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Masters of CeremonyPRIMAL SCREAM - are they arrogant? Are they, in their own words, a "great group"? Or both? DANNY KELLY talks pop finesse with the stylised beat wonders of Glasgow. Picture: DEREK RIDGERS."I'll tell you 'bout the magic that'll free your soul/ But it's like trying to tell a stranger 'bout rock 'n roll/Do you believe in magic?..." The Lovin' Spoonful A vear ago they stuck out from the effervescent hammer-it- down-and-turn-it-up of their C86 contemporaries by having the ?merity to attempt something that was carefully constructed, lovingly polished. And now their insistance that whatever it is that turns Rock to Magic can be found in crafted quietness, in harmony and melody, puts them at odds with the Cult Missionairies On Acid Will Eat Themselves, and the designer dandruff brigade. On stage, too, they're downright strange, the nervous static intensity of guitarists Jim Beattie and Robert Young, and singer Bobby Gillespie (his fringe a hiding place, his mic-stand a crutch) contrasting with the eyes-front arrogance of Martin St John, a tambourine-flaying skeleton in leather gloves. Primal Scream, truly, are the sore thumb pf British pop. And yet for those who, like me, still cling to the battered belief that guitars, bass and drums can 'free your soul' this uncomfortable, unpromising mixture has been the subject of a prolonged act of faith, of a blind investment of hope. Based on just two slivers of evidence (their 'All Fall Down' debut and 'Velocity Girl'), Primal Scream have been landed with the 'Most Likely To' albatross. Mind you, there have been plenty of others who see them as little more than a joke, an over-developed sense of pop's past grafted onto the body of a musical jelly- fish. This week sees the issue, on Warners' Elevation outcrop, of their third single, 'Gentle Tuesday', which will be followed by another,'lmperial',and a late-summer as yet unnamed, LP. For Primal Scream, the moment of truth is just 'round the corner, the moment when we'll see whether the last laugh will rest with the believers or the belittlers. . . Whether or not they can fulfill them remains to be seen, but if any band were ever equipped to understand the expectations of fans then it is Primal Scream. They are ppp fanatics. Their early interviews were characterised by a Stalinist credo that excluded all but a sainted few (The Beatles, a handful of American garage-punks, Cope, you know the names). They've widened their net since then, but the passion remains. The band's key word is 'master'... "It's difficult to define", Bobby Gillespie's soft Glasgow tones maintain "but for us it's all about having acertain spirit. All the best things I've seen this year had it. The Weather Prophets in Edinburgh.. Neil Young the other night at Wembiey. We was a total genius... and Chuck Brown on The-Tube-what a man! Those shakeskin boots!- It doesn't matter about age...you ve either got it or you haven't..." This stuff is noconvenient glamour by- association exercise in flame drop it runs- deep. Primal Scream take their vision of Rock/Pop - a dodgy cocktail of myth,- exaggeration, wishful thinking, more - myth and isolated moments of incandes-~- ent music and gleefully guLp it down~- "There's a fairly sane self depreciating, vein in this group agrees bobby but we do love all those rock n roll outrage stories, y'know, about the Stones or the one about Led Zeppelin whipping a groupie with a dead shark! That level of complete debauchery is really funny. And there was a story about Love taking some music journalist prisoner and keeping her as some sort of sex slave for a week..." That level of complete debauchery isn't funny at all. "Oh, don't get me wrong - I think she was quite willing. Myself I'd love to have been fucked stupid by alt the members of Love in the '60's! Even now! If I saw Brian McLean in the street I'd tell him 'take me Brian, I'm yours..." This is hardly what we expect from the frontman (now collapsed in fits of helpless laughter) of a group constantly associated with all manner of sexless wimpery, but like I said, this stuff goes deep... And it's their obsessive devotion to their icons - especially the '60's guitar giants - that's fuelled the disdain of Primal Scream's fiercest detractors. They focus on the band's line in relentlessly authentic beat hairdos, black clobber and pointy footwear and see a slavish following of fashion, a pathetic caricature of one of pop's classic shapes. Confronted with this, Bobby Gillespie casts aside his customary calm and snarls defiance. "I don't wear Chelsea boots because Love wore them; that's shit. I wear them for the same reason that Love wore them... because they look cool..." But the criticism isn't confined to the sartorial. It widens out to dismiss Primal Scream's music as being no more than a hollow echo of bygone glories, as being 'retro' and 'revivalist'. Gillespie reacts to those words with a combination of dis-gust, impatience and resignation born of familiarity. "Answer me this... ", he hisses, "every time you fuck, is that 'revivalist'? No! It's different each time, and the first time isn't the only one that is brilliant... Same