Press release for James’ album Whiplash in the USA.
After a long gap during which the band dealt with a number of personal and financial issues, they returned with Whiplash. It was released 28 years ago and featured a new, more electronic sound and delivered top twenty hits for James, including Tomorrow and She’s A Star.
Tomorrow / Lost A Friend / Waltzing Along / She’s a Star / Greenpeace / Go to the Bank / Play Dead / Avalanche / Homeboy / Watering Hole / Blue Pastures
Lost a Friend (live) / Greenpeace (live) / Homeboy (live) / Waltzing Along (Flytronix Mix)
| Release Name: | Whiplash |
| Artist Name: | James |
| Release Date: | 24th February 1997 |
| Format: | Studio Album |
| Catalogue: | LP – 534 354-1, CAS 534 354-4, CD 534 354-2; CD 548 788-2 (reissue) |
Whiplash was an album two years in the making. The basic seeds of many of the songs came from sound-check jams during the 1994 US tour and a couple of weeks spent in a large barn close to Woodstock where James played at the anniversary festival in August.
The band congregated at Westside Studios in March 1995 with Brian Eno. Eno’s book “A Year With Swollen Appendices” documents these sessions – click on the link above to view excerpts of the diaries.
Following these sessions, the band did not even get together in the same room for six months. When they did finally get together on what became known as “Black Thursday” – November 16 1995, all hell broke loose. Larry announced that he was leaving the band to save his marriage. A tax bill for the past five years arrived which the band thought was covered. And Tim told the band that he was going to New York to record an album with Angelo Badalamenti.
James survived. Western Hotels used Born of Frustration for a TV commercial in the States which cleared the tax bill. An old school friend of Saul’s, Adrian Oxaal, previously of Sharkboy, was drafted in to replace Larry.
The band, minus Tim, convened at Dave’s house in North Wales where he had built his home studio, dubbed Cafe Mullet (apparently because Dave looks like a fish) to work on the tracks from the Westside sessions. Tim kept in touch with the band’s progress, sending contributions from New York. Slowly but surely, Whiplash fell into place, the electronic influences of the dance music many of the band were increasingly interested in more prominent than ever before.
On Tim’s return, the final vocal tracks were put in place and Stephen Hague was drafted in to add his “pop Midas touch” to the tracks with Eno helping out with advice and backing vocals.
Having been out of the limelight in the UK for almost four years, James were unsure of what reaction they would get. Three warm-up shows at the end of January were rapturously received. The first single She’s A Star was A-listed by Radio 1 and hit number 9 when released in February. The album was released two weeks later and also went to number 9, not up to the placings of previous albums but a meritable performance given the four year hiatus since Laid.
Press reaction to the album was not entirely favourable. Whilst the more conventional tracks were well-received, the more experimental electronic tracks were viewed less favourably, criticised for lacking structure and direction and the lyrical content not reflecting the nature of the music.
Tomorrow, rerecorded from the Wah Wah album, was released as the second single in April, and hit number 13. It coincided with the end of a UK tour which had sold out well in advance, confirming that James audience was still there. Another factor in the success of the single was the 3 CD format that had been employed for both Tomorrow and She’s A Star – one with new b-sides, one with live or session tracks and one with largely unsuccessful remixes.
Following the UK tour, James had scheduled a month and a half tour of America to promote the album. Tim injured his neck on the opening night in Vancouver and struggled to make it through two nights in Portland and Seattle before bowing to the inevitable. A week in traction in a very seedy San Francisco hotel followed. With Tim only half-fit and wearing a neck brace, the band tried to make amends for the cancelled tour, taking their place on the Lollapolooza tour next to Korn, Prodigy and Orbital. Unsurprisingly, this failed to give the album any kind of significant push.
Back in the UK, Waltzing Along became the third single to be released off the album, the rerecorded version hitting number 23 without any significant promotion as the band were still in America.
Lost A Friend was then being touted as a fourth single off Whiplash and a precursor to the planned Best Of album. B-sides were recorded and a set of remixes were commissioned. This was shelved as the record company decided James should record new tracks for The Best Of and promoting another single would delay the release schedule unnecessarily.
