primal scream

“It’s been a long journey,” laughs PP Arnold down the line from her home in Madrid, as she apologises for a long answer. It's taken us through her days singing in England in the early 1970s, through to a brief reunion with her friend and collaborator Barry Gibb in the United States in the late 1970s and onto  to her present-day career, with her continuing to sing professionally, both solo and as a backing singer.

“It’s pretty hard condensing 50 years of your life into a few minutes!”

Patricia Cole - the name PP Arnold was bestowed by photographer Gered Mankowitz in London in 1966 - was born in the Los Angeles suburb of Watts and was an unlikely pop star. Married and with two young children by the age of 17, Cole’s career trajectory commenced when a couple of friends suggested she audition for a vacant spot in the Ike and Tina Review, as one of Ike and Tina’s backing band Ikettes.

Acid house hedonists and shape-shifting rock ‘n rollers, Primal Scream, have built a 30-year career on the art of reinvention and are bringing their incendiary live show back to Australia next month.

Vocalist Bobby Gillespie is arguably the consummate rock 'n' roll star. Willowy, wispy and radiating swagger, he struts around the stage, mic in hand like the genetically-engineered love child of Mick Jagger and Jim Morrison. He and his band are playing an all-encompassing greatest hits set including tracks from their legendary 1991 album "Screamadelica".

Okay.  Let's get one thing straight.  This album is great.  Here's your six bottles, James.  (Last time I tried to give you six bottles for something, the Barman turned me down but now we seem fine with that kind of thing).  Now, if the Barman would do a quick edit we could be three for three.  Six.  Six.  Six. Apt.



Of course there are elephants in the room.  Great hulking elephants and the occasional five foot one elephant.  I guess we'll just have to tackle them head on.  (Can I pun my way through this whole review? ) As a spoiler, I've read Robert's review because I know he'll have a different take to me.  I haven't read the Barman's because it is always funny how often we write the same review.  There could be some overlap.



Sometimes I think I’m a bastard instead of being just somewhat scatterbrained. See, I put this order in to Easy Action and they sent a couple of other CDs as well. Generous of them. And I never thanked them.

Alright, I’d had a couple of man-flu health ishoos, and there were other inconveniences. But I never fucking thanked them. And they’re a generous, intelligent company. I feel like a small limp dick confessing this. But you should know some of the circumstances.

I interviewed John "Joogs" Martin for a piece on his upcoming book last year. Following its appearance on Louder Than War, the website was contacted by representatives of Primal Scream's management to respectfully request that it was removed before legal proceedings were initiated.

To be fair, the interview was helluva incendiary in parts as I'd basically given Joogs free rein to vent and some of the material (which he'd had pent up for 27-odd years) was vitriolic and, at times, verging on libellous. It was also very, very funny.

At that point, Joogs (his nom de guerre was flipped by himself to Martin St. John during the PS early days) was looking for publishing for the book that he'd laboured over in his night shift job for several years. He'd actually hand-written it and part of the problem was finding someone to transcribe it all before it was touted around.

Primal Scream is back in Australia for the first time in six years this month, on the back of recent albums "More Light" (2013) and "Chaosmosis" (2016) but focussing on their 30-year back catalogue.

Co-founding member and guitarist ANDREW INNES spoke to the I-94 Bar's EARL O'NEILL this week and expounded on a handful of topics that are close to his heart...

My First Records

My mum used to come home with a big pile of seven-inch singles that were a bit beaten up. I think they were ex-jukebox; all sorts of things, Beatles and Stones but strange country and western records, comedy records...so I was exposed to wide spectrum of music. Apparently before I could read I could tell which song it was by the colour of the label and the shape of the words.