Pegasus Realizes They're Playing His Tune

The first time I met him I presented him with a copy of Frank O'Hara's selected poems - and I felt quite daft and embarrassed about it for a while afterwards. But now I'm quite pleased that I did so.

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Interview - Melody Maker September 24, 1988 by Chris Roberts

Beyond the valley of the Blondes
With a sunburst of pop charm The Darling Buds are poised to release their first major label single, "Burst". Chris Roberts follows them around the whirl in eighty ways.

Budism
There are some people, believe it or not, who don't like The Darling Buds. They don't recognise this music as the very Taj Mahal of arrested development, fail to appreciate its accidental sexy drive as it clears every fence like Tuesday weld and Montgomery Cliff on amethyst amphetamines. But this is not a problem. We know no chargin, hold no truck with chicanery. Clambering onto a zenith of zen, we clutch dissenters to our bosom, baptise them, bless their furrowed brows. For we know not what we do. Insecure in the gut feeling that the oblique shall inherit the mirth, we cross napalm with six and sonorously chant the hollowed mantra: "Oh, non riesco a controllarmi. Non lasciarmi appesa al telefono. Attaca e corri da me!"

Works every time.

"What could be more glamorous or necessary than The Children's Army, 'an army of youth bearing the standard of truth' as we used to sing in my fourth grade classroom at Our lady Of The Sorrows under the unforgiving eye of Sister Scholastica who knew how many angels could dance on the head of a pin." (ensuring quotes in italics from "Come Back Dr Caligan" by Donald Barthelme).

Scenes from real life
1. "Life's a piece of shit," says Andrea, wobbling precipitously on a Tube station platform "No it isn't. Hic."

2. The Darling Buds, a necklace of bombs, walk into an office at CBS and 26 executives stand up and applaud. Harley, embarrassed, hides his head in his hands. Andrea stammers something about how nice it is to be in London and puts the tape of the new single on. Twenty six executives tap the table with their pens. Tapping out of time. "Burst" finishes. Everyone applauds again. Andrea wonders if they can go now. Harley peeps through the fingers in front of his face and sees, directly in front of him on the boardroom table, the new Michael Jackson single. That's next on the agenda. Harley, an honest young man from South Wales, feels bloody weird.

3. Five to seven on a Sunday morning some Darling Buds and myself and various other disreputable youths decide it would be a really sensible move to go to Primrose Hill where the Welsh contingent will be able to view the London skyline at night. When we reach the summit (a noble, super Hilary achievement), it occurs to me that as the declared literate member of this rabble I should raise my bottle to the heavens and say something intensely significant and immensely profound. I ponder momentarily as a plane cruises over and a dog barks incredibly meaningfully in the distance. Before I have formulated anything Harley skips over and yells in my ear: "Chris I was just thinking - have you got enough stuff for the interview this time?" no one can quite grasp why I find this hysterically, uproariously funny. But it's not a problem.

Why blonde had to go
Because it was getting boring. Because novelty is lust, lust novelty. Because so many cretins thought it was just about their hair colour, which was like thinking Fitzgerald was about jazz. Because it was f---ing up my social life vis a vis brunettes. Because all good things must come to a bend and wilfully skid off. And because these pop groups are too damn good to fit under one eiderdown.

Blonde: The Wake
There's some sort of Night Network anniversary party at The Astoria and I am arguing about the theory of relativity and nuclear disarmament with Andrea when The Primitives arrive, fresh from "Wogan". I feel a truly great moment in pop history coming on.

"Andrea, Tracey. Tracey, Andrea."

It's a truly great moment in pop history. Tyson meets Ballesteros. Joyce meets Stalin. Napoleon meets Deneuve. Or something. Andrea is so affable Welsh girl next door that Tracey's cool I'm ever so slightly a bit of a pop star now has to meet it halfway. They make each others' acquaintance. Each showily ruffles my hair intermittently and not being quite a complete fool I wonder if this is what is known as the spirit of the playful feminine competition. I feel a bit like an umpire and a bit like I shall just go and hide in the toilets for three hours, call me when it's over. But Frankenstein too had obligations.

Dwanyne, The Primitives' manager, says to Andrea: "Oh, look, you're about the same height as well..." Dwayne's such a little bitch. I love him dearly. Later Dwayne says to Harley:, "The thing is, no matter how good you are, you're always going to be three steps behind us, purely by chronology."

"Shit," says Harley. "I thought it was four. We always try to keep it to exactly four, then if we fall out of sync we get worried..."

But all drummers are Welsh and everyone can talk about studios and stuff and Andrea is not exactly the shyest person in the world and CBS throw in a bottle of Moet and besides I am there in the customary social grace and charm so I think everything goes fine really. Paul Court isn't too impressed by Harley's ladybird boxer shorts but Harley, rather dashing himself on a good night, agrees with me that Paul is fatally handsome, and Steve Prim is a ever the most pleasant man in the world. All this helps. Voice Of The Beehive join in at some point (Tracy B on Tracy P: "Shit, she's so pretty." Me: D'you reckon?") to cap it all I am struck by the revelation that this is The Wake of Blonde (what a line!) and with a sudden rush of blood to the head buy a round costing 25 quid. But, er, it's not a problem. It's not. It's not. It's not not not. I take a few seconds out to weep on Steve Sutherland's shoulder, something coherent like ohshitjesusandmarysteveohhellfirewhathaveIdone??

Fortunately the following week's Record Mirror is light years away, everyone says how much they like each others' record, a Blonde super single is briefly discussed then unquantitively forgotten. , Andera has her bag stolen and everyone must, post blonde, do what they wanna do, live like they wanna live. The notion of calling the Buds' album "Lovelier" doesn't get many laughs but some other things do. Andrea drags me off to get Nick Heyward's autograph and give hi mine. This too seems like a very good idea at the time. Poor old Nick.

"Look at this," mutters Paul Court. "Think of how much you can write about what's happening around this one table."

No no no, I assure him, I'm not working tonight. Besides, it's all a dream.

Pop music is one long brief fantasy. And should be. That's what it's all about. Not real life. Then Wendy James shows up and takes me to The Hilton in a taxi in which The Whispers are singing "And The Beat Goes On". Sure. Pinch me.

