Back in the early nineties my family got a Prodigy account. If you don't remember Prodigy, it was the direct competitor of America Online and was marketed as an online community of sorts prior to the world wide web changing everything and the internet becoming a popular topic. The big draw were the forums for just about every topic under the sun. With these forums I started looking into tape trading with fans of Depeche Mode and Prince. The DM trading circle dried up pretty quick since there wasn't much available in the way of live or unreleased recordings, but the Prince circles were huge! I wasn't very interested in live recordings since most of them were crap, but there were so many studio recordings to get and I got just about everything that was available at the time. Most of Prince's studio works that get traded today were leaked and shared via cassettes from the very late eighties to late nineties. It was a fun group to participate in, although I was apparently one of the few that didn't try to fit into skin-tight outfits or sing in a falsetto. Seriously, I'm not knocking anyone here, just being honest. You guys should have seen the Prince conventions!
I had so many great tapes but most of them are worthless now, replaced by better quality MP3s than any generation tape I have or could have gotten. I know enough to get by when it comes to sonic spectrals, and those tapes generally look gawd-awful, but there are a few things out there which never seemed to make their way to the digital age at large, or at least large enough that I see them widely. I used to have demos and rough mixes of songs from Beauty and The Beast and The Lion King, which were intensely fascinating although they seem to have sadly disappeared. I still have a complete tape of Danny Elfman's Nightmare Before Christmas demos, of which several tracks are still unreleased and deserve an eventual posting, as well as a 90 minute cassette of truly rare Lucky Pierre recordings, many of which also remain unreleased, but some of the weirder stuff rests on a cassette I received, I believe, in 1991.
The 1991 cassette is a collection of tracks intended for George Clinton's Hey Man... Smell My Finger, his second album for Prince's Paisley Park label and then heralded by many as a major return to form for the soulful funkateer. I had received a different cassette of tracks from these sessions a month or two earlier that I had neglected to examine in depth because the tape speed was seriously flawed making the recording difficult to focus on, but this one was spot on. Despite being referred to as demos, these recordings sounded rather complete in parts, making me wonder what else could be added to these songs. Well, a lot actually as several of the tracks were removed and others were dramatically reinvented, making the album sound a lot less like a Prince-related production and more like a genuine P-Funk document.
When the album came out, GC got some good press but, like most Paisley Park releases, it was under-promoted as hell, sold miserably and went out of print quick. It was actually a pretty damn nice album, which makes it's non-availability a real shame, but it did get a lot of hype within the Prince community and made me want to hear anything else I could that was P-Funk related. It's also worth noting that it sparked tons of questions about Prince's involvement in the album, as there is definitely a Princely vibe stirring beneath the surface and there were strong rumors that Prince was heavily involved in the album's production. GC publicly stated at one point that Prince was "all over that album", but his name only appeared directly on the album's weakest track, The Big Pump.
These "demos", which I'm not sure is an appropriate label (listen to the horn sections! don't sound like demos to me!), are pretty damn awesome, yet despite the Prince involvement, I haven't seen them traded in the Prince community for a long time nor have I seen many mentions of them online otherwise. Alternate versions of some of the tracks do appear in some Prince collections, but this tape seems pretty much ignored.
All of these tracks were transferred by me earlier today and, apart from removing excessive silence at the end of certain cuts, you're getting the unedited Smell My Finger portion of the cassette. So please take a listen and enjoy this fine funky find!
George Clinton - Smell My Finger Demos
01 The Flag Was Still There
This isn't all that terribly different from the released version of this track, although I do prefer the sparser production over the bombastic tones of the finished version. Oooh, I sounded kinda poetic there!
02 Rhythm & Rhyme
This is completely different from the finished version. Bootsy and Shock-G/Humpty Hump are nowhere in sight. George is rapping off the beat all over this track, and it sounds pretty lame. The finished one is far superior, but this is still interesting to hear.
03 Dis Beat Disrupts
The Prince-involvement argument really heats up here. Housequake is both sampled and mentioned here over a simple drum machine and backwards beep loop with a little sitar thrown in for good measure. TC Ellis, whom I'm sure almost no one has ever heard of, does a little rapping here. The finished version is a little more energetic but this version is funky!
04 Kickback
A less convoluted version of the track that made the final album. Simpler and better for it.
05 Oil Spill
Damn glad this track did not make the album. Rather dated commentary on the first Iraq war. Never really cared for this track anyway.
06 Way Up
This is a slightly different version of the instrumental of the same name featured on the finished album, although George shows up here to recite part of his rap from Martial Law in a more relaxed voice.
07 We Can Funk
This track puts things in perspective, dating some of these recordings to 1989 or 1990. The backing track on this version is identical to the version on Graffiti Bridge, although Prince is almost invisible here, at least vocally, as he only shows up towards the end. All other vocals are handled by GC and friends.
08 Your Mother
I guess GC's son, Trey Lewd, has done part of this rap somewhere or other, but this track otherwise remains unreleased. Pretty funky stuff, although George's vocals appear nowhere on the track.
09 High In My Hello
This is another track that never grew on me here or when it was finished, although this somewhat simpler version, not featuring George's ranting, is far more acceptable. This track cuts off at the end as the tape ran out, but from hearing another copy I can safely attest that you're not missing anything. The ending loops and voices merely continue to repeat over and over and over and over.....
10 Pony
Once again, it's clear Prince is here, all the way from the percussion track to his background vocals on the chorus. Catchy track which, while it wouldn't have fit on the finished album as is, could have been really great with some additional polish. To be honest, this could have been released as is because it's just a fun dance track. As simple as it is, don't tell me you couldn't hear some DJ playing it and people dancing like crazy to it. A keeper!
11 Booty
This was retooled and issued as the B-Side to Paint The White House Black. I prefer this version. More nasty sex-funk from GC.
12 Get Satisfied
This is an easy winner, and it wasn't changed too drastically upon release. I think there might have been some more synths on the finished version and the pitch may have been adjusted, but clearly they knew not to mess with something that worked. Great track!
13 This Groove (Is Gonna Make You Move)
Funky track that should have seen release in one form or another. I wonder if Prince being involved may have kept this from being resurrected in one form or another, although I do know Prince owns the rights to EVERYTHING that was released on Paisley Park. The guy who complained about majors hoarding his masters is doing just the same as an indie-guy. grumble grumble grumble
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