“Changes” – The White Prince with instrumental accompaniment by the Brain Bats of Venus (aka the Incredible Casuals), live at the Wellfleet Beachcomber, recorded by Chris Blood, god only knows when.
For those who don’t know already, the White Prince is Chris Blood, our long-suffering soundman and occasional record company president, making his annual forays at the Beachcomber into the entertainment field. Generally, he’s not doing this out of any desire of his own (and certainly not of the audience’s, as far as we could tell) but because all of the Casuals, to a man/woman, begged and pleaded. There’s pretty much nothing we liked better, and during the twilight of our run, say the last five years or so, pretty much the only thing that kept us together (other than the exceptional generosity and camaraderie of our fans/friends and the general need to rock out) was knowing we’d get to do a White Prince song or two on Labor Day. In fact, the last few years, rehearsing the White Prince was truly the only reason we ever rehearsed.
So, I love the White Prince with all my heart and soul -nothing and no one makes me laugh harder, and I’ve been trying to get permission from His Majesty to post these recordings for literally years. It has always seemed to me that they should come out on April Fool’s Day, and consequently for the Iast few years I’ve always ramped up my begging in the month preceding, which includes my birthday, which I’ve unabashedly used as further ammo, so far completely without success.
But here he finally is, (or will be next Saturday, anyway) and I think “Changes” pretty much tells you all you need to know: the precision and excellent diction of the opening verse, followed by Himself’s exquisitely timed first chorus; and then, just when you think it couldn’t get any worse, there’s the slow part with the trumpet solo from guitarist Candy Chartreuse (aka Jinky Dasdoodle)… and then, instead of an ending, everyone just gives up.
They just don’t make ’em like this anymore.
They never did.
God bless us, everyone.
A beautiful tribute to a great artist.
(I think I must have something in my eye…)
Malcolm Pollack