James play the last ever session at the old GLR basement in London. James play two nights at Dublin’s Olympia, their first headline Irish dates for eight years.
Tag Archives: 1999
Dublin Olympia – 29th November 1999
We’re Going To Miss You – Channel 4 TFI Friday – November 1999
We’re Going To Miss You – Video Article
Taken from Rushes Hypnotists site
New James Promo
Title: “We’re Going To Miss You”
Band: James
Commissioner: Tess Wight at Mercury Records
Production Co: HLA
Director: John Hardwick
Producer: Derrin Schlesinger
Facility Producer: Graham Bird
Telecine: Gary Szabo, Simone Grattarola
Fire artist: Derek Moore
Edit: Andrew Wharton
Air Date: week commencing 5th Dec 1999
Using the services of a hypnotist found in the local Yellow Pages, lead singer Tim Booth is first put under hypnosis and the band then performs “We’re Going to Miss You”, singing, playing instruments, and performing in a state of hypnotic reverie in what appears to be a local community centre.
Director John Hardwick clarifies: “We wanted to reveal a more intimate side to a well known band and felt hypnotic trance was a way to create a vulnerable and poetic performance. We shot it with a documentary approach in a deliberately anonymous location to induce the least promo-like atmosphere possible. Two band members refused to be hypnotised so they are seen observing the process.”
Posted at Rushes by colourists Gary Szabo and Simone Grattarola in Ursa Diamond, edited by Andrew Wharton, and composited by Derek Moore in Fire.
We’re Going To Miss You – Press Release
Just when you thought it was safe to close the book on James, music’s favourite survivors go and prove everyone wrong (again) and deliver one of the albums of the year. Millionaires was released on the 11th October and entered the charts at Number 2, quickly becoming a gold status record. James are also set to finish the year on a high…
‘We’re Going To Miss You’ is the third single to be taken from Millionaires, and it is released by Mercury Records on the 6th December 1999. The track is one of the standout moments on the album and the band went back into the studio to remix the track themselves into another anthemic James single. It retains the “helium heavenly chorus” (The Guardian) that first attracted attention in it’s album format and the track was also praised in Q (who made Millionaires Album Of The Month) as an “an intoxicatingly dark pleasure”.
‘We’re Going To Miss You’ has already received great support from Radio 1, with Simon Mayo making it his ‘Big Single’ for two weeks running and James are also performing an acoustic session for the Jo Whiley show on Wednesday 1st December. ‘We’re Going To Miss You’ is backed by the Brian Eno mix of the track, two brand new Tim Booth and Michael Kulas penned songs, ‘Pocketful Of Lemons’ and ‘Wisdom Of The Throat’ and a live version of ‘Top Of The World’ taken from their recent performance at the Embassy Rooms.
December also sees James embarking on their first major tour since 1998’s sell-out arena dates. The James tour bus rolls into Brighton on the 4th December and take in all the major U.K. venues en route to Wembley Arena, where the tour concludes on the 12th December. The band are at their best when playing live as anyone who caught one of their show stealing performances at this year’s festivals, or saw either of James’ one-off specials at Blackpool Tower Ballroom and London’s Embassy Rooms, can testify.
CD 1 JIMCD24
We’re Going To Miss You
Wisdom Of The Throat
Top Of The World (Live at the Embassy Rooms
CD 2 JIMDD24
We’re Going To Miss You
Pocketful of Lemons
We’re Going To Miss You (Eno’s Version)
MC JIMMC24
We’re Going to Miss You
Wisdom Of The Throat
Interview With Tim – FHM
In 1997 you were one of the acts on Lollapalooza – a famous alternative rock festival in America – but James’ music has never been full of screaming guitars solos. Did you get abuse from the metal fans?
It was a struggle. We’d go on stage and the Korn and Tool fans would shout “Faggots” at us. So for the second night I found these spangly shirts, skirts and dresses for about $10 and thought, “Let’s go for it”. If anyone shouted faggot I would say, “I appreciate the fact you’re attracted to me enough to enquire about my sexuality”. After two weeks I’d walk along the stage and just sing to the barrackers. These fucked up mall kids just couldn’t handle it.
When James are on tour is your bus a den of drink and drugs? Or do you just sit around playing scrabble?
I hate it on the bus. There’s horrific bunkbeds and it’s like the worst camping holiday with your parents. But your parents aren’t there so nothing gets cleaned up. On the Lollapalooza we had two buses, my neck was smashed up so I had to lie down the whole time. My bus was the quiet bus, the other was like, “Wow”, none of the other bands on the tour could keep up with us.
How did you injure your neck?
I was dancing on a sloped stage in Portsmouth and I fell. I felt something go bang in my neck, I carried on but the next day I couldn’t move my neck. I discovered I’d ruptured two discs in my back – popped them.
Your dancing has been described as, “A man with one foot in a bucket of water sticking a knife into a toaster” – where did your distinctive style come from?
From pent up rage and frustration and finding a place I could put it. That’s why James asked me to join – they saw this nutter throwing himself around in a bar. Then I met a woman who taught me how to dance myself into a trance – to go into an ecstatic altered state. I can’t do it when I’m on stage but when I dance at home I can get to the stage of frothing at the mouth and seeing green men. After an hour and a half it feels as if you’ve just taken the best ecstasy you’ve ever had.