Tim doesn’t like the Stephen Hague production of the album, feeling that it is too big, bright and hollow for the songs.
The album was reissued in 2001 and again on double heavy 180g vinyl in 2017. Read about the 2017 reissue on EvenTheStars.
Japanese version of Whiplash with OBI sleeve and lyric booklet in Japanese and English.
Tomorrow / Lost A Friend / Waltzing Along / She’s A Star / Greenpeace / Go To The Bank / Play Dead / Avalanche / Homeboy / Watering Hole / Blue Pastures / Gone Too Far
| Release Name: | Whiplash (Import, Japan) |
| Artist Name: | |
| Release Date: | 24th February 1997 |
| Format: | Studio Album |
| Catalogue: | PHCR-1504 |
Japanese version of Whiplash with OBI sleeve and lyric booklet in Japanese and English.
Avalanche is track eight on the 1997 James album Whiplash.
It features backing vocals from Brian Eno.
| Song: | Avalanche |
| Released: | 24th February 1997 |
| Main Associated Album (or Single): | Whiplash |
| First Heard Live: | Washington 9.30 Club – 27th February 1997 |
Play Dead is track seven on the 1997 James album Whiplash.
Play Dead was originally called Whiplash, even on initial promo copies of the album, apparently to reflect the wistful throb (quote : Brian Eno) of the music. The band described the song as an electronic industrial ballad and industrial Walker Brothers.
| Song: | Play Dead |
| Released: | 24th February 1997 |
| Main Associated Album (or Single): | Whiplash |
| First Heard Live: | Glasgow Barrowlands – 14th March 1997 |
Waltzing Along is track three on the 1997 James album Whiplash. It was also released as a single in June 1994.
It sounded, according to Jim, like Chris Rea, when it was first played in the studio. One of the older tracks on Whiplash, it features Larry on slide guitar on the album version. A popular singalong track on the Whiplash tour, it was rerecorded with a slightly harder and rockier sound and was released as the third single off the album in June 1997.
The single also featured two remixes of the track and a third remix was given away on a cd with Mix Magazine. A live version appears on the 2012 Getting Away With It Live cd and dvd.
Disco Socks Remix
Flytronix Mix
Havin’ It Rock Opera Mix
Live In Extraordinary Times
Single Version
| Song: | Waltzing Along |
| Released: | 24th February 1997 |
| Main Associated Album (or Single): | Whiplash |
| First Heard Live: | Cambridge Lizard Lounge – 25th February 1997 |
Blue Pastures is the eleventh and final track on James’ 1997 album Whiplash.
Originally written during the Laid sessions and rediscovered three years later, this song details a man who wanders off and lays down in the snow to commit suicide. Tim often told the story during the Whiplash tour that a friend’s mentor chose this way to die without having heard the song.
The song was given a one-off airing at a semi-acoustic gig at the Tolbooth in Stirling in October 2014.
| Song: | Blue Pastures |
| Released: | 24th February 1997 |
| Main Associated Album (or Single): | Whiplash |
| First Heard Live: | Middlesbrough Town Hall – 13th March 1997 |
Go To The Bank is track six on the 1997 James album Whiplash.
Most of Go To The Bank was improvised and captured as you hear it, including Tim Booth’s vocal for the first time on a James track. It also includes Adrian Oxaal’s first rehearsal and audition for the band where he was asked to join in without having a key, confusing the hell out of him apparently. The vocals were apparently done in a “bizarre cut and paste sample trip” by Dave Baynton-Power at his home studio in Wales.
The song didn’t surface at a live gig until Leeds in 2014.
| Song: | Go To The Bank |
| Released: | 24th February 1997 |
| Main Associated Album (or Single): | Whiplash |
| First Heard Live: | Leeds First Direct Arena – 23rd November 2014 |
Watering Hole is track ten on the 1997 James album Whiplash.
It was titled Angel as late as early promos of the Whiplash album. The track is according to Jim about “the sound of 10 pence rattling in the keyboard player’s pocket the day before giro day walking round Leeds Arndale when it’s raining outside”
| Song: | Watering Hole |
| Released: | 24th February 1997 |
| Main Associated Album (or Single): | Whiplash |
| First Heard Live: | Never performed live |
Fishknives is a b-side to the James single She’s A Star released in February 1997.