Post Blonde: A Manifesto (what blonde did next)

"'Baskerville, you blank round, discursiveness is not literature. The aim of literature, 'Baskerville replied grandly, 'is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart.'

1. "Burst/Big Head, a great single. (Back to roots?)

2. No sleep till bedtime

3. Nothing is too odd (here we align neatly with pure as opposed to bastardised post modernism). Nothing is odd at all.

4. Linear identities for all leading characters.

5. F***'em if jokes don't make them cry.

6. When the going gets tough the tough go: 'Oh hell, this is a bit of a rum do'; and smear it with dubbin.

7. The violence of emptiness, the brutality and pathos of a passionless world. The gorgeousness of the hollow.

8. Vote Plaid Cymru. Stare at "Sylvette VI" by Picasso. Try to eat less chocolate and more tangerines.

9. Money can't buy you love, but it can buy you literally hundreds of bananas and good books and nice pictures. Akso petrol.

10. Post Blonde means nothing, thought is produced in the mouth by the mouth. Capable of being turned in any direction by the limpid wind of momentary sensation (with apologies to Tristan Tzara's Dada manifestos). Above all, inconsistency equals consistency.

11. Never apologise to men called Tristan.

12. Baffle. Get away with it.

"We value each other for our remarks, on the strength of this remark and the one about The Andrews Sisters, love becomes possible."

Scenes from real life
The Darling Buds are about to release their fourth single, "Burst", a wonderfully exciting rush of Sex Beatles guitar pop classicism, "April Skies" meets "Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart", backed with the rude and raunchy "Big Head" and possibly also "Shame On You (Slightly Delic Version)". It's the first to be distributed by Epic but is strictly speaking on Native records. Produced again by pat Collier, it's far away their best to date, forsaking indie jangle for a more potent pushy poise. Epic will have to realise it's not Luther Vandross or Bros. It's The Darling Buds beginning to fulfil the potential some of us gasped at all those months ago. At Greenhouse Studios in London, between being beaten at pinball by a wickedly cheating Andrea, I hear one or two other tracks from their album, expected out on Bonfire Night. These (particularly the radiant future number one "When It Feels Good") are equally refreshing and irresistible.

They can't decide what to call the LP yet, if "Even Lovelier" is out of the question. "Pop Up" was a possibility but then Transvision Vamp reinvented "Pop Art".

"So it looks like it's going to have to be 'Chris Roberts' with a picture of you playing football on the cover," says Harley. Of course I vigorously veto this (ooh yes, go on, go on), so "Pop Said" is currently leading by a whisker. Not only is this a fine phrase but it's also a refrain from HE Bates' novel "The Darling Buds Of May". Two of The Darling Buds are at present reading books about famous murderers.

I was tremendously shocked the other night, Andrea.

"What? Why? When?"

When you said that what you looked for in a man was a large penis.

"That was joke, you idiot. Really I go for. I dunno, complexion?"

Harley owns a budgie called Smudgie, who is "dead cool".

Andrea: "We play our demos to him and he whistles. He knows. He knows. You put something like Tom Waits on and he's not interested."

Harley: "He likes The Wedding Present and My Bloody Valentine. And he's quite keen on the Wonder Stuff. Anything with guitars. The only problem is that he's learned how to masturbate.

Can a budgie do that?

"Mine can. He grabs the cage and goes like this, rubs his whatever he's got against the bars..."

Andrea: "Really fast, like this."

Harley: "And my mother was watching him once and he started doing it and she said, 'Oh dear, he wants out when he does that'. So sometimes we let him out and he flies around. When he gets back he's all groggy like he's just been down the pub. What he does is he shits everywhere, eats himself stupid, flies back, throws up in the cage, masturbates, then goes to bed. The only thing that's missing from his life, really, is a curry."

The other unusual thing about Smudgie the budgie is that he is black. Budgies are not normally black.

When Andrea was about 10 or 11 she was cycling down a hill when she fell off and knocked a tooth out. She was concussed for a while but went on to the children's barbecue she was headed for. There the grown ups put her in the car and started to drive her home. Around now she regained full consciousness and gingerly touched her teeth with her tongue. Then she started to sob: "Oh no, I can't be a famous actress now! They won't take me to Hollywood! They won't!" And the adults said, as adults: "Don't worry dear, they can do brilliant things with teeth nowadays." But Andrea was "just crying and crying. Just crying and crying and crying and crying."

Ten things you may not have known about The Darling Buds

1. Andrea has nearly as many fillings as me.

2. Harley owns four pairs of boxer shorts.

3. Andrea is one of only 17 pop stars I have ever called a "stupid bitch". I called her a "stupid bitch" because she sprayed baby lotion all over my favourite seaweed coloured jacket at a party Paul Mathur took us to. I don't normally call females "stupid bitches": indeed I felt very bad about it. But you don't find many seaweed coloured jackets in this godforsaken country.

4. Bass player Chris has a regular spot at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, where he can invariably be found pouting on about Third World famine and recent developments in callisthenics.

5. Drummer Bloss nearly dies from exhaustion after every gig. "I'm nearly dying," he is often heard to exclaim. "From exhaustion! Bloss didn't believe that Andy Gray had scored for Aston Villa the other week, it was a new Andy Gray.

6. Harley took his stage name "Harley Davidson" from a popular motorcycle of the same moniker. His real name is Geraint. He will undoubtedly kill me for this.

7. Andrea hates being alone because she's scared of creepy monsters and spooks so Harley has to share hotel rooms with her. This leads to many observers assuming they are "an item" but both strenuously deny such slurs. 8. The Darling Buds had trouble with sibillance during recording. 9. Andrea's real name is Bobby Bud, which is a little bit like the title of a Herman Melville novel. Not "Moby Dick", one of the other ones. 10. When The Darling Buds jovially cover "Love Me Tender", or "Georgy Girl", or "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone", as they are wont to do, everything in the world seems tangy.

Gone Fishing
"Once in a movie house Bloomsbury recalled Tuesday Weld had suddenly turned on the screen, looked him full in the face and said: You are a good man. You are good, good. He had immediately gotten up and walked out of the theatre, gratification singing in his heart."

