I rely very heavily on guest postss to make this place tick, so when I get asked if I want to contribute the odd piece elsewhere, I’ll almost always certainly take up the challenge.
I did so just yesterday over at The Sound of Being OK, the new(ish) venture from SWC, Tim and KT. I know that just about all of you were very fond of their work under the When You Can’t Remember Anything banner which, sadly, had to come to a sudden halt for all sorts of reasons in the summer of 2017, but the great news is that the quality of writing and the ideas they are generating for features across the new blog are every bit as first-class as the old place.
They are running a wonderful series on the best b-sides of all time; well it was wonderful until I got involved and offered up some thoughts on a 1986 single by Primal Scream. This was its a-side:-
mp3 : Primal Scream – Crystal Crescent
Click here if you fancy reading what I had to say about its more illustrious flip side.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
As I began stating over at The Sound Of Being Ok, the Primal Scream that I hold dearest is the earliest version of the band and it’s sound. Born of a mixture of all things Byrds, Jangle and music in a post Jesus And Mary Chain world (and I think this is a very important factor), Bobbie Gillespie and his merry men chose to spend a good amount of time bringing us an at times gentle, naive, and even psychedelic brand of Pop/Rock. This sound really hit me and opened my mind to the burgeoning sounds of the Class of ’86, the oncoming sound of Shoegaze and a new language of Rock that needed to be born after the malaise of the mid 80s. Primal Scream may never be really remembered for their earliest sound, or it may suffer from comparison to their evolutionary breakthrough of the Loaded E.P., Come Together and then Screamadelica, but give me Ivy, Ivy, Ivy, Imperial and of course Velocity Girl EVERYDAY.
Astonishing that they’ve never had an ICA – I like XTRMNTR best – they were incredible live around then – and obviously Screamadelica always sounds amazing (I listen to it the most) but I love the early stuff too – i think they’re not quite as good any more, but they set the bar so high that few bands would be