Tickle Torture and Velvet Negroni by Erin PedersonHere are some things I like about Tickle Torture:- Sometimes he calls himself Uncle Tickle. Creepy? Kinda! But funny too.- He loves gold lamé and diamante everything.- He once made me a chocolate half mast cast of his dick on a stick.- He used to be in a very normal indie band.- He loves synths and pop and Prince more.Elliot Kozel a.k.a. started writing this tribute song to the Purple One the day after died. As a former inhabitant of Minneapolis and a huge fan of his work, Uncle Tickle was especially saddened by the originator's tragic passing, and with help of his bud Velvet Negroni, he's finally pulled together "Full Court Press"—a louche, cool-as-a-very-phallic cucumber track that Prince would sure be down with. In fact, part of it was filmed outside Paisley Park, the endless tributes to the singer tacked up to the chainlink fence are in the background.Tickle had this to say about the whole shebang:"When I started Tickle Torture fuve years ago in Minneapolis, my only goal was to embody the sex-funk dynasty that Prince left in his wake. One man had created something so unique and powerful that it came to define an entire city’s sound, but it seemed to me that no one was there carrying the torch. I remember looking around the scene and seeing a million shitty Replacement knock-off bands, but not one single shitty Prince knock-off band. So that became my mission, to be the best shitty Prince I could possibly be. His spirit and energy was the entirety of what I built my project on. The sweat, the funk, the fashion, the sexual ambiguity, the album covers, the videos, the fucking synchronized slide-clap dance moves, all of it."Fast forward to the spring of 2016. Now living a world apart in Los Angeles, I got the news of his death and immediately felt a deep longing to be back in Minneapolis. I spent the night laying in bed with a fever of 103 watching the city of Minneapolis explode with emotion through the feed on my phone. I was overwhelmed and helpless, but watching the people of Minneapolis converging into a spontaneous mass celebration triggered the instinct to create something, anything, out of this fucked up, wild energy."The next day I wrote this song with Velvet Negroni (Jeremy Nutzman formerly of Pony Bwoy) and we spent the next month recording, refining, and painstakingly perfecting what would become our attempt at a musical “pouring one out. The video was shot in and around the city of Minneapolis, in front of famed night club First Avenue, on the dusty country roads of Chanhassen and of course outside of the legendary Paisley Park.This collaboration is a love letter to the city of Minneapolis and the infinite inspiration left on this planet by Prince Rogers Nelson."Take five to appreciate and watch below.
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