James released their first record Jimone in 1983, a time when Wham! were appearing on stage in white pedal pushers. Did you feel the need for a particular style?
No, it was the complete opposite. We were famous for not giving interviews and when we had our photos taken we would cover our faces. We even turned down the cover of NME when we were totally unknown. We had no idea about image – some of our early photos were horrendous knitwear demonstrations. We were huge fans of the ethnic folky jumper and woolly hats.
You studied drama at Manchester University, did you master the art of “being a tree”?
I lied to get into university and made a long list of plays I’d been in. I was terrible at remembering my lines. I would get parts, in Shakespeare plays, and just improvise. I once had the lead in a Machiavellian play and I learnt the first three quarters of the play but not the last quarter – each night the last part would be a mystery. I knew generally what happened. The other actors hated me.
Have you trod the boards since?
Yes, I appeared in a play called Saved in Bolton and was on stage for two and a half hours. I wanted to get back into acting to overcome my terror. I actually had hypnotism to help learn my lines. I’d love to do more, I’ve had offers, a lot of soaps but I’m not interested in that. I was even offered the lead role of Tommy on Broadway.
Are you a health nut?
I am now because I have an inherited liver disease. I was yellow all through school, I was called Chinky. When I was 22 I stopped breathing in hospital and the doctors said there was nothing they could do. That was when I turned to alternative medicine – a mixture of herbs, acupuncture and colonic irrigation.
Presumably having a tube shoved up your bottom is deeply uncomfortable?
It doesn’t hurt, it’s very gentle, the liquid is a mixture of water, aloe vera and herbs. Afterwards you feel as if a great burden has been lifted. It’s quite a high. I’m sure it’ll be the next unusual sexual practice performed in London but with gerbils wearing aqua lungs and wearing wet suits.
Like Sting you’re an advocate of Tantric Sex – where the male is supposed to enjoy an internal orgasm rather than spilling his milk – where’s the fun in that?
Basically most forms of Tantra are about retaining sperm which is seen as energy. So you have to lock, retain and have an orgasm. It’s like patting your stomach and rubbing your head at the same time. There’s a basic genetic drive to ejaculate that you have to thwart.
You’re 39 now, but in your twenties you joined a religious cult – was there a lot of chanting and coloured robes?
No, but you did have to meditate for 2 hours a day and 16 hours every weekend. I once did five 18 hour days of meditating. It was a fucking intense cult – it was the sore arse cult. It also advocated celibacy so I didn’t have sex for three and a half years.
Did that mean no “manual self-gratification”?
You sometimes had a nocturnal emission by mistake. I didn’t miss it at all for a year and a half but then I missed it big time. I obviously was meditating right.
What’s been your biggest holiday disaster?
About ten years ago I was stuck in Morocco for two weeks with terrible shits and my wallet stolen. Everyone was trying to rip me off. In a cafe I was approached by this snake charmer – when I refused to pay him he tried to threaten me with a poisonous snake but it slipped out of his hand and dropped around my neck. Everyone sitting near me ran – even the snake charmer. I just didn’t move. Thankfully the charmer stepped back into the cafe and removed the snake. It was only later it hit me what happened – I became a gibbering wreck.
Tim Interview at Q Awards – Q
Tim Booth – The world’s second louchest man
Did you enjoy the awards?
Very much. They were very succinct, very entertaining. I thought Johnny Vaughan was fantastic.
You’re leaving early though, aren’t you?
Yes, I’m afraid I have a dental appointment.
You’re passing up a glittering party for the dentist?
Well, he’s a very unusual rogue dentist. I had some back problems a few years ago, and this dentist is somehow curing both my bite and my back. I’ve waited ages to see him, so there was no way I could miss it. I’m sure you don’t want to hear about my teeth.
Did you catch up with any old friends before you left?
Yes. it was especially nice to see Geldof again.
Do you enjoy awards ceremonies?
When I win one, yes. I recently won Best Newcomer To The Stage (for the play Saved which ran in Bolton). I particularly enjoyed that one. The acting offers are flooding in now, incidentally.
At the party afterwards, your fellow band members certainly knew how to enjoy themselves.
I’m sure they did. When we played Lollapalooza, we were the band that set the standard for debauchery. Some of us had to consider rehab afterwards.
You included?
No. I almost died from a liver disease when I was 22, so I have to be careful. I much prefer natural highs, like dancing.
Your particular style of dancing is very individual, isn’t it?
It is, and I trust you mean that as a compliment.
Naturally.
In that case, thank you.
Millionaires Chart Analysis – Q
TV promotion on TFI, Top Of The Pops, Later and Weekend Watchdog(!) for the rousing, Radio 1 A-listed single, Just Like Fred Astaire, helped to get Millionaires to Number 2, then it dropped like a stone.
Mercury also spent big on adverts in stations and at bus stops, but a large number of those people who bought the Best Of have avoided Millionaires. In December, James release a new single We’re Going To Miss You and set off on a UK arena tour.