ALBUM TRACKS
I Believe | Dance Of The Bad Angels | Hit Parade | Fall In Love With Me |
Old Ways | Life Gets Better | Heart | Rising |
Butterfly’s Dream | Stranger | Hands In The Rain |
B-SIDES
Melting Away | When She Smiled |
I Believe | Dance Of The Bad Angels | Hit Parade | Fall In Love With Me |
Old Ways | Life Gets Better | Heart | Rising |
Butterfly’s Dream | Stranger | Hands In The Rain |
Melting Away | When She Smiled |
Tim Booth collaborated with Angelo Badalamenti in 1996 for an album entitled Booth And The Bad Angel which also featured Bernard Butler, former guitarist from Suede.
The collaboration came about as a result of a question posed by the organisers of Channel 4’s Live At The Dome when Tim was asked who he would most like to work with. Initial recording took place in a six-week period at the end of 1995 with more sessions in London in early 1996 including Bernard Butler, ex-Suede guitarist, on guitar.
This section looks at the album and the songs that made it up as well as the two singles that accompanied the album – I Believe and Fall In Love With Me.
Cover | Release | Date |
---|---|---|
Fall In Love With Me (Damien Mendis Remix) | Jun 1998 | |
Fall In Love With Me | Jun 1998 | |
Booth And The Bad Angel: Words And Music Sampler | Jul 1996 | |
4 Track Sampler (Booth And The Bad Angel) | Jul 1996 | |
Booth And The Bad Angel (Pre-Release) | Jul 1996 | |
I Believe (Radio Edit) | Jun 1996 | |
I Believe (Radio Edit) | Jun 1996 | |
Cover | Release | Date |
Image | Release | Date |
---|---|---|
Fall In Love With Me (Booth And The Bad Angel) | Jun 1998 | |
I Believe (Booth And The Bad Angel) | Jun 1996 |
JAMES singer TIM BOOTH has wrecked fans’ dreams of a sequel to his acclaimed 1996 album collaboration with composer ANGELO BADALAMENTI by insisting BOOTH & THE BAD ANGEL was a wonderful one-off.
The Sit Down singer was recently reminded of the time he spent songwriting and recording with the man behind the haunting Twin Peak theme when Badalamenti sent him a forgotten outtake from their sessions together.
Booth says, “Angelo just sent me a song he found recently on a piece of tape, and he didn’t tell me what it was and I started listening to it, thinking, ‘F**k, he’s written a song with a singer that sounds just like me – and he didn’t ask me to sing?’
“Halfway through I realised that it was me… and it was like, ‘Oh, OK, I’m not so upset’. It was cool.
“I have great memories of recording Booth & the Bad Angel and I’d love to work with him again because I adore the man. We didn’t have a bad word to say to each other, but I think that album was a one-off – and I’m not complaining.
“Many people have tried to work with Angelo, including Leonard Cohen and Bono and (David) Bowie. I think I was very blessed to work with him on one album. And we were lucky enough to work with (guitarist) Bernard Butler and the engineer was Nigel Godrich. Two years later he did OK Computer with Radiohead. We had a great team.”
Mit “Booth And The Bad Angel” wird in diesen Tagen ein außergewöhnliches Projekt von zwei Künstlern, wie sie unterschiedlicher nicht sein können, veröffentlicht. Die Rede ist von Tim Booth, eher durch die Manchester-Pop Band James bekannt, und Angelo Badalamenti. Letzterer produzierte in den 50ern die Schlagersängerin Peggy March. Das ist längst vergeben und vergessen. Schließlich ist dieser Mann für die umwerfenden Soundtracks zu David Lynchs Werken wie “Blue Velvet” oder “Wild At Heart”, sowie das legendäre “Twin Peaks-Theme” verantwortlich. Helmar Giebel führte ein lange erhofftes Gespräch mit den beiden Musikern.
? : Die Musik, die ihr normalerweise macht, ist ja sehr unterschiedlich. Wie kam es zu dieser ungewöhnlichen Zusammenarbeit?
