Like 8 minutes of Prince rehearsing “When Doves Cry” in 1984

See Step Across the Border, A Documentary About Avant-Garde Guitarist Fred Frith

Marvelous moment at 1:18:14 (in a film full of marvelous moments) worth transcribing here.

Frith says:

There’s not much that happens that wakes people up. People are very happy to receive all the time—information. This information is usually coming from central source, like a television station or a government.  And people don’t question this at all, anymore. But there are some things you can do in cultural terms that will make people react in a different way. More–finding something in themselves that they didn’t know about. Because the kinds of concerts that we do, or theater events, or dance, or anything like this, when it works, it’s because it strikes a cord inside somebody, and they have to look at themselves, and they have to look at themselves in relation to the society that they’re in. And there aren’t many things that make people do that. Most of the time, people don’t even think about it.

Performance (Full Film)

 

“Winter Now” (Live) — Broadcast

“This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us” — Sparks (Live in 1974)

“To Love Somebody” (Live) — Nina Simone