Music. Changes. Life.
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Here is the link to an article that I’ve written about the necessity for any type of freelance work- audio, video, and photography especially included.
Harnessing the Power of Proposals
and here are the sample proposals that we’ve decided to use with the article:
Graffiti, in some circles of our society, is a four letter word. To others, like me, it brings to mind unbridled creativity. Graffiti artists have endured all kinds of negative stereotypes, none of which give credit to those graffiti artists that actually have artistic talent.
I was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1977 which was right in the middle of modern graffiti’s heyday. As a child I remember the vibrant colors on the hallway walls of the housing projects I lived in, and the subway cars I rode on. The scribbling was everywhere. No matter how hard I squinted I could not make out what was written, but it fascinated me. It was like trying to read another language I was not fluent in. It was a secret language of the streets. I was always fascinated by the sheer size of the art, the wild shapes of the letters and of course the colors used in the art work. The designs were filled with very bright and eye catching reds, blues, greens, and even pinks. I remember all the adults and the media criticizing and stereotyping this art form and its artists because of the heavy gang influence associated with graffiti. They would call them hoodlums, vandals, and anything else negative they could think of.
Shortly after my sixth birthday my parents decided to move south to Miami, Fl. It was the early 80’s and the dawn of the Hip Hop culture. The music, the clothes, the break dancing and the art styles of the urban populace was starting to flood our everyday world. It was no surprise to me that the strange colorful wall scribbling that I remembered in New York had made its way down south. Around this time I found out that the wall scribbling had a name. It was graffiti. Being exposed and strangely fascinated by graffiti most of my childhood it was only natural for me to start playing around with this art form in my teenage years.
I viewed graffiti as the last true unrestricted art form left in society. The art classes in high school were not interesting to me because they taught an art that to me seemed to confined and uniform. Being a graffiti artist as a teenager was like living a double life. During daylight hours I was your stereotypical teenager doing teenage stuff. At night I would don dark colors that would blend in with the darkness in order to work my craft undisturbed. I was well aware of society’s view on graffiti but I did not feel like a vandal or a hoodlum at all. I felt like I was taking part in something bigger then just simple vandalism. It was a means of communicating what was going on around me through art. While participating in this art form I learned a lot about graffiti. This art form was not something that was started by so-called hoodlums; graffiti actually had a profound history to it.
While expanding my knowledge of the craft, I discovered that graffiti’s roots can be traced as far back as prehistoric times. I learned that the hieroglyphs and cave paintings found in Egypt, Mexico, North America, and China could all be considered graffiti. Those graffiti paintings are viewed as historical works of art. If I were alive in those eras I would have been considered a story teller or a historian instead of a vandal. If they were created in modern times those hieroglyphs and cave paintings would be viewed as vandalism. I asked myself one day. Why is that? I dug deeper into graffiti’s history and found out why graffiti artist are stereotyped as hoodlums.
Like me, modern graffiti has its roots in New York. Without any positive role models the youth of 1970’s New York took to the streets and started forming street gangs in New York’s impoverished urban areas. Any borough visited in New York City at that time had a street gang of some sort. To distinguish themselves from gangs in other parts of the neighborhood young gang members started to use graffiti to mark their territory. I clearly remember the walls of my block covered in specific colors and symbols not found anywhere else in my borough. As we all know, gangs bring crime, so graffiti was associated with gangs and crime. Unfortunately, even graffiti artists, like me, that did not have any affiliation with gangs were slandered with the stereotype as well.
Graffiti was a way for a lot of teens in impoverished areas throughout America to express their artistic creativity. Since they did not have any other venue accessible to them, they did so at the risk of losing their freedom. Now in the new millennium the urban culture is in even higher demand then the 1980’s and you can find graffiti being used by mainstream media to try to capture more consumers in urban areas. Because of the recent rise of graffiti in popular culture, the graffiti artists that were once considered hoodlums are now seen as Picassos.
Placed by The Gideon
Wise-dome
Wisdom is knowing what you know as well as what you don’t know.
Wisdom is not simply knowing what to do, but doing it.
Many people will without invitation offer their “words of wisdom”; wise people realize when it is not their time or place to do so.
