Album Review: Primal Scream - Reverberations (Travelling In Time) (2023)

Craig Stephen on new / old Primal Scream …

Primal Scream haven’t been overly enthusiastic about their early years. The first band compilation Dirty Hits (2003) dismissed two entire albums worth and several singles, instead beginning the band’s adventure five years after their debut single.

Two further collections have partly rectified this misnomer with the inclusion of some tracks dating from 1985-1987.

Nevertheless, those initial, naïve, formative years remain largely untouched, so seeing the release of Reverberation (Travelling In Time) - subtitled BBC Radio Sessions & Creation Singles 1985-1986 - is something of a Secret Santa gem for those Primal fans who love all the various phases the band has gone through.

This was pre-electronica, indeed pre-rock’n’roll/Stones loving Primals, with influences such as The Byrds and Love to the fore. They were pivotal members of the twee scene – of which jangling guitars, anoraks and floppy fringes were de rigeur.

In May 1985 the Glasgow outfit burst onto the indie rock scene with the single ‘All Fall Down’/‘It Happens’ with a cover cribbed from a Francoise Hardy album. It didn’t sell and was ignored by the then influential weekly newspapers such as NME, Sounds, Melody Maker and Record Mirror. The band line-up then was Bobby Gillespie on vocals, fellow founding member Jim Beattie on guitar, Robert Young on bass, Stewart May on rhythm guitar, Tam McGurk on drums and Martin St John on tambourine.

 Paul Harte replaced May after the recording of that single and with his outlook and love of trendy clothing gave the band a bit of oomph. As Beattie explains in the album’s liner notes things were soon taking off during that British summer: “Paul had a brilliant attitude; he was quite sartorial and that really brought something to the group. We looked good with great songs and great lyrics and by 1985 it felt like we were really becoming a band.”

At the end of the year they recorded their debut session for John Peel, a must-do for any aspiring young band of the time. The band were, in their own words, naïve and had a producer who once played in Moot the Hoople and wasn’t for taking advice for any young upstarts. Yet, it worked. That seminal session, played late at night on Radio One, included four tracks as per tradition, namely ‘I Love You’, ‘Crystal Crescent’, ‘Subterranean’ and ‘Aftermath’.

According to Gillespie the songs from this era had a “lovesick, melancholic yearning to them”. In his 2021 bio, Tenement Kid, Gillespie describes where he was at when penning now legendary songs such as ‘Gentle Tuesday’ and ‘All Fall Down’: “They are written and sung by a young, depressed boy who views life from a pained, detached, cynical position. The desperation of life and love weighs heavily on the mind.”

In early 1986 the new line-up recorded three tracks for a single which was led by ‘Crystal Crescent’, but it was one of the two B-sides that took precedence. ‘Velocity Girl’ was chosen as the opening track for the feted soundtrack to the scene, C86. Its status is such that it would later provide the name for an American band and was covered by the Manic Street Preachers. It lasts a mere 1:22, barely enough to have three verses and a chorus that closes it off. Gillespie’s plaintive voice is illuminating almost immediately as he trots off now familiar lines: “Here she comes again/ With vodka in her veins/ Been playing with a spike/ She couldn't get it right”.

Its brevity was in keeping with the time-consciousness of the band: the 16 tracks clock in at a grand total of 35 minutes. That’s the equivalent of one Fela Kuti EP.

They were now truly gaining the attention of London’s movers and shakers and recorded a second session for John Peel and one for Janice Long both within a month of each other. Long, at that time, preceded Peel on weeknights on Radio One with the equivalent level of enthusiasm for new music as the veteran DJ.

All eight session tracks are featured on Reverberations with the Long session kicking off the album. These sessions would introduce songs such as ‘Imperial’, ‘Leaves’ and ‘Tomorrow Ends Today’.

A year on and the band’s debut album Sonic Flower Groove was released. Critics liked it or hated it. One reviewer described it as a real gem, another dubbed it “dandelion fluff" and made up of leftover tracks. But as this review on this site noted (here), it is an underrated classic which “I find easy to play over and over, and discover new chimes or riffs to enjoy each time.” 

Many of the session tracks appeared on Sonic Flower Groove and benefit (or fail!) from having proper production techniques. Some of the session tracks sound like they were done in a garage with equipment bought in bargain shops.

During the recording sessions for the album McGurk was sacked, St John left, and after its release Beattie quit too and formed Spirea X (the title of the other ‘Crystal Crescent’ B-side). Things were far from hunky dory in the Primals camp. But with new faces came a different attitude and sound.

The band evolved initially into a rocky, Stones type act with the eponymous second album (reviewed here) that came out in 1989, and then, of course, captured the essence of the summer of 1990 and the so-called ‘baggy’ scene and subsequent superstardom. They reinvent themselves at virtually every turn and have never been afraid to change colours when it suited. 

It is that long-term success that has largely cast a shadow over their initial work. But this formative period should never be overlooked in the development stream of Primal Scream. Thankfully, we now have a collection of beautiful and mesmerising songs that remind us of what promise and ability they possessed in those heady days of the mid-80s. 

Classic Album Review: Primal Scream - Vanishing Point (1997)

Craig Stephen runs the ruler over yet another Primal Scream classic …

Vanishing Point, the movie:

A cult classic released in 1971 which mirrors America’s obsession with cars and the open road, and the plight of the little guy against the authorities. It is essentially one long chase sequence as Kowalski (no first name), played by cult actor Barry Newman, commits to a bet to deliver a Dodge Challenger from Denver to San Francisco in 15 hours. There are flashbacks to personal trauma, a radio DJ who eggs him on (“the last American hero, the electric centaur, the demi-god, the super driver of the golden west”) and cops on his back. Of course, it doesn’t end well.