Tim : Nun, ich wurde gefragt, ob ich Lust hätte, für eine Musiksendung im englischen Fernsehen mit einem außergewöhnlichen Künstler aufzutreten. Es gibt da diese legendäre Twin Peaks-Episode, in der Julee Cruise in einem Nachtclub singt, während zeitgleich ein Mord geschieht. Obwohl diese Szene höchstens 20 Minuten dauert, gehört sie zu den faszinierendsten Momenten, die ich je im Fernsehen erlebt habe. Also wollte ich unbedingt mit Angelo Badalamenti auftreten. So haben wir zwei Welten miteinander verbunden, die sich normalerweise nicht treffen.
Angelo : Wir wußten sofort, daß wir uns prima ergänzen werden. Gleich bei unserer ersten gemeinsamen Session, nur mit Keyboard und einem kleinen Drumcomputer, machte die Arbeit ungeheuren Spaß. Tim sang sich die Seele aus dem Leib, und ich spielte, als ginge es um mein Leben. Es war alles so einfach. Ehe wir uns versahen, hatten wir 14 Songs geschrieben. Danach haben wir die Lieder ziemlich schnell im Studio eingespielt. Später dann, in England, ließ Tim Bernhard Butler (Ex-Suede) die Stücke mit Gitarre unterlegen.
Tim wollte mehr von meiner Musik in das Projekt einfließen lassen. Ich mußte ihm am Anfang sogar versprechen, daß keine Gitarren zum Einsatz kommen. Ich wiederum wollte, daß Tims Gitarrenmusik einen größeren Einfluß hat. Langsame und ruhige Musik mache ich ja nun schon 13 Jahre lang. Ich habe ihn dann so lange genervt, bis er mir zustimmte.
Tim : Ein Song wie “Life Get’s Better” z.B. wäre ohne Gitarren viel verträumter und düsterer geworden. “I Believe” war zu Anfang ein viel melodischerer und fließender Song. Dann kamen die Gitarren dazu…
Angelo :…und wir hatten einen Radiohit….(lacht)!
? : Das stimmt, “I Believe” ist das, was ich mir unter perfekter Popmusik vorstelle!
Angelo : Die Plattenfirma war sehr erleichtert, dieses Lied zu hören. Ich glaube, sie hielt es einfach nicht für möglich, daß Tim und ich etwas zustande bringen, daß schließlich auch noch Käufer finden wird.
? : Der “Bad Angel” im Albumtitel bezieht sich doch bestimmt auf Angelo?
Tim : Ja, du hast recht. In erster Linie hat es aber einen biblischen Bezug.
Angelo : Bad setzt sich aus den ersten drei Buchstaben von Badalamenti zusammen. Angelo bedeutet im Italienischen “der Engel”. Du mußt das wie bei einem guten Film auf deine eigene Art und Weise interpretieren.
? : Gibt es eine grundlegende Idee hinter den Texten des Albums?
Tim : Nein, jeder Song ist eine Geschichte für sich.
Angelo : Wir waren sehr relaxed und haben höchstens fünf Stunden pro Tag gearbeitet. Tim tanzte die meiste Zeit in meinem Büro in New York herum, und ich machte uns Tee. Wir haben also viel Spaß gehabt. Die Texte entstanden aus solchen Stimmungen heraus. Sogar “Rising”, ein Song über das Sterben, ist ein fröhliches Lied geworden.
? : “Dance Of The Bad Angels” und “Life Get’s Better” fallen besonders auf. Könnt Ihr diese Songs mal kommentieren?
Tim : Ja klar, “Dance” ist eine sonderbarer Song. Er hat keinen Refrain, die Stimme ist wie auf einer Schur aufgezogen. Angelo spielt dieses wunderschöne Keyboard im Hintergrund. (Spontan summen die beiden eine Kostprobe eben jener Melodie).
Angelo : Eine eigenartige Keyboard-Linie, die genau gegen den monotonen Baß läuft. Später haben wir noch Tims ehemalige Gesangslehrerin die Hintergrund-Vocals singen lassen.
Tim : Ich finde das wirklich gelungen, ihre facettenreiche Stimme tanzt regelrecht um meine eher statische Stimme herum. Ursprünglich war der Song über neun Minuten lang. Wir wollte gar nicht mehr aufhören zu spielen. “Life Get’s Better” ist von der Idee her ein Dialog mit mir selbst. Auf der einen Seite mein sehr kritisches und pessimistisches Ich, auf der anderen Seite meine Einstellung, alles hinter mir zu lassen und in eine neue Welt aufbrechen zu wollen. Wir haben diese zwei Rollen dann aufgeteilt.
