Feels A Lot Like Love That I Feel For You…

No reviews this time, no gigs unfortunately, though the upside of James being locked away in a studio recording the new album is tantalisingly exciting. This is the inspirational bit, the bit where I attempt to put into words the importance of what this band do to me, physically and emotionally. I’ve said a lot about the transformational effect that this year and it’s James related activity has had on me. About a year and a half ago I rediscovered James and started writing again, proper writing that one day will add up into a novel of some sort. It was very cathartic, I listened, cried buckets, picked up a pen and the words just flowed out from some locked up place. But more has been released than just my words. I guess at its most basic level I’ve felt connected again, connected to everything that at my core is important to me at a very primeval level. I wanted to go home, but I’d lost the map. This year and the James related madness has been, excuse the cliche, a voyage of discovery where I've found myself again and been able to move on after an overly extended hiatus.

Not just any music does it for me. Something happens when I listen to James that moves my spine, stretches my neck, moves me at a molecular level. I regularly laugh out loud at the insanity of what I’ve had to re-remember this year. Movement is something that has been a part of my life for so long that for a while I forgot what it meant to me. This year has thrown so much back into place with all of that. Many years ago when I was a student I picked up two leaflets for two different courses, one was for a Gabrielle Roth 5 Rhythms class, the other was for something called Life Moves with an amazing woman called Mala Sikka, who was based in South Wales at the time. It took the mindfulness of yoga and tai chi to some fantastical space beyond, at the time I couldn’t put into words what it meant, I needed space and time to grow older and wiser before I could understand the path I’d embarked upon. The movement work was very bare and raw, we worked in silence, it was a very intense period of attunement. At the time I had no idea that Tim was involved in the 5 Rhythms thing, which is amusing and bizarre at the same time. For me in the last couple of years, one of the funniest and most intriguing things about rediscovering James is finding out how so many of the things I spent 10 years trying to work out had their seeds sown way back. Listening to Chainmail live this year suddenly made the penny drop, my body began to move properly again. Consciously, unconsciously and sub consciously all at the same time. Ah well, that’s life I guess. I'm glad to be alive again.

Something was said recently on one of the James forums recently about the sexual side of James’ performances. Moving your body, dancing, sweating with strangers doesn’t have to be limited to being a sexual thing. It is and can be sexy, but it’s so much more. We’ve narrowed down our routes to experiencing joy so much, that I think we confuse ourselves at times into thinking that things are the only way. When I dance it goes beyond words. When James play they throw out energy in all directions, I think it’s why Tim stresses the importance of connection so much. That energy circles, it goes from band to audience and back again. When you feel that take you, and you dance into oblivion, then yes it is sexual and impulsive on a very everyday level. But step outside your conditioning, what you feel is release, release from the crap that accumulates on us and wears us down, release from our self imposed boundaries, release from reality. I’m trying to find words that won’t end up being twisted by others into a suggestion that James gigs are some kinda mad tantric orgy. James are a sexy band, in particular they have a divinely sexy Tim and Larry, and the others aren’t bad either. Their music is impulsive and spontaneous, it gets confused with sex because most of us only experience that total abandonment during sex, we associate all that mad fizzing joy with that alone and don’t realise that it exists in so many other forms. Hence Tim saying ‘Sex is overrated, I need to dance.’ God, I understand that. There’s that line in a Sit Down, that Tim is singing to Doris Lessing and Patti Smith, ‘Feels a lot like love, that I feel for you’ and that just encapsulates it. Love, joy, passion, lust they all operate in so many ways, not just by the surface and obvious.

I say all this largely because I’m clutching at straws to find a way to explain how this band have cast such a magical spell over me. I sometimes wonder if there are subliminal hypnotic messages embedded in their words and sounds. I’ve spent years travelling around India, trying to learn, and yet it is listening to James that opens up the cosmos to me. Irony is a splendid thing. Magic abounds when those guys get up onstage, I can only believe they have an awareness of that.

A non review of a non performance

A night not really like any night I’ve ever experienced. It’s hard to write a review on the basis of songs heard once fleetingly, so much of the intensity and expectation was of the moment. It truly was a night of the gap between crack and thunder, a moment that hung briefly in time, never to be repeated. If that sounds dramatic then it’s meant to be. It was a very special night.

Waiting outside during soundcheck and hearing sounds we’d never heard before was thrilling. We knew it was going to be different, but even so the frisson of excitement that came when we saw the setlist inside the venue, a setlist comprised entirely of new songs took me by surprise. It bravely did what we’d been told to expect, there were no concessions to even new songs we know like Upside. It also marks a crunch point for James. This is where the reunion really begins; the derailment of writing processes caused by the tour and festivals over the summer was part one of this story. This is part two, the part that counts the most, the part where these guys have to pull out the stops and play their cards. We’ve heard about these new songs all summer, now ladies and gentlemen, the show is really beginning….

What follows is my attempt to make some sense of the hungover notes I scrawled on the train home to Nottingham. I’ll go through my thoughts on each song and then add some comments at the end. Like the gig it’s a bit raw, a bit unstructured, but that seems to be the best way to describe such a strange and beautiful night.

