Other Projects
Apart from Tim Booth, other members of James have had successful music careers outside of the band. You can find out more here.
Spaceheads
Spaceheads are a duo of trumpet and drums, based in Manchester and London. They formed in the early 1990s and have released ten albums to date as well as toured extensively around Europe and the USA.
Andy Diagram plays trumpet through electronics mainly live loopers and harmonizers. Richard Harrison plays drums and percussion.
Their official website can be found here.
They are also on Facebook and Twitter.
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Money
Money was a side project of Saul, Dave, Mark and Jim in the late 1990s. Michael Kulas was also involved.
During the Whiplash sessions at Dave’s house in Wales, the guys began to experiment with dance music and Money was the result of this.
There was no official release of any material, but there was a four-song demo distributed at the NXNE Music Festival in Toronto in June 1998, where Money made their live debut and only performance to date.
The first song on the demo was BIKER, a repetitive beat with a male voice fed through a voice distortion machine. In parts it’s slightly reminiscent of ‘Born Slippy’, but it is a million miles away from James.
ALRIGHT heads off in a more conventional trip-hop direction with male voice and female backing vocals. My guess is that it is Saul singing and his voice doesn’t sound half bad.
The Dolly Parton standard JOLENE is covered as the third track here and is the standout track on the demo. It definitely has commercial potential as well with a mainly female vocal, perhaps one of the vaunted leather-clad Money girls, with a male rap later in the song.
The final track RUSH PUSH CASH is sadly a bit of a cop-out as it samples Come Home as if we hadn’t heard enough versions of it already as Money cover a Yargo track. Vocals are limited to mostly repeating the song title.
Whilst as a demo, it is interesting, it’s difficult to see exactly what audience Money would appeal to. The James connection immediately makes them unhip with hard-core dance fans and its not out-and-out techno. Most James fans will probably dismiss it out of hand as there is no obvious connection back despite the people involved.
Interesting, but not essential.
Press Reviews
James Side Project, Money, to Premiere in Canada
Three of the members of the British pop group, James have been creating music of their own recently and have only just put a tag on the project, calling themselves Money. The group, consisting of Saul Davies on vocals, guitar, violin, effects and loops, Mark Hunter on keys and David Baynton-Power on drums and drum machine, described themselves as “banging underground techno and trance,” in the April 1997 issue of Chart magazine. At times including fellow James member, bassist Jim Glennie, Money has a revolving cast of vocalists and doesn’t necessarily represent one kind of music style. Glennie says, “We want to set up an organization that we can do various things under. We’d love to be in different bands, bands that people don’t know who is in it. It’s all about having fun with this, getting a name and an identity and playing the game.”
Well, the name the group settled on was Money (PVC was another choice), and the only North American appearance slated so far for this innovative trio is Thursday, June 12th at Lee’s Palace as part of the North By Northeast showcase and conference. This will be Money’s first live appearance ever and possibly the only show it can fit into the James touring schedule that will take them across North America with Lollapalooza this summer.
James turns out electronic Money in Toronto By Karen Bliss, Jam! Music
Four members of James are in the money, so to speak. Make that Money, a currency of a different sort, the electronic offshoot of the British pop group, which makes its worldwide debut in Toronto tonight at Lee’s Palace at 1 a.m., as part of the North By Northeast festival.
“The songs are completely techno,” says James guitarist, violinist and percussion Saul Davies, who sings lead vocals and plays guitar and some keyboards in Money. James drummer David Baynton handles mixing and sampler; keyboardist Mark Hunter sticks to keys and computer, and bassist Jim Glennie plays keys, bass and backing vocals.
“The whole sound of what we’re doing is fairly aggressive,” says Davies, on the phone from Foel studios in Wales where Money has been rehearsing for the gig. “In a very strange way, it’s a bit like a James show. It goes from being very gentle, although very groovy, to being absolutely brutal.”
James was scheduled to perform at Toronto’s Warehouse last night, but lead singer Tim Booth’s neck injury several weeks ago forced the cancellation of the entire tour. Davies says Money had tentatively agreed to perform at North By Northeast, since James was supposed to be in town anyway and James sideman, Canadian Michael Kulas was also showcasing as a solo artist at the festival.
“That cemented it,” says Davies. “This a really big test for us because we’ve never played live before and to play this music live is really difficult. We’re throwing ourselves completely in the deep end with this. In some ways, we feel like it’s not a style of music that we’re even qualified to make. We play in a rock band and we’ve certainly got it into our heads that we can do this, but I think that we’ve surprised ourselves by what we’ve been able to achieve.”
That holds especially true for Davies, who reveals he’s never fronted a band before. “I’m incredibly scared, but it’s really good fun,” he says, adding that Money will be mixing man and machine in its live performance.
“Most techno bands will just use samples or sequencers to get all their sounds. What we’ve done is generated a lot of the sounds ourselves. And we’re in the process of relearning those parts so we can play them live, so it’s going to be a mixture of live playing and sequencers, and a lot of live keyboards as well,” he says.
