Chapter Two•Read the Package
I click my tongue and place the cap on the pen. After signing a contract that made me official staff of Prince & The Revolutions 1984-85 Purple Rain Tour, I am declared as a member of Time Warner's payroll. Susan quickly comes and swoops me beneath her wing. We find ourselves at the board as soon as possible and my crash course begins. She tells me what this does and how it effects that but, I should never touch those unless Prince has given the clear on all of these and until then, we shouldn't even look at them.
It is about thirty minutes in when Prince calls everyone to the center of the stage for a conversation. We fill the seats, the floors, the stage, the edge of the stage, the flats, and the walkways. Never in my life have I ever seen a production crew that is this big, ever.
"Before we really get started," begins Prince. He speaks into a microphone before us, regardless of the fact that he is center in the large cul-de-sac. "I just want to thank everyone. I want to thank you now because once we get started, you're going to need to remember that I really do love each and every one of you. It won't feel like a lot... trust!" A small tide of laughter ripples through the warehouse. "But, uh, I do... and this'll be fun!"
"Hell!"
The random voice got its own set of laughs as well as a chuckle from Prince. "That too but it ain't hell when you're the one in charge, it's just really hot." The crew grows antsy as everyone is ready to begin splitting up and going their own ways to prepare for the fact that music is soon to be played. I grow very excited— a little anxious, but mostly excited— as I swing my feet off of the edge of the stairs. "Oh! And this is Bobby's cousin," Prince says in an elated sing-song tone with the wiggle of his eyebrows as he points to me. I cover my face, the attention is too much. "Her name's Rose. She's our runt. We just adopted her today to step in while Linda takes care of some home stuff."
I turn to Alan and shake my head at the action performed. "He's horrible, right?"
Prince looks down at me, as it seems that I failed to mention that I am only about four feet from where he stands. "Wanna' give a speech?" He reaches out with the microphone in his hand. Feeling bold enough to play along, I extend my grasp in search of the microphone before he swiftly pulls back with great speed, laughing. "Get out of here." I thought he was talking to me but, the entire crew seems to be moving around.
"Sound Techs over on this side!"
I rise from the stage, walking to the right with my arms swinging loosely. I am pulled from my right arm to my surprise. "Hey!" Susan smiles as she pulls me back. "You're with us, Rose."
Confused, I point back at the sound technicians with my thumb. I stammer, "They... th– they said Sound Tech... nicians... Is this not...? Like, what do you mean?"
"We're Electronic," she states, creating a small triangle between myself, her, and another turned head. "They're Sound."
"What is the difference, Susan?"
She laughs, guiding me in the opposite direction of the Sound Technicians and up a flight of metals stairs with a cold, cold railing connected. "Sound Technicians do the sound. They do everything with sound... microphones, hot spots, soundcheck, everything. Guitar Technicians handle most of the guitar sounds, same with the Drum Programmer, and so on. Electronic Techs is just a fancy title to say that we're Sound Techs and then some. We are engineers too, and we record a lot. Sound Techs get hell, we get hell and a half."
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