None.
None.
The encore of this gig was recorded for the Old Grey Whistle Test.
The last Big Noise to burst forth from an ICA Rock Week was The Jesus And Mary Chain and this they did literally when scowls from the stage gave way to scuffles in the foyer. This might explained the “police presence” outside the prim bunker-like venue on the first night of “I Want Independents” week. But really, they needn’t have bothered.
See, James are nice boys, raised on Mama Morrissey’s milk of tragicomic humanism (I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when singer Tim wailed “An earwig crawled into my ear / Made a meal of the wax and hair) and gloriously devoid of trappings.
So the amps stayed miraculously upright, drummer Gavan stayed (for the most part) behind his Ringo-style kit – leaving the music to dwell amongst us with good deal of swank and even more swell.
To explain : James have completely redefined the traditional rock dynamic by replacing the ingenious devices of tension and release with … well, one long crescendo. So a song like “Prison” goes from bulky bass chords and hamstrung high-life guitar propped up by Tim’s nursery rhyme vocal melodies to a polyrhythmic explosion charged by octopus-armed Gavan and animated by Tim’s preacher man paroxysms.
The tease and dare is reinstated by James unique, not to say camp, delivery. And here lay my reservations for the evening. Music suffers from being bathed in contentment: what’s needed now is a more restless approach from this over-rehearsed quartet. But such nagging pales beside the simple fact that these grinning Mancunians have revamped the tones of guitar rock without replacing them with a worthless rattle of meaningless murk.
The next Big Noise.
None.
None
Thank God then for James, a Factory band with the sort of talent that most headliners would struggle to find in a month of Blue Mondays. If regulation guitar, drums, bass and vocals are back in style then add to your list of potential hitmakers this magnificent four-piece band.
Beginning a well-constructed, well-received set with the patting of a cow-bell in ‘Hymn From A Village’, James build their sound around flurries of cascading vocals tacked onto the janglies of a post-Postcard guitar. Skipping from a chugging, almost Latin beat in ‘Withdrawn’ to the up-and-down, fast-and-slow motions of ‘What’s The World’, James not only make enjoyable music but actually look as though they enjoy making it. Throwing himself into spasms, lead-singer Tim Booth amazes the audience by singing full pelt “I-I-I-I-I-I” then modestly bouncing backstage and almost throwing away the lines “I wear an armour plated suit / You put your lips to helmet slits / You try to suck me out the tin / I can’t get out, I’m welded in”
The band’s debut release.
What’s The World / Folklore / Fire So Close
| Release Name: | Jimone EP |
| Artist Name: | James |
| Release Date: | 1st November 1983 |
| Format: | Studio EP |
| Catalogue: | FAC78 |
JIMONE was conceived as a means of getting the band more gigs. Despite local support slots for Orange Juice, The Fall and New Order, James had struggled to get shows outside of Manchester without a record to their name.
Mike Pickering of Factory Records, and later M People, had picked up on the band’s demo tape and after having promoted several James shows at Factory’s Hacienda club, agreed to release the band’s debut single.
Factory wanted James to release Withdrawn and Hymn From A Village as the single, but the band, wary of going into the studio, wanted to record what they saw as three of their worst tracks so they wouldn’t blow their best songs through inexperience in the studio.
The single was recorded with Chris Nagle at Strawberry Studios in Stockport
The single’s distinctive artwork came about by mistake. Unable to decide upon a cover, Jim picked up a red pen and scrawled JIMONE on a green card. With just hours to go until the printer’s deadline, the band chose this childlike scrawl as the cover. The title was also a skit on Factory’s insistence on cataloguing their releases in chronological order, JIMONE being FAC78.
The single succeeded in bringing James to the attention of the national music press who were picking up on fellow Mancunians The Smiths and New Order. It was voted single of the week in all three major weekly music papers – NME, Melody Maker and Sounds.
The Smiths became champions of James, Morrissey describing them as “the best band in the world” and paying the band the ultimate compliment of covering What’s The World on their 1985 Scottish tour and releasing it on the I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish cassette single.
The Smiths and now a group called James – who’d have figured Manchester as the centre of a post-industrial semi-acoustic renaissance? This has more to do with the romantic side of Genesis P-Orridge than Dexy’s Po-Faced Runners and going by “Folklore” it might be as much tongue-in-chic as finger-in-ear. What might have been a perverse stab at being different, however, is already developing into an odd idiosyncratic vision on “What’s The World”.
None.
An early demo tape produced for Rob Gretton at Factory Records.
Stutter / Things Were Perfect / What’s The World / Vulture / Discipline / Announcement / Insect (aka Skullduggery) / Sea Song (aka Chain Mail) / Withdrawn / Fire So Close
| Release Name: | Side B |
| Artist Name: | James |
| Release Date: | 23rd March 1983 |
| Format: | Promo Album |
| Catalogue: | n/a |
This is an early demo tape produced for Rob Gretton at Factory Records.
The note on the tape, which is addressed to Rob, says “Quality of the tape recorded in practise was really bad, so here’s a live tape.”
The exact date is unknown but it is likely that it was recorded the Liverpool State Ballroom gig on the 23rd March 1983 as the setlist is identical.
The track list includes a good number of early songs, some under early names; Insect was later released as Skullduggery and Sea Song as Chain Mail.
What’s The World is the lead track on the 1983 James debut EP Jimone.
Live versions of the track feature on the Come Home Live cd and dvd and a 1984 Discreet Campaigns fanzine tape.
It appeared on the first two demo tapes and was played at a Fall support show at Manchester Poly as early as 1980. The first version featured lyrics by Paul, which were substituted on the second 1982 version by Gavan and Jennie Ingram’s lyrics, before Tim joined and rewrote it completely.
The original lyrics featured the lines “Oh why can’t you see / What you’re doing to me / Between the pleasure and the pain / It really fucks up my brain”
The song was covered by The Smiths and was released on their I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish cassette single then a US Sweet And Tender Hooligan single and finally the two-disc version of The Sound Of The Smiths.
Live Version (Discreet Campaigns cassette)
| Song: | What's The World |
| Released: | 1st November 1983 |
| Main Associated Album (or Single): | Jimone EP |
| First Heard Live: | Unknown Venue – 22nd November 1982 |