The body of work that Dr Fink amassed while working with Prince is genius and iconic. So, how does it feel reflecting on it down the track? “Well, it’s something that I really enjoyed doing at the time,” he muses in his typically understated fashion. “It’s a nice legacy to keep enjoying, even from this far away.”
The way it all kicked off is kinda cute. Dr Fink and Bobby Z, The Revolution’s drummer, had known each other since they were little and lived in the same town – in fact their Mums used to work on charity drives for the local hospital together. Z was responsible for introducing Dr Fink to Prince’s music and later that strange, sexy, little Purple God himself. “Bobby came to me and said ‘you’ve gotta hear this’ so he took me out to his car and played me this demo of this kid who was playing all of the instruments. I asked him if Prince was going to try and get a band together and Bobby said ‘probably at some point’, so I said ‘let me know when you get a recording deal’.” And the rest, as they say, is history.
You’ve gotta wonder what the hell went down for Dr Fink to have left the Prince juggernaut in ’91, but he’s tight-lipped and respectful about it. “Sure I wish Prince continued with the Revolution. We split for various reasons, but I was very happy back then. All bands go through changes right? But I liked Prince – I loved Prince and I really enjoyed working with him. I was so excited to be part of this thing that when we got a major recording deal, I was going to work as long and as hard as it took. I relished the opportunity and it was an especially rare thing coming from Minneapolis, keeping in mind that just about everything else was coming out of LA, New York or Nashville.”
While Dr Fink’s never been here before and is looking forward to the excursion, everybody else is beside themselves. “Yeah, I thought abut this for all of 0.2 seconds before saying yes,” laughs Rudegair, the show’s director. “Then, when word started getting out, the phone started ringing all the time. I was getting calls saying ‘do you need a drummer?’ and I had to say ‘no man, I’ve already got one lined up’. I’ve had to turn people away.”
Rudegair readily cites Prince and the Minneapolis sound as a key influence – it’s undeniable really, given that he’s in a funk band called Lake Minnetonka. Now, in a happy turn of events, Rudegair’s not only getting to play with Dr Fink, he’s handpicking the setlist with him. “During the opening set, myself and Dru Chen, who’s this amazingly talented local artist, are going to perform some original material,” Rudegair explains. “Then, the second set is going to be all Prince repertoire, focusing pretty heavily on Purple Rain and Dirty Mind. The whole idea for the gig is Minneapolis funk comes together with Melbourne funk. There’s been a real resurgence of that retro ’80s sound here, what with bands like Sex on Toast. It’s one of those times when pop and the stars align.”
BY MEG CRAWFORD
