One Of The Three - The James Band Archive

Category Archives: Era

Laid North American Tour Dates – Press Release

Posted on

Press release announcing James’ US and Canada tour for Laid.

Laid

Posted on
Laid, a 1993 Single by James.

Summary

Laid was the second single from the album of the same name, and the one that broke the band in America. It reached 25 in the UK Singles Chart.

Track List

7″ JIM 14 – Laid / Wah Wah Kits
CAS JIMMC 14 – Laid / Wah Wah Kits
CD JIM 14CD – Laid / Wah Wah Kits / The Lake / Seconds Away
CD JIM 14CX – Laid (Live at Radio 1) / Say Something (Live at Radio 1) / Five-O (Live at Radio 1) / Sometimes (Live At Radio 1)

Details

ReleaseAboutSongsListenVideosGallery
Release Name: Laid
Artist Name:
Release Date: 1st November 1993
Format: Studio Single
Catalogue: 7" JIM 14; CAS JIMMC 14; CD JIM 14CD; CD JIM 14CX

Laid was an obvious choice as the second single off the album, a classic two and a half minute pop song with no pretensions. The lyrics had to be changed from “she only comes when she’s on top” to “she only sings when she’s on top” to appease radio stations and ensure daytime airplay.

The single was released in two CD versions. The first featured the album version of Laid, a beautiful peaceful track called The Lake and two tracks Wah Wah Kits and Seconds Away which would have not been out of place on the Wah Wah album.

The second CD saw four tracks from the Laid album recorded at BBC’s Maida Vale studios, one track live into each show on the day of the album’s release.

The video for the single was probably James most striking to date. The band dressed up in dresses and performed various domestic chores wearing facial masks whilst Tim sat singing the song, chained to the table.

Despite another Radio 1 A-listing, the single surprisingly only managed to reach number 25. It was however to help James make a crucial breakthrough into the American market early in 1994.

Artwork was provided by Larry’s wife Jane Gott.

Reviews

NME

From the album of the same name, ‘Laid’ is a breezy little pop song that seems quite happy to go through life in the knowledge that it’s the bastard child of Hothouse Flowers’ “Don’t Go” and “Wimoweh” but with explicit lyrics (“she only comes when she’s on top” that should see off any chances of serious daytime airplay. B-side ‘Wah Wah Kits’ revels in its resemblance to Dr Phibes’ ‘Hazy Lazy Hologram’, while the two extra tracks on the CD, ‘The Lake’ and ‘Seconds Away’, are respectively a brooding piece of dislocated melancholia and a throwaway demo. Enjoyable, in a confusing sort of way.

Melody Maker

Not much proof here of the much-heralded creatively-revamped James.

“Laid” is smalltown folk music. Driven by a wheezy old Hammond organ, a drumbeat that sounds like the bloke upstairs nailing down his floorboards and a guitar that might as well be a banjo for all the expression it brings. “Laid” is 1990 naff. It’s not even spuriously uplifting. Tim Booth’s cryptic Indian type whoops aren’t a call to arms or joyous chant but more a sort of cryptic holler, as if he’s Geronimo trying to invoke Chief Sitting Bull in a séance.

There are tracks here, however, such as “Wah Wah Kits” that do indicate a newer, freshly adorned James, perhaps abetted by Brian Eno.

So maybe pigs are flying and they have turned half-decent.

Songs related to this release:

Open in Spotify

Videos related to songs on this release:

Laid

Posted on
Laid, a 1993 Studio Album by James.

Summary

Laid is James’s fifth album and a follow up to Seven. It features a more stripped-back sound and contains the US breakthrough single Laid. It was released 32 years ago in 1993, reissued with 2001 with additional tracks, and reissued again in 2015 with a second CD of  b-sides, radio sessions, demos and jams.

Track List

Out To Get You / Sometimes (Lester Piggott) / Dream Thrum / One Of The Three / Say Something / Five-O / P.S. / Everybody Knows / Knuckle Too Far / Low Low Low / Laid / Lullaby / Skindiving

Also included in 2001 reissue:

Laid (live) / Sometimes (live) / Five-O (live) / Say Something (remix)

The 2015 Deluxe Edition reissue contained a second CD with the following:

