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December 23, 2003
Just when I thought it was all behind us, when the embarrassment was over, Steph's sister happened upon an old cassette. It's partially our fault that we recorded our only two hits so many times. We thought the tapes were gone forever, but one has surfaced, and so it seems that the Primary Colors have been resurrected.
I must first bring you back to third grade. My cousin Amanda and I would sit in either Uncle Peter's room or the basement and write tunes. It was that same year that I was given a keyboard. I remember, because in the third grade talent show everyone used my keyboard to play Ode To Joy. Amanda and I called ourselves Cool Cats. We had a manager, Bridget, who we met at a family fourth of July party. I'm not sure if we're related to her, and if not then why she was there, but we wrote letters to each other and she was our manager. She told us to change our name to Envy. "Don't say it, just feel it. Envy," she wrote. I didn't understand what she meant, nor did I know what "envy" meant until later in that year when Mrs. Auld would scold a peer and use that word. I found one of Pat's old spiral math notebooks, ripped out his pages, and used it as my lyric book. On the back I wrote Envy in curvy flowery letters along with a track listing and my practice autographs.
We wrote rap songs. I'd wear Pat's hat backwards and his sunglasses, and Amanda and I would rap for grammy in the basement. Now that I think of it, we did a lot of performances for her, ranging from concerts to spoofs of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? But, as time progressed I realized that Amanda just wasn't as devoted to the music business as I was. At the same time, Steph was in another band with her friend Jenna, called Future, and was also dealing with a similar situation. We ended up ditching our band members and forming a duo of dedicated musicians.
By the fourth grade I had taken up saxophone and she had trumpet. We never played them together in our as-of-yet unnamed band, but it was the start of our music careers. In Mrs. Ritchie's class we were given blue writing folders, and every now and then we would get an hour to write whatever and then maybe publish them. One day, Steph showed me hers and it was filled with silly lyrics that would become great singles off our joke album, such as "Chicken" and "Bowling Ball." I remember putting on Christmas concerts for her dad, singing Silent Night in a really low voice and playing Silver Bells on the keyboards. Then, I don't remember exactly when, but I composed a song that would become our biggest hit. Broke The Ice. The phrase was used completely wrong in the context, but give me a break, I was in fourth grade.
At some point we recruited another member, Elaine, who was going to be. Manager? Guitarist? I actually don't remember what part she played. When she composed the song "Mojo Man" which was as random as Beck's "Loser" but definitely not as funny, I told Steph we had to have her in the band right away. So at our first get-together we sat in Elaine's living room drinking something like soda or chocolate milk. Elaine had the type of family that got matching plates and glasses. In my house, we have an assortment of jelly jars and souvenir beer factory glasses. But at Elaine's, I got a red plastic cup. Steph and Elaine got the same type but with different colors, yellow and blue, respectively. One of us pointed out that red, yellow, and blue were the primary colors.
"OH MY GOD," Elaine exclaimed, raising her blue cup suddenly. "THAT CAN BE THE BAND NAME."
"Primary Colors!" we all chimed, giggling.
"And hey! Red's my favorite color!" I said, pointing to my cup. Red was only my favorite color because it was Taylor Hanson's favorite color. But we'll come to that in time. Patience. This is a long story.
Elaine wrote a song for us, sort of like a little anthem, called "Red Yellow Blue." A little sample lyric: Primary Colors / Red, yellow, blue. / We will get a hold of you! Steph told us many times that she really did like yellow, except she liked more of a goldenrod color. To this day she still does.
Steph then said: i really only liked yellow to be different. no one likes yellow.
We couldn't play instruments. I mean, we each had our school band instruments (though on those we could only play Polly Wolly Doodle, in which I just played C and G back and forth) and Steph could play piano. Elaine may have been able to also, I don't recall. I couldn't exactly play. I'm inSANE at "Must Be Santa" (though I wouldn't learn that song for a few years), and I could pick up something simple, but I couldn't do much. I figured then, that I would be the drummer. I continually asked Santa for a drumset. The first time I asked, He gave me a set of bongos. The next time I got a drum machine, which I now realize was really really cool. So our songs became pre-recorded keyboard tracks, little parts that Steph would play, and a drum machine. Occasionally there may have been a clarinet. I remember that one year Steph's brother got a tiny electric guitar for Christmas or something. You could program it to a song (Mary Had A Little Lamb, for instance) and frets would light up to guide you. She attempted that for like, a day.