Vanishing Point, the album:

There was a country rock n soul soundtrack, featuring Kim Carnes, Jimmy Bowen and Delaney, Bonnie and Friends, but even by the 90s it was long forgotten and hard to find. The concept of doing an album for an imaginary film wasn’t new. But doing a soundtrack for one which had already been done … well that was a little bit leftfield. And the Scream did it because they wanted to. The resulting album sounds nothing like the original soundtrack; indeed, it contains some of most ambitious music the Scream ever made. Their soundtrack was based on a skewed and likely substance-filled take on the nature of the film.

‘Burning Wheel’, the opening track, sounds like an outtake from Screamadelica, something that may have been a little too Krautrockian for that swaggering composition to the days of new drugs and when indie music crossed into dance. Its Syd-era Floyd, Faust, and Primals c.1985 all wrapped up in one.

The album’s centrepiece, and the lead single, ‘Kowalski’, samples heavily from the film itself – all from the DJ’s magnificent diatribes that turn a cop chase into a road race: “Two nasty Nazi cars are close behind the beautiful, lone driver / The police know that they’re getting closer ... closer / Closer to our soul hero in his soul mobile / Yeah, baby, they’re about to strike / They’re gonna get him, smash him, rape / The last beautiful free soul on this planet.”

Bobby Gillespie’s own, sparse lyrics seem only to fill the gap between the dialogue-cum-verses; a drum sample from Can’s ‘Halleluwah’ is thrown in and the song cribs the bassline from a Funkadelic song. Ex-Stone Roses bassist Mani is on fire here, a valuable addition to the gang.

The instrumental ‘If They Move Kill ‘Em’ – a line from the bloodiest and baddest western of them all, The Wild Bunch, is driven by a constant drum backbeat, a hollering synthesizer and pounding bass. Following closely by is ‘Stuka’, its dub bass intro introducing the cacophony of noise of the German dive-bomber in full flow. The airplane included wailing sirens intended to smash their enemies into submission, something the Primals attempt to recreate. There’s almost two minutes of instrumentalism before the voice kicks in, a muted, low-fi drone, which comes across as Darth Vader singing Lee Hazlewood, and limited to such oblique snippets as “I got Jesus in my head like a stinger / He moves from tree to tree in the back of my mind / A ragged shadowy figure, I got him.” Is this even Bobby Gillespie singing? Seems so.

An intriguing inclusion is a cover of Lemmy’s ‘Motorhead’, initially released as a B-side in his final days with 70s prog-punks Hawkwind, and his metal monster band’s debut single. The two songs are somewhat different with the metal version, more, erm metally. Scream’s take on this rock anthem is to revert to Hawkwind’s original, retaining all its nastiness and throwing in a perverse opening verse, with Gillespie sounding like a gecko being mauled by a domestic cat, and various loops and layers thrown in for good measure.

There’s also a chunk of instrumentals, including a brooding update of ‘Trainspotting’ from the Scottish drugs and ... well more drugs degenerate movie of the same name, with about two minutes trimmed from the version that appeared on the official soundtrack.

Among all this dub’n’bass and dirty garage rock, it is a little surprising to hear ‘Star’, the second single to come off the album (as part of an EP), which owes a little to ‘Loaded’, with a horn section, snaky melodica played by Augustus Pablo, and a sincere and simplistic chorus: “Every brother is a star / Every sister is a star” as well as these killer lines that Gillespie throws in to the love-in: “The Queen of England, there's no greater anarchist / One man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist.”

After the Stones-devotional Give Out But Don’t Give Up (1994), the Scream really took a leftfield turn with Vanishing Point. Out went the Keef riffs and Jagger swagger, in came an industrial level melding of krautrock, dub, electrofreakery and Ennio Morricone. It’s magnificently experimental, and utilises all manner of distortion, fuzztones, tape delays, drum machines, and sitars. It’s a rampant adventure into the unorthodox, at a time when British bands were encouraged to go retro. But this was the backlash to Britpop, the Santa Claus of music scenes that disappeared as quickly as it appeared. And with the Super Furry Animals and Radiohead ramping up the weirdness and the outlandishness at the same time, there was only way for the future of so-called Cool Britannia: oblivion. It was the beginning of something new: the Scream followed it up with XTRMNTR and Evil Heat, both of which simmered with unadulterated Krautrock, post-punk, Millenium confusion and anti-capitalist anger.

De dub version: Echo Dek (1997)

Echo Dek was the logical dub and remix version of the album which was released just a few months later. Master knob twiddler Adrian Sherwood was at the controls, bashing and smashing eight of VP’s tracks – with ‘Stuka’ getting the double version treatment. These already mightily impressive tracks were cut up and reconstructed into an even further and abstract dub orbit. Sherwood sampled Prince Far-I on ‘Wise Blood’, one of the rejigs of ‘Stuka’. Some tracks merit the makeovers but the versions of ‘Star’ and ‘Kowalski’, if we’re being honest, remain pretty much honest to the originals. Remix albums tend to suffer from laziness and record company pushiness, but Sherwood has a free rein and the passion to carry out a good job.

Classic Album Review: Primal Scream - Evil Heat (2002)

Craig Stephen enjoys a close encounter with the Devil’s music … 

Through their multitude of stylistic changes, Primal Scream have always retained a bit of a punkish, anti-establishment streak. 

This could be partly explained by the band’s mainstay, Bobby Gillespie, coming from good socialist stock: a great-grandfather was one of the founding members of the Independent Labour Party in Glasgow, and his father, also Bob, was a union leader and a Labour Party candidate in Glasgow (losing to the Scottish National Party when he was effectively a shoe-in). 