Money has already self-produced and mixed nine songs, and has just purchased a digital machine in which to continue writing and recording while on the road with James. And since the album is “ready to go” as Davies says, the band’s hoping to have an album out by February.
“That’s one of the other reasons for doing this show,” adds Davies. It’s a really good time and a good excuse for us to do a showcase gig for business people. The James schedule, the last few months, have been so tough that we’ve had only had a little bit of time to do this. We’ve had odd weeks that we can grab during the schedule of James. But we’re hoping to be able to do both.”
James has just shot a video in Spain for the third single, “Waltzing Along” (which was rearranged and rerecorded with Kulas on backing vocals). With Booth’s imminent recovery, the band will honour its commitment to Britain’s massive Glastonbury festival and the Lollapallooza tour, which hits Toronto July 4.
James won’t take a break until late summer, but when it does Davies is working on a tour for Money, which would include Toronto, New York (for the CMJ conference), Philadelphia, Washington and other neighbouring cities.
“James takes up so much of our time, but we’re determined to use the time out of that to completely dedicate to this. We’re looking to release a single in the late summer or fall. As yet, whether it will be through an independent or a major, we’re not sure. We have to see how the business develops in the next three to four weeks.”
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Kulas
Michael Kulas played guitar and sang backing vocals for James between 1997 and 2001. Outside of his work with James, he has produced two solo albums – Mosquito and Another Small Machine and a number of EPs.
The following is the biography from his website where all his music can be purchased.
Canadian singer, songwriter, music producer and ex- JAMES multi-instrumentalist Michael Kulas is no stranger to the spotlight. Although part of many independent Toronto music projects in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was around the Summer of 1995 that his professional career began to take off. Having been granted the FACTOR New Talent Demo Award for music as well as coming runner up in the Q107 – Scott Liddle Songwriters Award Contest that year, Kulas also released his first solo studio album titled Mosquito. Produced by Saul Davies, multi-instrumentalist with the British rock band James, it went on to be hailed as one of Canada’s “top 20 independent albums” of 1995/1996 by Chart magazine. The album would also gain the attention of James front man Tim Booth who midway through 1996 and at the behest of producer Brian Eno was considering filling the vocal void created when guitarist and backing vocalist Larry Gott departed in 1995.
In January 1997 Kulas was invited by James to New York as a backing vocalist and multi-instrumentalist to test the waters with a handful of American shows and an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman. The ad-hoc “audition” would prove to be a success and garner an invitation for Kulas to join the band in the UK for what would turn out to be a five-year period.
Performing with James, Kulas was a singer and multi-instrumentalist on 4 Top 40 albums including Whiplash, the number one The Best Of, Millionaires and Pleased To Meet You. In that time he and the band toured extensively in Asia, South Africa, Europe and North America, including the Lollapalooza Festival and Glastonbury Festival in 1997. In the UK, James continued to perform sold out Arena Tours including Wembley and Manchester Evening News Arena and also played to a live TV audience of 500 million as the torch was passed from Kuala Lumpur to Manchester for the 2002 Commonwealth Games. After a decision by singer Booth to leave James to pursue other interests in December 2001 saw the band informally break up, Kulas returned home to Canada to pick up where he left his solo career years before.
In 2002 he completed his second, self produced solo album titled Another Small Machine while performing many live shows across Canada. In keeping with his passion for film, Kulas also went on to compose and perform music for the film Jade Love which won the 2004 Best Short Documentary at the Reel Film Festival in Toronto as well as composing original music for the Park Bench feature film The Death Of Alice Blue in 2006. His composing skills have also seen him cross over to writing music for television. In that same year Kulas wrote and produced the theme song for the Marathon animated series Team Galaxy on The Cartoon Network as well as producing full-length albums for artists The Fires Of, Keenan, Katie Griffin and Stephanie Belding. His first EP titled Imperial Cheerleader was released in December 2006 exclusively through Apple iTunes.
Although James went on to re-form with their original band line-up from the album Seven in 2007, Michael reunited with them on stage in September of 2008 at the Phoenix Concert Hall on their tour stop in Toronto.
Most recently, Kulas has embarked on an entirely new venture and founded Interloper Music, a company devoted to writing music for television and film. Since its inception, Michael has written music for several high-profile companies such as BlackBerry, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, CIBC, Rogers, Toyota and Leaf Nation as well as theme songs for the television shows Positive Living and Departures. In 2009, he was commissioned to compose the music for both the Royal Bank of Canada and the Ontario Tourism Olympic campaigns. In 2011, Kulas composed the original musical score for the feature film Fallen Before Falling, the Best Canadian Feature Film winner at the Canadian International Film Festival. In 2013 he wrote the musical score for the film Howard which went on to win the Best Canadian Short Award at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival as well as writing the song This Is My Ontario for Ontario Tourism’s TV, radio and internet campaign.
After plans to write and record a side project with a few James members and Grammy Award-winning producer Malcolm Burn were put on the back burner, fate and inspiration intervened, propelling Michael to write and record his new EP “Black Box Palace” with Chris Sytnyk (Bassist from MADE), Derek James (drummer from WHY) and Ryan Jenkins on lead guitar.
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