James is an indie rock band from Manchester,
England, formed in 1981. After an uphill struggle throughout the
1980s, they went on to become one of the most consistently successful acts of the 1990s, scoring a string of hit singles during the decade including "Sit Down"
and "Laid". Following the departure of lead singer Tim
Booth in 2001, the band became inactive, although no split was ever officially confirmed. In January 2007, the group
announced that it was reforming to play some live shows and that they had been writing new material. A new website [1] was launched, confirming an initial 5 dates in
the UK in April. Tim Booth's own site also confirmed the reformation. [2] [3] On 16th March, James played a secret comeback gig at Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen, in front of an audience of just 250. On 30th
April 2007, James played a further secret gig in front of 300 fans at the Club Academy in the Manchester University Student Union, aka The Cellar
Bar, poignant because this is where Tim Booth first met Jim
Glennie back in 1981. A third secret gig was held again at Hoxton
Square Bar & Kitchen on 25th June 2007. And a fourth secret gig was performed on
6th July 2007 at The Venue, in the basement of the Oran Mor bar on Byres Road in Glasgow, in front of 450 fans. The show was a warm-up gig for James' appearance at
T in the Park the following day, 7th July 2007. On
Saturday the 17th (Weston Park, Staffordshire) and Sunday the 18th (Hylands Park, Chelmsford) of August they played to a crowd of
tens of thousands at the 2007 V Festival before Kasabian
and The Killers.
History
The 1980s
James was formed in 1981 in Whalley Range, Manchester,
when music enthusiast Paul Gilbertson, inspired by the post-punk bands of the era, convinced his best friend Jim Glennie to buy
a bass guitar and form a band with him. Rehearsing regularly in Glennie's bedroom with whatever other musicians were available,
their line-up solidified with the acquisition of Gavan Whelan on drums, whose erratic,
frenetic and almost tribal drum sound gave their music a distinctive edge against Gilbertson and Glennie’s raw, untutored guitar
and bass styles. They played a string of gigs under the names Venereal and The Diseases and, later, Volume Distortion (note the
initials), before settling on the name of Model Team International, then shortened to Model Team.
They performed mostly spontaneous, purely improvised material derived from jam sessions,
supporting The Fall at an early gig. Vocalists and other musicians drifted rapidly in
and out of their line-up, until the band encountered Tim Booth at a student disco they had
sneaked into. Intrigued by Booth’s wild, Whirling Dervish-like dancing style, Gilbertson invited
him to the band’s Scout hut in Withington to join the band
as a dancer. After accepting the invitation, Booth was quickly promoted to lead vocals as well as lyricist.
The contrast of well-spoken drama student and ruffians from Withington may have seemed a strange one, but it worked, imbuing
the band’s raw, primitive sound with an artistic sensibility. After a brief period under the name Tribal Outlook, the band
renamed themselves James in August 1982, following Gilbertson’s idea to name themselves after one
of the band members. The name came from Jim Glennie. The other members' names were rejected - Gavan was "too heavy metal", while Paul was “too modest” to put his own name forward and Tim was concerned about
accusations of egomania that might be associated with a band being named for the lead singer. James was, however, declared
"amorphous enough" to summarize what the band was about. The band instantly knew that people would make the mistake of thinking
their name represented one person, and played upon this by having Tim walk on stage alone at the beginning of one gig and reading
a poem to trick the audience into thinking they had been conned into watching a poet. (Maconie, 2000).
The band became more and more prolific, operating on Gilbertson’s principles of concentrating on their own individual sound,
rejecting anything that sounded like any other band, and never being afraid to take risks. A gig at The Haçienda caught the attention of Tony Wilson of Factory Records. He offered James an album deal with Factory, but the band, by now excelling as a live
act, was worried about tarnishing their material in the studio and settled instead for a three-track EP. Their debut release, the
Jimone EP, was recorded at Strawberry Studios,
Manchester, in August 1983 and released on Factory Records in November. It was named single of the week by major music papers in
the UK, and led to a tour supporting The Smiths.
