The Buzz Club: Primal Scream 1987 inc live recordings and previously unseen photos.

Primal Scream played the Buzz Club twice. This was the first time, when they were promoting their debut album, ‘Sonic Groove Flower’ which had just been released on Alan McGee’s new, W.E.A. backed, Elevation Records.

‘Gentle Tuesday’ preceded the album and I thought it was a great track.

The band were starting to move away from their jingly jangly roots, they had previously released a couple of glorious singles on Creation Records.

Bobby Gillespie had also been the drummer in The Jesus and Mary Chain but was now focussing only on Primal Scream.

I have those early Creation singles, ‘All Fall Down‘, like all those early Creation releases is in a folded paper sleeve, wrapped in a see through plastic wallet.

Here is their debut single, from 1985  ‘All Fall Down‘ .

‘Crystal Crescent’  came out the following year and featured the delightful and now better known, ‘Velocity Girl’ on the ‘b’ side. (The Stone Roses owe a little to this fine song, recorded a few year’s later with ‘Made of Stone‘.)

So, as a fan and working in Our Price, I bought the new 12″, major label release and also booked them to play The Buzz Club on 5th December 1987.

Recorded on that night by Dave Driscoll, (AKA Fruitier Than Thou) the man responsible for many Buzz Club live recordings, here is ‘Gentle Tuesday‘.

Also in the crowd that night was Philip ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson who took these photos. These two gems were in amongst Hutch’s previously unseen Buzz Club batch he kindly located in his parents’ garden shed in 2018 and scanned for me.

The band were sporting their new black leather, rock look. I remember Bobby smashing a beer bottle on stage and then rolling around in the broken glass! (Thanks to Justin Thomas for tightening the colour of the photos for me).

Hutch was even able to find his signed poster from the night! The Motorcycle Boy gig never happened – I got a phone call at work in Our Price Guildford, a week before saying they could no longer play. I think they had split up actually (a shame as my band Bluetrain were due to support. Update: 23.6.2020 – I’m reliably informed by Malcolm Wyatt that the gig did actually take place – Bluetrain played for £1.50 a ticket!). Anyway, check out those lovely signatures on the Primal Scream side of the poster!

Hutch also got a signed set list

Here’s the only N.M.E. advert I think we did for The Buzz Club – recently sent to me by Sid who used to be in the local band, Who Moved The Ground.

Support for Primal Scream came from Bradford’s The Passmore Sisters. My band Go! Service had supported them in London at Dan Treacy‘s Room at the Top club, they were managed by Andy Winters who would later be my boss at Ultimate Records.

Here’s the glorious ‘Difficult’ from 1987.

And, again recorded by Dave Driscoll, ‘Every Child In Heaven‘.

First on were the sublime North of Cornwallis, who featured another fledgling pop star that night, Lester Noel who would later go on to have a number one single as singer in Norman Cooke’s Beats International with ‘Dub Be Good To Me‘.

Here they are at the Buzz Club on 5 December 1987.

All in all, a cracking night!

New addition: 28th January 2020

The Times rock and pop critic, Will Hodgkinson got in touch with me this week. He had been at this very Buzz Club as a 17 year old! We think he asked me if I could organise an interview with Bobby Gillespie for him to include in his fanzine, ‘Make It In Ongar‘. There was just one issue of Will’s fanzine – also including an interview with My Bloody Valentine and it came with a free flexi disc by The Magic Shop and The Visitors – Will says he wishes he had a copy – does anyone reading this?? Get in touch!

Will did recently find the fanzine and here that rather wonderful interview is – read all about it – Bobby and Stephen Pastel would regularly beat The Shop Assistants at football!!