laid

James settled into a more organic acoustic sound and messed around with gender roles for the experimental sessions that produced two albums.  The band had achieved its first major success when their single 'Sit Down' went to number two in the UK.  The song was added to later versions of their 'Gold Mother' album, which, like the followup 'Seven', went to number two on the UK album chart.  

'Laid' was recorded over six weeks at Real World & Box in England and The Windings & Wrexham in Wales with Larry Gott on guitar; Mark Hunter on keys; Tim Booth on vocals; David Baynton-Power on drums; Saul Davies on violin and guitar; Jim Glennie on bass; with James Mike providing drums on 'Laid', and timpani & percussion on 'Low, Low, Low'.  

Gott describes the evolution of the album:   "A couple of years ago, we went on tour with Neil Young, who was doing acoustic shows, and one of the stipulations of touring with him was that the support bands were all acoustic too. There was us and John Hammond, the acoustic blues player. We were playing in these fantastic amphitheaters across America, on the edges of canyons, places like Red Rocks which is this huge cathedral cut out of the rock in Denver... And There's 10-12,000 stoned deadheads out there, with their picnic baskets, their beer and their pipes, and they were really laid back but they really listened to what we were doing. It really was a stripped-down sound - Dave (Baynton-Power) was playing on just two drums, there were no synthesizers, no electric guitars, no effects. It was dead dry - when you finished a note, it ended. And the more we played around with this the more we enjoyed it. I think we discovered the power you can get out of an acoustic performance, so we came off that, did an acoustic tour of the UK too, and then immediately went into rehearsals for writing this new album. We realised then that we'd brought this whole attitude with us - we picked up electric instruments again but we played them with a real stripped-down bare feel...There was a less precious attitude about this album.  With 'Seven' we started off producing it ourselves 'cause we hadn't met a producer that we felt we could relate to, and then we started working with Youth from halfway through the project.  Hence it ended up a bit of a mish-mash. At the beginning, because we didn't have the confidence that a producer would have, we tended to over-fill the tracks, which was such a bad attitude 'cause we then couldn't get rid of them. There were seven instruments always on the go on 'Seven', whereas in this one it's really pared down...Brian Eno came in at quite a late stage. He liked what we'd done up to that point, and really got interested in the jams we'd been having. He'd listen to these huge jams and come back and say, 'You've got a whole song in there.' The title track 'Laid' came out of one of those huge jams, a song called 'Lullaby' too. Brian's great, and he really came into the fore when we got into the studio, if something wasn't working he'd just move us on to something else. He insisted we set up live in the studio and just play, and in the end we almost invariably went for the first take. Brian had the confidence to say, 'Let it live with all it's imperfections,' and although the second or third takes might have had the structure down a bit better, they didn't have the naivete, this strange beauty that the first take had...We had tapes rolling all the time in the studio - even when we were just tuning up, just in case something interesting happened, and very often it did. Brian set up these huge 14" reels running tapes at half speed, so we could have all these ideas just jammed for up to an hour. It's actually a very quick way of working because you discover what you're writing as you're actually recording it! And in the end we had an hour and a half of finished songs and this whole load, two and a half hours, of improvisation, including ninety per cent of the lyrics."

Booth says:  "I never quite know because I write as much as I can from my own unconscious. My unconscious creates the best lyrics. I don’t. In the last number of years, a lot of my lyrics come in half-asleep, half-awake states. I try to keep myself in that state when I finish a lyric. Literally, I will wake up at four or five o’clock in the morning getting some words and lie there, have a pen and paper handy and try to write them without waking myself up too much... “Sometimes” and “Out to Get You” more than “Laid” are such the heart of our music."

'Laid' drew controversy over the racy lyrics of the title track and the cross-dressing video and album cover.  Booth reveals:   "That was a real interesting accident, I remember. I’d been doing some dancing with this great shamanic practitioner in New York called Gabrielle Roth and I had worn a dress for a few days and danced in it because it was easy to move in. We’d been dancing for eight hours a day or whatever. I came back and I remember suggesting to my manager that I might wear a dress in the photo shoot and she was like, 'Don’t you dare!' So when we had a band meeting, I said, 'How about the whole band wear a dress?' Everyone went, 'Great! Let’s do it!' It just came from that accident. Then we were on the steps of Marseilles Cathedral having a photo shoot and everyone was starving. Someone went and got us a load of bananas. We were eating the bananas in between the photo shoot when someone just took that shot...It’s the only one we’ve got an iconic shot for. Until that album, we were very anti-image. We were really against how things looked. So we wore shit clothes, all of us. Me especially. Baggy clothes. We wanted everyone to get us totally for our music. I think it has cost us hugely. I look at Oasis and how they had such a strong image and the Stone Roses and the Smiths. I think, 'Huh, we missed a trick.' At the time, it was a sign of our musical authenticity."