Our recording studio was Steph's poolhouse. It was really an ideal place to practice. But a lot of drama went down in there. For you see, I had this slight problem with just walking out. I mean, I just had to walk across the seventh hole fairway and I was back home. Very easy to escape. One particular incident we remember distinctly; except we can't remember what it was over, exactly. But if I recall correctly, Elaine wasn't taking the band seriously. I think she kept laughing while we were recording songs. And, as you are probably aware, I have a short temper, and always have. So I packed up my keyboard, my drum machine, put them in my plastic grocery bag, and took off. I was almost at the edge of the seventh hole tee when I realized I had left my adapter. I returned to the poolhouse and opened the door, greeted by what I now see as an extremely amusing sight. Steph was slouched back in her lawn chair and Elaine had her arms crossed sitting on the couch, and they were both pouting, listening to "Green Sleeves," which from then on became a trademark song of mourning for us. Steph looked up with hope when I returned, except that all I said was, "I forgot my adapter," and left again.
Frankly, Steph and I were the only ones who really did anything in the band. I think we got in a lot of fights. And if Elaine wasn't there at a practice, it didn't really make a difference because we could easily compensate by covering one of her verses. We would force Steph's brother and neighbors to sit in the poolhouse while we put on concerts for them. We probably performed for her older sisters too. Somehow my brother found out not only was I in a band, but the band was called The Primary Colors. He still hasn't let me live that down.
The Primary Colors went through more band members than Destiny's Child. Elaine quit when we decided that we just... had our differences. At some point she wanted to return, but we wouldn't let her, and instead made her like, the honorary groupie or roadie something. Next we recruited Briana, except that she never actually practiced with us, and I don't think she knew she was in the band. So technically she wasn't. By fifth grade we convinced Katie to join. By then the songs were becoming more mature than "Chicken" and "Real Fat" and "The Bowling Ball." We put those three on our joke album, Bologna, but then we started working on our first real LP, What I Wanna Do. It featured songs such as "Broke The Ice," "Your Eyes," "I've Had This Crush On Lee," and the one that hooked Katie in, "She Doesn't Try."
"It's not as if we're not going anywhere with this," I told her. "I mean, we've emailed Kiss108 and they gave us an address to send the tape and stuff." Which was true.
Katie came over to Steph's house, and we all went into the poolhouse to practice "She Doesn't Try." Katie's only part really was to play a cool organ type riff, which wasn't even really necessary, because Steph probably could have done it. Once again, it just seemed like no one else belonged in the band. Sorry Katie. She only came to one practice.
From fourth to sixth grade we were all about Hanson. Steph and I LOVED Taylor. I mean, we really did. Our very first concert was Hanson. We went with my dad, who sat the whole time listening to the game, while Steph and I stood on our own seats and screamed with all the rest. A girl came up to us and claimed that that was her beachball on the stage. "No way!" we said. I still don't believe her.
Sometimes we would sit in Steph's unused family room and discuss video possibilities for each song off Middle of Nowhere. I'm terribly clever and decided that "Yearbook" should be a solid five minutes of a single image of mayonnaise. God I was so fucking obnoxious. But really, I got the idea from Rocko's Modern Life.
Towards the end of fifth grade, beginning of sixth, there was a big Hanson fallout. We had reached middle school, enough of this silly teen bop. It was time for serious music, like "Bye Bye Bye" and "All-Star." Which isn't to say we didn't have a Smashmouth obsession either, because we did. Not obsession, per se, but we did have the Poolhouse Smashmouth Dance. Incidentally, it didn't start in the poolhouse, but in my living room. I think it was the birth of literal dancing. Why did we start a Smashmouth Dance, you ask? The previous summer we were in The Lion King 2 together. (I was Timon, Steph was Rafiki and Zira, in case you were wondering.) Usually, Geronimo would go on stage before the show and tell awful jokes and take up way too much time. But before one performance a group of four girls danced. To "Larger Than Life" by The Backstreet Boys. Disturbed and outraged, Steph and I decided we would come up with our own dance that people would not be able to hate! Because everyone loves Smashmouth! All-Star was too damn catchy to miss! As it turned out, we never performed the dance, except for Katie in Steph's poolhouse. By the bye, I'm a fabulous dancer.
That got very off topic. What I was saying was, by middle school everyone became absolutely ruthless towards Hanson. Former fans ditched them for the grown-up pop songs. To have listened to Hanson became embarrassing, humiliating, a stage. But I remember once I asked Steph, "...Do you still like Hanson?" She replied, "Heh... yeah I do." "Good," I said hastily. "Me too." I got their Snowed In album, though, and was disappointed. I think that's when I stopped listening. I denied going to the concert, or sending Taylor letters, or anything related. I admitted to listening to them, and even at times defended the fact that they played their own instruments, at least. But besides that they were never spoken of again.