CHILD TO BURN – Good start, not staggering, but I enjoyed it. I’d probably have preferred a slightly bolshier introduction.
GOOD MOOD SUNDAY – Loved the title when I saw the setlist, but not so sure about this one. That’s to say it got a seven… It wasn’t the most memorable track of the night.
OUT OF OUR HEADS – Gig gets rocking for me with this one. It’s catchy and gets me bouncing along merrily, always a good sign. Can’t help but sing along. I love the fine line James walk between throwaway and divinely inspiring. This one has potential to be one of those songs.
HEY MA – Been looking forward to hearing this, as I wasn’t at the Edinburgh gig. I liked it a lot. Couldn’t make out the lyrics clearly enough, and I can’t read backwards through the lyric stand. I could make out the ‘boys in body bags coming home in pieces bit’ which frankly is something that needs to be said. We seem to be living in an absurdly apathetic age, and no one is making music that makes a stand. The critics will probably pan it for the 9/11 thing, but who cares, I’d rather speak out than be one of the senseless party-goers as Rome burns around me. Aside from subject matter, musically it sounded excellent.
WATERFALL – Sounded good, probably more of an album track than a live one, like Fear.
PURE BEAUTY – Larry’s guitar sounded ace on this one, really ace.
I WANNA GO HOME – More guitar heaven from Larry. Had that yearning thing going on that I love. ‘In this bar I’m dying’ –love that line. I could quite easily have cried.
A/B – This one felt a bit rough, there’s something in there but I’m not sure where it’s headed right now. Loved the guitar, which was reminiscent of the reworked Chainmail - a favourite of mine, it was a bit funky and pulled together more could sound very good.
MOTHERS A CLOWN – I laughed at the title of this one. My Mum wouldn’t babysit for me because she was waiting in for a case of wine to be delivered. My Mum truly is a clown, but not in a good way. Apparently the song is about Mum’s being clowns in a good way. I’m hoping my own kids see me in the good category. Despite the way I keep abandoning them too run off to James gigs. I was trying to listen to the lyrics but couldn’t catch them clearly enough, my one complaint about Hoxton as a venue is that the vocals get lost a bit, to the point of inaudibility at times.
BETTER IN BLACK- I wrote down something about fish heads and stray cats on the original setlist that Larry nabbed off me. I really liked the vocal style on this one; it was punchy and really had something about it.
OH MY HEART – This one was epic, again Larry’s guitar was awesomely good. Oh My Heart? I thought it was going to burst.
FEAR? – I can imagine this as an awesome album track. I’d lie down and float off somewhere. Live it drifted a bit for me, but I think that was environment more than song. When you’re stood so close to the band it’s sometimes hard to know where to look, especially when Larry has his inscrutable sunglasses on.
WHITE BOY – The cow bell one. Great. It had a slightly manic feel, in that way James songs are a bit off kilter and not like anything else any other bands do. As keeps being said, focus track potential.
BUBBLES – At last a song I’ve heard before! This blew me away at Belladrum, and it blew me away again tonight. That chorus, I’m Aliiiive, it just does it for me in that James way. It is joy, it is celebration of life, and it is connection. It’s why I love this band so much.
BOOM BOOM – I was expecting some fireworks, but this seemed a bit of a flat way to end. I think there could be something good in there, but it’s not found its way to the surface yet.

Saul getting the violin out more was brilliant, I hope that continues, in fact I insist it continues.

There was also some awesome drumming from Dave on a couple of tracks, very old school James, one track reminded me a bit of Medieval, whichever song it was, it sounded really good and I hope that stays through to the final cut.

It was slightly disappointing not having an encore, Upside and Not So Strong would’ve really finished the night off for me, we were literally begging for more, and it would’ve been nice to have been finished off …

I really hope that the production is good on the new album. Lee Baker being involved cheers me greatly as I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. The songs on Monday were raw and unpolished, but I hope that the rawness shines through the final cut. So often James seem to get overproduced, songs seem to get perfected beyond perfection and the final result detracts from what James truly are, a band whose greatest strength is tightrope walking the fine line between anarchy and chaos. When James are on fire live they create a divinely beautiful spontaneity. I’m not sure how that can happen in the studio, I’m not a musician, but I really do hope Lee can tweak that out of them.

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My strongest connection with James is lyrically, I just love the way Tim writes them. I can’t remember the exact quote but somewhere in my age addled brain is something Nietzsche said about music filling a gap that words can’t express. For me song lyrics do something poetry can’t, they express emotion and intensity perfectly. I am a text person, and for me to like music the lyrics have to stir my soul. On Monday some of the lyrics seemed a bit too reliant on repetition. It’s not too long before recording begins, and I was expecting something slightly more coherent by now. Not having been privy to such an opus in composition before, maybe that’s the way it always is. Maybe things magically come together, my personal writing processes are very unstructured and I guard my work in progress cautiously, so it’s a brave move to stand up and be counted when you’re only halfway there. This is not meant as a slight in any way, and it’s going to be fascinating to see how the songs evolve.

So really this is it, the bit where James have to do what they’ve been promising us, all that stuff about balls and risk taking is crucial now. The gigs so far this year have filled my heart with absolute joy, now I want to hear an album that does the same. On the evidence of what I’ve heard I’m feeling very positive. Do us proud boys!