Although they were now being touted as the 'next big thing', several complex issues slowed their progress. As well as their
suspicion of Factory, Paul Gilbertson’s drug problems were causing his playing style to slacken and, despite having been their
driving force, the band had no choice but to ask him to leave. Also, Booth and Glennie’s search for spiritual meaning had led
them to join a sect named Lifewave, which imposed many restrictions which threatened the band’s stability. The band’s second EP,
James II, was released over a year after the first and accompanied by a feature on
the cover of the NME, Gilbertson having been replaced by the band’s guitar tutor
Larry Gott. (The first two EPs would later be collected as Village Fire.) Reviews were once again positive, and Factory was eager for James to record an album
with it, but the band mistakenly believed Factory was purely image-based and left the label, striking a deal with
Sire Records that would cost them dearly.
Their third release, the Sit Down EP (no relation to the song of that name) came
out in March 1986, and was followed by their debut album, Stutter in June of that year. Although a powerful debut, reviews were generally lacklustre, the
press having lost interest in James due to their slow progress, and the record company quickly lost faith in the band, the album
making only number 68 in the UK chart. Low on money and lacking coverage and promotion, the band recorded their second album,
Strip-mine under awkward circumstances, attempting a more conventional song structure
in a desperate attempt to please Sire. The album almost went unreleased, but after undergoing a slight remix to sound more
radio-friendly, Sire finally relented and released the album in September 1988, over a year after
it had been initially completed. However, Sire was unwilling to invest in any kind of promotion, and the album reached only
number 90. After finding a clause for escape in their contract, the band left Sire. Lacking both a deal and press coverage, they
faced financial hardship. Desperate for money, the band members were driven to the extreme of participating as human guinea pigs
in medical experiments at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, earning them a
place on a TV documentary about the desperation of fallen rock stars.
However, all was not lost. James had by this point earned themselves a reputation as a solid live act due to the powerful and
ritual-like feel of their live performances. They had built a solid fanbase, which was expanding via word of mouth, earning them
the tag of ‘Manchester’s best kept secret’. Sales of James t-shirts skyrocketed, and James t-shirts were a common sight in
Manchester even before they reached the top 40 (it was even joked that they sold more t-shirts than records). With a loan from a
kindly bank manager, James financed the production of a live album, One Man
Clapping, with the help of Rough Trade Records. The album went to #1 in
the indie charts, reinvigorating media interest in the band.
In November 1988, drummer Whelan became involved in an on-stage fight with Tim Booth and was asked to leave the band. He was
replaced by David Baynton-Power a few months later. With the loss of Whelan’s
distinctive drum sound, the band realized they would have to recruit new musicians to rejuvenate their sound, and during the
following year they hired three new members in the forms of Saul Davies (guitar, violin,
percussion), Mark Hunter (keyboards) and Andy Diagram
(trumpet, percussion). The new seven-piece line-up went into the studio to record their third studio album, and new singles
“Sit Down” and “Come Home” became strong hits in the
independent charts. The album, Gold Mother, was intended to be released on Rough
Trade but the owner of the label, Geoff Travis, believed James could only reach an audience of
20,000 to 30,000. The band believed they had more potential than this and bought the rights to the album from Rough Trade. A
successful winter tour in 1989 attracted a deal with Fontana
Records, and the band ended a difficult decade on an optimistic note.
The 1990s
Gold Mother was released in June 1990, just as the
‘Madchester’ movement, with its wave of popular Manchester-based indie bands, focused public
attention on James and won them mainstream recognition. Singles “How Was It For You”, the remixed
“Come Home” and “Lose Control” all made the
top 40, and the band’s newfound success was re-affirmed when they played two sell-out dates at the Manchester G-Mex at the end of the year, without even having had a major hit yet. But their
major breakthrough had not yet arrived; it was to come in March 1991, when the popularity of
“Sit Down” led to a re-recorded version being released as a single, and shot to #2 in the UK
singles chart, only kept off the #1 spot by Chesney Hawkes' "The One And Only". Gold
Mother was re-released to include "Sit Down" and previous single "Lose Control", and the
album sold ten times more copies than Geoff Travis originally predicted. The song became one of the biggest-selling singles of
the year, making James a household name; it has remained ingrained in the minds of the British public to the present day. Also in
1991, the band performed a cover of Leonard Cohen's
"So Long Marianne" on a tribute album called I'm Your
Fan.