So the young Gillespie would’ve grown up surrounded by such lofty ideals. 

Consequently, the Primals have never quite fitted in with the record industry, such as their adoption of electronica about 1990, a hitherto verboten idea in the world of indie music. 

They upset the poor wee things of Rangers FC (1872-2012) by branding them “the most fucked up scum/ That was shat into creation” on a Scotland football single collaboration with rabble rouser Irvine Welsh and On-U Sound. Cue an orchestration of contrived outrage from the dark side of football. 

As the band matured they perversely became more difficult to label, a band that the record industry never quite came to terms with. 

Therefore, the band’s seventh album, Evil Heat, is a bizarre, bewildering and yet mesmerising album that veers between extremes. 

As examined in a previous review, the predecessor album XTRMNTR was a veritable axe thrown at the world. This extraordinary collection mangled Suicide with Can and contained Molotov cocktails in the likes of ‘Swastika Eyes’ (“Exterminate the underclass/ Exterminate the telepaths/ No civil disobedience”). 

A year after that album’s release, Primal Scream toured with a song called ‘Bomb the Pentagon’. A problem arose when someone did exactly that during the 9/11 attacks. Rather unsurprisingly, no song with that title has ever appeared on record.

Gillespie’s excuse that that was because it wasn’t a particularly good song falls flat through the appearance of ‘Rise’ on Evil Heat. This is a reworking of ‘Bomb the Pentagon’ with a new chorus and a few other lyrical tweaks, but the music was largely unchanged. 

It was a rallying call to the dispossessed and the desperate: rise up you bastards FFS, Gillespie was screaming at the masses. 

“Hey wage slave where's your profit share?/ They got ya down, they're gonna keep you there ... Get on up, protest riot/ Are you collateral damage or a legitimate target?” 

There are external talents at play throughout Evil Heat. My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields produces six tracks, half the album therefore; Two Lone Swordsmen (aka old hand Andy Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood) produce a further four tracks, and one more is cooked by the ubiquitous producer Jagz Kooner. And on the other side of the window helping out were a veritable array of British stars, such as Jim Reid, Robert Plant on harmonica, and Shields himself on guitar effects. 

One contribution that came as something of a surprise is supermodel Kate Moss playing Nancy Sinatra to Gillespie’s Lee Hazlewood on the duet of ‘Some Velvet Morning’. Moss hadn’t shown previous form in a recording studio, but perhaps that was the objective. 

This is a remarkably different version from the Sinatra/Hazlewood original: big crunchy beats shower Gillespie’s initial, lush vocals. Moss does a decent job of her portion of the lyrics, and gives a beauty to what is a down’n’dirty electroclash take on a song that Hazlewood says was inspired by Greek mythology. 

‘Skull X’ sees the band delve into its punk roots, and there’s an element of the Sex Pistols in the robustness, but they actually sound more like The Stranglers. Lyrically, it reeks once more of Gillespie’s sharp, dark mind: “The sky's black with locusts/ My eyes are burning stars/ There's a mountain of gold teeth/ in every bank vault in this world.” 

The Weatherall/ Tenniswood-produced ‘Autobahn ’66’ is reminiscent of Kraftwerk. It appears to be an instrumental, until we first hear Gillespie at 2.29, with what is mere background vocals limited to an oft-repeated verse of “Dreaming/ Dreaming/Seeing/Seeing/Dreaming” for a minute and a half till the singer develops the theme with an expansive chorus. 

Album opener ‘Deep Hit of Morning Sun’ is a rabbit punch to the senses: backwards guitars, a mystical vibe, barely any drums, and a ghostly chorus. It’s unlike virtually anything the band have done, and I would like to imagine it as being left off XTRMNTR, but that’s probably not the case. 

‘Miss Lucifer’, meanwhile, is reminiscent of The Prodigy with its punk-techno feel; ‘Detroit’ is hard and heavy electronica; and ‘A Scanner Darkly’ is an instrumental similar to anything off the second side of Bowie’s Low. 

Evil Heat is something of a seminal album which is underpinned by pulsating electronica. It has no balance, no theme, and it often bemuses. And that is why I like it. I had previously regarded Evil Heat as a weak follow to XTRMNTR but having played it several times over the past few days I’m discovering an awful lot more than I did on the irregular listens over the past 20 years. It has a cult feeling; not everyone is going to like it, but those who do shower it with glowing terms.

Classic Album Review: Primal Scream - Primal Scream (1989)

Fresh from his last Primal Scream album review receiving more actual page hits (5,700+) than any of my own 2020 blogposts (bah humbug), Craig Stephen returns with a look at the self-titled follow-up to that debut release, offering a thoughtful and measured take ...  

Occasionally, a single track subsumes an entire album.

Primal Scream’s second album isn’t by any stretch of the imagination their finest 35 minutes, as they made the move away from the twee 60s pop of their debut, Sonic Flower Groove.

But it certainly contains some outstanding moments, chief among them the track which closes out the first side, ‘I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have’. It’s feted as being the progenitor of the band’s lauded ‘Loaded’ single, whereby producer Andrew Weatherall faithfully followed the band’s instructions to “just fucking destroy it”. And so he did, mangling it almost beyond recognition. All that was retained were elements of the lush orchestration and sinister beauty of the original.   

If its infamy lies in that phoenixisation, ‘I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have’ is a strong and masterful work in its own right, initially starting in a similar way to a pair of ballads included on the same side, before developing into a full-blown bitter love song, as the protagonist attempts to find redemption for his cheating.

“I betrayed you/ You trusted me and I betrayed you/ If I obeyed you/ I can't be me so I betrayed you/ I don't want nobody else/ I just want you to myself/ But I betrayed you/ I'm sorry I hurt you.”