Glennie adds:   "The thing is, the idea wasn’t to get an album sleeve at the photo shoot. That was just one idea at a three-day photo shoot. That was the steps of the Marseilles cathedral opposite a police station. So the fact that a bunch of English guys wearing dresses on the steps of the Marseilles cathedral. I’m amazed we didn’t get arrested. The reason we’re eating bananas is because we were starving. We had been taking photos for most of the day and our manager went out to get food and came back with bananas. That’s all he could find. So, it wasn’t a set-up photo shoot for the cover, at all. The idea was we’d put on our girlfriends’ clothes, we’d have a bit of a laugh and see what comes out of it. So it wasn’t like, 'Let’s do the album sleeve. Now, what are you going to wear and how is that going to look here?' It was much more casual than that."

'Laid' became an underground hit in the US, charting at number seventy-two on the album chart and has been certified gold.  In the UK, it peaked at number three.  A year later, 23 tracks from the experimental jam sessions were released as 'Wah Wah'. It was promoted as James / Eno.  







http://www.wearejames.com/





http://www.last.fm/music/James/Laid






"Out to Get You", according to Booth, "is so seductive and it really allows Saul (Davies) to shine. Saul is very modest about his violin playing. It’s hard to get him to play a lot of violin. So when he does play something, he blows people away. “Out to Get You” is the opportunity where Saul gets to stretch his legs."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwPCCc1wOWU




"Sometimes (Lester Piggott)" went to number eighteen in the UK. Lester Piggot is a famous British horse jockey. The subtitle was the working title for the song because of the galloping rhythm.  Booth reveals:   "We jammed it in our rehearsal room at Beehive Mill in Manchester. We knew it would be a big song, so we sent the demo to Brian Eno. Everyone wanted to work with Eno, and they still do! He rang me up at 9 o'clock in the morning and said he’d record with us. 'Sometimes' was the main song he talked about. I hadn't got the lyrics for it at the time. I had the bit about the boy who wanted to be struck by lightning but no chorus. In the studio I had to keep telling him I wasn’t ready to record it yet, because I hadn’t finished the lyrics. We had this layout where we're in a circle around him with the recording console is in the middle of the room. Eventually we say: “Okay Brian, we're ready to record 'Sometimes'.” I'd got the chorus ready and I hadn't told them. He's prowling around the floor while we were playing the start of the song, just waiting to see what I'd got. I sang the chorus and he kind of went white and sat down while we were playing. I thought: 'Oh shit, he doesn't like it'. When we finished he didn't say anything. He had his head in his hands on the desk and we all crowded round him and eventually he looked up and he said: 'I've just experienced one of the highlights of my musical life.' We went: 'Woah!' We were completely blown away. That someone we held in such high esteem could have such a physical, tangible reaction to that song. His reaction was one of our highlights of our musical life!"






"Dream Thrum"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IR4bbQZl2I




"One of the Three"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5JVejAP3AY





"Say Something"
made it to number twenty-four in the UK.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icehffFWOck


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50dZQkrqxAk






"Five-O"
Booth:   "It’s one of my favorites. We had a period where it was the real center of our set. Then we hadn’t been able to play it since we re-formed. We tried and it would fall apart. Until this tour we haven’t played it to a point where we felt it’s working now. God knows what it was. Some of it is about long-term relationship. It’s almost a manifesto. 'You can trace my concerns/ Here’s a body of work for your inspection.' It’s like, 'Come and take a look what we’re doing.' Then, 'I can feel your faith/ Gonna make it mine.' That’s where you have a projected belief in somebody and somebody can take that projected belief and run with it. Then about marriage. I remember the first time I really fell in love with somebody and wanted to marry them and be with them. Then you have the insecurity that they’re going to die and you’re like, 'God, I hope I die before they do.'”






"Everybody Knows"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuvyzL3aNBU




"Knuckle Too Far"




"Low, Low, Low"





The risqué "Laid" hit number sixty-one on the US pop chart, forty in Australia, twenty-five in the UK, and number three on the US alternative singles chart.  Booth:  "A censored version was released with the line: 'But she only hums when she’s on top'. Normally I refuse to censor our lyrics, but I found that quite witty."
http://vimeo.com/30821649
http://www.mofito.com/music-videos/james/5018155-laid-version-1.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_qZ5B-yioU


This bed is on fire
With passionate love
The neighbours complain about the noises above
But she only comes when she's on top
My therapist said not to see you no more
She said you're like a disease without any cure
She said I'm so obsessed that I'm becoming a bore, oh no
Ah, you think you're so pretty
Caught your hand inside the till
Slammed your fingers in the door
Fought with kitchen knives and skewers
Dressed me up in womens clothes
Messed around with gender roles
Dye my eyes and call me pretty
Moved out of the house, so you moved next door
I locked you out, you cut a hole in the wall
I found you sleeping next to me, I thought I was alone
You're driving me crazy, when are you coming home

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0trh9Y598fM








'Laid' 
full album:




All songs written by Tim Booth, Larry Gott and Jim Glennie except where noted.


"Out to Get You" - 4:26
"Sometimes (Lester Piggott)" - 5:10
"Dream Thrum" - 4:47
"One of the Three" - 4:08
"Say Something" (James) - 3:26
"Five-O" - 5:25
"P.S." - 5:04
"Everybody Knows" - 3:28
"Knuckle Too Far" - 4:39
"Low Low Low" - 2:51
"Laid" - 2:36
"Lullaby" - 3:49
"Skindiving" - 5:41