A wise person does not think less of another who chooses not to follow their advice.
Wisdom is not undermining a person for their weaknesses, but appreciating their strengths differ from yours.
Placed by The Gideon
Wedding Dj, Photo, and Video Packages
By Peter Willis
My audience with Prince has taken a bizarre downward turn.
I’m trying to interview the rock legend but he’s more interested in an impromptu jam session on the stage of his private concert hall – with me on drums.
We’re two minutes into Beatles classic Come Together and I’m getting into my stride when I become aware that Prince is staring across at me and wincing.
“Stop! Stop! Stop!” he shouts, slamming his hand down on his purple grand piano. “Have you ever seen The Apprentice on TV? Cos You’re fired!”
I protest. Let’s take it from the top again, I suggest. But too late. I’ve blown it.
Still, there can’t be many people who’ve been hired and fired by Prince, all in the space of a few minutes.
My humiliation came at the end of an extraordinary day in which I was given a rare insight into the very private world of one of the greatest rock stars on the planet. A living legend who has sold more than 100 million albums over 30 years.
Prince agreed to his first British newspaper interview for 10 years before his eagerly anticipated new album 20TEN which, in the biggest music giveaway of the year, will be released free in the UK only in the Daily Mirror this Saturday.
The interview almost doesn’t happen. Then it’s on as long as I can meet him the very next day at his home town of Minneapolis in the US Midwest (and I’m ordered not to bring a camera, mobile phone or tape recorder).
After a transatlantic dash I arrive at the hotel to find Shelby Johnson, one of Prince’s backing singers, waiting to drive me down the road to his Paisley Park base – a name that’s as synonymous with Prince as Neverland was with Michael Jackson.
I’d envisaged a lavish purple palace at the end of a winding lane, but it turns out to be a huge white 70,000 square foot building, more like an industrial complex, on a busy main road.
Shelby shows me into a room like a 50s diner and, before I have had chance to sit down, Prince strides in, beaming, with hand outstretched.
I’m amazed. Where is the superstar entourage – burly security, manic PRs and personal assistants?
“Hi,” he says, “I’m so glad you could come.” His voice is deeper than I expected, he’s certainly small (5ft 2in at most), looks almost half his age (52), and is dressed immaculately, if oddly, in white silk trousers, flouncy green silk shirt, an ivory tunic and white pumps (which, I suspect, are stacked).
“You must come and listen to the album,” he says. “I hope you like it. It’s great that it will be free to readers of your newspaper. I really believe in finding new ways to distribute my music.”
He explains that he decided the album will be released in CD format only in the Mirror. There’ll be no downloads anywhere in the world because of his ongoing battles against internet abuses.
Unlike most other rock stars, he has banned YouTube and iTunes from using any of his music and has even closed down his own official website.
He says: “The internet’s completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it.
“The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good.
“They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.”
Then he leads me to his recording studio and urges me to sit in his leather swivel chair at the enormous mixing desk. Wow! I’ve finally arrived at the epicentre of Prince’s world – the scene of fabled all-night-long sessions in which he apparently plays up to 27 instruments.
This is where the genius behind classics such as Purple Rain, When Doves Cry, 1999 and Let’s Go Crazy creates his music. The walls are a vibrant reddish purple, flickering candles line every ledge and the smell of incense fills the air.
Prince jabs a few buttons and hidden speakers burst into life with my preview. He looks at me searching for a reaction. All fears that it might be uninspiring vanish as my foot starts tapping.
It’s instantly infectious. Amazing. Thankfully it’s a return to his early blistering form which captivated millions of fans around the world and I love it.
“This one’s called Compassion,” says Prince. But as I try to scribble it down he looks aghast, grabs my wrist and pleads: “Please, please. It’s a surprise, don’t spoil it for people.”
So why did you decide to call the album 20TEN? I ask. “I just think it’s a year that really matters,” he says. These are very trying times.” To emphasise the point he chivvies me into another room, switches on the TV and shows me clips from an evangelical TV documentary blaming corporate America for a range of woes from Hurricane Katrina to asthmatic children.
He says one problem is that “people, especially young people, don’t have enough God in their lives”.