At the end of it, Bobby Gillespie’s tale of self-pity is so heartfelt you can’t help but want him to succeed.

But otherwise, Primal Scream is a full-blown rock’n roll animal. It was the first time the group would shake off one style and adopt another on such a wholesale basis, but it wouldn’t be the last. The sole single to be released from it, ‘Ivy Ivy Ivy’ comes from the deep recesses of the early 1970s while not entirely shaking off the jangle tendencies of that aforementioned debut album. “My eggshell head is your to break I feel like dirt” sings Gillespie in another plea to be loved and forgiven.

‘Gimme Gimme Teenage Head’ is clearly a nod to The Stooges both in the title and how it uses and abuses the American proto punk pioneers’ modus operandi, with ‘Kill the King’ and ‘Lone Star Girl’ carrying on the 1972 blues’n’roll snot rock.

The reviews weren’t overly enthusiastic. The NME called it "confused and lacking in cohesion", imagining Gillespie "standing in the middle of the recording studio so dazzled by the pressures of what he's achieved so far (and not achieved) so far that he can't even find the exit door let alone the key to making A Good Record."

Rarely has a band ditched a style beloved by its fanbase by alienating much of that core support, and so Primal Scream was dismissed by the anorak-adoring bohemians that set them on the road in the first place. It didn’t exactly win them new fans but it was another step to where they would ultimately lift themselves up to during their magnificent and highly creative 1990s. 

(This blogpost is dedicated to the memory of long-time Primal Scream collaborator and superb vocalist Denise Johnson who died suddenly on 27 July 2020)

Classic Album Review: Primal Scream - Xtrmntr (2000)

Craig Stephen is back, revisiting another Primal Scream classic:

Listening to this, some time after revisiting Primal Scream’s debut album, Sonic Flower Groove - reviewed here - provides a deft swipe to the senses.

It doesn’t so much sound like a band at an advanced stage of their career; it sounds like a completely different act.

But then we should have expected nothing less: the Primals do mutating extremely well - from Byrdsian melodies to garage rock’n’roll to demented electronica. They’ve never stood still and have always possessed a determination to adapt and thrive. 

If there was an inclination that Xtrmntr was a step into a new world, we were given due warning from the cover, which was full of militaristic overtones and the title was limited to consonants stuck in caps lock mode.

The year 2020 may be the year of Covid-19. And it may also be a time of Brexit, anger, out-of-control neoliberalism and environmental destruction, but it isn’t to say that 2000 was a life of riley - the Y2K doom-laden dystopia, the peak of Blairism, the threat of a second President Bush, and even before the end of the first month had concluded there were ethnic riots in Egypt and two major air crashes.

Into this world of manageable mayhem came Primal Scream’s sixth studio album which mangled Suicide with Can. Bobby Gillespie has since dismissed suggestions that it is political, and yet it is hard to agree with the Glaswegian with lyrics such as: “Gun metal skies/ Broken eyes/ Claustrophobic concrete/ English high-rise/ Exterminate the underclass/ Exterminate the telepaths/ No civil disobedience/ No civil disobedience/” or, these from the visibly confrontational ‘Swastika Eyes’: “Your soul don’t burn/ You dark the sun you/ Rain down fire on everyone/ Scabs, police, government thieves.” Hardly easy listening.

The adversarial tone kicks off before the music even starts, with a few terse words of dialogue heralding the opening track ‘Kill All Hippies’. The lines are cribbed from the obscure 1980 arthouse film, Out of the Blue, in which a punk-obsessed woman rips loose with a rant that that made her choice in lifestyle and attitude rather transparent: “Destroy/ Kill all hippies/ Anarchy/ Disco sucks/ Subvert normality.”

Xtrmntr’s ambition is apparent from the superstars of indie and dance who were enticed to join the party: Bernard Sumner, Kevin Shields, Adrian Sherwood, David Holmes and the Chemical Brothers. Those influences would be magnified in an album that set to achieve so much, and largely achieved it.

A standout track, ‘Accelerator’ is magnificently vicious, using an orchestra of guitars to create a detached and dangerous three-and-a-half minutes of punk rock’n’roll. It’s a sonic manifestation of Gillespie et al’s preferred poison of the time, amphetamines. The fireball middle part recalls My Bloody Valentine’s ‘You Made Me Realise’ - and who is a part of this art vandalism but Kevin Shields of MBV.

‘Swastika Eyes’ - incredibly, the first single lifted from the album - could be perceived as a barbed attack against Nazism and the various forms of odious right-wing, flag-waving boneheaded politics of groups like the British National Party which was gaining credence in parts of England at the time. But it is ostensibly a directive against all-powerful corporations and corrupt governments, aka “A military industrial illusion of democracy.” Powerful words, and just as powerful was a grinding bass and a hypnotic, demonic riff that was let loose in full, ragged glory for the final two minutes.

Slowing it down, albeit marginally, ‘Blood Money’ is a full-throttle instrumental that has elements of a Roy Budd gangster soundtrack fused with the theme tune to a BBC2 televisual feast on drug-running in Margate.

And on it goes, with further adventures in sonic attacks: ‘MBV Arkestra’ adopts the Vanishing Point funk workout of ‘If They Move Kill ‘Em’ and, as the title indicates, Kevin Shields mutilates it into a hurricane of Indian psychedelia, Neu!, and deranged wah-wah guitars till it resembles a thunderous, earache-inducing volley of noise and melody.