I'm surprised we never did a cover of any Hanson song. We didn't cover any songs, in fact. But we didn't write our own anymore either. Well, I did write one more, "Enemy's Next Attack" though it is sometimes called "Fastlane," and it was actually pretty good. Sort of a Mighty Mighty Bosstones sound to it. It didn't matter, though. We just played the same six or seven songs over and over again. Until we could no longer perfect them. Until we couldn't write anymore without being embarrassed. Until I just started to leave my keyboard in Steph's poolhouse rather than take it home to write with. Until we wordlessly disbanded.
It was probably around seventh grade that the Primary Colors broke up. Steph was going to a different school, we had no new material, and I became too self-conscious to sing anymore. If the band was ever mentioned, it was usually in self criticism, how our lyrics were ridiculous, how we didn't know how to play instruments. I'd blush and mumble when my brother would say, "Primary Coloooooors!" Oh I was embarrassed of that band.
In eighth grade I got my guitar. My first teacher, Manak, taught me the basics: open chords, major scales, a little theory. Then he left to pursue an education in music, and I was then moved to Mark. He gave me a book of songs like "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and the French one that people sing in rounds. "Fraira Jacques"? Don't listen to me, I take Spanish, brujas. He was all about music theory and was convinced that I needed to know how to read music. I was all, hello, I've been taking saxophone for five years, I know how to read music. Fortunately, I was later moved to Doug, or Kid Bangham. He's famous in our parents' eyes. Was in The Fabulous Thunderbirds. He's Addie's uncle too. Me and him are like this. (First time I met him he made me hold his hand crossing the street. He brought it up recently, and we laughed because it was so creepy. He knew it was at the time, don't worry.) The point is, I had a bunch of guitar teachers, and I think with their powers combined, I became the best in the world. The following Christmas Steph also got a guitar. We joked a little about maybe bringing Primary Colors back together and becoming a real band. It never happened, but sometimes we "jammed," which always gets Doug excited because he doesn't understand why I don't play with people.
About a month ago, while staying at Steph's house, she revealed that her sister had found one of the cassettes we recorded on. So we listened. I stared at the radio in a McCauly-Culkin-Home-Alone-esque fashion, saying something like, "This is so cute!" Our voices were so LITTLE. The harmonies were wicked good. The drum machine sounded terrible. For fourth graders, nine year olds, it was incredible. We immediately took out our guitars and began transcribing the music.
When did Katy find out about this? Who told her that we still remembered the words and the rhythms? Probably me, actually. At her Christmas party last weekend they somehow tricked us into performing. And Katy FILMED IT. It started when she was taping me playing "Sunday Drive," and then suddenly I was complaining that I didn't want to play "Broke The Ice." And yet I was sitting there, intent on remembering the beginning riff. And before I knew it, we were filming a music video. It starts with Tori and Lauren sitting on the couch, sifting through CDs.
"Man, these CDs are horrible," Tori says.
"I know," Lauren agrees. "I wish I had Primary Colors' new album."
"Totally. Molly and Steph rock hardcore."
There is a big sigh, then suddenly they look off screen, gasp, and say, "Oh my Jes--hahahahaha."
It took us at least five takes for them to get that line out, and all the bloopers are still in there. Some include Steph and I giggling off screen and Katy yelling, "You guys better SHUT UP" or "Oh for God's sake, CUT." It's very funny. Anyway, the line is, "Oh my Jesucristo!" The camera then pans over to Steph and I sitting in front of the fake Christmas tree. I start playing a lonely riff, stumble over it, whimper, and every laughs except Katy who says something like "Come ooooon." It cuts immediately to us still sitting there, and I don't know that we're recording so I look at Katy expectantly, then start to play.
Flawless.
I'm not so embarrassed about that video anymore, because hey, I can't sing, they're fourth grade lyrics, and the next half-hour of film is of Steph dancing to Hanson. Katy put on Middle of Nowhere and Steph really remembers every "oh" "whoa" and "yeah-hee-yea-eah," which leads me to wonder how often she listens to the CD still. So she literal danced for the whole album. Only up to "Look At You" is filmed though. Hanson wasn't bad at all, guys, I don't know what you're talking about.
The future of the Primary Colors' is unknown for now. Who knows if we'll come together again for the reunion tour that my brother suggested a few years ago and we have since been promising to Katie. But what you all must understand is that the Primary Colors was a very serious band, regardless of our EP. We really wrote songs, we really put music to them, we really performed for people, we really had MTV News-worthy drama, and we really were into what we did. Katy thinks we "almost" formed a band. Um excuse me TPC lasted for four years okay? It was real.
Steph then said: let em know we've got another video coming up. enemy's next attack.
- Molly{4:09 pm}
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