THE JAMES SINGLES (7)

In the wake of the fiasco surrounding Strip-Mine, the band finally escaped from what had been a disastrous relationship with Sire Records in late 1988.  But they were completely skint although confident of making a success of things thanks to what they believed was really strong material that had been written in the 18 months they had been waiting for Strip-Mine to be released.

To get themselves back on their feet, they borrowed a substantial sum of money from a friendly bank manager which was used to fund the recording and release of a live album.  One Man Clapping was a huge success as far as the indie charts went and re-established James both commercially and critically and ultimately led to Geoff Travis signing them to Rough Trade in early 1989.

The first new single was called Sit Down, released in June 1989.

It was lauded by all, but the label didn’t promote it hard enough to get the critical crossover to mainstream and daytime radio.  That such a tremendous and catchy record had stalled at #77 was nothing short of a disgrace….but of course the situation would be rectified in the not too distant future (although nobody knew that at the time).

I’ve got the 12″ version of the single….and it extends all the way out to eight minutes ending with a bit of a strange reprise in which one of the sound engineers chants the name Lester Piggott over the outro…

mp3 : James – Sit Down (Rough Trade 12″ version)

Three tracks were on the b-side –  Sky Is Falling, a demo that the band had contributed to a compilation LP featuring bands from the Manchester area, live favourite  Goin Away, a two-minute track that was the usual opener to most concerts in 1989 and Sound Investment, a song that could well be taken as an attack on their old record label.  As ever with James, they were prepared to give fans value for money with the quality of songs seemingly tossed away on b-sides:-

mp3 : James – Goin Away
mp3 : James – Sound Investment
mp3 : James – Sky Is Falling

Enjoy!