Xtrmntr sings off with ‘Shoot Speed/Kill Light’ whereby the lyrics are stripped to nothing more than the title repeated ad nauseum powered by Bernard Sumner’s savage guitar-playing. The New Order frontman wouldn’t sound this deranged till the opening bars of ‘Crystal’ some five years later.

Primal Scream would continue the electro-clash experimentation on 2002’s Evil Heat, which contained a track entitled ‘Rise’, which had been heard on the tour to promote Xtrmntr as ‘Bomb The Pentagon’. But of course, it was never going to get a release under that title post-9/11.

Pass, Shoot, Goal: Football and Music

Football and music: small words that evoke memories of players singing out of tune, or Chas and Dave being dug up ahead of a Spurs appearance in the FA Cup final. Or ‘Back Home’ by the England World Cup squad, that dismal Baddiel and Skinner effort … the list of cultural criminality goes on and on.

Music has often used football for its ill-gotten gains and, on the other side of the coin, the sport has gotten a piggy back from the industry to promote a forthcoming tournament or boost the bank balance of a striker.

But perhaps it isn’t all bad, after all The Fall wrote a couple of songs about the sport.

So, here’s our resident Montrose FC sympathiser Craig Stephen, with the top football recordings of all time:

New Order - World in Motion (1990)

It included a rap and was England’s official World Cup anthem of that year but it’s by New Order, a band that could compile a range of fart sounds, add a drum’n bass beat and it would still be the best track of the year.

I was living in north-east Scotland at the time, and buying this at the local Woolworths would have resulted in pelters from the lads who would have accused me of being a traitor. So it was a furtive buy, carried out when the young shop assistant was someone who didn’t know me and probably knew nothing about football.

New Order had taken a new turn on 1989’s Technique, an album that revealed that they’d been listening and taking drugs to the emerging rave and electronica scene. For this single they teamed up with six members of the England squad for Italia ’90 and comedian Keith Allen. 

Footballers don’t tend to have very good musical tastes so it all made for an interesting session. It has a catchy chorus, a passable rap, a brilliant video and was devoid of much of the pommy arrogance that it could appeal to the masses. And it did. But perhaps not in Montrose.

The Undertones - My Perfect Cousin (1979)

Ostensibly about a family member who's good at everything including table football: "He always beat me at Subbuteo/ 'cause he flicked the kick/ And I didn't know," and the cover of this single features a Subbuteo player about to “flick the kick”. Believe me, that game was popular in the 70s and 80s.

I, Ludicrous - Quite Extraordinary (1988)

Graduates of The Fall school of witticism, I, Ludicrous spewed a handful of football-related songs, such as ‘We Stand Around’ (about hardcore fans braving all the elements and bad players), and ‘Moynihan Brings Out The Hooligan In Me’ (about the odious little shit of a Tory Sports Minister at the time).

‘Quite Extraordinary’ was a piss-take of the BBCs footballing and athletics commentator David Coleman. “Same routine year in year out/ It's predictable every summer/ Mispronouncing the Kenyan runners/ It gets worse in the winter/ with the goddamn videoprinter/ That's Stenhousemuir's 13th game without a scoring draw.” 

Getting the name of an obscure Scottish league side deserves a Brownies badge on its own.

The Proclaimers - The Joyful Kilmarnock Blues (1987)

“I'd never been to Ayrshire/ I hitched down one Saturday/ Sixty miles to Kilmarnock/ To see Hibernian play/ The day was bright and sunny/ But the game I won't relay.”

And the bespectacled Leith duo have also gifted the world ‘Sunshine on Leith’ which is now an anthem for Hibs fans.

Billy Bragg - The Few (1991)

Britain’s favourite lefty muso, Billy Bragg, also wrote ‘Sexuality’ which isn’t about football per se (you may have guessed as such from the title) but contains the remarkable line: “I had an uncle who once played, for Red Star Belgrade.”

‘The Few’, also from the Don’t Try This at Home album, was a grim tale of hooligan firms: “At night the Baby Brotherhood and the Inter City Crew/ Fill their pockets up with calling cards/ And paint their faces red white and blue/ Then they go out seeking different coloured faces/ And anyone else that they can scare/ And they salute the foes their fathers fought/ By raising their right hands in the air.”

Bragg’s ‘God’s Footballer’, by the way, was about former Wolves player Peter Knowles, who retired early to become a Jehovah’s Witness missionary.

Half Man Half Biscuit - I Was A Teenage Armchair Honved Fan (1985)

Written in recognition of Hungarian football, and with the almost obligatory “hungary for” joke, it’s actually not even the best song about eastern European football on the Back Again In the DHSS album.

‘All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit’ is mainly about Subbuteo, well, actually, Scalectrix, but Subbuteo gets the gig among the young crowd when the racing game conks out due to a dodgy transformer.

Barmy Army - The English Disease (LP, 1989)

The English Disease (a reference of course to hooliganism) was very much of its time, with tracks such as ‘England 2, Yugoslavia 0’ and a protest song against a plan in the UK by the then ruling Conservatives to issue all football fans with ID cards.

Barmy Army cut and paste interviews and match commentary, using them ad nauseum; expressing their love of West Ham United with snippets of the ‘Ammers theme tune I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles, and songs dedicated to Alan Devonshire and Billy Bonds. 

On a hit-and-miss (the goalpost) album, the strongest moment is ‘Sharp as a Needle’, featuring the Anfield Kop in fine voice.

The Pogues - Down All the Days (1989)

My own favourite football-related song, even if the core subject is writer Christy Brown, is this track from the Peace and Love album, for the line, “And I’ve never been asked, and I’ve never replied, have I supported the Glasgow Rangers,” which can mean many things to many people.

