This Is Not TV

For anyone labouring under the false apprehension that pride and humility are mutually exclusive, try meeting someone like James Yorkston. This softly spoken enigma, based in the unlikely star cradle of Anstruther (a seaside village in the East Neuk of Fife that boasts one of the country’s best fish and chip shops and has direct links to the Beta Band, Aliens, King Creosote, the Fence Collective and KT Tunstall) started his musical journey playing in punk band Miraclehead and later Huckleberry. His first solo release, the single ‘Moving Up Country/Roaring The Gospel’ was awarded title of the year by John Peel in 2001, released under the title of ‘J. Wright Presents’. It was more than just a good title though, and caught the attention of Domino head Laurence Bell, who soon had him signed up as ‘James Yorkston and The Athletes.’ The album ‘Moving Up Country’ was released in 2002, a touching, quiet and poignant collection, and was named Album Of The Year by Rough Trade. His two follow up albums, ‘Just Beyond The River’ (2004) and ‘Year Of The Leopard’ (2006) received a comparable level of praise. I hate to use the words ‘universal acclaim,’ but when reviewers bandy the word ‘masterpiece’ around like it was available for a limited time only and Plan B like them… he’s doing something right.

So it was odd that my first encounter with him was as warm-up act for an indie disco at the Faversham in Leeds (supported by Kenny Anderson aka King Creosote), hardly a quiet or particularly salubrious setting. However, amidst the noise and fury he made a little nest for himself and his loyal fans, one of which I became that night. Fast forward to the more intimate surroundings of Cockpit 3, where a small but select group of listeners catch him on a ‘for the hell of it tour’ Being such a lovely man, he agrees to come to a pub that is dry by the time we get there and answer a few slightly sozzled questions.

“It’s a council tax tour to be honest,” he says whilst his ‘roadie’ Dave rolls a cigarette and chuckles in the background. “I just felt I wanted to do some live shows because we’d spent so much time rehearsing and recording for the album.” So it’s not related to the album? He shakes his head. “There’s no real reason for it to be now, it’s just that I wanted to get on the road and play again.” Having only done about three shows this year, it’s understandable that he’s been feeling a bit cabin-y, plus his new material remains an unknown live quantity. “I played a few of the new songs tonight and I still don’t have a clue what I’m doing with them… I don’t know where they’re gonna go, how they’re gonna end up, and it’s interesting but… you’ve gotta go through that.” Though this sounds quite resigned, he says it with determination and confidence: if it worked in the studio, it will work on the road, even if it becomes something totally unexpected.

‘Unexpected’ sums up James’ live act quite well in fact: he takes requests (‘I Feel Love’ and ‘Ace of Spades were quite inspired requests/renditions); he jokes and converses with the audience; he meanders and makes up stories about rescuing sheep; he goes off into Public Enemy’s ‘Fight The Power.’ James grins cheerfully about this “I did a series of shows a long time ago with a chap,” he explains, “and he said ‘it doesn’t matter if it’s a good show or a bad show, people just wanna feel that they’ve experienced something.’ When you’ve got that on board, you can relax a lot more on stage. [And] It makes it a lot more interesting for me because, although I’ve written out a set list, you can imagine playing night after night that it’s going to be more fun when you communicate with the audience.” In a way, it sounds like a neat little game of give and take: you put the spectacular production on the records; you put the bad jokes in the gig. “You can’t have that on the record,” he says, the epitome of self deprecation, “because face it that’s what they are. It’s just crap.”

This tour is an admittedly understated affair, but he has toured with some very interesting artists in the past, including The Tindersticks and Adem. “It was good fun touring with Adem. He’s good guy, really friendly. I did a show with him recently,” he recounts, “playing with Daniel Johnston and we had to learn some songs to do with him. I was in a ferocious mood so I hadn’t learned any of the songs so I just thought ‘fuck it, I’m not going to learn the songs.’ But I got there and Adem had learned all the songs and he just taught me them and it meant that the show was great.” He has also toured with Rodrigo Y Gabriella, an unlikely match at best. There is an unspoken amusement shared between Dave and James when I mention it. “The thing is that last album (Year Of The Leopard) cost quite a lot of money to make. To try and promote the record, they try and get you supports and whatever to try and spread the word. I was happy to do it, because the way I see it, somebody’s invested.” Here he makes an analogy to haircuts and marketing that makes some kind of sense to my beer-befuddled brain. “We keep scores on tours. You get a point if you thought it was a worthwhile gig and you lose a point if it’s not worthwhile or a no-score draw. I think we won that tour something like 7-5. So it was worth doing but… I don’t think the audience gave a monkeys about us but it was reasonably good fun. They’re (Rodrigo Y Gabriella) very nice people.” He sighs, another moment of resignation. “Look, they’re two people who play amazingly quick guitar music and basically what I do is play very sad, slow songs, so it’s never really gonna work.”

