The Velvet Forum

While you can certainly recognise Lou in the Primitives photo on this page (which one's John?), I have always wondered who exactly are the guys on the picture sleeve you can see here (and Primitive: pre-Velvets 7" vinyl boot).

I for one don't recognise neither Lou nor John. And why are there five guys in the other photo, I thought there were only four guys in the "band"...?

Olivier's post about the possibility of a Primitives rehearsal tape surfacing made me listen back to the Dickwick boot 7" I have of the Primitives single and I quite like both songs actually, only the inane backing vocals ruin 'em quite a bit. Would be great without those, or with decent backing vocals. I especially like "Sneaky Pete".

As far as I know the 'real' Primitives photo appeared in US Vogue in colour - I always thought I'd try to track it down sometime to see what the context was (haven't bothered so far!) I think it's meant to be the touring band with Walter DeLaria and Tony Conrad - don't know who the 5th guy would be - maybe the driver! The photo is reproduced in What's Welsh For Zen, but still pretty small.

The 'other' Primitives are the photo used to represent The Roughnecks on the cover of the Soundsville comp LP (where they are captioned 'the sound of England'). I don't know if anyone has any idea who they were, probably not a band at all, just some guys/models. One of them looks a little bit like JC if you are looking for a resemblance, but it's just a coincidence.

I really like the Primitives single, and can certainly second Mikko's enthusiasm for the Dickwick boot/facsimile - excellent sound quality, way better than any boots.