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!

the Ardent tracks produced by Weatherall on Dixie-Narco are better than the Ardent tracks produced by Dowd, but tbf the band weren't 94% smacked out of their minds the first time around

This was the era i recall they were called 'Dance Traitors'.

Dixie Narco tracks are great

This was the era i recall they were called 'Dance Traitors'.

― piscesx, Monday, August 20, 2018 8:55 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I remember reviews of this being not particularly kind. It's depressing that 'Rocks' was such a big hit for them - it's not really representative of what this band is best at, and if that was someone's first exposure to the band, they could be forgiven for getting the wrong idea. Fans of the band from the earliest material may have been a little less surprised at the style they adopted, and the Screamadelica fans were definitely cold on the album.

Also, this was the first album after that tour with Depeche Mode wasn't it? Or were they touring on this LP at the time?

Alternative press release: "Desperate, they returned to the studio where they produced the only track that had any impact in the US but were so half-assed owing to them being smacked-out that the record label (Sony having controlling share of Creation by then) farmed them out to a bunch of remixers and the final record was unliked and re-releasing it now would be a waste of time and money. So here's this."

xpost -- They opened the second US go round of that Depeche tour cycle, in 1994, so they were touring the album.

Ah yeah, that's right! For some reason I'd got it into my head that the LP was released in the back half of '94, rather than at the beginning.

Primal Scream at their messiest meets Depeche Mode at their messiest.

And to top it all off the opening act for them both was Stabbing Westward

One of the bios of the time - possibly Grant Fleming's - tells of Duffy not being in his room the morning after a show, and the tour manager's panic -- nobody had been with him the night before, no-one knew what locals may have led him "astray" - and having to give up and get the rest of the band on to the next town.

Where Duffy was already at the venue, having crawled inside a riser and passed out after playing, remaining asleep not only through Depeche Mode's set, but also being packed up by Depeche's crew, shipped through the night, and arising well-rested when roadies unpacked him at bump-in.

Funnily enough the Wombles were at their messiest at the same time.

I still haven't heard the original Memphis recordings of Give Out But Don't Give Up yet, but I listened to the version as released in 1994 last night and - while it's no Screamadelica, Vanishing Point or XTRMNTR, and it sounds like a very confused record - I thought that there's actually quite a lot that's enjoyable about the record. I mustn't have heard the record for well over a decade or two.

lol these original Memphis recordings are kind of a hilarious nothingburger. Like yeah you can see what they were going for but they really just couldn't quite do it. Lots of farting about doing half-assed covers not particularly well, and the "original versions" are mostly just super-cleanly recorded/stripped down arrangements without all the (often bad) bells and whistles stuck on after the fact.

I do have a morbid fascination with this album and find it kinda funny/entertaining how badly they fucked this up - they had a budget, tons of great collaborators, a pretty good (if muddled) idea, a great studio to work in, but they couldn't get the songs and performances together.

Your problem is you don't like black music.

o rly

You'd get it if you followed sports especially basketball.

(xp) That's the reason Bob gave why UK rock critics didn't like the album, so it must be true.

our wee Boaby wouldna lie to us now

pls let’s not talk about our wee boabies itt, this is a family thread

Are the spoken word bits on "Kill All Hippies" a sample from somewhere?

Out of the Blue dir. Dennis Hopper 1980

p weird, bleak movie, sort of a hippie meditation on their generational failings and punk as the response

I fucking love that track

so good

I have just discovered "XTRMNTR" today and I'm super impressed.

! probably their best record

‘shoot speed kill light’ is so good

It is.

I literally just heard Screamadelica two weeks ago and have known XTRMNTR for twenty years. It’s a disorienting thing.

Wow.

I’ve always thought of XTRMNTR as the inverse of Screamadelica. They’re structured very similarly.

Agreed. From multiple mixes of the same song to radical remixes of tunes from the last record.

Bobby's Insta always delivers: https://www.instagram.com/primalscreamofficial/

https://www.facebook.com/ThurstonMooreOfficial/photos/a.164674653592590/3598726446854043/?type=3 (hope this works)

Damn. It’s a funny photo!

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...)????