Another time the tape recorder is on in the pub so of course everyone clams up completely. Some interesting fish in a glass tank next to the table serve as cabaret, and inevitably there's bassist Chris's non stop barrage f knock knock jokes and rants against the near sightedness of second generation Fascism.

Andrea: "Oh God what's that fish doing?"

Please don't call me God, you know how wearying it gets...

Harley: "Headbutting a rock and spitting out stones, and he's got a nervous twitch."

"But what a wonderful view of the city, Huber commented. So now, Whittle said to Bloomsbury, give us the feeling."

Should we perhaps talk about "Burst"?

Harley: "I probably interpret it in a different way to Andrea, who wrote the lyrics, but, it's someone who's really upset about what's happening, a very serious thing. You know what it is, like you really are in love with somebody but they juts don't want to see you again, they're just not bothered. It builds up so much, it's a headache, it's really desperate and you just want to go to all four corners of the universe. You just don't want to be there, as yourself. You wish you were different so that they'd like you. Something like that. You wish you could explode and come back as something different."

"I think Harley's done quite well there," says Andrea. "I know it sounds like I'm one hell of a screwed up woman, but, when you love someone and you can't stand it. Well. With me, if I'm angry, I do throw a bit of a wobbler, I mean I really do."

You always seem so chirpy on the surface...

"I suppose I do. But when things go wrong I blow up. I've had arguments with boyfriends, whatever, and I can't listen to what they say. I can't sit down and reason. I just fly off the handle. I'm really bossy as well: I boss this lot around. I threw a deodorant can at Harley the other day."

Harley: "Then the plate, the chair, I got the lot. It was the night she was going to leave the band."

Andrea: "That lasted about 10 minutes. Then it's all over. I just have to get things out of my system. Anyway for a 'trivial love song', 'Burst' is very angry. They're stories, y'know? I can sing about other girls in relationships. They're not personal. Stories. Your head bursting. Arguments. Hitting the ground after the happy part. 'Shame On You' where the girl's pissed off because all he wants to do is go to bed."

You didn't just invent that. Something must've happened.

"No, really no! It's all imagination, they're not about this or that boy upsetting me. I probably wouldn't want everyone to know if it was. All stories - 'Big Head' about someone who thinks he's got everything, beauty and brains and doesn't have to try, 'Mary's Got To Go'... CBS always say, oh goodness, you've got such good little songs - you think, bloody hell, they're not that good. We also write some crap stuff, y'know?"

Poppycock. So anyway is love The Main Thing?

Harley: "Oh yes. And it can hurt more than going to the dentist."

Andrea: "I don't think it can."

Harley: "It bloody can! It can really f*** you up something terrible. Really can. Oh well, sorry, I suppose everyone's been through it. Perhaps we're reminding our critics of this experience with our songs and that's why they go, 'Oh dear, I don't really care for that'. So, to succeed it, when I get a girlfriend and everything's running happily, then there'll be different things. I can't seem to score these days though, I don't know why it is."

Flashback: Valencia, June 1988. Harley's chat up line in Spanish disco: "Ere, four eyes, d'you speak English?" It didn't work wonders. But then the music was loud; perhaps she didn't hear him properly.

But you don't think love is more painful than anything, Andrea?

"I just meant the dentist. I don't like the dentist at all."

Oh is that all you mean?

"Yeah."

Aren't you a sloppy romantic like Bloss says he is?

"I don't think so. Romantic yes. Sloppy, no."

Harley: "She's more a sloppy eater."

And drinker?

Andrea: "Oh we just enjoy a 'bender' every now and again. I don't go out every night for my daily 86 pints or whatever."

Harley: "I do."

Andrea: "...but really sometimes I just can't tell myself to stop. Then there's the hiccups. Then I fall over."

Flashback: London, July 1988. I am carving my phone number on Andrea's arm with a penknife at a Wonder Stuff lig (I missed the gig: like I said, I'm not a complete fool), when that long haired geezer out of Pop Will Eat Itself strides over and has a go at me for persistently slagging off his band while championing only jangly indie bands with girl singers. That's bollocks, I say, no way do I only like bands with girl singers. Verging on fury, he screams 'Look at yourself man! Look at yourself at this moment!' Andrea, wobbling a little, chooses this moment to hand me the litre of whisky and gargle, 'Here y'are Chris, finish this off'. I look at myself at this moment. Okay mate, I concede to the long haired geezer, knowing we may lose the occasional skirmish but The Children's Army is fated (it is written in the scriptures) to win the war, maybe you do have a point.

"We're not into drugs though."

Bloss: "Margaret Thatcher would pat us on the back for saying that. Edwina Currie will sponsor us. 'The Buds Say No'."

The buds very nearly were in a film with Vanessa Redgrave last week. But it rained, or something. Did you dream about being on "Top Of The Pops"?

Bloss: "Yeah. About being in the audience."

Harley: "I'd shit myself with happiness if we ever got on it. Really. When I was a kid it was the first good thing. Then again everything's not so exciting when you come to do it."

Andrea: "We always dreamt about being Pan's people. But Chris's legs were too good. So now we want to be Village People."

Harley: "But I'd be really chuffed. It's about time Wales had something."

Andrea: "Did my Welsh quote in Talk Talk Talk mean 'Happy birthday thank you very much shut the door'? Ah yes, that's what my mum said. People who phoned us up after the first Peel session used to be despondent that we didn't sing in Welsh."

Harley: "I always remember this chemistry teacher at school telling me I couldn't do anything and I'd never get anywhere. And I love to imagine that his kids are buying our records now. Ha! And it's entertainment, everyone needs entertainment and pop records. As far as I'm concerned it's a big thing in life. And if we do have a hit single I'll have proved to loads of people that I'm not just this kid that flunked school: I'm something else."

Andrea: "I felt exactly the same when I was little. I'd think: I'll get you back. When I'm big and famous I'm gonna go on telly and say how horrible you've been to me."

Harley: "At CBS they're all saying to Andrea that she'd better enjoy walking around London now cos she's not gonna be able to do it in six weeks' time."

So what will you do then, Andrea?

"Dunno. Have to get a bike, I suppose."

Lateral thinking; I love it.

"Talking to people who are not in The Army is strictly forbidden. Other people don't understand The Army."