Tim had written the lyrics to Fishknives back in the Laid sessions in 1993, but the band couldn’t come up with any suitable music. It was jammed at a gig in Paris in November 1993 with a title of Throwing It All Away. Much of the original lyric was then taken and placed into the track Homeboy that Tim was struggling to come up with lyrics for. A version of it appears in the fabled Whiplash sessions.
| Song: | Fishknives |
| Released: | 10th February 1997 |
| Main Associated Album (or Single): | She's A Star |
| First Heard Live: | Paris Casino de Paris – 23rd November 1993 |
Chunney Chops was released as a b-side to She’s A Star in February 1997. It also appears on the B-Sides Ultra album.
This track is named after Mark Hunter, whose band nickname is Chunney. It was originally called Chunney Pop but an error in reading the title at the record company meant it came out as Chunney Chops. The band liked it so much they kept the title. Just to confuse matters, on the album B-Sides Ultra it is called Chunny Pops.
| Song: | Chunney Chops |
| Released: | 10th February 1997 |
| Main Associated Album (or Single): | She's A Star |
| First Heard Live: | Never performed live |
Released ahead of the Whiplash album, She’s A Star was James’ first single in 3 years. It reached 9 in the UK Singles Chart.
CD JIMED 16 – She’s A Star / Johnny Yen (live) / Stutter (live)
CD JIMCD 16 – She’s A Star / Chunney Chops / Fishknives / Van Gogh’s Dog
CD JIMDD 16- She’s A Star / She’s A Star (Dave Angel’s PAT Mix) / Come Home (Weatherall Mix) / She’s A Star (Andrea’s Biosphere Dub)
| Release Name: | She's A Star |
| Artist Name: | |
| Release Date: | 10th February 1997 |
| Format: | Studio Single |
| Catalogue: | CD JIMED 16; CD JIMCD 16; CD JIMDD 16 |
Three years after the band’s previous single Jam J / Say Something, She’s A Star was crucial to James hopes of a successful comeback and measuring the fan-base that had remained loyal to the band. Radio 1 A-listed it immediately and the band promoted the single heavily with interviews and live performances on Channel 4’s TFI Friday and The Bob Mills Show in the week before the release.
Controversially, the record company decided to ditch the vinyl and cassette formats and chose to release instead a 3 CD set housed in a slipcase sleeve.
The first CD featured two older James standards Johnny Yen and Stutter recorded live at the band’s 1992 Alton Towers show. The second CD featured three new b-sides Chunney Chops (named in honour of Chunney Lad Mark), Laid sessions out-take Fishknives and Van Gogh’s Dog. The third CD saw two remixes of the title track by Dave Angel and Geir Jenssen (whose remix featured his eight month old daughter on keyboards) and a the Weatherall remix of Come Home that was making its third appearance as a James b-side.
The video featured the band playing at a party in a large house with two female lead characters, one blonde and famous and the other dark-haired living in the shadow of the blonde. Towards the end the dark-haired one pulls a gun and robs all the guests before approaching Tim and kissing him. In a MTV interview, Tim described the video as a homage to the director Fellini.
The music press were generally surprisingly receptive to the single with the exception of a few bemoaning the fact that it was not a great leap forward in style from the previous incarnation of James.
Artwork for the single had been designed by Blue Source, the photography is curiously credited to Davies and Davies.
Priced at £1.99 and preceded by an inspired promotional poster campaign featuring the cover model and exclaiming “She’s Coming : February 10” but without naming the artist in the weeks leading up to the release, the single entered the charts at number 9, James joint second highest chart position at the time and ensured a Top of the Pops appearance.
Best known for their early Nineties hit ‘Sit Down’ (at gigs the audience would sit on the ground when the song was played), James are a British band who made their name with the so-called ‘baggy’ scene. Four years ago, they set off on tour to the States, scored massive commercial success and decided to stay. ‘She’s a star’ is a storming homecoming single, complete with rousing, rock verses, a chorus sung in an incredibly high pitch and a sob story about boy-girl relationships.