The band spent the rest of the year recording their next album, Seven,
which was finally released in February 1992, showcasing an expansion of the band’s newfound
seven-piece sound to epic, arena-rock proportions. It reached #2 in the UK album charts and earned the band some recognition in
the US as they embarked on their first Stateside tour. The band’s activities culminated in a sell-out show to 30,000 people at
the Alton Towers theme park in July, broadcast live on BBC
Radio 1. However, despite their success, media response to the band had become negative once more; critics viewed the
large-scale sound of Seven as overblown and pompous, and made comparisons with the perceived excesses of Simple Minds. Although the band knew that these criticisms were overly harsh, they felt they needed to
return to their acoustic roots to rediscover their sound. Conveniently, they were invited on an acoustic tour of the US
supporting Neil Young at a series of natural outdoor venues in the autumn of that year. They
returned to England refreshed and ready to record their new album, with Brian Eno (whom they
had originally approached to produce Stutter, but who had been unavailable at the time).
Eno, impressed by the band’s penchant for improvisation and spontaneous jams,
set about bringing out the ambience in James’ music, and took them through a recording
process that the band later described as a "journey of self-discovery". The process resulted in not one but two albums: the
'song' album, Laid, and the experimental Wah Wah,
which showcased the band’s improvised jams recorded on the spot, then mixed by Eno. Booth's
vocals were then added to the results.
Laid was released in September 1993 to positive reviews. Fans and critics alike were
impressed by the album’s more ambient, stripped-down sound, and it was immediately regarded as their best work yet. Gone also was
the trumpet sound of Andy Diagram, who decided to leave the band before the recording sessions. As well as being a success in the
UK, the album also broke the band in the US, shipping over 600,000 copies despite only charting at #68, propelled by the immense
popularity of its risqué title track on US student radio. The song Laid has become a staple
live cover of the American band Better than Ezra, which segues directly into the song
from their own single "R3wind." The band spent most of 1994 touring the States. Wah Wah was
eventually released in September 1994 to a lukewarm reception. The gap between the release of the two albums caused Wah
Wah to be treated purely as a new James album rather than a companion piece to Laid, and many were therefore confused
by the album’s experimental style and its dabblings with electronics and techno.
The band was set to begin work on a follow-up album, but a bombshell struck on a day in November 1995 which the band came to
refer to as ‘Black Thursday’. Exhausted from the pressures of touring, Larry Gott announced he was going to leave James, which
seriously dented the confidence of the band. The situation was made worse by manager Martine also quitting, the discovery of a
£250,000 tax bill, and an announcement by Booth that he would take a break from James to record an album with Angelo Badalamenti. However, the band refused to give in easily. Forced to abandon their tradition of
full-band jams, they set up studio in David Baynton-Power’s house and embarked on the recording of a new album. Adrian Oxaal was drafted in to replace Gott on guitar, while Booth returned periodically from the States to
add his vocals. 1996 saw the release of Booth’s album with Badalamenti, Booth and the Bad Angel, and the new James album, Whiplash, was finally released in February 1997. The album proved a
successful comeback, reaching the UK top 10 as did the single “She’s A Star”. Both appealed to
fans of the post-Britpop wave of alternative music, and brought the band back into the public
eye. Stylistically, the album combined several radio-friendly ‘pop’ singles with a generally experimental bulk of
techno-influenced stylings derived from the experiments on Wah Wah, which evoked a mixed reaction from both fans and
critics.
