This discography lists records & cd's James has released in his career so far & the songs he has written or co-written that have been recorded by other artists.

Highlights include The Immigrant Tango being voted into the top three albums of 1985 in both the RAM & Rolling Stone readers' polls; Snake Skin Shoes, as recorded by The Black Sorrows, becoming a top ten hit in 1994; Changi Banjo winning the Golden Guitar for Heritage Song of the Year at the 1999 Australian Country Music Awards - & the creation of The Subterraneans in 1984 & 85 as a semi-improvisational band where members of established bands could contribute creatively & perform in a different context while their own groups were taking a break. Over the years the Subterraneans included members or former members of The Church, Icehouse, Do Re Mi, The Crystal Set, The Dugites, The Laughing Clowns, X, The Kamikaze Kids, Moving Pictures, The Coloured Girls, Bear Garden & The Eurogliders.

What follows is a list of albums, singles & EPs with cover images, song titles & label information. More detailed information, background & stories will be available soon on the archive page

Australia's Just a Suburb of the USA
I Smoke Money
I thought it was you on the Boulevard
Too Hip to Stumble (& too straight to fall)

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Suburbs of the Heart
Night People
Behind the Noise

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Merciless Cinema
Manhattan Project

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Seven Samurai
Pictures of You & Me

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Merciless Cinema
Manhattan Project
Seven Samurai
Suburbs of the Heart.

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The Darling Chorus
Panic
Promise Me the Moon
Never Alone with a Telephone
Miserable Everywhere
King Hit

From the Radio Plays, As The Crow Flies & Slogans & Rumours, produced by ABC Radio Drama & Triple J FM respectively.

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Wild Years
Surf City
The Blood of the poet
The Angel Run
Sister Sabotage
Land of a Thousand Dances

Features guest appearances from Steven Kilbey & Marty Willson Piper of The Church

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The Angel Run
My Heart for You

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Blood of the poet
(Just like) Surf City

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A Cure for Snakebite
No Surrender
The Darlinghurst Road
The Road to the Rodeo
I thought it was you on the Boulevard
Death Calls (you got to go)
The Last Highway
Armies of the Night
A Bridge like the Wind
Mary & the Kid Leave Town
I am a Stranger

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No Surrender
A Bridge Like the Wind

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The Whole World is Watching
Sail Away (anyone can be the one)
When the Midnight Comes
Paradise is Calling
The Ballad of Innocent Mary
Remembering World War II
Suburbs of the Heart
Cheap Hotel Fire
The Belle of the Ball
The Last Highway
The Song of Wild Horses

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Cover notes:
This two record set contains eighteen stories, four poems & four songs. The songs have already appeared on records by James Griffin & the Subterraneans. They are included here because they were written as part of the same body of work as the stories. They share ideas & images with some of the stories & form part of the narrative.

Ninety Percent Haircut is the narrator & we also meet Valerie the Love Sculpture, Incredible Wang the Third, Fiona the Dingbat Paramour, The Fat Poet & Kelvin the Ninja. They live in the Dream House, next door to Ralph the Trigger-Happy Neighbour, in the Suburb of Ratville. They play in a band which they only ever refer to as Our Band & often perform in the Hell-Hole-Down-the-Road where people jump from the balcony into the crowd below. Sometimes they drink too much at the Midnight Saloon.

When the Fat Poet discovers the Molotov Cocktail they quickly become notorious. Incredible Wang III seeks refuge in the Northern City of Relentless Sunshine, home of The Slow Kill Turns where parking meter attendants are really androginous store dummies & contain concealed microphones. Ninety Percent Haircut loses his job down at the golf course. The last remaining beatnik, The Lost Girl, returns to The Windy Southern Towns of Restrained Colonialism where artistic pursuits wear suits & take place behind closed doors in winter. Valerie the Love Sculpture wonders why she ever gave up the round-the-continent aeroplane flight she had embarked upon to see how many people she could sleep with en route, excluding aircrew & hostesses. Fiona the Dingbat Paramour continues to scream & Kelvin the Ninja wants to be a Really Big Face in Japan. Stick around & we‚ll see how it pans out.

Stories:
1. The Aftermath of Madness
2. Shopping
3. The Lost Girl
4. Napalming the Audience
5. Ambushed by Visions
6. Speechless with the Grandeur of Collapsing Buildings
7. Fat Luxuries of Messianic Self Regard
8. Sitting in Limbo with a Sympathetic Ear
9. Posterity is a Place not far from Here (some letters)
10.I‚ve got my own camera now & I feel more Aware
11.You‚re never Alone with a Telephone
12.Napalming the Audience One More Time
13.Snake-Eyes Across the Crowded Room
14.Rehearsal for the Apocalypse
15.Are you Married or are you Happy?
16.Stranded in Limbo with the Fat Poet in Summer Again
17.The Ballad of Innocent Mary & the Nitro Kid
18.Touring Europe with a gun-fighter ballad & doing the Locomotion
(with visions of happy endings one more time)

Poems & songs:
Strange Days #1
Strange Days #2
The Golden Mile
The Breathing Helmet
The Wild Years
The Blood of the Poet
The Land of a Thousand Dances
Mary & the Kid Leave Town

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A Collection of traditional & contemporary Australian folk ballads performed by a selection of Australia‚s leading contemporary artists & arranged, co-ordinated & produced by James Griffin.

Includes performances from Shane Howard, Doc Neeson, Jon English, Helen Noonan, Paul Kelly, James Reyne, Joe Camilleri, David Bridie, Tommy Emmanuel, Paul Grabowsky, Jean Lewis, Jane Clifton, Peter Coutanche & Bernadette Robinson. The project was commissioned by Sue Howard for her drivetime radio program on ABC FM.

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A Collection of songs about or relating to the city of Melbourne performed by leading Melbourne based artists.

Includes performance by Paul Kelly, James Reyne, Jane Clifton, Andrew Pendlebury & Doug De Vries, Bernadette Robinson, Yoni Prior & Barrie Kosky, The Whirling Furphies, Steven Cummings & Vika & Linda Bull performing either their own songs or songs written by the likes of Archie Roach, Roger Hart (Little Heroes) Paul Kelly & Greg Macainsh (Skyhooks).
James wrote the title track & sang the traditional song, Ned Kelly was Born in a Ramshackle Hut.

The project was commissioned by the Melbourne City Council in association with ABC Radio 3LO & was co-ordinated, arranged &produced by James.

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Words to Snake Skin Shoes by James Griffin, music by Joe Camilleri

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Words by James, music by Camilleri / Polec
CD Single

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James wrote lyrics for:
Snake Skin Shoes
Last One Standing For You
I'm A Stranger
Bone Man

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The song Changi Banjo, from Lee Kernaghan's Hat Town album is an adaptation by Garth Porter & Lee Kernaghan of a ballad originally written by James. In 1999 Changi Banjo won the Heritage Song of the Year award at the Country Music Awards of Australia (Golden Guitars)

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This album includes the song Walking Like a Drowning Man with lyrics by James & music by Joe Camilleri

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Moon Over Melbourne
Voodoo Dreams
A Picture of Phar Lap
Sacred Things
The Days of Muhammad Ali
Black Crow Road
No Requiem for the Shadow Gang
Suburbs of the Heart
Weird Streets of Prayer

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