Friday, July 9, 2010

James Freud - Automatic Crazy bw While We Worship Oxygen

Peter has sent me this rare solo single from none other that James
Freud. I've covered James Freud's solo career and his time with the
for mentioned Models

Heres what Peter has to say about this single

Automatic Crazy is the A side, quite a jaunty
commercial track,
but the B side: what was James on when he wrote that?
Numan’s influence perhaps? I’m a huge Numan fan BTW
(which is probably why I bought this single)

You can read James's very funny recollections of the time he spent
under Gary Numans wing here.
And you can find out what James was on!

Here's what he had to say about the A side Automatic Crazy.

Gary started to regard me as his protégé and took to calling me
Brian Ferry Jr. While we were in Sydney, he thought it would be
a good idea to record a track with him as producer.
We went into the EMI studios and came up with a song called
‘Automatic Crazy’. It’s not one of my favourites
JF

And the B side While We Worship Oxygen

Just after lunch, Andy, the inhouse tech guy, motioned for me
to go outside with him. I followed him upstairs, where he pulled
out a folded piece of paper and slipped it into my hand.
Happy birthday,’ was all he said, before disappearing back down
the stairs. I opened the package and was met by the sight of
glistening crystals of cocaine.
Things suddenly took a turn for the better. Roger and I spent the
afternoon excusing ourselves to go to the bathroom –
Gary must have thought we were a couple of freaks.
We were feeling pretty content and sat there grinding our teeth.
The euphoria was disrupted, though, when Gary turned to me.
‘OK, let’s put down some vocals.’
Vocals? My throat was so tense from all the cocaine that there
was no way I could possibly sing.
But there was no getting out of it.

I had one of my usual brainwaves; ‘If I have a huge line, maybe
I’ll really let go of my inhibitions and come up with some magic!’
I raced upstairs and chopped out a mother. ‘Here goes nothing.’
As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, it didn’t go too well.
We did take after take and I could barely manage to stay in tune,
let alone give a half-decent performance. After a couple of hours,
Gary couldn’t take it any longer and stormed out of the studio.
He picked up a pool cue as he went past and threw it at the wall,
then continued out to his car, ‘where he feels safest of all’,
and sped off.
On the bright side, it meant that we could relax.
I immediately sent out for a bottle of scotch and bought another
gram of coke from Andy. Gary didn’t come back, so Roger and
I opted to sleep at the studio. On the other hand, who can sleep
with a schnozz full of Okie-Dokie? There was nothing we could
do without Gary there, so Nick took an early mark. Roger and I
decided to put down a new song with the assistant engineer.
We worked all night and ended up with this fantastic track called
‘While We Worship Oxygen’ (remember, it was the 80s).
Gary arrived in the morning after listening to Adam Ant’s
‘Goody Two Shoes’ all night, to be greeted by the three of us
passed out on the floor. He was apologetic and we played him
the track we’d put down. He listened intently then finally spoke.
‘You pricks! That’s the best thing on the fucking album.
And I wasn’t even here. It sounds like John Foxx. You bastards!’
He then got up and stormed out of the studio again. Great!
JF

Download Here


2 comments:

WJ said...

Wow! Nice work finding this one! I have the 7" but don't have a good means to convert it.

I'm also desperate for any photo of the PS for this release...

Thanks again!

Anonymous said...

here in the USA, i was never a Freud fan, and I am still not converted yet, but that link to the Numan recording was an awesome read!!! Jim