The band toured to promote the album, recruiting new member Michael Kulas while in the
States, on rhythm guitar. However, touring was far from easy - Booth suffered a neck injury while dancing on stage in the US,
resulting in a series of tour dates being cancelled as he underwent emergency surgery, and the band being offered a place instead
on the Lollapalooza tour on which they were severely out of place among the heavy rock acts
of the tour. To add insult to injury, tensions were brewing between Booth and Glennie over money issues, culminating in a
full-blown row which caused a near-rift between the two of them for almost a year and resulted in an awkward working relationship
for the whole band.
In March 1998, a greatest hits album, The Best
Of, was released, compiling all the band’s hits since their signing to Fontana, ignoring the Sire years and serving as
a reminder of how many hits the band had scored throughout the decade to a public who knew them mainly for “Sit Down”. The album
shot to #1 in the UK album charts and brought the band their biggest wave of success since the start of the decade, and their
success and longevity was celebrated in sell-out tours throughout the year. However, the band’s internal situation was less
pleasurable- the tension between Booth and Glennie had heightened, and a meeting was called with the band’s manager Peter Rudge to mediate the situation. With the tension finally resolved, the band returned to the studio to
begin work on their next album, Millionaires.
The recording process was slow, but the album was eventually released in October 1999. Hyped to
be their most successful album yet, the album received mostly positive reviews from the press. However, the reaction from fans
was, for once, less enthusiastic. The album noticeably indicated that the band had abandoned their spontaneous, fluid style and
jamming techniques for a more conventional approach to song-making, and some fans felt this caused the album to sound forced and
lacking in the true James spirit that had characterized their previous work. Indeed, Saul Davies had spoken in the press of
hoping to reach a more respectable peak among the mainstream acts of the time, and it was clear from sales that this was not to
be- the album did not reach the phenomenal sales level predicted, its singles reached disappointingly low chart positions, but
the album entered the chart at #2 and sold over 150,000 copies. Despite this, it seemed as though James’ latest wave of
commercial success had reached its end.
The 2000s
After the disappointing performance of Millionaires the band chose to start anew in their approach to their next album.
Working with Brian Eno once again, they spent most of 2000 recording the album, starting afresh as
if this was their first album by writing the songs, then performing them live before actually recording them. They embarked on a
small-scale tour in the autumn of that year on which their setlists consisted almost entirely of new material, feeling their
songs had always reached their strongest levels and been honed into shape following their live reception. The album,
Pleased To Meet You, was released in July 2001. The album's artwork featured a composite image of the faces of all the band members to create a new person -
he was given the name 'James'. Stylistically the album was eclectic, combining elements of all the band’s previous albums to
create a compound representation of James’ sound. With the media having lost interest once again, the album sadly received little
promotion and was largely overlooked, reaching only #11, the lowest position for a James studio album since their signing to
Fontana.
Shortly after its release, James reached the end of their contract, and Tim Booth announced he was leaving the band to
concentrate on other projects of his own. They played a farewell tour of the UK at the end of the year, on which the loyalty of
the band’s fanbase was once again re-affirmed, with exuberant responses prevalent throughout the whole tour. Their final hometown
gig, at the Manchester Evening News arena on December 7th, was recorded for a live CD and DVD, Getting Away With It... Live. Past members Larry Gott and Andy Diagram rejoined them
for the tour, and Brian Eno himself joined them onstage at their final gig at London’s Wembley Arena. The albums Gold
Mother, Laid and Whiplash (each containing bonus tracks) were re-released by Mercury Records the following
year, as well as a b-sides compilation entitled B-Sides Ultra.
Jim Glennie stated that James would continue despite the departure of Tim, having already had their fair share of setbacks.
But Michael Kulas confirmed that he was told he wouldn't be needed in any future incarnation of James where Tim Booth wasn't the
singer, and Saul Davies also confirmed his departure in 2 separate articles during 2002. Nothing
new was heard from the band for the next five years.
A planned compilation of material from the band's Factory and Sire years was announced in 2001, but its release date was
slowly pushed further and further back. Some mail-order companies listed it in 2002, but the album (named Strange Dancing) was never released. It had been suggested this compilation would include previously
vinyl-only b-sides and maybe some unreleased songs from the eighties.