Angelo : Ich singe natürlich die eher deprimierenden Zeilen, ganz wie es meinem Image entspricht…(lacht).
Im Video zu “I Believe” sitzt Tim in einem wunderschönen Garten mit herrlichen Blumen. Ich stehe in Manhattan auf dem Dach eines 25-stöckigen Gebäudes und spiele Herr über die Sonne, die Vögel und jegliches Leben.
? : Wird Eure Zusammenarbeit fortgesetzt? Oder ist ein Live-Auftritt in Deutschland sogar denkbar?
Angelo : Das hängt von den Plattenverkäufen ab. Wenn die Plattenfirma uns dann anspricht, werden wir gerne live spielen. Wir hoffen natürlich, daß die Plattenfirma auch unsere zukünftigen Aktivitäten sponsort. Immer wenn wir zusammen sind arbeiten wir an neuen Songs. (Sofort präsentiert er stolz die Noten für einen neuen Song, flüchtig auf eine Serviette gekritzelt). Tim fing beim Mittagessen an zu singen, und ich habe das halt schnell aufgeschrieben. Wir haben Ideen für mindestens sechs weitere Alben.
? : Was ist mit David Lynchs neuem Film “Lost Highway”? Warst Du wieder für die Musik verantwortlich, Angelo?
Angelo : Ja, wobei sich die Arbeit dazu mit den gemeinsamen Aufnahmen von Tim und mir überschnitten. So war es mir diesmal nicht möglich, den Film Minute für Minute zu zerlegen und dazu zu komponieren. David wollte mich aber unter allen Umständen wieder dabei haben. So habe ich ihm eine komplette Symphonie mit unterschiedlichen Stimmungen geschrieben. David mußte sie dann selbst auf den Film zurecht schneiden.
? : Angelo, Du bist ja für die eher dunklen Klänge à la Twin Peaks bekannt. Was hörst Du sonst für Musik?
Angelo : Nun ich liebe natürlich die dunklen, bittersüßen Klänge, für die ich bekannt bin. Ich mag aber auch Popmusik, ethnische Klänge. Eigentlich bin ich für alles offen und beschäftige mich sehr viel mit Musik aus aller Welt. Wo du gerade Twin Peaks erwähnst, es gibt ja eine Menge Geschichten um die Serie. Die schönste möchte ich dir noch zum Schluß erzählen; sie hat sich tatsächlich so zugetragen! Als ich das letzte Mal Paul McCartney traf, erzählte er mir, daß ich ihn mit meiner Musik ziemlich aus der Fassung gebracht hätte. Er sollte einmal 40 Min. Musik für einen Empfang bei der Queen komponieren. Die Queen verabschiedete sich auf diesem Empfang jedoch sehr früh von ihm. Auf seine enttäuschte Frage hin, warum sie denn nicht wenigstens noch seine Musik hören wolle, entgegnete sie nur: “Aber Mr McCartney, gleich beginnt doch Twin Peaks!”.
? : Danke für das Interview!
Who does Tim Booth think he is? Back in the public glare for the first time since 1993’s Laid LP, Booth has already done the one thing everyone else is falling over themselves not to do – he’s declared a total disinterest in the music of Oasis, dismissing them as “traditional” and “the mainstream.” Okay, it’s hardly cutting stuff, but it demonstrates a fundamental truth about Booth and his cohorts in James: they don’t enjoy playing by the rules.
“If we’d been a cooler band full-stop, James would have been much bigger,” says Booth. sipping herbal tea in Cyberia Cafe on Oxford Street. “But we never wanted that, it’s not what we’re about. We’re an awkward band, very awkward. But people want their traditional stuff, they want their rock’n’roll rebels, and that’s the mainstream. That’s Oasis, not us.”
Despite the talk about James, the reason Booth is back doing interviews is nothing to do with the band he has fronted for the last 13 years. Rather, he’s plugging a collaboration with the acclaimed New York composer Angelo Badalamenti, a 55-year-old bear of a man, best known for his sound track work with David Lynch for Twin Peaks. It doesn’t signal an end for James – their next LP is all but finished and should be released around January – it’s just a more public example of Booth’s life outside of James, something he says he’s always pursued with vigour. To Booth, the band have always been part of his life rather than his whole life.
“I do a lot of creative things outside James,” he says, gently yet confidently easing his way into conversation. “In that sense I’ve never wanted to be limited to working with one set of people. So now I’m branching out.”
Now aged 35, Booth has always maintained that he became the singer with James because of his dancing rather than his singing -the other band members spotted him in Manchester’s clubs in the early ’80s. In keeping with this, the last two years have seen him teaching dance at the drama college in Didsbury. “I do a lot of dance work. I go into a trance with dancing and I work with a woman in New York who does that -dance improvisation – which is very much about going into a trance. I love teaching it, it’s amazing; dancing is just incredible.”
And therein lies the conundrum, the stumbling block, that is Tim Booth and James. Yes, he’s fronted a successful guitar band for over a decade, has played with everyone from The Smiths to Neil Young, has had top ten singles. toured the world, sold millions of albums in both the UK and USA (Laid went Gold over there, which is a lot of records). But he is not very rock’n’roll: never has been and never will be.
“The dancing is actually more important to me than the singing,” he says, as he takes another dainty sip of tea. “And that’s kind of an accident – I became the singer with James because I danced, Angelo wanted to work with me after he saw me dance. So it’s like,” he begins to laugh, “that’s the thing I probably do the best.”
It’s also the thing that has helped define him as something of an oddball when it comes to great frontmen of our time. I remember first seeing Booth in 1986 and it was the flailing arms, the crazy eyes, the passion that stuck in my mind. Morrissey may have been throwing daffodils around and perfecting a similar off-the-wall dance, but his was choreographed, stylised. Booth, meanwhile, seemed so wrapped-up in it all that he didn’t care that he looked like a drunken reveller at wedding party. Strange days indeed.
“I’ve had knives pulled on me, glasses thrown at me when I’ve been dancing in clubs,” he recalls. “That was pre-house though. But then the dance thing came in and everyone was dancing like lunatics – they just didn’t know I wasn’t on drugs.
“Dancing is a very powerful, liberating thing,” continues Booth, getting into his stride. “That’s what draws me to it. It’s like to me, someone like Michael Jackson is more famous for his dancing than his singing – it’s more to do with the way he moves. That’s what pushed him through.”
Not everyone shares Booth’s fascination with dance. In fact it’s obvious that in many ways his exuberance, his lack of that all-important English reserve – check the likes of Ian Brown and Liam Gallagher for their cool stance – has been a barrier to wider acceptance. Like Joy Division’s Ian Curtis, whose very real epilepsy surfaced in his manic on-stage antics, Booth’s jerky gestures can both fascinate and repel. On a recent appearance for Jools Holland’s Later, the latter was apparent, at least it was as far as the camera work went. As Booth worked himself up into a frenzy, injecting some much-needed movement into the often staid, muso atmosphere of the Later studio. the camera panned away from him as if uncomfortable with what it was observing, choosing to focus on…the guitarist’s fret board. Booth’s exorcising of demons through music and dance don’t rest easily with what is expected of today’s rock’n’roll stars.
Of course the backdrop to all this is a time in the early ’90s when James were the toast of the town – admittedly after nearly a decade of false starts and media ridicule. There was a time when you couldn’t go out day or night without seeing someone wearing a James T-shirt. After the Roses played Spike Island, the band were the next Mancunian act to make the move to huge outdoor gigs, now the domain of Oasis, Simply Red and M People. The latter’s recent show at Alton Towers came some five years after James played to a crowd of over 30,000 people there. It was a turning point for both the band as a whole and Booth as an individual.
“Alton Towers was frightening. It was like 30,000 people turning up in the middle of nowhere and I remember thinking on the day, ‘what the fuck am I going to say to them’. It felt like I was holding a party and didn’t quite know what to do. And then after that we retreated.”
Well, not quite. A few years later with the release of the Brian Eno-produced Laid – arguably the band’s finest hour to date – they played more smaller-scale gigs, including G-Mex in Manchester. They also toured the US with Neil Young. It was around that time that tough decisions had to be made, specifically about where the band went next. After the departure of Martine McDonagh, the band’s long-term manager and mother to Booth’s eight-year-old son, the need for new management and a new direction was acute. The decisions that were made then have clearly shaped the last few years in Booth’s life.
“When Martine left, these guys who manage Metallica approached us. They took us in a room and said; ‘we’re going to make you all millionaires within two years, this is the plan’. And they just laid it all out in front of us – 120 date tour of America, stuff like that, and it was outrageous. And we just couldn’t go with them. We thought, ‘we can’t do that. That’s not us’.” Instead they plumped for New York-based Peter Rudge, someone they knew and who they got on with. Not that he’s a novice – he’s worked for the Rolling Stones for starters. His approach, however, gave the band the chance to do as they liked, to step back and contemplate.
And so Booth is where he is now, out on a limb, overshadowed in Britain by the phenomenal changes in the country’s pop culture since the last James record: the rise of Oasis, the resurgence of Blur, the eventual success of Pulp, the demise and return of Shaun Ryder, the second coming and slow collapse of the Roses, the mainstream acceptance of house music mirrored by the return of the guitar band as a pop staple. And that’s just the start of it. It’s a new environment which, unsurprisingly in the light of his band’s history, he seems somewhat at odds with. “It’s like all these bands at the moment who rip-off other bands and deconstruct their songs – I don’t get that. I could never do that and neither could James, it’s just not in our nature. We’re too proud. We just want to express ourselves, not someone else. And we want the whole thing on our terms.”
Still, a lot can happen, a lot can change in three years. Booth has spent a lot of time in New York, principally working with Badlamenti on the new LP, but also hanging out, exploring possibilites outside of James. One of the possibilities is the life of an actor – he was offered the role of Tommy in the musical of the same name, currently running on Broadway, but “I went to see it and it was shit, so I didn’t do it.” And of course, there’s this new non-James record, the worth of which shouldn’t be overlooked; it’s a classy, uplifting collection of songs, the type of album that will slowly sell as people begin to realise how good it is.
“The record’s a very happy one. I was dancing a lot at the time,” grins Booth, settling back into a sofa in the corner of Cyberia, following a brief City Life photo-shoot. “I was dancing, I was roller-blading. It was a real breakthrough in my life during that time. Anyone who affects my life is in this record.”
And his choice of collaborator? Booth has been a fan of Badalamenti:s work for many years – he first caught the bug after hearing Floating Into The Night by Julee Cruise, with music written by Badalamenti and lyrics by the director David Lynch. The story goes (or so the press release says, which means it should be taken with a pinch of salt) that Booth was told by a clairvoyant that he would find it creatively rewarding if he worked with ‘a man with the name of an angel’. Years later, and after a year of pestering Badalamenti with phone calls, they met after a gig in 1993 and agreed to work together. They began work in the summer of 1994, working over a period of one and a half years in three, one month sessions. The record was actually near to completion a year a go, but was held up by disagreements between Booth and his record company over who should remix it. In the end the job was split between Tim Simenon (of Bomb The Bass fame) and, most tellingly, ex-Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, who also plays guitar on the album.
“I think it will sell a lot and do really well,” says Booth. “And the James record’s going to ride on the back of that. It sounds really amazing.” For that record, James have somehow brought together the production talents of both the experimentalist Eno and the pop genius Stephen Hague, noted for his work with the Pet Shop Boys, amongst many others. Following on from Booth’s work with Badalamenti, it will mark a pivotal moment in both Booth and the band’s career. Will they battle back into the spotlight, or remain overshadowed by the new British pop royalty? Booth quite rightly feels there’s a struggle ahead. But does he crave acclaim and recognition once more?
“I don’t crave recognition but I think we deserve it,” he says. “I think we’ve made a lot of great records over a long period of time. I don’t see many bands doing that.” He pauses, smiles and adds, “I don’t see any bands doing that.”
Brave, and quite possibly foolish words. But for the moment the soft-spoken yet tough-talking Booth has made a powerful, moving LP to be proud off. Born of the creative urges of a man obsessed with dancing, the question awaiting an answer is whether it will make Booth the leader of the dance once more. Booth’s clairvoyant never provided an answer to that.
Tim Booth’s collaboration with Angelo Badalamenti, Booth And The Bad Angel (Mercury), is out now.
Booth and the Bad Angel is a collaboration between Tim Booth and film composer Angelo Badalamenti released in June 1996. Two singles were released from the album, I Believe in May 1996 and Fall In Love With Me in May 1998.
The collaboration came about as a result of a question posed by the organisers of Channel 4’s Live At The Dome when Tim was asked who he would most like to work with. The wheels were put in motion although it took two years and transatlantic phone calls before the two met. Initial recording took place in a six-week period at the end of 1995 with more sessions in London in early 1996 including Bernard Butler, ex-Suede guitarist, on guitar.
I Believe / Dance Of The Bad Angels / Hit Parade / Fall In Love With Me / Old Ways / Life Gets Better / Heart / Rising / Butterfly’s Dream / Stranger / Hands In The Rain
Release Name: | Booth And The Bad Angel |
Artist Name: | Booth And The Bad Angel |
Release Date: | July 1996 |
UK Chart: | |
Format: | Studio Album |
Label: | Mercury/Fontana |
Catalogue: | 526 852-2 |
Produced: | Bernard Butler |
Engineered: | Art Pohlemus, Mike Krowiak, Nigel Godrich, Steve 'Doc' Williams, Andrea Wright, Gerard Navarro |
Mixed: | Bernard Butler |
Additional Musicians: | |
Recorded: | Excalibur Sound Productions; Mayfair Studios; Westside Studios; RAK Studios; Konk Studios; Parr Street Studios; The Hit Factory; RPM Studios |
Booth and the Bad Angel is a collaboration between Tim Booth and film composer Angelo Badalamenti released in June 1996. Two singles were released from the album, I Believe in My 1996 and Fall In Love With Me in May 1998.
The collaboration came about as a result of a question posed by the organisers of Channel 4’s Live At The Dome when Tim was asked who he would most like to work with. The wheels were put in motion although it took two years and transatlantic phone calls before the two met. Initial recording took place in a six-week period at the end of 1995 with more sessions in London in early 1996 including Bernard Butler, ex-Suede guitarist, on guitar.
Booth And The Bad Angel is the name given to the collaborative project by vocalist Tim Booth and composer Angelo Badalamenti. Booth is perhaps best known as the vocalist for the pop band James (Laid, Wah Wah ) and Badalamenti as the man behind the moody, atmospheric soundtracks of “Twin Peaks” and “Blue Velvet,” as well as for his work with Marianne Faithfull and Julee Cruise (Floating Into The Night ). As the story has it, the two artists met up on a now-defunct British music show whose intention was to bring together musicians from disparate genres. Well, by all accounts, it worked, because not too terribly long after that chance meeting, this unlikely pair set out to make a record.
Together, Booth and Badalamenti have crafted a highly-textured collection of tracks. Rich, lush and ornate, the project successfully combines Badalamenti’s tendency toward the tragic and darkly ethereal with Booth’s energetic and upbeat pop sensibilities. The opening number, “I Believe,” is a catchy tune featuring ex-Suede Bernard Butler (who also receives mixing and production credit on nearly half of the tracks) on guitar and percussions. Other tracks include the dreamy, floating, “Fall In Love With Me,” (“I hear the sound of moons falling/surrender to this charm”); the poppy, hook-laden “Old Ways;” the hypnotic, psychedelic “Life Gets Better;” and the steamy, rollicking “Butterfly’s Dream,” (“Drag my lips across these mouths/Drag my hips across this crowd . . . I’d love to sleep/with the whole town”). In this unique collaboration, Booth and Badalamenti take various elements of their respective musical worlds and meld them into something entirely new. The end result is an engaging, atmospheric pop album.
Pop seems to be riven with collaboration fever at the moment, as everyone from Tricky to the Prodigy goes in search of ever more unlikely people to work with. As far as this goes, Tim Booth, whose day job is as singer with the English group James, has outdone them all. Angelo Badalamenti is best known for having composed the ethereal soundtracks to David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet, and his capture by Booth is quite a coup. On the whole, Booth and the Bad Angel sounds more like a James record than a Badalamenti one, veering as it does between up-tempo pop and often self-consciously dark slow-burners. For all that, it does contain traces of the composer’s textural genius – he thinks of his sound as “tragically beautiful” – in the ambient sweep of a synthesised string section here, the tentative lilt of a piano line there. Essentially though, this is a souped-up rock album, a James album with extra weird bits and a few good tunes, and it’s pleasant enough.
In theory, this could have been complete arse. After three years’ silence, James singer Booth has hooked up with veteran composer Badalamenti for a semi-improvised ambient pop opus, with Brian Eno and Bernard Butler coming aboard halfway through. Imagine all those egos in one studio. Passengers 2, anyone?
And yet this is a glorious triumph of pop over pomp. James were headed towards these wide-open horizons anyway, but cutting loose seems to have freed Booth to truly soar. From the moment he swoops in over the anthemic ‘I Believe’ – wherein Badalamenti’s soft, ambient waves lap mellifluously against Butler’s leisurely twanging – Tim’s feet barely touch the ground. “Why be a song when you can be a symphony?” the singer beams, encapsulating the widescreen feel of this entire album.
Bathed in the same spectral half-light Badalamenti employed for his Twin Peaks and Julee Cruise projects, Booth croons euphoric lullabies like ‘Please Fall in Love’ with woozy grandeur. In the slinky funk-out ‘Dance of the Bad Angels’ he smooches like an indie George Michael, while the majestic final track, ‘Hands in the Rain’, twinkles into infinity, melting away to a warm afterglow.
But all is not lofty detachment here. Booth’s lyrics still babble about healing, inner children, astrology and other such New Age gubbins, though thankfully they’re undercut with a lusty exuberance and a self-mocking humour. Even sex, that force of nature which has little Timmy running scared on ‘Laid’, is heartily embraced in the frazzled mantra ‘Butterfly Dreams’, with Booth cheerfully crooning: “I’d love to sleep with the whole town”
This is a mighty album, with only one or two flawed experiments – and hopefully, Booth will maintain this standard on future James albums. In the meantime, just sit back and wallow in that rare phenomenon, a truly inspired collaboration.
claimed young Mr. Sit Down. “I’ll slap your face,” rejoined old Mr. Twin Peaks. Near-the-knuckle jests aside, when this pan-generational pop pair met, all hell didn’t break loose. In fact – with Bernard Butler in tow – Tim Booth and Angelo Badalamenti made sweet music of their own. David Cavanagh swoons.
The skinny half of the partnership, Tim Booth, was born in Bradford in 1960. He’s the singer in James, a six-way improvisational band that, very occasionally, has hits (eg Sit Down). Booth is also a masseur, a mate of Brian Eno’s, a dance teacher, a numerologist, a former alumnus of Shrewsbury school (alma mater of Michael Heseltine), an ex-Manchester university drama student and fan on Patti Smith who comes perilously close to tears whenever he talks of her.
The “wider” partner in this two-man organisation is Angelo Badalamenti, born in Brooklyn in 1937. In the year of Booth’s birth, Badalamenti was teaching music and english in a New York school. He moved briefly to Woldingham in Surrey; began to write pop tunes; was told by Joe Meek that he had a glorious singing voice; went back to Brooklyn; penned hits for Melba Moore, Nancy Wilson and Nina Simone; scored dozens of movie soundtracks under the name Andy Badale; and wrote the superlative music for David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart and most famously of all, Twin Peaks.
Between them they confess a fondness for Iggy Pop, Herbert Lom, poetic lyrics and eerie beautiful songs. And finally, with the release of their album, Booth & the Bad Angel, the 59 year-old Badalamenti makes his debut appearance as a vocalist, on a song called Life Gets Better.
So it was just me and Joe Meek who wanted you to sing?” Booth teases him over lunch in London’s West End.
“No,” replies Badalamenti between munches of pasta, recalling a third champion. “Tony Orlando. Remember Tony Orlando & Dawn?”
“You’ve ruined the fucking story, Angelo,” Booth cries. “Why didn’t you just leave it at Joe Meek? I was in cool company there and you bring Dawn to the table.”
Most of the singing on Booth & the Bad Angel is by Booth, a serene yet cynical fellow who today punctuates his mouthfuls of sausage with strange, throat-clearing noises like Jack Lemmon in the Odd Couple. Hrrrmmm Grrrmmm. Every time Booth sneezes, Badalamenti says “Gesundheit.”
A rehearsal for Later with Jools Holland follows lunch, where they’ll play the album’s first two singles (I Believe and Hit Parade), with the remaining members of James providing the musical backing. Then Booth will head off to see Patti Smith playing at the Serpentine Gallery, and oh dear, choke, sob.
He and Badalamenti have already made a pact to record a follow-up album – an odder, darker record than this one – providing commitments will allow. Badalamenti is collaborating with Lynch on the latter’s movie, Lost Highway. Booth has nearly completed a record with James and wants to be an actor. He was offered the part of Tommy on Broadway, but – he claims – refused to do it unless Iggy played Uncle Ernie. Badalamenti thinks Booth is a genius.
“Tim and I – I can honestly say – we didn’t have a single disagreement making this record,” coos Badalamenti.
“I’ve moved into Angelo’s house,” smirks Booth. “I’m sleeping with his daughter.”
“I’ll slap your face,” retorts Badalamenti, putting his fork down. “You forget I’m part Sicilian. My uncle Tony will be paying you a visit.”
Prior to 1990. Booth and Badalamenti had never heard of each other. That year, Booth fell in love with Julee Cruise’s remarkable album of dream-songs, Floating Into the Night (music by Badalamenti and lyrics by Lynch) and was delighted to be asked, by the producer of Channel 4’s Friday Night at the Dome, to choose a musician from anywhere in the world with whom he’d like to collaborate. For over a year the two men attempted to meet, with no joy, until a Paul McCartney recording session brought Badalamenti over to London on Concorde (the only way he’ll cross the Atlantic). That night, James played at the venue formerly known as the Town & Country Club in London’s Kentish Town.
So this is the kid who’s been leaving crazy messages on my answerphone, thought Angelo Badalamenti when they met backstage.
Wow, he looks like a New York taxi driver, thought Tim Booth.
Fontana Records – the label to which James signed in 1990 – gave Booth & the Bad Angel (that’s “bad” in the James Brown sense, not the Satanic sense) the financial backing to make an album. For the next two years, the pair worked infrequently. Booth had a James album to make (Laid, 1994) and he felt guilty asking Badalamenti to turn down movie soundtracks.
He’s terrible, he’s turned down loads of stuff,” Booth sighs. “He turned down Leonard Cohen, Tori Amos (to Badalamenti) What are you doing, turning down Leonard Cohen? You need a manager.”
The album they slowly co-wrote and co-produced was full of slightly off-centre but melodic pop songs, which surprised those who’d expected 11 woozy reprises of Laura Palmer’s Theme, or Sit Down. But it didn’t have any decent guitar playing, so Booth cold-called Bernard Butler, late of Suede, who was about to leave for France to record his comeback single, Yes, with David McAlmont.
“Tim rang me up,” the down-to-earth Butler recounts in a Soho café as he sips his mineral water, “and said he wanted me to fly to New York. I said, Look, I’ve never met you, I don’t know anything about this, and I’m not going.”
Butler, however, is all over Booth & the Bad Angel, and, in gratitude for his cheap, not to mention speedy contributions, Booth has allowed him a photo in the album booklet. He plays on seven tracks (guitar, piano, bass) and did the mixing on six.
“I could tell Tim was an excitable kind of guy,” Butler says. “Down the phone he was like, Wow that’s so exciting! But he’s funny. You can take the piss out of him a little. I said to him, Tim, in every one of these lyrics, you’re either ‘flying’ or you’re ‘free'”
Within weeks, Butler trusted Booth enough to submit to a massage one afternoon when he needed to shake off a vicious cold. Booth massaged him so formidably that, not only did the cold disappear, but Butler was unable to hold a guitar for several hours afterwards.
“I was thinking, Christ, what have I done – I’ve taken away his demons” admits Booth.
“I was feeling like I’d had four E’s and a bottle of Scotch,” muses Butler. “He gets on your back and starts breathing and blowing on you. He was there for about twenty minutes. I got up and felt very nice. Everything was all fluffy.”
And what are we to make of Avril, Booth’s favoured psychic? Avril who, according to Booth, has never been proved wrong, predicted some years ago that he would work with an American “who has the name of an angel.” Badalamenti finds this wonderful.
Avril also predicted that James would work with Brian Eno – they have – and has lately told Booth to “watch out for the crossed feathers.” Which is sound advice in any one’s book.
James singer Tim Booth has teamed up with Bernard Butler to record an album under the name the Bad Angels which will be released in March or April this year.
The album was produced by Angelo Badalamenti, who wrote the music for David Lynch’s Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. The Bad Angles were joined by Brian Eno who added backing vocals on some of the tracks.
Booth, who is now a New York City resident, was enthusiastic about Butler, who engineered the album.
James are working on new material with producer Stephen Hague, which will either be released at the end of this year or early in 1997.