"Nowadays," says Harley, "if you do happy songs the attitude is oh they're just joking about everything. They seem to think 'young people' should be serious, should be interested in the way our Government's run and if you're not serious in that way, their way, then you're just messing about."

The Skullf*** Crew are The Darling Buds' most loyal followers (apart from me). They came mostly from Watford and have terrible haircuts and sometimes wear Primitives tee shirts in a futile attempt to wind the band. The Skullf*** Crew boast an enthusiasm bordering on dementia (they came all the way to Spain off their own bats). I have a badge which proves I am an honorary member. I was also given a cap and instructed to share it (limited edition) with Bloss's girlfriend, but I left on the floor at another party. The Skullf*** Crew also know a lot about fish.

"At the beginning of this year," says Andera, "we'd play a gig, collect our £30 and go home and that was it. Whereas now we often don't get to see the people we want to see. We cling on to 'Skullf***', but I can see how bands lose control, things get out of their hands, when we heard it was five whole pounds to get in to our last gig we thought there'd be nobody there!"

It was of course packed.

"We've stopped worrying," says Harley. "There'll always be someone there who won't like it, like Simon Reynolds, which is fair enough..." (a touch of Budism there, Somon!) "...but you've got people there loving it."

"There's no point us trying to 'get our act together'," finishes Andrea. "Because we are the way we are. That's the way it is."

And you always seem so happy onstage, it's infectious.

"But were we as happy say last week as the first time you saw us?"

Oh definitely. If not more so. (They give it their all, like Olympic sprinters. And like Olympic sprinters, all the agony and ecstasy of emotions we cannot for the life of us articulate is etched in every expression. Also every spin, every conflagration of guitar, every simple chorus.)

The Darling Buds, crazy as it sounds, capture release. Andrea you were gone, whirling around with those tambourines like.

"Yeah I know. Yeah it's really."

her face illuminates the taboo glory of inspiration. What is it? What is the best pop music?

"It's really brilliant!"

The day after they finish the LP The Darling Buds commence their 327th tour this year.

Burst And Last And Always
I'd be the first to confess The Buds' last single, "It's All Up To You", was vapid. It was the wrong choice, a disappointment after the rosy panache of "Shame On You". This time they've again hidden a diamond on the B side ("Big Head"), but in "Burst" they've done (in) the business. "Burst" is one of the most natural thrills you'll hear all year, it races away with itself, impetuous heart over head, sweet and savage, destination delight. A gleam in every twinkle. Despite the fuss, it doesn't really matter whether it's "a hit" or not. It exists. The oyster I first saw in a grotty pub in March is starting to expectorate pearls. Already. I now expect strings of the things.

"Well here we go, we laugh again."

Rather unfairly, I get Harley talking about his willy one more time.

"I found my willy when I was 12 and it's still a lot of fun, like how many years later?? Now if this record company and us could enjoy a relationship like that, well hell!"

"Gurramies," announces a Skullf*** Crew member.

Sorry?

"Gurramies, they look like, those fish. And the big one's a schreitzmuller maytaenis."

Wow. Can you spell it?

"Yeah I can, give me a piece of paper."

Oh sod it, I'll make it up. Do they look healthy to you, as an expert?

"Yeah. The gurramies do anyway. Not sure about the schreitzmuller, I think he's dead. Demised. Hullo? Oh he is moving. He looks like he might be called Eric. Don't tap the tank, Andrea!"

"Why not?"

"Well it's like an earthquake for the fish."

"I was babysitting after school once," begins Andrea, who would rather be a princess than a queen, "and they had these, what are they called, those tiny little things with shells, yeah, terrapins, they had those. And I was doing my homework and I absentmindedly started stirring the water in their tank with my pencil and I started going round with it really madly chasing them round the sides, tickling them, the next morning the woman said she'd found the things quivering in her shoes. I flushed a fish down the loo once, but it kept coming back. Every time someone went to the loo there'd be this goldfish. For days."

See? You can no more rid the earth of truly great pop music than you can exterminate resilient ornamental pondlife. You've danced on the tomb of Blonde, you've read the post Blonde manifesto, you've got the terrapins in your shoes, so shake. Fit to burst and filled with gyroscopic baubles. A fluorescent flurry. The past is so much confetti. Go on, admit it - like the whole of human life, The Darling Buds are here and now. Love comes in spurts and goes out fighting. It's not a problem.

It's staggering. I assume 'chargin' is 'chagrin'; but the silliness of the rest of that sentence alone is glorious.

"Andrea, Tracey. Tracey, Andrea."

Night Network! Wogan! (This is getting better and better and better)

Here's another one:

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Melody Maker, July 8, 1989. The Primitives: Red Dawn

In the process of recording their second LP and with their new single, 'Sick Of It', about to be released, The Primitives are looking to further the success of 'Crash' and 'Lovely'. Chris Roberts chats to Coventry's finest and discovers there's life after blonde.

TC: "Poor innocent me. And all this time I thought you were a bona fide blonde."
Marilyn: " I am. But nobody's that natural. And incidentally, f*** you."
TC: "Okay, everybody's cleared out, So up, up."
[Truman Capote, from "A Beautiful Child" in "Music For Chameleons".]

Are you proud that "Crash" was the 94th biggest selling single of 1988?

Paul: "Yes, that's quite good, that is."

Tracy: "It was what?"

Didn't you know that? You didn't know that.

"No! It was what? Really?"

You didn't know! It was a slice of pop history. It sold even more than "Shake Your Love" by Debbie Gibson!

"How brilliant..."

That's what I thought.

"God. Really. Who else was in there?"

Oh Kylie, Cliff, Yazz, all the greats. No one with black clothes. Is there a sense of achievement?

"There is, yes, but I think there's still got to be a bit more..."

Tracy Tracy is no longer blonde.

"A lot more..."

Tracy Tracy, once blondest of blondes, the very fountainhead of the imagery of Aryan feminism, is now a redhead. What does this mean, readers? Should we deconstruct it's glaring symbolism ? Is is something to do with the passage of time, the transition from sunbeams to eternal flames? Is it an indication that The Primitives want no misconceptions around their burning wrath, their combustive ire? Can we no longer raise caprice to the dimensions of a system? Is this the death og the last and cheekiest gold dream, or just it's maturity into menace and mayhem? Does it signify that "destructive" now outranks "disposability"? Basically, when you get right down to it: Has somebody plucked the stars down from the sky?