Super Furry Animals - The Man Don’t Give A Fuck (1996)

The Welsh superstars’ expletive-ridden tale of a man who, well, you get the idea. It was dedicated to 1970s Cardiff City player Robin Friday and featured the Welshman flicking the Vs on the cover. Apparently, he really didn’t give a fig, and who can argue with that kind of footballer. It was a great song too, but let’s forget that it used a Steely Dan sample.

The Sultans of Ping - Give Him a Ball and a Yard of Grass (1993)

“If God meant the game to be played up there, He would’ve put goalposts in the air.”

The speculation is that this single was about Nigel Clough. Was he any good?

Primal Scream, Irvine Welsh and On-U Sound - The Big Man and the Scream Meet the Barmy Army Uptown (1996)

Three magnificent talents who utilised those skills in very different ways in this one-off single, Scotland’s unofficial theme tune for the nation’s team’s participation in the 1996 European Championships held south of the border, which ended in predictable glorious failure.

Welsh describes a boozed-up trip to Wembley to watch Scotland play England as opposition supporters chant “who are ya?” in the background, but the writer is essentially hitting out at certain Scotland fans.

“In every hick town/ Across this pseudo nation/ You can see the most fucked up scum/ That was shat into creation/ Where a blue McEwan's lager top equals/ no imagination/ You're hunbelievable.”

Oh, isn’t the mention of the top a reference to supporters of the now defunct club called Rangers? Tee hee, you cad Welsh. 

Gracie Fields - Pass, Shoot, Goal (1931)

And just to prove referencing football in song is not a new fad, Gracie Fields recorded this track before Hitler had even taken power. Fields was apparently a big Rochdale FC fan. The song was written and recorded for a film called Derby Day about a derby match between Rochdale and Oldham Athletic. 

The film was never made but the song survives, with a bedazzling chorus sung in magnificent Lancashire tones: "Football, football, it drives me up the pole. You hear their gentle voices call – pass, shoot... goal!"

Listen here

The Fall - Kicker Conspiracy (1983)

Let’s read what The Fall’s Mark E. Smith himself said about ‘Kicker Conspiracy’ in an interview with Uncut:

"It's about English soccer violence being triggered off by rubbish management and frustration that the game's been taken away from its support, that the English game is so boring there's nothing else to do.”

Like most Smith songs, the lyrics are obscure. It namechecks Jimmy Hill (as J. Hill), Bert Millichip and George Best, but also ‘Pat McCat’, “the very famous sports reporter” ...

The Fall also released a track called ‘Theme from Sparta F.C.’ which contained lyrics in Greek. Here’s some of the most transparent English words: “Cheap English man in the paper shop/ You mug old women in your bobble hat/ Better go spot a place to rest/ No more ground boutique at match in Chelsea/ We are Sparta F.C.”

Trout - Green and White (1995)

This is a single I can't recall buying by a band I had never heard from (nor since). And that's almost the same amount of knowledge as Dr Google has. 

It is gloriously non-produced with incomprehensible vocals - I can detect something about Partick Thistle and “doing the conga” in The Jungle at Parkhead but the chorus is quite transparent: "Green and white and Rangers shite/ Green and white and Rangers shite" repeated several times. And what more would you want in a song?

The single (entitled "A Tribute to Celtic") is shared with electro-friendly act Cha Cha 2000 who's ‘Tired Legs at the End of the Game’ is equally word-unfriendly but I can make out a "Celtic Celtic" chant and some sort of football connection. Somebody out there must know something?

Andy Cameron - Ally's Tartan Army (1978)

Glaswegian comedian and all round gallus Cameron released this wee cracker that even got the supporter of the old Rangers a Top of the Pops appearance when it reached No.6 in the British charts. Comparing manager Ally McLeod to Muhammad Ali was typical of the tongue-in-both-cheeks humour.

Listen to this verse with a straight face: "When we reach the Argentine we're really gonna show/The world a brand of football that they could never know/ We're representing Britain; we've got to do or die/ For England cannae dae it 'cause they didnae qualify."

Scotland lost to Peru, drew with Iran and found themselves out of the tournament instead of winning it.

Morrissey - Munich Air Disaster 1958 (2004)

He used to be an inspiration now he's a flag waver for all the shit political philosophies of the world. But back in 2004, when he was still much revered, Mozza recorded what I think is his only football related song, a tribute to the Busby Babes, the lightning Manchester United side of the 1950s, most of whom died in the infamous plane crash at Munich.

Luke Haines - Leeds United (2006)

The somewhat eccentric Haines, formerly of the Auteurs and various offshoots, wrote this about life in the 1970s of Vauxhall Vivas and Ford Corsairs; of Kendo Nagasaki and World of Sport. "From Wakefield to the Ridings/ To the ground at Elland Road/ At Leeds United they're chanting vengeance, it's a 13-nil defeat on the front page of the Post/ A last-minute substitution but we didn't have the talent/ I was beaten, we were gutted, I was sick as a parrot."

Mano Negra - Santa Maradona (Larchuma Football Club) (1994)

A typical brew of latino, reggae, dub and hip-hop from Mano Negra. There's big drums, tannoyed vocals, the sound of flares, football chants and a certain Argentinian player with a unique way of using his hands during a game. Sounds like Les Negresses Vertes.

Thee George Squares - 74 in 98 (Easy Easy) (1998)

"The official Fortuna Pop! World Cup EP". The A-side featured a “supergroup” of members of Prolapse, The Fabians and John Sims (a band) based around an actual world cup final held at Hampden Park in "92 or 93" in which Scotland beat the United Arab Emirates on penalties after leading 3-nil. 

The B-side, the "Sassenach side" by MJ Hibbert celebrates, as it were, England taking home the ‘Fair Play Trophy (Again)’. It was definitely the poorer cousin to Scotland's entry which when it comes to art and music is usually the case, and to prove how woeful the poms were, they had an image of Jimmy Hill on the back.

