The Primitives

In mid-1985 the Coventry, England indie pop outfit the Primitives assembled around singer Kieron, guitarist Paul Court, bassist Steve Dullaghan, and drummer Pete Tweedie. After only a few early shows Kieron gave way to vocalist Tracy Tracy, the peroxide-blonde bombshell whose arrival shifted the songs toward a more melodic direction and prompted immediate comparisons to Blondie. Their opening Lazy label release, the 1986 single “Thru the Flowers,” quickly led to BBC sessions with Janice Long, Andy Kershaw, and John Peel. “Really Stupid” followed, just before the band’s initial European tour, and “Stop Killing Me” surfaced in early 1987.

Pete Tweedie was let go—reportedly after an incident involving Tracy’s cats—shortly before the Primitives signed with RCA; new drummer Tig Williams joined for the 1988 debut album Lovely, which yielded the major U.K. hit “Crash.” Once an American tour concluded, Steve Dullaghan departed and bassist Paul Sampson took his place for 1989’s Pure. That record could not recapture the impact of its predecessor, and Ian Broudie-produced Galore suffered the same fate in 1991, after which the group disbanded.

The death of Steve Dullaghan in 2009 prompted Tracy, Court, and Williams to reunite, recruiting Raph Moore on bass for a pair of October performances. The positive response encouraged a fuller return, including a 2010 U.K. tour and a show in New York City. They entered the studio again with original producer Paul Sampson, resulting in the four-track EP of new material Never Kill a Secret (2011) and the covers collection Echoes and Rhymes (2012), both issued by Spain’s Elefant label. The releases confirmed that the band’s appeal remained undiminished after two decades apart.

Still active, the trio of Tracy, Court, and Williams continued working with Sampson on bass and production duties. Their fourth album, the all-original Spin-O-Rama, appeared on Elefant in October 2014 and evoked the group’s classic sound; two tracks from it, “Purifying Tone” and “Lose the Reason,” received 2015 remixes by the Argentinian act Modular. Elefant released the four-song single New Thrills in 2017.