PRIMARY COLORS

A few months ago I was in a one week band with my pal Jon, our friend Anton from Sweden and our buddy Ken on vocals. We joined forces for four days and then recorded on the fifth - and against all better judgement, we decided to play a show the next day. Ken had barely heard our songs, so we decided to play only 5 of them (we wrote and recorded 20 or so), and it was super fun. While we were loading for that show at Thrillhouse (which included THE SMELL and some others), I was perturbed by a band from Oakland who insisted on loading in all of their own equipment instead of participating in the glorious spirit of sharing that frequently takes over very small spaces when multiple bands are playing...but no, these dudes had to use their own cabinets, their own steel drums, and their own computer music making things...and it was kinda aggravating. Fred assured me that they were good, and I generally trust him (or at least trust his concept of what I will and won't enjoy), but I just could not imagine that this band  was going to be any good at all. And besides, I was tired and had just spent money on an exceptionally awful falafel across the street and really wanted to go home. But I stayed to see PRIMARY COLORS...and I'm glad I did. The live NITZER EBB vibe is somewhat lost on this recording (except "Dog In Red," which is not coincidentally my favorite song on the tape), but the miscellaneous percussion sits front and center, and the distorted keyboards conjure up dirty dance clubs hours after closing time. Their live show was a sweaty mess - the same all encompassing feeling that swept over me the only time I saw THE VANISHING - a calculated and subversive percussive assault devoid of all but the most primal urges and surges. PRIMARY COLORS are an intense cacophonous party - who doesn't like to party?

PRIMARY COLORS

I retract all of my negative first impressions from these dudes when they were loading into that show. We can all be too judgemental at times, and that afternoon was one of my times. These sounds could not possibly been made on our shamefully normal equipment, and I now completely understand why PRIMARY COLORS had no interest in borrowing it, even if it seemed like it would make things easier. Also, the singer kinda sounds like Sonny from THE VSS and Trent Reznor, and that's rad.