with music." "Anyway, we don't have to apologise for the way we sound and we won't. We don't want to sound like anybody except Primal Scream, and we don't. Forget all that 1967 stuff, we're living human beings, doing what we do now, 1987..." But what of 1987 is discernible in your music? "If you're looking for electronic drums or stuff like that, then nothing, but that's now how it works. If someone hears 'Gentle Tuesday' and loves it and finds it comes to mean something special to them, they won't look back in years to come and say 'oh yeah, that record reminds me of 1987'. Having shared their teenage years with the rise and fall of Punk, Primal Scream aren't under any illusions about music changing the world. Indeed, as children of municipal Glasgow, they aren't prone to misty-eyed illusions about anything. They choose their romantic vision of the rock 'n' roll world and of their place in it; they choose to jettison the seen-it-all cynicism others use to justify ambition-less money-magnet pop; they choose to view their music for which, don't forget, Gillespie gave up a secure and lucrative spot as the Mary Chain's drummer - as part of a crusade, and themselves as inheritors of a gift. "We want to affect people wi' our music the same way that other people's has affected us...", begins Bobby, "... to sweep them away with it... And, sure, it would be good fun to be a pop star as well, but the important thing would be to be a good pop star. We wouldn't be like George Michael or Mel and Kim - that's tastless, without class, faceless, emotion- less, corporate pop. People deserve better than that." "And you want your pop star to look good, don't you? Put it this way - if Johnny Rotten had looked like Rick Wakman, it would never have happened, would it? But he looked like a total master godstar and I think we look good enough to be up on people's walls. "That's part of the reason we stood out last year from all those bands. Not only were we good songwriters, we were also much more tasteful, better dressed, cooler. I know its sheer narrow-minded arrogance but it's true-we're just far superior to most groups around, probably a great group. And like other great groups we give people- how can I put this? -we give people that glimpse, that glimpse of beauty. That, in 1987, is what makes us important..." If you need any further evidence of Primal Scream's perfectionism and 'sheer narrow-minded arrogance (or, if you prefer, of the spoiled brattishness that's indulged when your label boss just happens to be your singer's lifelong bosom buddy), look no further than the recording of their new material. The original sessions, at Dave Edmunds' Rockfield Studio in Wales; involved six weeks' hard labour, the loss of one drummer and a small matter of £40,000. Then they were unceremoniously scrapped, just like that, and their producer, highly-rated Smiths' engineer Stephen Street, elbowed to make way for Mayo Thompson. Some weeks afterwards, back with the relative sanity of The Smiths, Street was still shaking his head in amused disbelief. "It was just incredible", he told me "like nothing I've ever experienced before. They're nice enough lads but you can't work with them. It all came to a head when I found myself arguing with Bobby about a solitary cymbal-crash in the rhythm- track of one song, arguing fiercely for two solid hours..." This is a man, don't forget, used to dealing with the far-from-undemanding likes of Mssrs. Morrissey and Marr, and I swear that the memory of those weeks in Rockfield brought tears to his eyes. Nine times out of ten', a band like Primal Scream would have me reaching for the triple-strength vitriol and my sneer-glands working overtime. The ex- cesses, the unquestioned heroes and the attention to quite ridiculous detail (they refused to turn side-on for out photographer, in case their "thighs looked fat", and three of them make stick insects appear lardy!) are habitually the stuff of nightmares rather than dreams... But nightmares are never host to the angelically spiralling guitar of 'Velocity Girl'. First time 'round, it gave me that hit- indefinable but unmistakable - of which only very few pieces of music are each year capable. It was proof that in all their care and craft and calculation, Primal Scream left room for that chemical thrill- rush sought but seldom attained, in 30 years of pop. And since then I've nursed a hunch- somewhere between a wish and a hope, well short of a belief - that they will do it again. To be honest 'Gentle Tuesday' failed, for me at least, to deliver, but an advance earful of an unfinished 'Imperial' (resplendant with backwards guitars and lyrical hints of hatred) suggests that my wait will not be in vain... Primal Scream - by refusing to accept the self-imposed limitations and all-bin-done defeatism - swim against the tide of 99% of modern pop... Primal Scream - as self-appointed carriers of a torch many think long extinguished - still believe in magic... Primal Scream - until it's been proven impossible beyond doubt - are expecting to fly... Originally appeared in NME, 27 June 1987. Copyright © IPC Magazine Ltd. Back |
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