Colourbox - The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme (1996)

Despite featuring that same Mr Hill (on the cover, groan), this is actually supremely excellent, an instrumental built around a pumping bass and a horn section, it really does sound like it should be the theme tune for a World Cup highlights programme, or at least a segment featuring cracking goals and other choice moments. The story goes that Match of the Day producers were keen to have this as the soundtrack to its tournament highlights show. I don't care if it's true or not I'm going to tell all my friends that it is.

Pop Will Eat Itself - Touched by the Hand of Cicciolina (1990)

The Poppies were a bang average indie rock band from a humdrum town called Stourbridge; La Cicciolina was a blonde porn star who became an MP in Italy with a small left-wing group. A marriage made in ... ahem. Anyway, the Poppies eschewed their traditional greasy guitar sound for this very 1990 dance track peppered by samples from Bowie, the Human League and Funkadelic that could have been touched by Andy Weatherall. La Cicciolina doesn't have any input into the song itself but does appear in the video looking supremely lovely.

Real Sounds of Africa - Dynamos vs CAPS (0-0) (1984)

The (usually) 11-piece Zairean band who recorded out of Harare, Zimbabwe, also recorded ‘Tornados vs Dynamos’, ‘Soccer Fan’ and ‘Na Alla Violenza’ - likely to be a plea to footy fans. The band, also known just as Real Sounds, were one of the African bands, alongwith the Bhundu Boys, who came to Europe’s attention in the mid to late 1980s and collaborated with Norman Cook.

I haven’t covered everything … how can I? And there are club/band team-ups that are actually quite good, notably Shane MacGowan and Simple Minds appearing on a charity EP, in tribute to Celtic legend Jimmy Johnstone, plenty of songs by Serious Drinking, or more from I, Ludicrous and Half Man Half Biscuit, and an obscure indie trio from Norwich who issued one single in 1991 and who’s name I haven’t made up yet, blah blah blah, but you get the bloody point.

(But you have covered a full first-team squad’s worth, an OCD-defying and curiously symmetrical full score plus two, which in this case, might just about be right. - Ed)

Classic Album Review: Primal Scream - Sonic Flower Groove (1987)

Craig Stephen revisits a fledgling Primal Scream …

***

It came as something as a surprise to Primal Scream fans - of which I am one, though my dedication has been tested over the past decade - that the second Scream compilation, Maximum Rock N Roll, contained anything pre-‘Loaded’. That seminal single - THE sound of 1990 - came a good five years after their first. But the previous effort of collecting the band’s singles, Dirty Hits, conspicuously omitted the twee-heavy seminal early efforts or anything from the debut album Sonic Flower Groove.

Maximum … partially redeemed that Stalinist rewrite of history by including ‘Velocity Girl’ (actually a B-side), and both ‘Gentle Tuesday’ and ‘Imperial’ from Sonic Flower Groove as well as ‘Ivy Ivy Ivy’ from the greasy, long-haired rock’n’roll churner of the eponymous second album of 1989. That album famously contained the semi-ballad ‘I'm Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have’ which was picked up by DJ Andy Weatherall, bastardised beyond belief into ‘Loaded’, and hey ho, off we go, to superstardom and industrial levels of drugs. 

I’ve never truly understood the reluctance to accept all of their history, as flawed as it is at times, but I guess that if an album failed to light the bonfire, they might well brush it off as an aberration. Though, if that was the case, the Scream would be within their rights to dismiss the past three studio albums. 

So, what of the flowers and garlands debut? An album that owed a huge debt to Love, The Byrds, and Tim Buckley, and was an essential part of the singles-focused twee/shambling scene of the mid to late 1980s. 

Regardless of its status within the band, it is a timeless masterpiece that I find easy to play over and over, and discover new chimes or riffs to enjoy each time. 

And there are riffs aplenty. On ‘Gentle Tuesday’, a monumental statue of string-driven beauty, as Gillespie utters his final verse, Jim Beattie strikes up an almighty 45-second or so Love-in of jangly-guitars-to-fade that left panties wet all over the planet. And so it goes: shades of garage rock get snippets of time amongst the indie pop frenzy with largely fey lyrics, sung by a pre-drugs (well, real ones anyway) Bobby Gillespie, ending in a gargantuan barrage of riffs, such as on ‘Treasure Trip’.  ‘Imperial’ shows a bit more ambition although it does contain a clear nod to The Byrds with Gillespie and co-writer Beattie attempting to be Wordsworth: “Being blind or build a shrine/ To vanquish takes away without return/ With chains you're bound/ The best died last the looking glass/ Exterminating and you might well find/ It's just a matter of time.” 

Even the ballads are beautiful, and this writer has never ever written a word of praise for a slow-mover. 

Contemporary reviewers seem intent on comparing the debut to what came after, which is a monumental mistake; it must be taken on its own accord. And yes, there is resemblance, to put it mildly, to The Byrds but if you think appropriating from elsewhere is a rarity then wake up and get to that coffee machine. Then listen to every record you have and ponder where each idea has come from. 

With the decline of the shambling scene and the realisation that they needed to move in a different direction, Primal Scream would soon encompass full-tilt garage before taking another 180 degree turn and landing at Screamadelica. Three albums, none of which sounded like the other, and so it would continue with each new record until 2002’s Evil Heat. The lesson learnt from Sonic Flower Groove was never to stand still and try to repeat what has already been done. 

