Primal Scream: C or D?

I do smell a large rat re: Bobby G tho - he doesn't half talk shite and seems to hook onto "trendy" causes without any genuine-sounding justification.

[but, one of his daft proclamations did elecit my first ever published letter in Melody Maker back in 1992, so maybe I should be thanking him for his guileless motormouthery...]

'This is terrible!' said one of the Bobby Gillespies, pointing to the fact that the clothes were in the water.

'How beautiful!' exclaimed the second Bobby Gillespie, pointing at the bird.

And the third continued to swim, since he was there to swim and not to make value judgements.

I liked the weedy, hippie jangleshit. I put up with the endless stoner Stones jams. I LOVED the freeform psychedelic house music. I loved the acerbic post-come-down speed jitter discopunk even more.

Bobby G is of course my perfect man, and someday he will marry me and take away to his Battersea Dogs Home for lost great guitarists from the late 80s. The end!

Yes, I am going to sit and this thread and shoot down every single of one of you that tries to say bad things about my beloved Bobby G. Or maybe I'll just spread a giant net across the New North Road until Bobby G comes cycling by, kidnap him and sit him down in front of this computer to answer them himself!

yes please. I'd love to insult him myself.

Recently saw them for the 13th time in 15 years and still very fine.

The Actual song Screamadelica on the Dixie Narco 12" is the best thing ever.

OK how much do i have to pay for the next flight to Dublin?

As the frazzled pop pioneers Bobby G seems to think that they are - DUD.

Well, they're not the ultimate band. I like 'em a lot though - Vanishing Point, XTRMNTR and Screamadelica are all ace. People complain that they're only as good as whoever is producing them, but I honestly don't care how much influence their producers have if the end result is going to be a great record.

Hey, you're mean.

Absolutely. I don't think anyone takes Bobby G and his (frankly Gallagher-esque) ranting too seriously. But most of the music is intoxicating enough to make me forget this.

In the meantime, love 'em, from indie jangle onwards. Still think they did the worst gig I've ever seen in '94 though.

"Rocks" was a guaranteed floor-filler at Cafe Bleu.

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

Reader:
"A few years ago i blagged a ticket to an icelandic music festival, travelling with primal scream and prodigy. on a day off, after taking a coach up a very steep mountain road to a glacier, you threw an embarrassingly girly fit, refused to travel down with the rest of us, and demanded a hellicopter. remember?"

Bobby G:
"haha! Right, what happened was it took hours to get up there and the whole time I thought the bus was going to topple over the edge, and i was really cold too. when we got to the top, i just went 'get me fucking out of here'. and this guy put me in a jeep and drove me back at 90mph - that was really exciting, like being in some crazy road movie. as for demanding the hellicopter, yeah i probably did. Hey, that's fair enough. I'm a lead singer in a fucking rock and roll band! Why not?"

I love the way he tries to regain some macho pride by saying "that was really exciting, like being in some crazy road movie". Bobby gillespie: man of the people, indeed.

the music, on the other hand...

interviews with bobby are funny bcz he's a bit of a fule!

https://imgur.com/gallery/rlmYUzr

https://imgur.com/gallery/rlmYUzr

Ugh, sorry

You can't embed a web page, it has to be an image


https://i.imgur.com/Os99C7S.jpg

Yo Bobby G!!!!!!!!🤘🔥❤️@primalscreamofficial Witnessed blinding gig last nite by @thurstonmoore58 @cafeotodalston TM & James Shredwards straffing on twin guitar sonic attack whilst our darling @googoogiegoo anchored the sound w/ stone solid bass rhythms allowing the boys to fly around her ( sonically speaking ! ) freely safe in the knowledge they had a safe place to land again after their psyche zonked astral ( guitar ) adventure's - all needle frequency angular solos spiralling into hypnotic drones which sucked out our skulls and spewed out our brains and it felt real good, lemme tell you people. It was a Zoom only type affair so only fifteen of us lucky ones got to see it in the flesh. Such a blast to see a proper r & r band play again and it sure did blast away de ol' lockdown blues. 🎸⭐️🎸 Photograph by Brother @jamesendeacott

pic has got a lot of "day release from Monster Mansion" energy.

Hilarious

Siri show me 'an almost transcendental lack of self-awareness' please. (From Bobby Gillespie's book). pic.twitter.com/EB0tGFmc7O

— ⚫Neil Kulkarni (@KaptainKulk) May 13, 2022

He's beyond parody but I'm going to keep on trying.

lol I think all the music hacks who encouraged him for decades should bear some responsibility for his condition. Someone from literature-twitter pointed out that the Kipling quote is wrong!

All Boaby knows about Kipling is that he makes exceedingly good cakes.

That truly is something else.

Really sad to read how they treated Martin Duffy

Primal Scream really don’t come out well from this. https://t.co/9GZGirdgiT

— Michael Hann (@MichaelAHann) June 7, 2023

Really sad to read how they treated Martin Duffy

Primal Scream really don’t come out well from this. https://t.co/9GZGirdgiT

— Michael Hann (@MichaelAHann) June 7, 2023

Not sure how that double posted

why was this pdf posted to this particular site? (dafts...)????

I watched the French movie FULL TIME yesterday. The protagonist is a hotel maid who at one point has to power-wash one room's bathroom walls because they're covered in a guest's feces. The guest is described as "the Scottish rock star" and my instantaneous mental reaction was, Wow, I wonder what inspired the screenwriter to take such a shot at Bobby Gillespie?

Sadly I think that might be a reference to Gerry Rafferty.

Backup option: John Martyn.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/feb/17/gerry-rafferty-in-hiding

Sorry if this has been asked elsewhere, but does anyone know why the Weatherhall mix of "Come Together" is no longer streaming?

are there any other Primal Scream songs that aren’t streaming?

never mind, I just checked and it is still on streaming

The Farley Mix is -- not the Weatherhall mix though. It got replaced on Loaded (at least in the US).

https://i.ibb.co/dxskXyk/IMG-7268.jpg

well, the internet hates me. Good thing I got a CD. Weird.

The Weatherall / original album version (with Jesse Jackson samples) has been replaced with the Farley version on the album in YouTube Music. The Weatherall version does not appear to be on the service at all.

Actually, I guess the American release always had the Farley mix? I only ever owned the first Creation CD release.

Yeah that is correct.

On the American pressings of the album, the Terry Farley mix of "Come Together" was featured in place of the original UK mix.

I should have specified I was referring to YouTube Music (US)

Bullshit your way outta this one, Boabs

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/dec/11/london-venue-appalled-by-antisemitic-imagery-allegedly-screened-at-primal-scream-gig

Images of the destruction in Gaza were also shown on screen. The video concluded with the words: “Our government is complicit in genocide.”

I mean, if eg it comes out that any of the political figures were British or any elements of the Union flag also appeared on eyes, the initial statement probably covers it without need for bullshit

Lots of stars ‘n stripes, a fair few union flags, the Star element of the eye graphic is clearly established as specifically representing the flag of Israel and the current genocide being conducted by its government, in collusion with those of the US and UK, not jewishness as a concept. It’s fair for an individual gig-goer who couldn’t read the montage to take one element as anti-semitic, but it’s a failure of the Graun to be unable to parse a (n incredibly unsubtle) piece of visual media.

More like bullshit your way outta this one, Guardian.

Boab's not very subtle at all, lol. but drawing parallels between two different genocidal ethnostates is not antisemitic, imo

My main takeaway there was what a weird and terrible live version of the track.

as if the fucking venue didn't have a clue who they were booking and were completely taken by surprise and aghast at what transpired. As if it isn't already bad enough that 99% of our parliament is already owned by the genocidal Zionist lobby. Nothing is ever enough for these fuckers.

and lol also what a shite band!

From a locked twitter account:

"The one time I saw Primal Scream, they were so awful that Mani appeared outside the front of the venue as everyone was leaving and apologised. RIP Mani"

They used to be p good live imo but that looks abysmal. The tour where they had Kevin Shields playing with them was p fire.

I think the only time I saw them was at Reading Festival in 1998, but they were pretty good that night. tbf I was in a bit of an elevated mood at the time

it was actually Reading 2000

Saw them headlining a festival in 2013 and doing a half hour slot at another in 2023. The 2013 slot I'd argue was a good time for them as More Light was pretty damn good.

The only time I ever saw them was supporting the Butthole Surfers at the end of the 80s, pretty poor as I recall but no symbols involved. Look we'd all miss Boaby if he wasn't there!

I was extremely impressionable at that age but I thought they were incredible live c1998-2000. Saw them at a Minehead ATP a few years later - not sure if Mani was still with them at that point but either way I lost interest very quickly.

Is that Paul Simonon playing with them at the Roundhouse?

i can't support primal scream displaying the symbol of the fringe religious group 'raelism' (which is confusingly responsible for a bunch of weird public art installations here)

their new bassist is apparently phil mossman, former lcd soundsystem member

james murphy worked on xtrmntr i believe, like one track or something.

idk about james but phil mossman is on "blood money" and "keep your dreams", and tim goldsworthy helped mix the latter

the former* rather

story as best as i can piece it together is that murphy, goldsworthy and mossman were working on the david holmes album bow down to the exit sign, which overlapped with and were in the same studio as primal scream's sessions for "blood money" and "keep your dreams", which were produced by holmes. that was how goldsworthy and mossman ended up on xtrmntr. murphy seems to have been around those primal scream sessions at least but wasn't credited with anything? those david holmes sessions were also where mossman met murphy and agreed to join lcd soundsystem

An alternative headline:

https://louderthanwar.com/primal-scream-targeted-by-same-pro-israel-groups-that-pursued-kneecap-as-bob-vylan-sues-over-antisemitism-slur