Not really, no. The girl got bored and fancied a change, and The Primitives are better than ever.

Getting bored is something The Primitives are very good at. They are dab hands, virtuosos, at getting bored. The Midlands give you good practice. They get bored during video shoots. They get bored during photo sessions. They get bored on the bus, in the cinema, in the pub. Traveling around the world, they learned many new ways of getting bored, but can be bored with equal conviction at home. You name it, they'll get bored with it. Their comeback single is called "Sick Of It". Fortunately, it happened to be the greatest single ever made.

That enigmatic faraway look on Tracy's delightful visage? The one you always took for precocious wisdom, charming arrogance, narcissistic self-passion? The one which made you wonder what she was thinking? This is what she was thinking: I'm bored.

Ennui, however, has often fuelled the greatest pop moments. Tedium sparks off tirade. Tedium, when you think about it, is second only to love as a source of inspiration. Second out of two ain't bad.

You realise, by the way, that "Sick Of It" is the greatest single ever made?

Paul: "This week it is, yeah. Maybe for two weeks."

That's kind of what I meant.

"I know."

But you should've kept the title as "Sick Of It All".

"Too many one-syllable words."

We mull this over. Crucial stuff.

The Primitives are filming the video for "Sick Of It" in an East End synagogue. They mime through the tape about 400 times. I could've sat through another 400 quite happily. It was like having your favourite pop group perform in your front room, except you're in an East End synagogue. It helps that the intro to "Sick Of It" is the greatest intro in the history of the world, one of these rare intros which gets everybody anticipating the thrill of a lifetime. It helps that the song is the rapture of rage, a throwaway holocaust, all sweetness and spite.

Paul Court shuffles over during the break and does a very good "self-effacing".

"I dunno," he mumbles. "It's a living, innit?"

The Primitives simply do not realise the brilliance of what they do. I, on the other paw, appreciate it only too well. I'll admit I am prone to blanket approval of The Primitives. Somewhere between us lies the truth. Except that for me, my truth is the truth.

And whose daffy truth is this that's happening now? For the bass player in this video is none other than Pete Tweedie, the drummer who left the band some time ago after an unsightly dalliance with one of Tracy's cats, recently rumoured to be selling tee-shirts on the Birdland tour. (Peter, not the cat.)

His favourite expression is, "Awright, me old roister-doister?"

Erm, fine, yes. I didn't know you could play bass.

"I can't. I can jump around for the sake of the video scenario, there is some confusion as to whether we're meant to be doing an interview thing. It might be sensible to get it done. Although, we might get bored. We could just forget it and go down the pub where it'd take us a little longer to get bored. It's a tough decision.

The Falcon excels itself for seedy low-grade gutter-life filth tonight. It's as if it's putting on the Ritz for the youngsters from Coventry. It's even playing Specials records, horridly enough. We sit on the pavement. No on recognises the Primitives. Hell, no one even recognises me?

Before you can say The Peking Massacre, we're onto The Big Subject.

No Tracy, I don't think it's dreadful. It was just a shock, that's all. How long has the axis of the Earth been so tilted without my knowing? I mean, how long have you been a redhead?

"Mentally, about eight months. Physically, two months. Is it really that big a deal? I just wanted a change. I've been bleaching my hair on and off for eight years, and I was just sick of it. Ah, Yes. A pun. Anyway the condition of my hair was going downhill, so I had to choose--I could either be bald or red."

Tracy pronounces "bald" as "bold". All people from Coventry do. Tracy's from Australia, but don't split hairs. I'm too polite to point it out.

"So I chose red. Seriously."

You're telling me it's serious.

"Plus there was the excitement angle as well. I mean, I was having so much fun being a blond. It was like; slow down, heart condition. I'm definitely having less fun now, thank God."

And not being preferred by gentlemen, I suppose?

"Oh, I don't know about that."

Well, redheads are characterised as angry, passionate, intense and...and...and fiery, that's the one, fiery...

"But I had those qualities anyway, Chris."

"She looks," says Paul, leaning over, "like she should have a cobra, I think. Some sort of snake."

Yes.

"And some tattoos."

Yes.

"I don't know why that is."

No.

A couple of nights later we get more organised. Sort of. The Primitives' second LP, the follow-up to the stunning and underrated "Lovely", will be called -- it gives me tremendous and unqualified joy to announce -- "Pure".

"The word has slightly sinister overtones," says Paul.

But you said that about "Lovely". Maybe you see sinister things in things people don't see sinister things in generally, if you see what I mean. Lovely and pure are usually taken as fine good decent Christian words.

"But they're sinister when a band like us uses them. Or any rock'n'roll band."

Give me an example of something that's pure. I'll start you off: snow.

"A child in a bathtub."

"Pure doesn't necessarily mean nice," says drummer and Welshman, Tig. " It could be used in the context of pure evil. Total evil."

Do you feel pure at this moment, Paul?

"I'm going through a purging process. I knew someone once who ate nothing but fruit and water for weeks to purge themselves. Didn't work though."

Have you had any pure experiences lately?

"You've got me there."

Sometimes The Primitives are infuriating interviewees. When the dreaded tape recorder is on, Tracy tends to stare off into the middle distance or down at her vodka and black. Tig tries nobly. Paul will be alternately inspired or bloody useless. He has the kind of perverse sense of humour I like very much, but which makes doing my job marginally easier than knocking down the Berlin Wall with a toothpick. As the songwriter, however, he has a certain prerogative for intermittent avert poeticism.

"Last night was quite pure. I'd had a horrible day in the studio, hadn't seen any natural light, just felt the heat all day. Then I was walking down this road at about 11 and I could smell the flowers, and it was just starting to rain, like really light rain. And it felt as if I was having all the aggression of the day washed out of me."

Tig puts forward "Sick Of It" as an example of purity, and indeed there can be few finer. Originally, it was to be the B-side to a "load of simpering crap" called "Secrets".

Are you pressurised to be more simpering?

"No," says Paul, "that was my fault actually, cos I wrote the song. It's probably the third worst song I've ever written."

"Yes, agrees Tracy, "It's dreadful. I hate it."

"Actually," says Paul, "I haven't seen anybody from our record company for ages. I don't know who they are. But I love them."

Tig: "If they did phone us, there'd just be enormous silences, we'd probably start talking about the weather and stuff."

So what are you SICK OF?

Paul: "All the artless prats who seem to run everything. Anyone who has power is obviously blind -- that's what the job entails. Who? Anyone. Governments, Trendsetters, Brian Tilsley. It's a bit open -- could be the state of the world, could be I'm just sick of being asked to pay the rent and stuff."

Do you get angry about things or do you just think you're supposed to?

"That's it! So many people say they are, just cos it's called for. You watch the news and you hear all this serious bad shit but if you were really that bothered , individually, you wouldn't be able to live. You'd really go out and f***ing do some damage to summate, to make a point."

Tracy: "But you don't just ignore it. I don't. I mean, I don't use aerosols anymore!"

Paul: "Good, so little things make big things. But that's all you can do."

Some would say you were all style and no substance.

Tracy: "All style? Style?? Us??"

Yes. One pure idea, sound, look, no confusing complexities.

Tracy: "Hmmmmm."

Which is why I like it.

Paul: "Hmmmmm."

You look like no one's ever said this to you before?

(They look like no one's ever said this to them before.)

Paul: "I can think of a lot of bands that are what you just said, but..."

Tracy: "I think there's more to us than your -- dare I say it -- Transvision Vamps."

Dare you say it?

"I've said it! Woo woo!"

Why is there more to you?

Paul: "Because our fingers hurt more. We sweat more than they do, bleed more than they do. And we're probably not as pampered. Pampering can kill a man. How about some more beers? In a way though, I do think they are...quite good. The singles...and that."

Tracy: "Yeah, but..."

Paul: "Let's not talk abut this band any more. Stop now."

Tracy: "Oh, all right then."

Tig: "So that's Transvision Vamp and the weather barred."

Paul: "Good bit of Transvision Vamp we've been having lately."

What I fail to communicate to The Primitives is that Dumpy's Rusty Nuts sweat. Hawkwind sweat, Depeche Mode probably sweat under certain lighting. If we want seat we can find it in any crappy old hovel. We want an illusion of glacial grace, of effortless raw power, from our pop stars. However this is the stumbling block. For me, The Primitives are potentially our finest pop stars, a national treasure. But to themselves, they're a bunch of nerds from Cov.

A lot of people are madly in love with you, Tracy. You realise that?

"It's not that they're madly in love. It's just I'm a female. I'm up on stage, and people look up to it. I've never thought, 'Oh yes, that front row is in love with me'."

Do you think you appear cold and calculating, an ice maiden?

"No, no, though a lot of people say that to me. I'm certainly not trying to give that impression. I don't develop a certain mood. I'm just trying to relax under all the nervousness really. It's just...a myth. I don't know what it is.

So you're not posing impassively?

"There probably is a certain amount of posing there. But I'm obviously not doing it correctly if that's what everyone's getting from it."

Anyway, people will say you look like All About Eve now. (A joke. A small joke.)

"Oh, God. I'm disappointed with you. You just have to accept that sort of thing. I mean -- do people really care that much about image and hair color?"

Paul: "It's sexism, basically. They wouldn't say it about a boy."

Yes they would. In pop music they would. This is the whole point. If Jenny saw that...

"That Jason Donovan had shaved his head..."

Thank you Tig. If Jenny saw that, she'd rush round to Julie's house and tell her. They'd think Armageddon had come.

Tracy: "But they'd still like him for it."

Tig: The guy out of INXS -- what's his name? He looks like a complete and utter dingo now."

Paul: "I hadn't thought all this. But maybe changing from blonde to dark is a bit radical, yeah."

Tracy: "But should I stick to that routine, keep my blonde hair for the rest of my career? I mean, does it really matter?"

Paul: "The time does come when you stand and look at yourself and think, 'Blonde hair is cheap'."

Tracy: "I don't think blonde hair is cheap! How dare you! Ha!"

Ha, she still has a heart (Mine conceivably.)

Paul: "No, I don't mean...well, I do mean. I mean peroxide-from-the-chemist blonde hair. It's clichŽd. Better red than bald, I say."

As if by magic, I produce from my hat that day's Daily Mirror. On the full-colour front page there screams the ultimate trash headline: "MARILYN LOOKALIKE SUICIDE -- She Lived Like Marilyn...And She Died Like Her. "In terms of real life, this is pretty damn sick (over on page two, Reagan Slams China Killings).

In terms of Warholian pop art, it's a towering classic. A fake reproduction. Tracy reads it keenly, hands it back and says, "Sad".

That's all. Quite right too. It has nothing to do with her.

I consider inventing a musical movement (to sweep the nation) which reveres Rita Hayworth as it's icon. We could rape in all sorts of ascendant people across the board from Harriet Sunday to Vicky Fuzzbox. What's more, we would be known as The Reds, a name not lacking in emotive and ideological status. But then I remember the existence of Mick Hucknall and decide that, in these times, continuity is a dated and bourgeois concept.

Are you worried that, while touring America and recording, you've been forgotten as one-and-a-half hit wonders?

Paul: "It hasn't been that long! It's not a couple of months!"

Tracy: "No, but it seems a lot longer. Some people have moved on to other bands of the same ilk. Or not of the same ilk, if you know what I mean."

Paul: "There are other bands that have seen what we've done, copied it, jumped in and tried to steal our thunder. But if they've got nothing of their own in the first place, they're not gonna survive."

Is this album more "grown-up"?

Paul: "Pure and rhythmical and natural. It's got more body in it. And soul. Body and soul, you could say. And it's deeper. Expressing things less superficially."

Tracy: "I felt very detached from 'Lovely', but I can relate to these songs more. Half the songs I don't know what they're about, but what I think they're about, they are about..."

Makes sense to me.

"I mean Paul wrote them so I'm just like the average person on the street. Like with 'Sick Of It' I just thought of rainforests, the ozone layer, governments, stuff like that. I just make my own picture and give it to the record."

Are these songs laying your heart bare, Paul?

"Not really, not totally. Some songs have obviously got a penis attached to them. and there's no way a girl could sing it unless you were just trying to be 'weird'. So it's only as far as The Primitives would allow."

