Cuttings

A massive earthquake hit Mexico City on 19 September 1985 , prompting this benefit gig at ULU. I only actually found out about it on the Tuesday (22 October) of the same week of the gig, so we didn't have advance tickets and it was a case of chancing it on the night. The car breaking down twice, once in Trafalgar Square, the second in Shaftesbury Avenue, didn't exactly help our chances, but we did it just - with one of us being the last but one admitted. Support were James , who performed a slow version of " Fire So Close " and a song about earwigs (amongst others). New Order were on top form this night, borne out by the reviews in Melody Maker and NME below. State of the Nation featured some additional lyrics and interesting use of echo on the drums towards the end. Echo also featured on guitar parts in Everything's Gone Green , embellishing it nicely.  Hooky introduced Age of Consent as a tribute to Gary Holton , who'd died earlier that day, and was ...

Page 6—New Musical Express 27th July, 1985 IT'S A WOMAD, MAD, MAD WORLD GAVIN MARTIN and ADRIAN THRILLS return from ‘The Mexican Embassy’ and other vantage points at last weekend’s WOMAD Festival in Essex to declare — hey, some of these events are good! First, second, and third world pictures by FOUR EYES . IT STARTED late, of course, and stayed that way the whole time I was there. The crowd didn’t seem to mind, they arrived gradually in painted charabancs and buses —weekend campers, the festival freaks, alternative entrepeneurs, purveyors of mind-altering stimulants, women carrying their children in kangaroo pouches, squaddies from the nearby army camp, kids with outrageously painted faces. They set up home in a cross between a Saxon village and a Morrocan street bazaar. The easygoing frugality extended to the backstage area where the changing rooms were a collection ofsmall marquees (no limo entrances and hasty Glastonbury style exits here). Flanked on one side...

James, the enigmatic - Mancunian gang have a most versatile and willing drummer who goes by the name of Gavin. So in love with his art is he that when scoffing away at a Greek restaurant where the traditional band's drummer fell ill, he was more than keen to interrupt his troughing to fill in the vacancy... JAMES are the highly rated Manchester outfit who, in last week’s NME were named by Morrissey of The Smiths as his “best group” - so it's hardly surprising that they’re supporting The Smiths on their UK tour, starting this Wednesday. Their new single ‘Hymn From A Village’ is out on Factory Records this week. James are changing so fast these days it's hard to keep touch. Their set is, by the very nature of who they are, the excitement of chance rather than a sterile pursuit of perfection, but their repertoire of feelings and melodies has expanded since I saw them last. So has their audience who seem to have laid claim to a natural right to change places with vocalist Tim ...

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 nothi...

AS IMPORTANT AS BREATHING! JAMES  London ULU LET ME try and explain. James are hypnotic, grown-up, innocent, clear, sad, original and real. They are also, quite simply, brilliant. Their set started with the merest patter - ‘Sea Song’ - voice and drums, bass and guitar, sketching the outline of their vision. Imagine, if you will, Bo Diddley meets The Dubliners meets Joy Division. James are Rock And Roll in the best possible sense, that is, they are enjoyable, sexy and as important as breathing. In addition there is a fine folkiness in their sound; not in the surface sense of the Byrds Of Rhymney and roi-de-doody-fiddle-do-day, but in the very texture of their music. There is the Martin Carthyesque edge to the singer’s voice and the fact that none of the instrumentalists in the band ever lean on the innumerable cliche/crutches that Rock has ever spawned to hide lack of talent. James are Mancunians; their songs emphasise repetition and beatiness (to do with the all-pervasive influenc...

JAMES Bloomsbury Theatre, London I CAN well understand that the male myths of rock 'n' roll idolatry weigh like a nightmare on the minds of today's more sensitive youths. And I can equally understand why one would want to avoid any hint of lumpy bits lurking beneath — they ambled on for a warmup acoustic set. What followed was a whole string of insipid folk dirges that oozed pre-packaged profundity and mock vulnerability, made all the more irritating by the antics of their singer, Tim Booth. Stumbling about the stage with what looked like a pair of Cornish pasties on his feet, his studied amateurism got right up my nose. Somebody should tell the poor boy that singing off mike, smilingly benignly like a holy idiot and blowing snot into a hankie, is not the last word in radical stagecraft Rather, it's gauche and ugly. Not the expressive ugliness of a Pere Ubu, but a neutral creepy ugliness. An hour later the cornish pasties were back, this time with an electric backing. I...

JAMES: Chain Mail ( Blanco   Y Negro ) The rustics who brought a racy edge and tumbling verve to their curious world on ‘Hymn To A Village’ don’t do much to suggest the excitement and fascination of that record here. This is cold, turgid and morose, cloistered in defiantly English whimsy - from the clip-clop primary school coconut shell sound effects that open to the clangorous Pete Hammill chorus that rises and groans throughout. I’m not sure what it’s about - though I’d take a guess at strained misery being spiced by transcendent longing - but, more pertinently, I don’t get the feeling I’d care anyway.

JAMES: Hymn From A Village ( Factory ) Morrissey allegedly loves this group: I find that hard to believe, mainly because it taxes the credulity beyond endurance to imagine Morrissey taking his eyes away from the mirror long enough to love anything or anybody else. An energetically cranked-up performance with guitar, bass, drums and vocalist all seriously overacting, the song repeatedly advises the listener “ Why don't you read a book/it’s so much more worthwhile? " I wish I was reading one right now.

NME   NEW ORDER THE WAKE JAMES Brixton Academy FOR GRAND Master Flunkers of a less-than-Arfur Baker-ed funk, New Order have received more than a fair share of sycophantic press coverage in their three year history. While their monotonous guitar breaks rang around the country to cries of "Spectacular!", their superficial spirit sat twiddling its thumbs in boredom. Tonight New Order were spectacularly boring.   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 hit-makers this magnificent four-piece band.   Beginning a well constructed, well received set with the patting of a cow-bell in 'Hymn Of A Village',  James build their sound around flurries of cascading vocals tacked on to the janglings of a post-Postcard guitar. Skipping from a chugging, almost Latin beat in '...