America (Live In The US, September / 1992) / Building A Charge / Wah Wah Kits / The Lake / Seconds Away / Say Something (New Version) / Jam J / Assassin / Laid (BBC Session, London / 1993) / Five-O (BBC Session, London / 1993) / Sometimes (BBC Session, London / 1993) / Say Something (BBC Session, London / 1993) / Low Low Low (BBC Session, London / 1993) / Tomorrow (BBC Session, London / 1993) / Dream Thrum (Rehearsal) / You Were Born (Early Version Of “One Of The Three” / Outtake) / Bruce Jam 1 (Early Version Of “Knuckle Too Far”) / Carousel

Details

ReleaseAboutSongsListenVideosGalleryArticlesGigs
Release Name: Laid
Artist Name: James
Release Date: 27th September 1993
Format: Studio Album
Catalogue: LP – 514 943-1, CAS 514 943-4, CD 514 943-2; CD 548 787-2 (re-issue); Deluxe Edition 2xCD 0602547095947

Following the success of Seven, Andy Diagram left the band to pursue other musical interests, taking the distinctive trumpet sound of the album with him.  The acoustic tour of America with Neil Young had a profound influence on the band’s sound, playing acoustically focusing the band on producing a more simple “stripped and naked” sound.

The other distinctive factor in the sound of Laid was the appointment of Brian Eno as producer. Where Seven sounded like a band striving for perfection, “Brian encouraged us to improvise, encouraged us to use takes where we didn’t know what we were doing. He made us realise that this imperfection was a good thing.” (Jim, Q 1993).

Most of Laid was recorded over a six-week period in the spring of 1993 at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios. Using two separate studios, one for the album “proper” and one for jams, the band recorded over fifty tracks, which also spurned the double album Wah Wah, which was released in 1994. The band did actually also try to record a live album at the same time playing a one-off gig at the Moles Club in Bath, but had underestimated their ability to play the new material live. Present at the show however was Peter Gabriel who approached the band to join the US WOMAD tour that summer.

Unlike previous albums, very little of Laid had been played live before it was recorded – Say Something had been in the set since April 1992 and Low Low Low had began life as a six-minute improvised trumpet epic. Read Tim’s track-by-track commentary on the album by clicking on the above link.

Laid received mixed but generally positive reviews in the music press. The stripped-down sound was seen as a welcome return to the band’s folky roots and a step back from the perceived stadium rock sound of Seven. The two singles released around the album, Sometimes and Laid, received surprisingly positive reviews, but only achieved moderate chart success.

The album peaked at Number 3 in the UK charts. Internationally, the band’s German record company initially refused to promote the album, claiming that without an obvious lead track and single it would not sell. The album went to Number 1 in Portugal. But the major breakthrough of Laid was in America where the album peaked at number 68, but sold over 600,000 copies as the band spent most of the first half of 1994 touring, starting with a number of support slots with Duran Duran followed by two headline tours, culminating in an invitation to play Woodstock 2 in August in front of 300,000 people.

Songs related to this release:

Open in Spotify

Videos related to songs on this release:
Gigs at the time of this release:

Laid US Album Release – Press Release

Posted on

Press release of James’ Laid album in the US.

Sometimes

Posted on

 

Details

This video was filmed in the water tank at Pinewood Studios in London where the James Bond movies were filmed.

Sometimes (Lester Piggott)

Posted on
Sometimes (Lester Piggott), a 1993 Single by James.

Summary

Producer Brian Eno describes Sometimes as one of the highlights of his musical career and is a fan favourite. This single from the album Laid reached 18 in the UK Singles Charts.

Track List

7″ JIM13- Sometimes (Lester Piggott) / America
CAS JIMMC 13- Sometimes (Lester Piggott) / America
12″ JIMX 13 – Sometimes (Lester Piggott) / America / Building A Charge
CD JIMCD 13- Sometimes (Lester Piggott) / America / Building A Charge

Details

ReleaseAboutSongsListenVideosGallery
Release Name: Sometimes (Lester Piggott)
Artist Name:
Release Date: 30th August 1993
Format: Studio Single
Catalogue: 7" JIM13; 12" JIMX 13; CD JIMCD 13; CAS JIMMC 13

Billed as James comeback single and a return to James folk-rock roots, Sometimes was producer Brian Eno’s choice as the first single describing the band’s first performance of the song in the studio as one of the highlights of his musical career.

The single was backed with two new tracks. America had been in the James set since the summer of 1992 and the version featured on the single was recorded live using solar power by Greenpeace in September 1992. Building A Charge features an overtly sexual lyric set against a simple musical backing.

Sometimes was seen as something of a renaissance of James by the music press as the general consensus was that James had stepped back from the stadium rock they had been accused of in favour of a more intimate involving sound. Radio 1 had the world exclusive first play of the single a month before the release and soon A-listed it.

The band was out of the country on the US WOMAD tour when the single was released, but had recorded the song for ITV’s The Beat show. When the single charted at number 18 in the first week, the band performed the song by satellite from Pittsburgh for Top of the Pops.

The single’s video was filmed in the water tank at London’s Pinewood studios, scene of many of the sea scenes in James Bond films. James spent the whole day in the water, the band playing their instruments and Tim dancing, singing and acting out the lyrics of the song.

Artwork for the single was provided by Larry’s wife Jane.

Reviews

Melody Maker

He sounds like Loz Hardy. Or is it Liam O’Maonlai? Either way, it rubs me up the wrong way. But despite myself, something here touches me.

Maybe it’s the one chord chiming away metronomically, never changing, like rain on glass. More likely it’s the hilarious attempt at Byronic naked-in-the-rain sensualism (“There’s a boy leaning against a wall of rain, aerial held high / Calling ‘Come on thunder, come on thunder!'”)

I’d be lying if I said it was crap

NME

James usually dreary drone is given a leg up by Brian Eno at the controls who does for this band what he did for U2. Eno has obviously heard something miraculous crying to get out of James past releases and on Sometimes he has managed to pry it loose from its prison. This is a great song with a strong sense of dreamy and ambient grooves flowing through it. It shoots images like bullets from a gun and they hit their target every time. A big surprise.

Press Release

James: Sometimes Single Press Release November 1993

James return with their first single of 1993, ‘Sometimes’ released through Phonogram Records in August 31st.

Taken from their eagerly awaited, Brian Eno-produced LP ‘Laid’, the seven inch and cassette versions of ‘Sometimes’ are backed by a new song, not on the LP, called ‘America’. This track was produced by Bob Margouleff for Greenpeace Records and was recorded live in Los Angeles using solar power. The twelve inch and CD versions carry ‘Sometimes’, ‘America’ and another new track not on the LP entitled ‘Building A Charge’, also produced by Brian Eno.

James who recently appeared at WOMAD on Saturday 28th August, head out to the US to join Peter Gabriel and the rest of the WOMAD bill for a nationwide tour.

The band return at the end of September for the release of the LP and a major live tour in December.

James hit the road for the first time in over two years when they headline a national tour in December.

December 1993

  • 1st Glasgow Barrowlands
  • 2nd York Barbican Centre
  • 4th Manchester G-Mex
  • 5th Wolverhampton Civic Hall
  • 7th Derby Assembly Rooms
  • 8th Gloucester Leisure Centre
  • 9th Brixton Academy
  • 11th Portsmouth Guildhall
  • 12th Norwich UEA
  • 13th Newport Centre

Tickets are priced at £11 at all venues except for London and Manchester where tickets will be £12.

Songs related to this release:

Open in Spotify

Videos related to songs on this release:

Eno’s Wah Wah Notes

Posted on

Improvisations are almost always the seeds for James songs. Before we started our formal recording sessions for what became the Laid album, I spent some days working with the band in their rehearsal room in Manchester, seeing extraordinary pieces of music appearing out of nowhere. It occurred to me that this raw material was, in its own chaotic and perilous way, as much a part of their work as the songs that would finally grow out of it.

The music was always on the edge of breakdown, held together by taut threads, semi-formed, evolving, full of beautiful, unrepeatable collisions and exotic collusions. I suggested that, instead of just working on one record (the ‘song’ record, for which we’d already agreed a very tight schedule) we find two studios next to each other and develop two albums concurrently – one of structured songs, and the other of these improvisations. It seemed pretty ambitious at the time, but we decided to aim for it. Generally, we improvised late at night and in very dim light. We worked on huge reels of tape, so that we could play for over an hour without reel changes.

Strange new worlds took shape out of bewildering deserts of confusion, consolidated, lived gloriously for a few minutes and then crumbled away. We never tried making anything twice: once it had gone, we went somewhere else.

Ben Fenner, who was engineering, attentively and unobtrusively coped with unpredictable instrument and level changes in near-total darkness, leaving us to wander around our new landscapes.

I asked Markus Dravs, who’d worked as my assistant at my place, to come down and occupy one of the studios. I wanted him to look at the improvisations and see what he could make of them while we carried on with the ‘song’ record. We’d select a promising section from an improvisation and he’d investigate it. Using bits of processing equipment and treatment techniques evolved in my studio, he’d evolve new sound landscapes located somewhere at the outer edges of aural culture.

We were initially too busy in the studio to bother him much, which left him free to work with the material in much the same spirit as it was originally performed – by improvising at the console.

As the days passed and there became less group work to do on the ‘song’ record, people spent more time in the wild studio, emerging from the jungle of interconnected equipment in the early hours. We worked very long days, but there was always enough going on to prevent any loss of momentum. Things happened very quickly.

My mixes from the jams were all done in a single afternoon: I was trying to get a little of each jam onto DAT because there was so much new work flying around that it was hard to remember it all. I made fifty-five mixes that day and never mixed anything twice.

I wasn’t expecting that we would use these mixes in the end, but it turned out that this fast, impulsive way of working was right in the spirit of the performances, and the results often make a cinematic, impressionistic counterpoint to the elaborate post-industrial drama of Markus’ mixes. They set each other off well: the combination feels like being at the edge of somewhere – where industry merges with landscape, metal with space, corrupted machinery with unsettled weather patterns, data-noise with insect chatter.

Seven

Posted on

 

Details

This video is supposed to depict seven different forces of nature, but the band were unhappy with the final result.

Seven

Posted on
Seven, a 1992 Single by James.

Summary

Seven was released as the fourth single from the eponymous album. To stretch interest it was issued as an EP with 3 new songs. It reached 46 in the UK Singles Chart.

Track List

7″ JIM12- Seven / Goalies Ball / William Burroughs / Still Alive
CAS JIMC 12- Seven / Goalies Ball / William Burroughs / Still Alive
CD JIM12 CD- Seven / Goalies Ball / William Burroughs / Still Alive

Details

ReleaseAboutSongsListenVideosGallery
Release Name: Seven
Artist Name:
Release Date: 6th July 1992
Format: Studio Single
Catalogue: 7" JIM12; CD JIM12 CD; CAS JIMC 12

Following the lack of success of Ring The Bells, the band did not want to release a fourth single off the Seven album for fear of ripping off their fans. The record company however wanted a release to coincide with the band’s 30,000 sell-out show at Alton Towers which was being broadcast live on Radio 1.  A compromise was reached with the record company allowing the band to rerecord the title track and release the single as an EP with three new tracks.

Goalies Ball is not about football, but the state of human evolution. William Burroughs is a frenzied three minute burst about a young man who became old before his time. Still Alive is a lonely almost a cappella bluesy reflection on one man’s misfortune.

The single’s video showed the band dressed in t-shirts starting at 1 and increasing through to 7 by the end, playing the song in different weather conditions -snow, rain, wind and with fire behind them.

As with the previous two single releases, a John Carroll watercolour was used for the cover artwork of the single.

Radio 1 did A-list the single as they were heavily promoting the live broadcast of the Alton Towers show, but the music press paid very little attention to it. As the band was out of the country playing the European festival circuit, there was little promotion of the single.

Despite being the fourth single off the album, the final chart position of 46 was still disappointing. It was not helped by the cancellation of a second CD entitled “Seven plus three” which was due to include Seven and three extra tracks recorded at Alton Towers but which was shelved due to recording problems with the BBC mobile recording studio.

Reviews

NME

Seven is all about filling the available space. And in 1992 James have all the wide open space they want. Which is why the recent single Born of Frustration had us all on edge with its shameless Simple Minds chorus. But James are still capable of playing their cards close to their chest: they just can’t stop themselves from beating it when the indie police aren’t looking. Yet we forgive them this excursion into pomp-dom because they are James.

Press Release

James:  Seven Single Press Release June 1992

James release a new four track EP on July 6th. Available on a 33 RPM seven inch, CD and cassette, the EP features a different version of ‘Seven’ (the title track of their recent Top Ten LP), plus three brand new songs – ‘Goalie’s Ball’, ‘William Burroughs’ and ‘Still Alive’.

This weekend James make a guest appearance at Glastonbury while on Saturday July 4th they headline their own Alton Towers bash in front of a capacity 30,000 crowd.

The rest of the summer sees the band busy playing a series of continental festivals which includes an appearance at the Feile Festival in Ireland on July 31st

  • 7″ JIM 12             SEVEN / GOALIE’S BALL / WILLIAM BURROUGHS / STILL ALIVE
  • CASSETTE JIMC 12          SEVEN / GOALIE’S BALL / WILLIAM BURROUGHS / STILL ALIVE
  • CD JIMCD 12        SEVEN / GOALIE’S BALL / WILLIAM BURROUGHS / STILL ALIVE
Songs related to this release:

Open in Spotify

Videos related to songs on this release:

Ring The Bells

Posted on

 

Details

Due to the band’s touring commitments, this video was compiled from footage of Seven – The Live Video recorded in Warrington in December 1991 and visuals from John Carroll who did all the artwork for the Seven album and singles.