Of course. The Primitives remain The Primitives. Flash. The surface thrill, the sheen rush, the distillation of "Hound Dog" through TV Eye" through "Holidays In The Sun" through "Hanging On The Telephone". "Sick Of It" features a cover of The Velvets' 'I'll Be Your Mirror' on the 12-inch, also a Lee Hazelwood/Nancy Sinatra spaghetti western parody called "Noose". Another imminent track is "Summer Rain", which is pristine, pert and perfect and laden with cascades. Furthermore, you can pretend you thought it was called "Submarine" and make everyone chuckle faintly.

Here comes my interesting, possibly Freudian, error. Now, do you think "Sick Of You"...

Paul: "Sick Of You"? Isn't that Iggy Pop?"

Ah. (After 5,000 interviews, 3,000 of these with The Primitives, I have made the cardinal mistake. The most basic of basic. I have got the name of their bloody single wrong and they are six inches away from me and this is live. Brilliantly, ever so brilliantly, with a brilliance in fact which flashes from my lips like lightening, I brazenly bluff it out.) Yes, that's right -- I thought we'd talk about Iggy Pop for a bit. My chin juts up.

Clear, I think. That was brilliant. Three young faces look back at me somewhat scornfully. Tracy wrinkles her nose. I am not clear. They know me better than that. In the state of Embarrassment on the river Faux Pas, I am creekbound. But there is no end to the human ego's defiance of the inevitable.

Okay, yeah, but anyway you see my point...

Desperate, but spirited.

A kind of tightrope kind of snaps. Hysteria says: "Yummy! Floodgates!"

Paul: "What point? Where was the point?"

Tracy: "You didn't finish it! You didn't even start it!"

Intriguing: Next it'll be arthritis, and I'm sure that'll be fascinating too.

Do you care Tracy?

"About what?"

The Primitives. The records. All this stuff.

"Oh definitely, it's a big part of my life."

What would it make people do, ideally?

"Get up and dance and break a few chairs."

What have you got against chairs?

Paul: "They should listen to "Sick Of It" when they've had some kind of heavy drug. I've often listened to music like that and thought, "Oh this is great, I wish we did records that people would put on when they were in this state. We have done already, But I think you might even be able to smell this one."

Will it rouse people?

"Arouse?"

If you like.

Tracy: "Without a doubt."

Paul: "It will rouse people on tacky dancefloors all over the UK. It'll come on and they'll suddenly jump out there and bong into each other."

Will it make people "smash the system" or "assassinate Thatcher"?

"It might help one man do that, somewhere in the world."

Did "Crash" change your lives?

Paul: "We went to more places and experienced more weather. We're more secure, but also more insecure, if you can see that. No, cos --the more secure you are, the more worried you are about becoming insecure. Like, pop bands haven't got that long a lifespan. What the hell do you do after The Primitives? Back to washing dishes, perhaps, if they'll have me. Open up a shop selling general household items, I imagine."

Serve a useful role in society?

"Yeah."

Not like pop music.

"Well it isn't, is it, really? It is for us, but...generally it does about as much as a soap opera does."

Tracy: "People need it. They need something to admire, or...lust after. It's got to be there. Kids want to dream about something."

Paul: "You get fan letters from people getting really personal. They've seen our photographs and heard our records and really believe that we're something else..."

Tracy: "We are something else, Paul."

Paul: "I mean...other-worldly. We get weird letters like, 'Can you help me, I really like the band, but I wet the bed'. Who are these people? What do they look like?"

I thought I'd forgotten to post that one. Do you feel different to the whippersnappers I met playing 'Thru The Flowers' at The Oval Cricketers two years ago?

Tracy: "Yes, we feel feel like Swing Out Sister now."

Paul: "Only in photo sessions. The other day we were traveling in a little van, sitting on amps and that, and that felt like when we used to come down to London to do those gigs. I felt like I ought to have a doner kebob in my hand to complete the experience.

"Oh, we've had little ventures into the mainstream, and what you have to do to be part of that, but we've always slipped back out again. There've been two times when I've felt like a pop star. Getting shuttle aeroplanes from Heathrow to Newcastle with The Sisters Of Mercy and Johnny Hates Jazz. And once when I was in the library in Cov and 'Crash' came on the radio in the street outside. And it was good being on Top Of The Pops, where you just felt everyone hated you. All these nonentities."

When they're old and grey, Tracy, who rarely writes anything down in her diary any more, will sit in a rocking chair and do her knitting. Paul will shout at young people in the street, telling them he fought four world wars for them. Tig, who keeps plane boarding cards as souvenirs, would like to have "some worth in the world".

Hey - pass the dutchie, PF!

I almost changed the name of my website to "Fumbling Out From Under the Feet of Reynolds, or Notes Towards a Friendship with Morley & Roberts" but I thought that was too big for most folks' gums. He's as good as Ewing.

Obviously that stops short of the interesting question, ie: Why?

I need to read more Roberts. (Keep em coming, JtN.)

I was sober when I reviewed that album. Forgive me my lack of professionalism.

He seemed immediately to hear the record's queer unity: the way that its tracks talk to or overlap with each other, sharing a vocabulary, so that you can hardly remember which title ('Satellites', 'The Horses', 'Rodeo Girl') applies to which track.

He really was good. So was she.

Scarlett Johannson
Anywhere I Lay My Head
ATCO/RHINO

By Chris Roberts

It’s the 2007 Grammy Awards: I’m watching this nauseating crap on telly because I’m being paid to write a biography of Scarlett Johansson and, for a brief period, have to document the actress’ every profound public utterance. Scarlett, though infinitely less skint than me, also has to sell her soul sometimes, and is presenting an award to The Dixie Chicks, alongside Don Henley. The pair begin their scripted banter. “So”, says Don, “you’re making your first record, Scarlett?” “Yes”, replies Scarlett, peering for the autocue, “you got any advice for me, Don?” Don pauses and replies, “No.”