Ironically, the impetus for this review was on entering an op shop and hearing the bars to ‘Silent Spring’ which closes the first side, of the vinyl version obviously. The young-at-heart ladies at the counter, none of whom struck me as proponents of Scottish twee pop, seemed to be enjoying Sonic Flower Groove, and happy to play something they would have soon put on the CD shelf, mingling with albums that, perhaps, are more akin to the bargain basement museums of second-handville. 

Random 30 2013: Primal Scream - 2013 (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

When I reviewed the latest Primal Scream album earlier in the year, I made note of the fact that More Light was essentially a hybrid collection of just about every musical style the band had ever thrown at us. My copy of the album came with a number of bonus tracks, and it seemed very fitting that among those bonus cuts was a remix by long-time collaborator Andrew Weatherall. ‘2013’ was one of the better tracks on the album in its original form, but it was even better after it got the Weatherall treatment.

 

Album Review: Primal Scream – More Light (2013)

Primal Scream will forever be associated with Screamadelica, the band’s genre-bending classic, made just three albums into a fledging career back in 1991. That career game-changer has ensured every subsequent release by the band has, to one extent or another, been judged by that lofty peak. Only occasionally has the band come close to living up to such a high level of critical expectation, most notably on 2000’s XTRMNTR. That was more than a dozen years ago now, and although 2002’s Evil Heat had its moments, the back-to-basics approach of 2006’s Riot City Blues and the electro pop of 2008’s Beautiful Future didn’t fare so well in critical terms. I don’t believe either of the two most recent efforts were poor albums, it’s just that neither one was a patch on the acid-electronica opus that was Screamadelica. And therein lies the problem; successive “failures” for Primal Scream has largely resulted in the loss of any ongoing critical relevance the Scottish band once enjoyed.

But this is nothing new for Primal Scream; indeed, the band’s immediate follow-up to Screamadelica, Give Out But Don’t Give Up, met with a similar reaction. That album, from 1994, rates as one of the best Rolling Stones albums not made by the Rolling Stones, yet the response it received was one of widespread ambivalence. Despite it working as an unheralded precursor to Britpop, a throwback to another era, a dirty Stonesy variation on the more commercially embraced Oasis-Beatles thing happening elsewhere … (well, not exactly elsewhere, the Scream did after all share the same label as Oasis – Creation Records). But what on earth did Primal Scream think it was doing? … was Bobby Gillespie on some kind of demented Jagger trip? … and why was the band messing with a formula that had served so well?

 

The answer of course is that Primal Scream has always valued reinvention as the single most important part of the game. It’s been a continual theme across the band’s 30-year career and it preceded even Screamadelica. From “C86 indie” originals to acid house, from a dub/rock crossover to aggressive political rock, from hard edged electro to earthy blues, all the way through to Beautiful Future in 2008, which is the closest the post-Screamadelica band has come to making an album of straightforward pop. On More Light, the band’s tenth studio effort released earlier this year, we get what amounts to a hybrid taster of just about every genre the band has touched upon previously. And it seems to work.

I’ve got the Japanese deluxe edition of More Light ... which means the standard 13-track album, plus a couple of extras on one disc, and a six-track additional disc containing material that otherwise probably wouldn’t have seen the light of day … 21 tracks all up, and a huge amount of variety on offer.

I have to say though, that as the years have rolled on, I’ve started to find Gillespie’s vocal a little annoying. What once resonated brightly has now started to induce bouts of cringing. What worked when he was in his twenties/early thirties (a faux-American hippy drippy accent) doesn’t quite have the same sense of authenticity now that he’s the wrong side of 50. That has become something of a minor hurdle for me to overcome when listening to More Light.

 

Having said that, I’ll always prefer his American-drawl-out-of-Govan twang to the nasal whine of one Liam Gallagher.

It turns out most of the band remains intact, sans Mani, who’s returned to the bosom of the Stone Roses, for now. Lyrically it’s prototype Primal Scream, politics is a recurrent theme, naturally, and references – direct or otherwise – to Maggie Thatcher are right across the album, not least on tense opener ‘2013’. That track gets a great Andrew Weatherall remix on the “bonus” disc, one of the best reworks I’ve heard all year, and generally the second disc adds value.

The closer, and first single, ‘It’s Alright, It’s Ok’, is like every other Scream mid-tempo-jam I’ve ever heard before, and it’s familiarity is strangely comforting. If I think I’ve heard it before, it’s because I have, a hazy, intoxicating flurry of so many Scream touchstones in a five-minute sitting. ‘Movin’ On Up’ being its most immediate point of reference.  

But in between there’s great stuff like ‘Culturecide’, which wouldn’t be out of place on XTRMNTR, the vaguely psychedelic ‘River of Pain’, the both early-period and Riot City aping rocker ‘Invisible City’, and the slow burning creeper of the set, ‘Elimination Blues’, which features the understated vocal delights of Robert Plant.

 

Kevin Shields’ woozy guitar tones are all over More Light, as is the signature production of David Holmes. Brendan Lynch adds his mixing skills, but putting aside any big gun support, the album works mostly because Primal Scream sound relaxed. As tight as they can be, as a unit, thirty years on. A band with a certain self assurance, one that’s seen it all before.

On More Light, you sense the band knows it has nothing left to prove, and there’s no real attempt to prove anything. With no apparent desire or need for reinvention this time, Primal Scream revisit Primal Scream, and snippets of its own history provide the basis for the creation of something new. Yet something still very familiar, cobbled together out of remnants of the past.

Primal Scream may no longer be as relevant as they once were, and there’s always a risk that Old Father Time can turn a band into a sad parody of its former self, but in this instance it feels like Gillespie and co have stayed on just the right side of the thin line, and More Light appeals as probably the best Primal Scream album in more than a decade.

Here’s Elimination Blues: