Category: Hard-to-find

The Primitives were from Coventry and formed in 1985. They filled the gap post-Smiths and pre-Stone Roses and I bloody loved them. Their first single was ‘Thru The Flowers’ which was released in May of 1986. I’ve got it on super sexy seven inch and I am open to offers. It’s not the same version that appeared on their debut album ‘Lovely’. Initially, they were very primitive and all the songs were noisy and sloppy because that is how they played. The obvious focal point was Tracy Tracy who was cute as cute and looked a bit like Ruth Ellis (the last woman to be hanged in Britain). The others dressed head to toe in black, wore skinny jeans and pointy boots and had Ringo Starr circa 1965 haircuts. Paul the guitarist was clearly in love with Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground and had a great collection of guitars. The band went through more line-up changes than Spinal Tap. The original drummer Pete Tweedie wasn’t very good, so most of their early stuff was actually done with a drum machine (something most people don’t realize) and Pete would play the ride or hi hat. They released six singles with the sixth being a re-recorded version of ‘Thru The Flowers’ before they eventually signed to RCA in 1987.

In 1988 the album ‘Lovely’ was released and it is brilliant. It was a night and day change from their early singles. All of a sudden they knew how to play their instruments. The first change they made was getting rid of Pete the drummer. The other key to their sound was producer Paul Sampson who went back through all their old demos and found ‘Crash’ a song they had scraped. This was their only big hit and became a bit of an albatross for them. You’ve probably heard it. That guy from Busted has got a version out just now. It’s in the new Mr Bean movie. Honestly! Anyway, sales inevitably diminished, and the band continued to release great singles that only myself bought. ‘You Are The Way’ being a fine example. Co-written by Ian Broudie it shoulda been a massive hit. But wasn’t. The hidden jewel in their crown for me though is a track that originally appeared on the b-side of ‘Way Behind Me’ and was re-recorded with the guitarist singing. ‘All The Way Down’ is a brilliant piece of pseudo-Nuggets hammond ‘n’ bongos psychedelia and YOU NEED IT!

Of course, the band eventually petered out. Tracy added her vocals to some generic Ministry Of Sound pish dance track, and Paul is now a graphic designer. Download the 3 tracks above and remember them this way. And get over to Amazon or Play or wherever and pick up their Best Of for about £4.

tracy tracy                       ruth ellis

A couple of years ago, my mate Quinny casually mentioned that he had once been inside a giant squid costume on stage at a Super Furry Animals Barrowlands show. He used to give out fliers and stuff outside gigs and happened to be in the right place at the right time when the band’s management came along looking for 5 willing participants to wear the suits. They were instructed to walk on at the start of the gig and hold their fist aloft in front of the crowd who would be going bonkers at the sight of what they thought were the band in funny costumes. Quinny said he had to do all he could to stop himself from stage diving. As I said, he mentioned all this to me quite casually one day a couple of years ago, when we were talking about music and he said that he didn’t even like the band! A Jim’ll Fix It moment wasted on a non-believer. I told him they were magic and played him these 2 tracks to try and convert him.

Tradewinds and The Roman Road were both released as b-sides on the singles around the release of the ‘Rings Around The World’ album and were then included as the Tradewinds ep as part of ltd edition versions of the album. They are folky, electronic, a wee bit country, a wee bit sweary (Roman Road is anyway) a wee bit prog and a whole big bit magic. In short, a potted version of what’s great about the Super Furry’s. You’ll like them. Even if Quinny still thinks they’re rubbish. 

A wee bit naughty this post. Going against my principles of only featuring hard-to-get and out of print music. As a new release, this track is certainly in print and should be fairly easy to buy, but it’s here for a limited time or at least until the good people at Chemikal Underground threaten me with a lawsuit…

‘The Ballads Of The Book’ is the brainchild of Roddy Woomble. It’s a novel idea. Hee hee. Contemporary writers pen the lyrics to music played by contemporary bands such as Aidan Moffat, Norman Blake, King Creosote, Malcolm Middleton, Sons & Daughters, blah blah blah. Oh, and the Trashcan Sinatras of course. The Trashcan’s have contributed a fine tune called ‘Half An Apple’ which, like so much of their recent output is melodic, laid back and the right side of mellow. Features some pretty good slide playing that sounds like something from Brian Eno’s ‘Apollo’ album. That’s a complement by the way. Here it is. Please leave a comment in the box above.

Ali Smith is a celebrated author. She was born in Scotland but now lives down south. You can get most of her books at your local library. They’re in mine, so they should be in yours. Her latest book ‘The Accidental’ is very good. So they tell me. Culture? What’s that? I’m currently reading Dave Alexander’s excellent trainspotterish tome ‘A User’s Guide To The Fall’. Can’t put it down. I’m sure Ali Smith is just as good.

Hey! Get down! Dig it with the Vanilla Fudge and Coca Cola! My mum tells me that in the swinging 60s, most provincial teenagers never had access to, never mind actually try, the mind-bending drugs that were so obviously shaping music, fashion and the consciousness of society. Instead, the hip, with-it teenagers in my wee corner of the west of Scotland would pop a couple of aspirins into their Coca Cola and swing the night away in a tripped-out approximation of sixties bliss.

Coca Cola were well aware that things indeed go better with a Coca Cola, and their 60’s marketing team were so on the ball that they got the groups du jour to record Coke jingles for local radio and the likes. Most of these jingles are bloody magic. They are quite blatant pastiches of those artists’ current hit singles and fall into 3 distinct categories:

1. The soul/r’n’b artist – Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, Carla Thomas, The Supremes, Otis Redding, Ray Charles etc etc

2. The fuzzed-out, beat-driven, blues-influenced garage bands – The Who, Vanilla Fudge, Troggs, Box Tops, Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick & Titch (so that stretches it a bit, but you get the point)

3. The pop stars/crooners – Bee Gees, Lulu, Roy Orbison, Petula Clark, Nancy Sinatra, etc.

Here are three examples of the above. The Who’s ‘Coke after Coke’, The Supremes pastiche of ‘Baby Love’ and Tom Jones’ rerun of ‘It’s Not Unusual’ that is quite fantastic, hilarious and hideous all at the same time. “Say, I could do with a Coke right now. Somebody get me one please?” The big orange freak.

I’ll put up more of these soon. Next up Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Nancy Sinatra, Vanilla Fudge, any requests…..

The good folks over at Ape Shall Never Kill Ape recently posted some demos from the Stone Roses ‘Second Coming’ album. And they were pretty scathing about the album too! It’s all just opinions of course, but for what it’s worth, I like the Second Coming. Sure ‘How Do You Sleep’ hasn’t stood the test of time, and was regularly skipped when I first immersed myself in the album, but ‘Love Spreads’? Come on! What’s not to like about that? Who cares if it’s the greatest track Led Zeppelin never recorded, it still sounds ace. ‘Daybreak’? “From Moss Side Manchester, to Addis Aba-ba-ba-baa”. It doesn’t get any better than that. So come on Mr Ape. Surely a reappraisal is due.

Of course, The Second Coming wisnae a patch on the first album. That is just accepted fact. If you were there when it came out you’ll know how it exploded like a technicolour blast of guitar pop and blew everything else away. Wedding Present? See ya. Wonderstuff? Beat it. Voice of the Beehive? Exactly. If you weren’t there, where were you? This was the album that got dance folk into guitar music and the pasty faced wallflowers into dance music. Morrissey quiffs were grown out faster than you could say “I am the resurrection” and suddenly flares were back in fashion. The baggier the better. Which I always found strange cos I saw the Stone Roses in Rooftops (£4 to get in, pay on the door – if we couldn’t get in, we were going to go and see Birdland instead) and Ian Brown was wearing a pair of straight-legged brown Levis cords. So, where the flares came from is a mystery to me.

Anyway, here’s a couple of demos from the first album. ‘Waterfall’ is a bit faster than the album version, and speeds up at the end, driven by Reni’s  drums. And ‘Made Of Stone’ is fairly similar to the version you know and love, which goes to show that the band pretty much had these tracks rehearsed into oblivion before they came to record the album. Sadly missing, alas, for all you trainspotters, is the recording info. Where? When? I don’t know. My bootleg CD doesn’t say. But, hey, they’re Stone Roses demos from the first album. And they’re pretty decent quality. If anyone out there has a good demo version, indeed any demo version of ‘I Am The Resurrection’, please get in touch. I’d love to hear it.

Lee Mavers once told me, “Stone Roses? (makes throat gagging sound) Stoned Poses more like.” True story that. I also met John Leckie once as well, but I’ll keep that tale for another day.

Finally, if you’re a guitar nerd, and into the Stone Roses, you’ll love this site.