There is an awful moment where the audience are supposed to laugh and, quite understandably, don’t. Scarlett is visibly confused, embarrassed. You can see her young brain whirring, saying: what the fuck am I doing here with all these old farts? Why was I talked into it? I comprehend that I am not just A-list tits-and-ass but also a signifier of “alternative cool” among a certain demographic, but this is not helping. Also, when you think about it, I have made, in my career, about five completely shit films for every good one. What I really need to do is chuck away the album of standard lounge covers of Tom Waits songs I’ve just done, and start afresh with some fashionably non-mainstream types, the kind of names to whom music journalists on both sides of the Atlantic give blanket approval. Yes, that’s it.

At least she may have been thinking that. Or she may have simply been thinking: Don Henley is boring me, I need to ditch this sucker and go snog Justin Timberlake in his new video to the point where Cameron Diaz gets hacked off with me. Then, cheque cashed, I’ll counter that and redeem my cred by joining The Jesus And Mary Chain onstage, maybe squeeze in a Dylan video.

So Scarlett Sings Tom Waits - as it was once to be called - is now a borderline hip piece of indie art-rock called Anywhere I Lay My Head. Scarlett has a useful contacts book. This was produced in Louisiana by David Andrew Sitek of TV On The Radio, who brought in a fleet of musos. Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner guests, as does Celebration’s Sean Antanaitis. Sitek says he shot for something akin to Debbie Harry singing for This Mortal Coil. It’s also been tagged as Nico backed by The Flaming Lips or Marianne Faithfull fronting My Bloody Valentine. These descriptions err on the side of generosity but do, in fairness, give you an (idealised) entry point. There is also the small matter that backing vocals on two tracks (the interesting, grower single ‘Falling Down’ and the excellent, dramatic ‘Fannin’ Street’) are provided by David Bowie, who, in my mediocre book, Scarlett named as her childhood idol. Well, him and David Hasselhoff.

Sitek’s music throughout is pretty good, always inventive, striving to avoid cliché, not quite able to shake off its debt to the pioneers of shoe-gazing and heyday 4AD (Ivo sequenced it). There is a clear, commendable attempt to re-imagine the Waits songs (’I Wish I Was In New Orleans’ with grit, ‘I Don’t Want To Grow Up’ as Caucasian electro-disco, ‘Who Are You?’ with pathos) rather than simply let the songs’ own merits do the heavy lifting. Obviously the lyrics are great and the tunes are either brilliant or non-existent: that’s Waits. This is a tasteful homage, not lapsing into laziness. Sitek’s done a fine job and will from now on doubtless be the go-to guy for starlets wishing to show their dark side. Let’s remember, 23-year-old Scarlett, who reads Dostoevsky on her coffee breaks, could have done a Lohan and extended (or killed) her brand by popping out a puddle-shallow r&b confection. Only Juliette Lewis has been - in context - this bold. Keanu Reeves, Johnny Depp, Russell Crowe, Minnie Driver - none of them has made music this interesting.

The flaw is: what does Scarlett actually bring to it? She’s the masthead, the genius marketing stroke, the commercial synergy, but her vocals are - here’s the thing - poor. At best they’re blank, robotic: which at least allows music journalists a perfect blank canvas on which to scratch those desired Nico/Debbie references. Sitek works around her, despite her, he hides her amid waves of churning sound. At worst, she sings with comical, flat, stoned, ineptitude. If I hadn’t just emailed someone to say she sings “like a buffalo with strep throat might sing, were it giving birth to triplets in a sandstorm”, I would use that line again here. On the other hand, if she could whistle through a million octaves in her sleep like Mariah, wouldn’t that just suck? Wouldn’t that be more irritating than her plainly being a bit rubbish? Loads of good-looking people make splendid pop stars without being able to sing. Bowie describes her voice as “mystical and twice cool”, but then he always had a way with words.

What’s wrong with Scarlett’s Waits-lifting isn’t that a movie star has made a record. It goes without saying really: Richard Harris, with ‘MacArthur Park’, made the greatest record of all time. Renaissance men and women and egos which flex themselves are good things, even if the more predictable, jealous elements of the media generally scent easy blood. If nobody ever did anything pretentious, nobody would surprise us, and everything would be just OK, just middling, neither grand folly or coup de theatre. If Scarlett wants to show us her paintings next, fine, bring them on. In fact if Megan Fox or Natalie Portman want to exhibit their sculptures, great, I love comedy. There will be plenty worse albums than this made this year, and plenty that are sonically less challenging, and many of them will be raved about. No, all that’s wrong with it is that she’s the weak link, which is a pity, no more, no less. To balance that out, if she wasn’t there to front the videos, it’s very unlikely that that panting creep Salman Rushdie would have wanted to lick David Sitek’s ear, and therefore nobody would be watching, or, by extension, listening. The sheer fascination value alone of this peculiar album ensures that, for Scarlett, tomorrow is another day.

http://www.thequietus.com/2008/05/scarlett-johannson-anywhere-i-lay-my-head-review/

at last - Reynolds on Roberts:

--
While we're on Jools and also on Melody Maker journalists, I must share a bizarre ghosts-of-my-life type experience I had last week. I was watching one show, from 2002 or thereabouts, and they had David Bowie on, sitting at the piano with Holland, doing this kind of droney-Lunndunn-voiced semi-comic Pete and Dud routine with him. And I thought, not for the first time, how much Bowie and Chris Roberts* resembled each other. And whether there was an element of narcissism to Chris's rabid Bowie fandom (he's a guy, after all, who publically wrote an appreciation of the Glass Spider tour). Or was it in fact the other way around, and as per Talking Heads's "Seen and Not Seen", he'd gradually changed his facial features by force of will? And then, amid these idle ponderings, I suddenly became aware of this blurry face-portion darting into view behind Bowie's head every so often. No, it couldn't be... But yes, to my utter amazement, like the materialisation of my thoughts, the features resolved into the face of Chris Roberts, sitting in the front row of the audience immediately behind his idol and looking appropriately amused. At one point Roberts head seemed to settle on Bowie's shoulder/neck like some monstrous growth, like How To Get Ahead in Advertising remade by Fred "Starlust" Vermorel. I press 'pause', go get Joy from the other room , rewind, we have a good chuckle. And then,continuing to watch, suddenly, another unnervingly familiar face starts to play peek-and-boo with me using the wrinkled glam god's head-and-shoulders, before finally settling into full view: Ian Gittins!!!
--

http://blissout.blogspot.com/

http://www.thequietus.com/articles/primal-scream