We have been invited to guest edit MAGNET this week, so we thought we’d spin right back through memory, as the line from the title track of the Primitives‘ new album, Spin-O-Rama, goes (how’s that for a clever bit of crowbarring?), and revisit some music-related experiences from our childhood, youth and early days of the band. There’s also some other random stuff to do with the world of the Primitives. It’s been a pleasure putting all this together, as there wouldn’t normally be any reason to relay any of this stuff. So thanks MAGNET, we’re enjoying the delve.

 LIVE IN SESSION ON MIKE JOYCE’S “EVR” RADIO SHOW MARCH 22, 2011

The Primitives: We dropped in on ex-Smiths member Mike Joyce in Manchester in 2011 while on tour, and played three songs live on his radio show: “Rattle My Cage,” “Crash” and “Dreamwalk Baby.” Check them out here.

TWO ’60S FEMALE-FRONTED SONGS

Paul: Here’s a cover of Jefferson Airplane’s “It’s No Secret” by Susan Barrett. A minor northern-soul spin. The other side (“What’s It Gonna Be?”) is the better-known track, and it’s good, too—it’s debatable whether it beats Dusty’s version, but the aforementioned is a mighty tune and we never tire of hearing it.

In a similar vein, here is a song by British girl group the Chantelles, which seems to have all the components of one of those not-strictly-soul northern-soul floor fillers, but wasn’t. When I first found this record I played it about 30 times in a row. I get greedy like that when I hear something I really like.

By the way, check out the album we recorded a few years ago called Echoes & Rhymes, if you haven’t already. It’s a covers album and all the songs are girl-fronted obscurities from the ’60s and early ’70s.

A 1983 PRE-GIG MIX TAPE

Paul: The first gig I ever did was when I was 17 at the Hope & Anchor in Coventry. The date was April 7, 1983, and the band was called Pretty Poison—named after the 1968 film starring Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld. I was the singer. This playlist is side two of the tape we put together to play before the show (side one got taped over with the actual gig). The pre-gig mix tape was always a very important and obsessed-over matter, and I remember us trawling around the homes of various friends in the days leading up to the gig to record the records we didn’t own. A lot of the music Pretty Poison was trying to emulate is featured on this playlist. We weren’t very good, to be honest, though there were some very nice vintage, twangy guitar sounds, and we did have a song called “Drunken Butterfly” 10 years before Sonic Youth. Check out the mix tape here.

GREETINGS FROM BARCELONA

Tracy: I live in Barcelona, which makes being in a band that is based in England not quite as difficult as you might imagine, what with social media and cheap flights, etc. A typical day for me, when not doing band stuff, starts off with a spot of yoga and then I’ll walk my dog Dexter to my favourite coffee bar, Coma En Kasa (which means “like at home”) for a quick decaf soya and maybe some carrot cake. After taking Dexter back, I will cycle to wherever I’m giving a private English class. I am also working for a small language academy. Back home after dinner, I take Dexter for a long walk, sometimes to the beach or to the port. Then in the evening if I’m not out, I catch up with the the barrage of mostly Primitives-related emails Paul has sent or read or watch a movie—TV isn’t up to much in Spain. I have a stall at a flea market once a month, selling vintage clothing, jewelry, etc. I have to be up early to set up, but it’s great fun and bargaining and haggling with the customers helps me a lot with my Spanish. Everyone wants a bargain, no matter what language they speak.

THE BEATLES SONG THAT INVENTED PUNK

Paul: When I was 16, I asked a Sex Pistol what he thought about John Lennon being murdered. This was early in 1981 and not long after it had happened. The Sex Pistol was Steve Jones and the location was the General Wolfe pub in Coventry where his band Tthe Professionals had just come off stage. “Waste of facking bullets,” he sneered in response, which I thought was quite a nice answer, in that I took it to mean that he was still maintaing the obligatory Pistols’ anti-Beatles stance, but in a roundabout way was saying that it shouldn’t have happened. That Pistols anti-Beatles thing was mostly just punk posturing, of course. John Lydon even played a Lennon track on the radio recently and proclaimed him to be “one of my people.” Here’s “Birthday” by the Beatles in which at 0:58 they pretty much invent the sound of the Sex Pistols and then lay a template for the Stranglers in the following section of the song, and all this within the space of about 30 seconds.

Video after the jump.

LATE-NIGHT MOVIES

Paul: Here is a selection of songs and music from “grown-ups” films that we first got to see on TV as kids in the mid-to-late ’70s, when we were allowed to stay up late. Being aware of little more than what was in the pop charts at the time, these seemed like a peek into a strange and beguiling other world. A kind of primer for future musical obsessions.

Videos after the jump.

COVENTRY MUSIC MUSEUM

Tracy: If you ever visit Coventry, our hometown, make sure you visit the Coventry Music Museum. Obviously the 2-Tone movement is Coventry’s main musical export, and there’s loads of great memorabilia and lots of artifacts relating to the Specials and the Selecter, etc., but there is so much more besides—us, for instance! Check out the larger-than-life Tracy Tracy mannequin wearing the white suit that I wore in the “You Are The Way” video and more recently in the video for “Lose The Reason.” Also see if you can spot the Primitives plaque on the wall outside in the 2-Tone village. Oh, and my mum helps out there on the weekends, so say hello if you see her. You can’t miss her; she’s the lady in the Primitives t-shirt.

 MY FIRST FUZZ BOX

Paul: The first fuzz box I owned, or first effects pedal come to that, was a Carlsbro Suzz. I bought it secondhand from a music shop in Birmingham, and as soon as I got it home I plugged my guitar straight in, connected it to my amp, and in eager anticipation of some of that Stooges/garage-band-style fuzzed-out, distorted mayhem, began to strum a few random chords. The sound that came from my amp seemed more than a tad subtle and not what I was expecting at all. I adjusted the gain and sustain knobs, clicked the on/off button a few times, but still no filth. I convinced myself that I could hear a difference in the sound with the pedal on, but man, it was slight. The more I played the more I began to realise that I’d wasted my money on this ugly metal brick of a thing, that did pretty much nothing to my guitar sound … Then I noticed a panel with two screws on the Suzz’s underside, and the penny dropped. Nobody told me you had to put a battery in the fucker! Once it was loaded with an Eveready nine volt I was off.

I think I used that pedal on the first Primitives recordings, before switching to a Boss Heavy Metal pedal. These days I use a Danelectro Cool Cat for basic racket and a Catalinbread Merkin for single note stuff. If I had any kind of clue about electronics, I’d make my own ’60s-style fuzz box and call it Dalek’s Fart.

 “NUTS IN MAY”

Paul: Nuts In May is a film made for TV by Mike Leigh. It was originally broadcast in 1976, which is when I first saw it. I’ve watched it a couple of times since, most recently on the tour bus last year, when it was double-billed withThe Sightseers, which has a similar theme to Nuts In May, but with added nastiness and a cute dog. It’s about an overbearing, obsessive twat and his well-meaning, hippy-dippy wife on a camping trip in Dorset in South West England and it’s very funny. Have a dip in with “Zoo Song” and then settle back and prepare to cringe through the full 1:20.

Video after the jump.
 

NEVER BEEN A GROUPIE BUT …

Tracy: I met Jeff Buckley backstage after a gig he did in Birmingham in 1995. He was very welcoming and friendly, and he signed my ticket and copy of Grace. He commented on my Aubrey Beardsley design tattoo and asked if I liked the show and then gave me a kiss on the cheek. That night, I broke my rule of never going to bed with my make-up on. I just didn’t want to wash that kiss off.

Video after the jump.