My my my
You could hang around
My my my
It’s just a nervous breakdown
My my my
I’m always overestimating everything
I inhale
And I’m in love with everyone
I inhale
And I’m in love with everyone
James Michael - Chemical
Album: Inhale
2000
I had a few minutes so I figured I’d make this easier to go to post about all of Inhale. Not that all of the songs aren’t available though here on FY!JM, the bar just above where it says ‘This Is Gonna Hurt’, a few ways down there’s labelled ‘Inhale’ and clicking on that would get you there, but as I said this is more easy and convenient.
I don’t think I’ve seen these Inhale pictures before. Links through to the original poster’s profile.
James Michael - Luxuride
James Michael - Luxuride
Explanation needed? noooo…
“We ought to go one more round,
No one will know,
I won’t make a sound,
A kiss on the mouth,
A kiss on the mouth,
And you are aroused,
You are aroused.”- James Michael, ‘Another Trip Home’.
James Michael calls the making of his debut album, Inhale, an emotional detox. A hard-rocking affair in which he shut himself in his home studio and crafted 11 songs that came to grips with past relationships, addictions and failed ambitions. It has a collection of songs that represent the culmination of a lifetime steeped in music, both formally and informally, and of a long creative journey for the sound that best represents him.
I went through a lot of time where I was trying too hard to sound like somebody, says Michael, a lanky blond who wears his custom guitar like an appendage rather than an instrument. Finally, after the last band I was in, I decided to do my own thing, let all my influences come through no matter who they were. That’s when I settled in and decided. This is how I like my songs to sound. This is how I like ME to sound.
James Michael certainly brings a broad range of sources to his music. Born in Holland, Mich. — an area north of Detroit known for its annual tulip festival which he refers to as the Great Polyester Festival because of its national appeal to senior citizens — James Michael is the son of an art scholar whose endeavors took the family to London for extended stays at regular intervals.
It was there that a young James Michael flipped on the radio and heard the very beginnings of punk and New Wave, drawn particularly to performers such as Joe Jackson and Gary Numan. I was pretty mesmerized by it, he recalls. I was too young to go to shows back then. It was 1978. We were living London, in a building filled with artists and musicians. I remember we had this old-fashioned radio, and I just listened to it all the time. When those records started breaking in America, I felt like my secret was out.
Piano lessons were part of James Michael’s life early on, though he rebelled against his classical training at age 15, when he quit against his parent’s will. A year later, however, he was back at it, paying for lessons himself and immersing himself in jazz as well as playing in rock bands. A desire to learn more about theory and composition led him to Columbia College, a fine arts school in Chicago.
But the kid who once ditched his piano teacher found he was also ill-suited for an academic music environment. I went there to learn theory and become a real,cb educated musician, James Michael explains. I didn’t blend in with the rest of the people there. The school tried to strip down everything I knew about music and teach their message. I found that really weird, so I stuck it out for a year or so and just bailed.
The young man headed west, to Los Angeles, with musical dreams and plenty of forbearance. There were jobs during the day and bands at night. There was one busted deal and a short stint in a group called the Riverdogs, which had released albums for a major label and toured in Europe.
James Michael continued to hone the songwriting craft he’d begun as a teenager, but he ultimately reached a point where he planned to chuck music altogether. Until he came up with a song called Chemical.
That was the first song I wrote for (Inhale),James Michael recalls. I wrote it in 10 or 15 minutes, on the day I decided I wasn’t going to write songs anymore. I figured I could make more money designing computer games! So I was thinking about that, and all of these intense visuals came to me about different people who had fucked me up over the years. I didn’t want to hate them anymore. I was tired of being angry. So, I wrote this song that really celebrated them rather than blamed them.
As I wrote these songs, it was very therapeutic, says James Michael, who produced, engineered and mixed Inhale himself. In addition, he played most of the instruments on the record and reached out to a few of his closest musician friends in Los Angeles and San Francisco to compliment the recording. I’m the type of person who can keep things stored up inside me for a long time. These songs are really about flushing out whatever was in me, whatever had been building in me over the last several years.
Each one of these songs kind of came, and I was like `Oh my God; I didn’t realize I was so fucked-up. Which is not to imply that Inhale is filled with drugs, though. Quite the contrary; the title track kicks things off with irresistible hooks and infectious energy, while Another Trip Home, Slack and Down are granite-tough, fist-waving rockers. On Simple Thing, synthesizer loops dance around power chords, and Luxuride rides a snaky guitar lick and psychedelic ambience. He also includes a nod to his roots with the high-octane cover of Joe Jackson’s Is She Really Going Out With Him?
On a gentler tip, James Michael delivers the haunting Note to Selfö with just his voice and an acoustic guitar, while I’m OK With This and Say It Once More are yearning and even hopeful, showing how he immersed himself in Inhale, sometimes at the expense of relationships.
Ever since I was a kid I wanted to make a record that sounded like this. Says Michael, describing his debut effort, The truth is-I think I have been making this record in my head since I was about 8 years old! Now, after nearly 6 months locked away in his home studio, this pop-crazed rocker is ready to make his music a very public affair. He plans to assemble a band and tour to support Inhale.
