What's been said in 2009

Melbourne photographer Carbie Warbie 24/12/09

Here are my Top Ten best gigs for the year, illustrated with one of my FAV photos of that concert.
6. Primitive Calculators at The Chapter Music 18th Birthday @ The Tote, Collingwood (4th Jan 2009)[NOTE: picture is from the Melbourne Museum of Printing performance, May 2009]
Here is one band I never thought I would ever see perform live. They regularly played on “Little Band nights” back in the day, broke up and reformed in 1984 for the “Dogs In Space” movie. Then they were never heard of again. In the meantime, I wore out the grooves on my Primitive Calculator singles and album over the years. Suddenly they were on the line up for All Tomorrow’s Parties and word on the street was spreading that they were performing a secret warm up gig at The Chapter Music Birthday Bash at The Tote. My level of anticipation was off the charts! Stuart Grant’s stage presence was in total command and even though he kept on ribbing on Frank Lovece, who had to slowly download the drum parts, it just added to the lighthearted humour of their show. I saw them play a few other times during the year and they only got better and stronger. Best comeback act of the year in my books! So nice to see the young kids rediscoving this music. Just thinking about when they ripped into “CUNT LIFE” at the Melbourne Museum of Printing outdoor concert and watching the disturbed mothers covering their little kids ears, still puts a smile on my dial.
Carbie Warbie

Lightning Bolt national tour 20/11/09 to 28/11/09:

Static Age Festival, Lithuanian Club, North Melbourne 28/11/09
... Primitive Calculators, who put in an intense set of their patented misanthropic throb. In my utopian fantasy ‘Cunt Life’ would be our national anthem and frontman Stuart Grant would be hosting the ARIA awards. The Calculators elicited some spirited dancing in the theatre aisles and were clearly having a blast. For once the guitar was loud enough in the mix and I could detect their indebtedness to Billy Thorpe and The Aztecs, as proclaimed in their bio. That is if The Aztecs popped up in some kind of Alan Vega suburban nightmare. The band later informed me that they are planning to take a well-deserved break soon to work on new material. 2009 truly has been an astounding year for the Calculators, in which their ambitious aspirations that were thwarted 30 years ago finally came to an unlikely fruition.
http://www.messandnoise.com/articles/3814475

Hifi Bar, Brisbane 22/11/09
Legendary Melbourne outfit Primitive Calculators command attention with their odd marriage of distinctly Australian punk with laptop-generated beats. Frontman Stuart Grant surveys the audience on whether they’re loud enough between tracks, but everything gets cranked up anyway for what is a fun set.
http://www.ravemagazine.com.au/content/view/18200/82/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiipElWsAL8 - Cunt Life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKb1gEz1JLU - Slug Guts doing a cover of Pumping Ugly Muscle with Stuart

Chapterfest at the Tote 19/9/09:

They’re the badass, back-of-the-bus senior class of Chapterfest. The band are a real drawcard given their recent revival and their appearance on the re-released Dogs in Space and its companion documentary We’re Living on Dog Food. The Calculators, while 29 years older and with better gear, have lost none of their menace and appetite for destruction. This is a little pun, as Stuart Grant wears his working class Springvale roots with pride: a Gunners t-shirt underneath a red flanno. Starting with a surprising little spiel about the serendipity and miracle of existence, the Calculators then set out to deride and disassemble their opening salvo with songs like ‘Do That Dance’, ‘Cunt Life’ and ‘Nothing’, which is a sort of chronological cataloguing of nothingness from 1979-2009.
http://www.messandnoise.com/events/2001713#review_3756941

Ding Dong Lounge 29/7/09 (Intermission09 - part of MIFF):

Satire and reverence seamlessly comingled in a totally committed performance perfectly suited to the event.
Now, listen ... gdang da da, gdang da da, dadung dadung gdang da da, gdang da da, well well ...
Billy Thorpe wore his guitar high on his hip and had a tendency to point it at ya - a comin' at ya stance.
Like Billy, the Primitive Calculators are always comin' at ya.
From Review of Intermission 09 written by Alan Bamford (804kb pdf)

Thornbury Theatre 13/6/09:

This was a weird gig. Going to Thornbury Theatre was like being trapped inside an italian wedding cake. It was fucking freezing though, and people were seated at tables around the edge of a vast empty dancefloor. Calculators seemed to perversely enjoy themselves and the surreal atmosphere though. Stuart was in fine form, cracking jokes and telling stories.

''I wrote this song about my heart, but everyone who's heard it thinks it's about my penis. Here's a song about my penis'' (cue 'Pumping Ugly Muscle').

