Blood Circus: The Sub Pop's hair-rising, motorcycling, primal rock!

As, probably many of you observed, my blog was more of a record-friendly to C/Z or Empty Records than to Sub Pop. Probably Sub Pop will never forgive me for this (and that would be the reason they don’t answer to any of my emails….hmmmmmm….I was just kidding!!!) so I’ve thought of a way to make it up to them. Leaving aside Nirvana and Mudhoney, other legendary bands that were part of the Sub Pop 200’s generation were Blood Circus, Cat Butt and Swallow.
But the one band that rocked out the hallways of Sub Pop’s headquarters so loudly, that eventually made Jon Poneman and Bruce Pavitt to release a CD version of the band’s early material, was Blood Circus. The band was indeed the true definition of rock, even the title of their non-single material self-explains it, Primal Rock Therapy…..Not to mention that the lead singer of the band inspired me in letting my hair to grow long at some point, or that they messed up Pearl Jam’s plans to be the first grunge band to write a song about surfing.

The band formed in 1987 by T-Man (his real name, Tracey Simmons) on bass, Doug Day on drums, guitarist Geoff Robinson, and Michael Anderson (who played a short period in the first line-up of Swallow) on voice and guitar duties as well. They played their first show at the Vogue, opening for The Obituaries (and I’m planning a post about them some time in the future). Shortly the band was signed to Sub Pop and made their vinyl debut in 1988 with Two Way Streetb/w 6 Feet Under single (SP13). Next they contributed with the song The Outback to the Sub Pop 200 compilation and let everyone with their mouths’ opened, a year later, after releasing Primal Rock Therapy Ep . The EP was recorded by no other than Jack Endino at Reciprocal Studios, and features 5 songs.

Blood Circus played tones of shows with most of Seattle bands and also shared bills with bands such as The Flaming Lips, Butthole Surfers, White Zombie, etc; they’ve had an U.S tour and split up in 1990. Michael played in Hard Belly Lloyd and T-Man joined the band Yummy for a period. Luckily Sup Pop reissued Primal Rock Therapy on CD in 1992(with their debut single and five songs from an aborted 1989 recording session) and the band did a couple reunion shows in Seattle.

Primal Rock Therapy EP

Road to Hell

Part of the Crowd

My Dad's Dead

Two Way Street

Gnarly