Tim Booth established himself as a solo artist in 2004 with the release of his solo album
Bone, co-written and produced by Lee Muddy
Baker.
A new compilation album, The Collection was released in late 2004, and Seven - The Live Concert (a DVD version
of a previously released video) in 2005. Both were released with a non-existent marketing campaign and without input from any
band members.
An article in Q Magazine in March 2006 entitled "Where are they now?" seemingly
confirmed the band's demise (Dave Baynton-Power referred to the band as having split in the article).
In January 2007, music magazine Filter cited an announcement on singer Tim
Booth's personal website, saying that "Tim will be rejoining James in early 2007 for a series of live shows to be announced very
soon." [4] At the same
time, James' old website was replaced by a new domain holder at www.wearejames.com. The site confirmed that the line-up for the reformed band will be that which recorded the album
Laid: Booth, Gott, Glennie, Davies, Hunter and Baynton-Power. Booth confirmed in interviews
that he became convinced to rejoin the band after meeting up with Glennie and Gott the previous November for a jamming session,
out of which new songs were born.
The initial 5 dates of the tour were expanded to 7 on the day tickets went on sale (26th January) due to high demand; the
whole tour had sold out by close of business. The tour will take place during late April 2007, to be followed later in the year
by more live shows, including confirmed festival appearances at T in the Park and
V Festival and a possible arena tour in December 2007. They also appeared at Summercase Barcelona's top music concert in Spain during July 2007. The band is also releasing a new
compilation album, Fresh As A Daisy - The Singles, and an album of new material.
Jim Glennie has stated that James will be working on a new album throughout the remainder of 2007 with James playing a number
of festivals in the summer. The album is expected to be released in early 2008. He said this in the blog on their official
website; "The rest of the year will involve lots of songwriting and work for the next album, with an early 2008 release. We’re
playing a whole heap of festivals throughout the summer so I might see some of you there."
James play Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival, Inverness-shire in August 2007
James support acts
A somewhat dubious honour that can be attributed to James is that many of their support acts went on to find great success of
their own, eclipsing that of James themselves. In 1988 they were supported by The Stone
Roses and the Happy Mondays (James went on to support the Happy Mondays only two
years later). Nirvana was the support act for a show in 1991 - only a month later,
Nevermind reached number one in the Billboard Album Charts. For their 1993 tour, Radiohead was the
support.
After James' hiatus, the trend continued. Third Eye Blind supported in 1997;
The Corrs and Stereophonics in 1998; Supergrass and Doves in 1999. In 2000 they were supported by Coldplay - a month later their breakthrough single "Yellow" was released, a month after that their debut album
Parachutes went to #1 in the UK album chart.
The support for their 2007 UK tour was The Twang, already the subject of considerable media
coverage.
Discography
Albums
- Live recordings
- Compilations
Singles and EPs
- 1992 "Ring the Bells" (UK #37)
- 1992 "Seven" (UK #46)
- 1993 "Sometimes (Lester Piggott)" (UK #18)
- 1993 "Laid" (UK #25, US #61)
- 1994 "Jam J"/"Say Something" (UK #24)
- 1997 "She's a Star" (UK #9)
- 1997 "Tomorrow" (UK #12)
- 1997 "Waltzing Along" (UK #23)
- 1998 "Destiny Calling" (UK #17)
- 1998 "Runaground" (UK #29)
- 1998 "Sit Down" (Apollo 440 mix) (UK #7)
- 1999 "I Know What I'm Here For" (UK #22)
- 1999 "Just Like Fred Astaire" (UK #17)
- 1999 "We're Going to Miss You" (UK #48)
- 2001 "Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)" (UK #22)
- 2007 "Who Are You"
- 2007 "Chameleon"
Video & DVD
- Come Home Live (1991) [VHS]
- Getting Away With It... Live (2002)
- Seven: Live Concert (2005)
- Fresh As A Daisy - The Videos (2007)
Soundtrack Appearances
External links
References
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