Brilliant!
Posted by Frankie Teardrop 14/6/09
http://www.messandnoise.com/icons/3505595

Melbourne Museum of Printing 17/5/09:

http://blogos-haha.blogspot.com/2009/05/save-melbourne-museum-of-printing-big.html

http://68radstreet.blogspot.com/2009/05/my-type-of-people.html

It would be heartbreaking to see these wonderful, traditional methods of printmaking disappear here, and apparently I’m not the only one who thinks so, as evidenced by the huge crowd that turned out to the open day fundraiser held by the museum this past weekend. Melbourne locals The Primitive Calculators played a (very, very loud, very, very fun) gig outside while hordes of people crammed themselves into the little building to look at artefacts and watch demonstrations of the linotype press and bookbinding facilities.
http://macabremelbourne.com/blog/2009/05/21/hidden-gem-melbourne-museum-of-printing/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da6DGLbnBik - Nothing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCprKlz2Rzc - Pumping Ugly Muscle

St. Jerome's 25/3/09:

Primitive Calculators (Check out the dumb song I can't stop it)
So this Melbourne band started 28 years or go or so... why weren't they playing at Sound Relief then? Does Micheal Gudinski have a problem with the C word or something? These guys were playing more vintage punk, but did it less ironically than the young kids before hand. I could have gone either way when the band began, the combination of dodgy guitar, stupid lyrics, aggressive vocals and a drum machine wasn't really doing it for me. But a buttload of swearing, addictive beats and a cover of shout later I was hooked. After the last tune I was almost sad to say goodbye. To the band I mean... St Jeromes - good riddance. I think I got hepatitis from your toilets.
Posted by Jimmy at 8:20 PM
http://100gigs.blogspot.com/2009/04/goodbye-forever-st-jeromes-2532009.html

Applecore 23/2/09:

Plenty of people turned up early to see legendary Melbourne post-punk band Primitive Calculators, in only their third appearance in 29 years. Having roundly dismissed their experience of playing All Tomorrow’s Parties at Mt Buller as being rockist and overtly hierarchical, the band were keen to let everybody know that this backyard gig was much more in keeping with their own DIY philosophy. Despite minor technical hiccups, Primitive Calculators were in fine abrasive form and impressed their sizeable contingent of old fans, as much as newcomers, with their particular brand of jagged synth-pop noise. The band were clearly blown away by the enthusiastic response from the audience and made lots of new friends after their set, chatting with punters and checking out some of the other acts.
http://www.messandnoise.com/articles/3524095

ATP, Mt. Buller - 9/1/09:

... And the Primitive Calculators, with their defiant introduction: "We were shit 29 years ago, and we're still shit!"
Later in the day, I asked Victor from Missing Link to confirm my very different opinion. "They were shit 29 years ago - this is the amazing thing - now, they're actually good!"
http://idiophonics.blogspot.com/2009

For a bunch of sort of old people they killed it hard. Did a great cover of Shout.
M. Pincott, Brisbane reviewing ATP, Mt. Buller.
Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 11:30 am

The Primitive Calculators were plain and simply - funny to the hilt, poking fun at themselves and the crowd. Their rendition of Johnny O'Keefe's "Shout" a huge highlight and had me in stitches. A band who haven't played in 30 years added to that pristine moment that was their set.
http://nickjam.blogspot.com/2009/01/all-tomorrows-parties-mt-buller-ski.html

Primitive Calculators.... old people still crankin out young people's music with incredible passion.
NOTHING!!
Re: Festival crowds [Re: sastrugi] Forum.ski.com.au. 12/1/09

Indie heroes of yesteryear, Primitive Calculators in their own words ‘sounded shit twenty nine years ago and still sound shit’. They joked that they were old and should know better than to play but with the snarled delivery of their hilarious leadman they easily won the crowd over. Despite the pauses caused by their apparently primitive computer the set included songs started in 1977 finished last week; a track called Dead dedicated to the man they felt sums up the ATP experience – Mick Jagger; the brilliantly nihilistic complaint Nothing; and a deranged cover of Shout.
http://www.fasterlouder.com.au/reviews/events/16555/All_Tomorrows_Parties_-

Chapter Music's 18th Birthday Party - The Tote 4/1/09:

http://www.messandnoise.com/articles/3459093

http://rosequartz.blogspot.com/2009/01/now-its-just-blur.html

http://idiophonics.blogspot.com/2009/09/primitive-calculators-live-recording.html

About Us | Releases | Links

©Primitive Calculators