The Primitives, 1988

“The good thing about The Primitives is they always knew The Ramones were bubblegum.”

The Primitives on stage in London in 1988. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

There's a new indie box set coming out on Cherry Red (the home of indie compilations) at the end of September. It’s called Cut Me Deep - A Story of Indie Pop 1985-1989.

There’s a lot of great stuff on there including, from Liverpool, The La's, Benny Profane and The Lightning Seeds.

A fellow Substack writer (hi,

Amy McGrath Hughes (she/her)

recently told me that I have a quote in it. Which was nice. Whoever wrote the sleevenotes didn't know MM was a weekly, though.

Here’s the review the quote was taken from. It was the band’s second appearance in the city that year: in January, they’d supported Echo and the Bunnymen at the Liverpool Empire.

(Irony alert. Note the reference to “far off youth”. I was thirty.)

The Primitives: The Royal Court, Liverpool

Melody Maker, 7 May 1988

IN MY FAR off youth, I was once most insulted when a friend dismissed 'Sheena Is A Punk Rocker' as "Bubblegum". The good thing about The Primitives is they always knew The Ramones were bubblegum. In fact, the only fault with The Primitives — fast, fun but not quite frivolous — is they almost know too much.

The set is the best I've seen since the Blow Monkeys election manifesto this time last year, a pop art car collision captioned, of course, "Crash". It comes complete with the front half of a real car, doubling up as part of the lighting (cool) and with a dry ice opener (not so cool). All very pop and very art.

The band looks just about perfect. From long haired misfit bassist to the epitome of rock 'n' roll on guitar, and Trace's winsome and wicked Sixties elegance. Every song sounds as if it's exactly two minutes long.

Four square, the group mix precise simple ingredients. A sweet light voice, snap-happy drums and guitars played exactly how they should be with stomach dipping economy. Sounds that bring out cheerfulness and childishness in the listener. Real, if referential, pop. You can think of the Undertones or The Ramones or Blondie, or if you're a different age, of someone else. Everything fits in this crisp nostalgia.

And everything, almost, sounds the same. You can count the exceptions on one hand. A slow Velvet Underground churn demonstrates the sweetness of noise without volume. A less than successful duet between Paul and Tracey. A psychedelic Eastern Sixties thing. A riff. Otherwise it's more or less the same one-line song with intermittent thunder and the occasional dreamy moment. As pop goes this is too perfect to be perfect, a little too cool to be warm. But a group that have so much style and still make you want to act stupid, have to be doing something right.

Listen to The Primitives

Here’s Stop Killing Me, the track that’s on the new compilation. You can definitely hear the Ramones influence.