the bar is packed, classic america mid western place in the middle of nowhere, accessible only by car or bike, it took wendy and i three hours walking and hitching in the twilight hours to get there but here we sit listening to some boogie guitar from z z top and drinking shots in the middle off a wet tee shirt competition as everyone shouted and cheered, 'skin, skin, skin, skin,' and i looked around me in my englishness and saw americana. i had been here before but never alone and as a teenager, i was filled with hormonal intellectual and spiritual thirsting, i wanted it all. 
at the time amongst my peers it was incredibly unfashionable to have anything to do with the usa, in fact i was bullied a lot at my stupid skool because my family had taken me there many times. but then looking back i was completely isolated at skool, even the few friends i had were vicious nasty, backstabbing bullies who's envy had no bounds. although the girls seemed to possess a different idea about me, very protective.
so wendy and i are very drunk, the smell of sex hangs heavy and everyone is wandering around stoned on that beautiful weed or staggering around from to much beer. the wet shirt girls are all stunning and disinhibited, there's a lot of flesh. 
i don't know how i met wendy, we just gravitated and she stuck close to me for a while. she was younger than me and i think bemused by my accent and choice of words, particularly 'brilliant' which i used to describe everything i liked.
she was typical new jersey, really cool. i liked her chilled out attitude and casual approach to everything and was not surprised when she mentioned she had booked a room in the bar so we could crash out overnight. i think around 3am the place seemed to close but we ended up retiring about 1am and even though the room was not huge i was surprised to find it included a tv.
i flicked through the channels while wendy rolled a joint.
in the time i had known wendy she was always listening to my description of the bands and music i liked, london punk, post punk she had never really heard off. i told her enthusiastically i liked the american bands, television, talking heads, patti smith but she was a springsteen girl. the only band we both seemed to have a great affection for was 'the stones.'
wendy was telling me about a new guy, a black dance act, she described him as a cross between james brown, hendrix and little richard, she said he was going to be the biggest star on the planet once people discovered him and his name was prince. i had never heard off him.
but that night, in pasqualie's bar in wisconsin i flicked through the old tv and stopped on a channel where i saw a grainy fussy picture of a guy singing a funky song and dancing with his band.
'that's him,' wendy said, 'that's prince.'
it was 1980 and i was just discovering my own paths through travel, books, music and life. i shut my eyes and smoked my joint and listened to some song from 'controversy' and i liked the future. what struck me right between my eyes was the weird wild gregarious sexual outrageous in your face, the dirty funk. it was sexy man. it turned us on. 

when i returned to the uk i told everyone, watch out for this groovy black american cat, man he's jimi hendrix, james brown, little richard. yeah yeah mission, they all said. 
a few months later i met a guy called anthony robesbottom, a black american from oklahoma who was a prince nut. he had moved to london and i hung out with him listening to his prince tapes. he was impressed i knew prince and said, it would only be a matter of weeks before prince went global. he was right. 
i always liked prince, yeah a few cheesy songs, some lyrics are questionable and some of his films are disposable but, and this is a big but, he was a fucking genius. he made it look so easy. 
tony had some amazing twelve inch singles we would listen to, songs like, 'how come you don't call me no more' and 'erotic city' and 'god.'

the last time i saw tony was at my wedding, he turned up in a rolls and told me he was going back to the states. i never saw wendy again either, but when ever i hear prince those two people come back to me. wendy and her wicked ways, tony who was a great friend.
then when i lived in west berlin, and frequented the infamous jungle nightclub gabrielle and i would always dance to the song kiss which they would always play at midnight, i'd do my jungle stomp and gabrielle would just do here exotic sexy stuff. 

prince is gone now. bowie is gone. they made a mark upon me. their music touched my spirit in some way, bowie especially but prince in another way. i guess it's sad but reassuring they have both left us a considerable sum of work to enjoy and the promise of unreleased songs we may get to listen to when the record companies need some cash. but one thing is sure, for me those two musicians are as much a part of my life as my family. not just for their music, but for the way they lived, integrity and commitment to their art. respect!