Prince has been a devout Jehovah’s Witness for more than 10 years.
He even has a space set aside which he’s labelled The Knowledge Room, with a library of religious books.
Prince talks about his beliefs with missionary zeal, but ask him anything remotely personal and he’s brusque. Question him on his childhood and he says: “I don’t talk about the past.”
On his relationship with his stunning girlfriend Bria Valente, he says: “Self interest is on the back-burner now.”
And on late friend/foe Michael Jackson, he simply replies: “Next question.”
Time for another surprise. “Come,” he says, and like an excitable Willy Wonka, he leads me down corridors lined with glinting platinum discs to a lounge where his three talented backing singers, Shelby Johnson, Olivia Warfield and Elisa Fiorilla, are waiting by an ebony futuristic grand piano.
Prince shows me to a seat in the middle of the room and starts playing a rousing track Act of God from the new album 20TEN… especially for me.
Surreal isn’t the word. I thank them profusely, Prince smiles and sends me off for dinner. But as it’s “only” 10pm he suggests we regroup back here in an hour “to party”.
As he’s gained a reputation as the Prince of Darkness for not starting gigs until 2am and not leaving clubs until dawn, my expectations run high. When I return later to Prince’s weird HQ, he welcomes me warmly into what appears to be his own private nightclub.
It’s lavishly kitted out with velvet circular sofas, a dancefloor and there’s a stairway up to a balcony.
On two huge screens, at least 20ft high, there are videos of him performing.
But where are the guests? And where’s the bar? Of course, I remember, he’s a strict teetotal vegan – when one of those backing singers wanders in, offering me a glass of still water.
She is closely followed by the other two, carrying trays of sliced melon and raw vegetables, which they place on a long table beside a large Bible. “Help yourself,” says one.
Prince walks in with girlfriend Bria, in a shimmering full-length evening gown like she’s at the Oscars. Twice married and divorced, he has been with the singer, who’s almost half his age, for three years.
He produced her first solo album Elixer last year and she has become a Jehovah’s Witness. He introduces her and she looks around and says: “Sorry, I think I’m a little overdressed!”
They pop out for a minute and return, with her proudly holding a food blender filled with a banana smoothie which they pour into glasses for themselves.
Just when it couldn’t get any more bizarre, Prince clambers behind video equipment under the stairs and starts screening 1970s clips from the US TV show Soul Train of his music heroes such as Marvin Gaye and Barry White.
He urges his guests – all five of us – to dance and the spirited backing singers look like they’re having the time of their lives.
Prince occasionally emerges from under the stairs to study the screens a bit closer. But when I try to talk to him he runs back to his hole, shouting: “Too many questions.”
From his agility, it’s clear rumours he needs a double hip op after too much dancing on high heels are unfounded. But he bores quickly of the videos and we’re off again, down more corridors of platinum discs, past iconic guitars and that famous bike from Purple Rain.
He’s decided to take us to his private concert hall, which, with a capacity for more than 1,000 people, is awesome.
Pride of place is a huge Love Symbol #2 – now the name of the symbol he changed his name to when he fell out with his old record company Warners.
He says: “It’s what I always dreamed of when I was a young musician, playing in the basement. Music is my life. It’s my trade. If I can’t get it out of my head I can’t function. Someone told me they saw me at my peak, but how do they know when my peak is? I think I’m improving all the time. When I listen to my old records I’m ashamed of how I played then.”
He adds earnestly: “Playing electric guitar your whole life does something to you. I’m convinced all that electricity racing through my body made me keep my hair.”
Then he orders us all on the stage, saying: “Get yourself an instrument.” Prince sits at his purple piano, the backing singers by their microphones and me on the drums. Only to be found out.
It’s only midnight but after firing me Prince clearly decides he can take no more. As he bids me farewell, I cheekily pull out a camera and ask for a picture.
He shakes his head. “It’s much better in the memory bank,” says the star. Then he turns to a backing singer and says: “The picture will make your eyes look red and they will use it really big.”
Prince doesn’t need an army of PRs to advise him on his image. For all the time I spent with him he still managed to retain that air of mystery.
