When my phone rings, a record publicist is quite likely on the other end chirruping about a new act: “You’ve gotta hear it to believe it. It’s new, it’s colorful, it’s daring, and it crosses all musical boundaries.”
So who does it, and what exactly is it? A hybrid toucan that manages kamikaze moves while singing “I Want to Be Me” Id a canary falsetto?
Now that would really be some act, I am tempted to say.
“It’s a new rock act, and, well, it’s just really hard to describe it,” the publicist continues. “You can’t attach a label to it.”
Amazingly, after one spin of the disc, I find most indescribable music quite describable. And that certainly is the case with a man called Prince, whose band will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday at Cobo. (Teena Marie opens.)
After listening to his new album, “Dirty Mind,” I developed a severe rhythm and blues reaction. At first, I was spurred on by a good beat but that proved to be short-lived, as it succumbed to some very weak vocals.
SO HOW exactly does the artist describe his work?
“I really don’t think you can label what I do,” said the 20-year-old Minneapolis native. “I basically developed my own style. I just want to appeal to people who are open-minded and ready to accept change. I guess I have been geared ‘toward the R&B market, but that’s really hot what this album is about.”
What is it really about? Prince couldn’t really say, except that he thought his last album, “For You,” was romantic, and he can sense when a song is written properly.
“I know it’s all supposed to go together, and I don’t know what exactly makes it all go together, but I know when it’s .wrong.”
One shouldn’t single out Prince (he won’t divulge his real name) for being unable to articulate what he does. He just does it, and that’s about as much description as you’ll get from a lot of musicians. They find biographical information much easier to relate than their musical philosophies.
In Prince’s case, his father abandoned his mother and eight other children when Prince was seven, leaving behind a piano that wouldn’t fit in the back of his car.
PRINCE BEGAN plunking out music and took up the guitar at age 13. And by that time, he was singing with a group called Champagne at local clubs, parties and dances.
“And I’m not really black. I’m somewhat of a mongrel dog. My father was half Italian, half black, and my mother was Italian and something else,” said Prince, who has adopted his father’s jazz band stage name.
He ran away when he was 12 and has been concentrating on performing music since. On his recent record, Prince composed all the tunes and did all the instrument tracks and vocals himself. But the entire band, consisting of bassist Andre Cymone, guitarist Dez Dickerson, drummer Bobby Z and keyboardists Lisa Coleman and Dr. Fink, will perform on the next project.
VISUALLY, THE band is an enigma. Prince dresses in bikini bottoms, leg warmers and a trench coat, while his drummer wears what appears to be a surgeon’s outfit, and one of the keyboardists likes cowboy boots.
The group’s sexual and racial makeup reminds one of Sly and the Family Stone. Musically, Prince sounds faintly like Smokey Robinson. But Prince has been described as the new Jimi Hendrix. “I really don’t want to be the new anybody,” Prince said. “And I’m certainly not the new Jimi. For one thing, Jimi was good, but that was 10 years ago, and it’s dead now. And besides, I hardly ever play lead guitar.”