JAMES RAY AND THE PERFORMANCE

By P R A E s t 7 6

The New Informative Discography of Other Things We Know

(Rev: 20060918) News

Almost James Ray's entire back catalogue including all the James Ray & The Performance tracks are now available to download on thejamesray.co.uk in moderate quality mp3 audio. Files are unsorted but you can use software like the Musicbrainz Tagger to organise them into their respective albums.

Nice one James. Shame about the sound quality but... gift horse... mouth... etc.

(Rev: 20050513)

Welcome to this humble site concerning one of the most underrated/overrated* rock bands of the 1980s™. As there is little real gathered information on the wuble-u wuble-u wuble-u pertaining to James Ray and The Performance I decided I would put a page together. Oh and BTW, this is it. Incase you thought of looking elsewhere. Jo Spackmans loving site is still around but it's been a long time since anything happened there. This page still needs more information to make it definitive. Especially the discography. Especially information relating to release formats, dates and any available bootlegs and appearences by the groups tracks on undocumented compilations. Even the more popular bootleg ones.

However for now, enjoy. Well I say enjoy...

One last thing: Would anyone know the name of the Font used on the Performance sleeves and whether it is available in true-type etc?

*Delete as applicable.

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(Rev: 20050513) Info

One of the first bands to be signed to The Sisters Of Mercy's Merciful Release label after The Sisters themselves, James Ray and The Performance made their first appearence as a Andrew Eldritch produced twelve inch entitled Mexico Sundown Blues / Edie Sedgwick in mid 1986. James Ray had already appeared on the label earlier as guest vocalist on a few tracks from The Sisterhood project. James Ray and The Performance also featured Carl Harrison and they made a small series of singles released over tyhe course of three years culminating in a compilation album A New Kind of Assassin released just following the duos dissolusion and the formation of James Rays follow-up group James Rays Gangwar.

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(Rev: 20050513) Discography

Mexico Sundown Blues Texas Dust Boat A New Kind of Assassin The Best Of

Mexico Sundown Blues

Texas

Dust Boat

A New Kind of Assassin

The Best of Performance & Gangwar

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(Rev: 20050513) Other

Compilation appearences

When The Sun Settles Down

I think this is a german goth-culture compilation released on the Foundation label in 1993. Features the track Dust Boat, along with tracks from such luminaries as Fields of The Nephilim, Rose of Avalache, And Also The Trees and Nosferatu. Long deleted.

Goth Box

A shorter edit/dub of the track A New Kind of Assassin titled Assassin 64 and the Roy Neave Remix of Mountain Voices appeared on the Goth Box compilation Cleopatra Records released in the early 1990s. It is still available from amazon and the other 'usual' outlets. Or steal it from one of your local kiddie-goths that probably have a copy under their beds that they got their parents to buy them for their birthday. There was an accompanying DVD but James Ray and the Performance weren't on it and haven't, to my knowledge at least, released any videos. Even finding photos of them is difficult.

Fascist Communist Revolutionaries

A compilation from Fifth Column released in 1996 around the same time that they put out The Best of Performance and Gangwar compilation. Features the track Texas. Probably the same version that appears on A New Kind of Assassin and Texas single.

Touched by The Hand of Goth Volume III

1997 double album from Sub Terranean. Features the track Dust Boat along with tracks by other "goth" bands. Lots of the 'usual suspects that tend to show up on these sorts of compilations, Bauhaus, The Merry thoughts, Lacrimosa, Alien Sex Fiend, Switchblade Symphony etc...

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(Rev: 20060918) Knowledge

Links

Credits, Apologies & Thanks...

This site is written and maintained by PRAEst76 using information derived from various sources including, but not limited to, Jo Spackman, MusicBrainz, www.mixi.net/Sisters.Of.Mercy, Google, Discogs, gothic.ie, eBay, rec.music.industrial, uk.people.gothic... thanks go out to all.

Revision: 0.4b5 (20060918)