Strange Dancing

[Johnny Yen]

Im sure i heard somewhere that a James album called Strange Dancing featuring rare and unreleased tracks was coming out, but I might be going Mad.

Does anyone know anything about this???

[scarecrow]

Heard the same thing but couldnt tell you where I heard it or if anything came of it.

But youre definitely not going mad!

[Johnny Yen]

Well that's good news at least!

Anyone got any answers on what happened to it, maytbe the poor sales of Ultra and the reissue albums.

And that's got me thinking about this -How did the DVD do sales wise.

Dave???

[cat]

TEXTStrange DancingTEXT is the title of a double CD which was supposed to be released last year. It covers the early years of James (1983-88) from Factory records and Sire. More details at oneofthethree:

www.oneofthethree.co.uk/strangedancing.htm

I haven't heard anything further about it, so I don't know what happened to this rumored release.

[saysomething]

Not heard anything for ages. Someone will most likely just find it one day in HMV. It was meant to be a compilation of the Factory and Sire stuff including Village Fire, the Sit Down EP and the bsides off So Many Ways, What For and Ya Ho. But the guy from Warner stopped returning my calls after it kept getting put back. So that's about as much as I know I'm afraid. As I'm off next week, I might try making a few calls.

[Poster Saint]

I realize how vain it is to ask, because I know it would have been posted on the news page, but are there any developments or clarifications on this subject? I know relations with Sire were never ideal and James probably had a fair amount of contractual limitations given they were new and never achieved a sales tally to satisfy them [at the time], but surely Sire understands that given the career James had they could sell copies of this collection. Judging from the statistics on the website, James have had a number one and two record in the last five years (Best of and Millionaires respectively) so why not make these older tracks available on CD format? I confess I have them all on mp3 but nothing beats CD quality; I don't have a record player either, despite owning a copy of Village Fire. I know I'm just typing out a dream here but am I insane in thinking it could be beneficial for Sire to be associated with such a release at this point in time? Surely they could turn some profit out of such a thing, no? Isn't someone logical at the helm of that label fifteen years later? I do recall reading it has been bought out several times over, so why not throw a bone to those of us that only recently got on board. I think James is still relevant today, but even if you disagree you can't claim they never were and that no one would jump at the chance to own a collection of nostalgic tunes.

P.S. I know I'll have people rolling their eyes with this one, but there is also no excuse for not reissuing One Man Clapping considering it has nothing to do with Sire.

edit: And if anyone here has ties with the band, tell them it's about bloody time "Stutter" gets an official release. Tell then nicely though