It isn't true, what they say about never going home again. When music is the wind at your back and the fire in your belly, returning home can be sweet as a pie from the oven.
It wasn't disclosed what got cooking a little too much when Corey Primus was at home with family and close friends, but the smoke billowed inside the log house just outside of Prince George and it stoked the creative furnace. Primus wasn't just there for a visit, he was recording his next album. That burned meal may have cost them some grub, but it gave him a name. The project became known as Something's On Fire.
Warmth is a small word for the feelings Primus has always held for his hometown, even though he has been based in the Lower Mainland for decades, now. He was an aspiring musician when he left, but that career path took a back seat to dependable job and raising a family. He loved those diversions, and always knew that Directions In A Foreign Tongue, released in the early '90s, would not be his first but final album. Once his children grew up, his personal time grew more plentiful and their words of encouragement became bells calling him back to the song, back to the writing and recording process and back home.
"He had a book an inch thick of songs he'd written but never recorded," said Primus's son O'Neil who had been living in New York and Holland learning to be a filmmaker. While there, out of curiosity, O'Neil looked up the Directions In A Foreign Tongue tracks that had been posted on the Sound Cloud online music site. To his astonishment, some of the songs had received thousands of listens. The timelessness and quality of those songs hit home to him like never before. It inspired him to make his dad's next musical project into his next film project.
"Showing what the artist is doing is an important component to any art," said O'Neil, who brought along a skeleton film crew, a drone, and a pile of film equipment to the already crowded home recording sessions Primus was conducting back in Prince George. "I wanted to show every element of the process, start to finish, but this is also about family, and there is a good story to that. I thought how perfect it would be to capture him making music with his brother, his inspiration into music, and document that. And now, that document is a companion to the music, but also separate from the music. It will have a life of its own."
It should be noted that Primus comes from a musical family and a large one. One of his brothers in particular, Allan, was instrumental in getting Primus into music in the first place, but their parents Ben and Marie had 12 kids and most of them could play some instrument or other, or sing, or appreciate live music at a high level.
Ben and Marie's grandkids, likewise, had a high rate of musicianship among them. It was at a nephew's house, Ryan and his wife Dana, where the recording sessions were centred. They turned the house into a sound studio and shoehorned into that was a documentary studio, too.
The house was the vessel for the music, but a lot of those relatives also came to do some rowing, if not to make music then to make lunch for the crowd.
The song Three Black Crows turned into a family jam that got everyone's juices flowing.
The song Love Is Always became extra special because of the gang vocals that carried it to its end.
One of relatives, Tim, ended up playing something on every single track.
"Directions In A Foreign Tongue came directly from my experiences growing up here, and this project again came from this place, but it was from my roots here, the way your past moves through you later in life, and all the thoughts and impressions that come up," said Primus. "It just made sense to come back here to turn it into a recording, engage those family members, and all those feelings for this place."
Primus once brought his own four children north to some of the family spots he was raised at. They were small, but self-aware at that age. When they got out of the family vehicle at a McLeod Lake site that was special to the Primus family, they were instantly, outspokenly in love with it. A shaft of light burst through Primus's heart, then, and he knew it wasn't all just his own nostalgia for the Prince George region. It really was that special, that it even worked on innocent minds. He was reminded of a T.S. Eliot line that remained close to his thoughts from then on:
"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
He knew, in their recognizing a place despite never having been there before, that he was indeed in his creative nest here, no matter what his mailing address might be.
For O'Neil to wish so strongly to capture it all in another art form again just doubled his enjoyment of this long overdue creative endeavor.
The public can experience the music when Primus and his band unveil it on March 19 at 7 p.m. at Books & Company. A family friend, artist Kyla Morgan, will set up her easel and paint throughout the event, allowing her spontaneous creative forces to flow from the songs as they fill the room.
For those who can't attend, Primus will give a more intimate live performance at Shiraz Cafe on March 18 at 8 p.m., or, in brother Allan's adoptive hometown of Mackenzie will be the site of Primus in concert on Saturday at St. Peter's Church Hall in partnership with the Mackenzie Performing Arts Society.
