby Jimmy and The Critters - "Roaches" - HAHAHAHAHA - can't help but laugh every time I hear this song.
Egyptian Lover - Freak-A-Holic"
That really takes me back. In a couple of days I will post a few more videos and maybe continue talking about the West Coast Hip-Hop days. i will also talk about the L.A. Street Scene and the Radio-Tron as well.
Alright ya'll peace
MAKE's GLOSSARY cut - used to describe a song. More applied to a song that was either really good or greatly liked. shizzle - a variation of the word sh**. Mainly used to describe something really good. boom box - a term used for hnad-held radios or cassette players. The term is still used today.
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