Prime

Once upon a time there were some friends who played musical instruments and dreamt of
performing live. They spent their lives generally having a good time but nothing was done...

This really is the best way to summarise the lack of momentum for Rob Charlton (guitar), Paul Smith (drum kit) and myself (bass guitar and vocal) between 1989 and 1995 - regulary we met; occasionally we wrote songs; seldomly we rehearsed and never did we play live.

On returning to Portsmouth from uni in 1995, I discovered that both Rob and Paul were around and ready to give music another go. We named ourselves Prime (simply because the consonants were the initials of our forenames). We dusted off some old covers, wrote a couple of songs and put our name down for the Battle of the Bands at the Bellevue Hotel at Lee-on-the-Solent.

In September 1995 Prime played its first gig there - a 30 minute set comprising purely of our own material (including some songs from my Fugue album).

We had a good few friends there, received warm applause and dipped out on first spot in the Battle of the Bands heat by only a few points.

Prime played a further two gigs in Docs in Southsea at the end of 1995.

At around this time Rob discovered James Newcombe, a talented keyboardist, who was doing the same music course at Fareham Tertiary College. After a brief discussion, we invited him into the band to broaden the sound and to allow Rob to express himself more freely on guitar. Prime thus became a four piece. One further gig at Docs in early 1996 preceded a return to the Bellevue in February as headlining band.

By this time, my frustration at the use of covers had grown and I felt that the band was becoming stale. We duly performed a mediocre gig and that frustration, for me, became irreversable.

Within a few weeks, I parted company with the band feeling that in its current format it simply would not work. James and Rob went on to perform as a duo until Rob moved to Oxford in the autumn of 1996. Paul joined The Lizard Lie and later Codifi, performing numerous gigs around the Portsmouth area.

The split was entirely amicable and since then James and I formed Usfun in 1997, Rob joined Bronxcheer between 1999 and 2005 and Paul and I (along with Andy Turton) formed Friends of Brutal Architecture in 2004.

Knowing the topsy-turvy world of Prime and the fact that friendships have been forged that have outgrown the band, another chapter may yet wait to be written...