Though James has strong sense of duty, he doesn’t seem to be overly enamoured with the business side of things, especially considering his stance on advertising in ‘Woozy With Cider’ and his refusal to sell one of his songs to sell butter. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he says with some regret. “That advert thing was funny, because I got offered it and I said ‘no’ and I got in a lot of trouble with other musicians who said I was a fucking idiot for not taking it and that me not taking it made them look bad because they were taking adverts.” He changes to a more positive tack, not really wanting to be drawn into the question too far. “But it’s absolutely up to every individual whether they want to take adverts or not. A lot of my friends have done and I’ve got nothing against them whatsoever – Vashti did really well with the orange advert, Kenny (King Creosote) did a Coca Cola advert and that’s absolutely fine… for me, I didn’t want to advertise butter.” Considering that James is a Vegan, it does make good sense. Besides, at least two of his songs have popped up on Skins, so if that isn’t promotion… “Skins played ‘Tender To The Blues’ – I think that was on the Friday – and on Sunday, Country File had ‘Moving Up Country.’” He laughs, considering his demographic. “No, I was delighted to do Skins – I actually watch that programme!”

It may sound like a strange combination, but adolescence and James’ first album, ‘Moving Up Country’ do feel like a good match with it’s take on love, as opposed to ‘Just Beyond The River’s take on… love gone wrong. He frowns. “You see, I think it’s completely the opposite,” he says. “I think ‘Moving Up Country’ is the big break up album – if you listen to songs like ‘Tender To The Blues’ and ‘St Patrick,’ ‘Six Thirty Is Way Too Early.’ I guess there are songs on there which are more optimistic, but those three songs are fairly dour whereas for me… ‘Heron’ is just a great song, even if it doesn’t do anything, ‘Shipwreckers,’ ‘Surf Song,’ ‘This Time Tomorrow’ – I just think they’re really optimistic songs.” He reconsiders for a moment. “And then you’ve got ‘Banjo #1’ which is really fucking dark… and ‘Hermitage’ is really dark as well…” But ‘Year Of The Leopard’ was a lot more positive on the whole? “‘Year Of The Leopard’ was my favourite album until this new one.”

Which leads us neatly onto the as yet unnamed album, due out in August this year. More optimistic and featuring a huge range of instruments, James describes it eagerly: “Sonically I’d say it was like the first one, but it hasn’t got the full band – not much drums on it, ‘cos our drummer’s ill, but tone wise it’s more like ‘Year of the Leopard.’ There are lots of really long songs, eight minute songs on it, and I just think the orchestration and instruments… for me, really exciting and some of the best things I’ve done but it’s so hard to say… Domino took one listen to it and said ‘that’s fine’ but I haven’t had any reviews yet so I don’t know if it’s a good record or not.” He retreats into humility, just for a moment, but the excitement he shows for it has it’s own momentum now. “I mean, obviously I know it’s a good record to me, but I don’t know if it’s going to be accepted. We’ll see. At this stage, I feel that I’m sitting with a good record under my belt, and it’s great having the Watersons on it and Nancy Elizabeth Cunliffe on it and everyone who’s there playing really well.” It certainly sounds like an ambitious piece of work – it’s a good thing they’re behind it. “They’re a very supportive label. The fact that they still release music from people like me even though they’ve got much, much bigger artrists who are making them money, it just shows, in my eyes, what a good label they are.” Domino also represent Franz Ferdinand and Artic Monkeys, to name but two of an impressive list. “And it’s not just blind acceptance,” he continues, “they do say no, though they’ve not said no to anything I’ve ever handed in but they do say no. I count them as friends now; all the people that have been there since I’ve joined I count as friends. Very nice people.” He pauses. “And I’ll be dropped next week.”

Once this impromptu tour finishes, James admits he has a busy time ahead. The album artwork needs finishing, he has some Pictish Trail and Fence shows planned, “I guess I’ll be digging out the last patch of the garden… that sort of thing. And I’ll be working on the next record as well, which I don’t really want to talk about because I have to concentrate on this new one but the next one… I’m really excited about.” And with that, the hunger takes him and he’s off with Dave to seek out some vegan food. And something to wet his whistle. Sorry.

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