Ring The Bells

Posted on
Ring The Bells, a 1992 Single by James.

Summary

Ring The Bells was the third single off the album Seven. It reached 37 in the UK Singles Chart.

Track List

7″ JIM11- Ring The Bells / Fight
CAS JIMC 11- Ring The Bells / Fight
12″ JIM 1112- Ring The Bells / Fight / Come Home (Skunk Weed Skank Mix) / Once A Friend
CD JIMCD 11- Ring The Bells / Fight / Come Home (Skunk Weed Skank Mix) / Come Home (Hugo Live Dub Challenge)

Details

ReleaseAboutSongsListenVideosGallery
Release Name: Ring The Bells
Artist Name:
Release Date: 23rd March 1992
Format: Studio Single
Catalogue: 7" JIM11; 12" JIM 1112; CD JIMCD 11; CAS JIMC 11

Following the release of Seven, the band went to America for their debut tour followed by a three week tour of Europe. In order to maintain the band and the album’s profile back in the UK, Ring The Bells was chosen as the third single off the album.

The single was backed on all formats by Fight, a five minute anti-war song premiered at the Reading Festival warm-up at Camden Underworld in August 1991 which was given a dance makeover by producer Pearson Glance. Also included on the single were two mixes of Come Home. The Skunk Weed Skank Mix had been heard previously as the Weatherall mix on the 1990 single release but the Hugo Live Dub Challenge remixed by Hugo Nicholson was unique to the CD release. Once A Friend, a vitriolic two-minute attack on an ex-girlfriend and an outtake from the Seven sessions appeared on the 12″ vinyl only.

The artwork for the single was another John Carroll watercolour and this piece was used in the single’s video with sections of the picture superimposed and brought to life over the band’s performance of the song at Warrington Parr Hall on the Seven live video.

Ring The Bells was generally ignored by the radio and press in the UK as the band were not around to do any promotion. It failed to get a Radio 1 A-listing and reviews tended to focus on slagging off the band without even mentioning the song.

The single entered the chart at a very disappointing number 38 and disappeared from the Top 40 the following week.

Reviews

Melody Maker

I don’t begrudge James their success. There have probably been two occasions (If Things Were Perfect and Come Home) in their career (and doesn’t that seem like the right word?) when I found them more than mildly loveable. I don’t particularly mind that their last two singles really did sound like Simple Minds as everyone kept saying. What does bother me is that musically Ring The Bells sounds so small, so village fete. The only function the instruments have at all seems analogous to a dinner-suited announcer at a high-class ball – “Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting Mr Timothy Booth! (cue fanfare)” – before the entrance of the man with an ego the size of East Anglia. They can do better. And maybe, when they’ve sold enough shirts and filled enough stadia, they will.

Press Release

James: Ring The Bells Press Release March 1992

James have a new single – ‘Ring The Bells’ – released by Fontana on March 23rd. Taken from their current Top Ten album ‘Seven’, this is set to become the group’s seventh consecutive Top Forty hit.

The single is backed on the twelve inch and CD by Andy Weatherall’s legendary mixes of ‘Come Home.’ The ‘Skunk Weed Skank Mix’ was previously only available as an underground twelve inch while the ‘Hugo Live Dub Challenge’ has never been available at all before.

‘Once A Friend’, the bonus track on the twelve inch is a new song recorded during the ‘Seven’ sessions, while ‘Fight’, the extra track on all formats is another new track specially recorded for this single.

James are currently on a sell-out club tour of America.

Their only British date this year is their summer extravaganza at Alton Towers on 4th July.

  • 7″ JIM 11            RING THE BELLS / FIGHT
  • 12″ JIM 1112        RING THE BELLS / FIGHT / COME HOME (SKUNK MIX) / ONCE A FRIEND
  • CASSETTE JIMC 11         RING THE BELLS / FIGHT
  • CD JIMCD 11      RING THE BELLS / FIGHT / COME HOME (SKUNK MIX) / COME HOME (HUGO LIVE DUB)
Songs related to this release:

Open in Spotify

Videos related to songs on this release: