James Living Room

See you, Jimmy!

JAMES 

Living Room

A FEW nights previously. I'd foolishly asked Bernard Albrecht if his beloved Factory Records hadn’t been following a cosy line in self-vindication of late with its son-of-New Order-releases by the likes of the Wake.

"Hah!" said he in his best Brando manner, "what about Vinnie?". Point taken, but if you're going to illustrate the diversity of Wilson's workers then James just have to be the logical example. Dammit, these boys don't even want to be on Factory!

Why else would they send up the label's visual anonymity by plastering the title of their debut three track 45 over the sleeve of last year's brilliant 'Jimone'. And why should I be traipsing along to the Living Room to see this four-piece (along with fellow Mancunians My American Wife plus a good friend of mine, Pete Astor, deliver a short, finely judged acoustic set of the Loft's finest moments past, present, and future) having heard nothing of the band since that illustrious debut?

Simply because James don't want to play the game. Thus: it would be easier for the entire audience (sizeable) to dance on a coffin than for James to confine themselves to the similarly sized stage, so singer Tim bravely steps, into the void, taking the shuffling, scuffling, singeing music with him.

Should James ever wish to take their music elsewhere, I confidently predict that that beached but still ticklish whale of contemporary trendiness Blanco Y Negro will break a flipper trying to sign them.

But with the band's unforced, unforgettable folkiness, they'll have to take a handy distillation of everything masterful and magnificent about Manchester's musical heritage ie there's something about the band's slow buildups that evokes Joy Division's feverish emotional complacency.

And there's also something of the serene release of the Smiths (half of whom are present) wherein nothing remains unresolved and therefore nothing seems fudged or forgotten. Now if only they could, get back to the brevity of ‘Folklore" days (something dem Smiths are only now achieving), James would be a truly world-beating proposition.

BILL BLACK