WENDY JAMES SOLO ALBUMS POST TRANSVISION VAMP
1. NOW AIN’T THE TIME FOR YOUR TEARS
1993
Back when Transvision Vamp were on their final tour, a tour of the USA in 1991, Wendy bumped into Pete Thomas, the drummer from Elvis Costello & The Attractions in Hollywood in the bar of the Sunset Marquis Hotel. She mentioned that Transvision Vamp were going to call it a day when they had completed that tour, and perhaps Elvis would help her bridge from Transvision Vamp into a new chapter? Pete suggested she write Elvis a letter, which she did, that night. Wendy heard no immediate response until a member of Elvis management replied that Elvis and his then partner Cait O’ Riordan (The Pogues) had written an entire album for her.
This set in a motion a flurry of events which culminated in Chris Kimsey, the producer of The Rolling Stones, signing on to produce, with various hi-end session musicians, (the original guitarist lined up had been Wendy’s friend Matthew Ashman from Bow Wow Wow and although he made it through rehearsals and to the first day of recording, health issues rendered him unable to complete the record).
The album was recorded in Toulouse, South West France and mixed at iconic Sunset Sound Studios on Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, notable for The Rolling Stones ‘Exile On Main Street’.
The release was much anticipated, well received, especially in the USA, but did not reach a large audience. It was released on Geffen Records.
Three singles were taken from the album: ‘The Nameless One’, ‘London’s Brilliant’ and ‘Do You Know What I’m Saying?’
It has never been reissued, not on vinyl or cd and has become something of a rarity, but now you can have the original hi res digital download of ‘Now Ain’t The Time For Your Tears’
Track List:
1. This Is A Test – 1.58
2. London’s Brilliant – 2.29
3. Basement Kiss – 4.03
4. Puppet Girl – 2.48
5. Earthbound – 4.32
6. Do You Know What I’m Saying? – 5.16
7. We Despise You – 3.21
8. Fill In The Blanks – 3.14
9. The Nameless One – 5.30
10. I Want To Stand Forever – 4.31
*Cover photo by David Bailey
2A. RACINE NO.1 DEMOS
2002
Wendy wrote the demo on her guitar and portastudio in West London over a period of time, stretching from the Elvis Costello collaboration ’Now Ain’t The Time For Your Tears’ in 1993 until she moved to NYC in 2002. During that time, she learned how to play guitar, how to operate a portastudio, alongside an original tape echo machine! and because there was no function to overdub or ‘drop in’ to correct mistakes, she had to play every part: guitar, bass, voice, perfectly from top to bottom! Good training!
The original demos contain many samples, recorded from VHS videos! Samples such as Dennis Hopper’s hallucinating train of consciousness in Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Copolla, ‘La Boheme’, the opera by Puccini (which Wendy sang in, at Glyndebourne Opera House as a child) aHarmony Korine’s debut movie with Chloe Sevigny ‘Gummo’, Michelangelo Antonioni’s movie set in London, ‘Blow Up’ and Terrence Malick’s ‘Days Of Heaven’ also newsreel of the Southall race riots in London on April 23rd, 1979. These samples would not go on to be part of the recording and release of Racine No.1. The demos also feature little vignettes between the songs! A micro attention to details, which paint a musical image of the time and the place and the story each song tells.
The Man – 4.02
Grease Monkey – 2.47
Princess Patience Blues – 5.00
Mancini – 0.31
Hip Hop 156 – 50.04
W. 13th – 5.28
Blonde Mink Mimi – 4.37
Girls With Quiffs – 0.41
Heavy Metal Dude – 5.01
That’s The Breaks Junior – 3.11
Cakewalk – 5.01
Days Of Heaven – 0.36
Life Goes On – 5.01
Myrna – 0.04
Deluxe – 4.58
*All music played by Wendy James
2B. RACINE NO.1
2004
Wendy’s first official release since striking out on her own, post Elvis Costello and Transvision Vamp. Having moved to NYC in 2002, Wendy found a studio to record her produced version of her demos from London. The studio was across the Hudson River from Manhattan, in Hoboken New Jersey and the engineer she found was Matt Azzarto. Every day Wendy would take the Path Train under the Hudson, from 9th Street and 6th Avenue across to Hoboken NJ. There she played everything herself, guitar, bass, keyboard, using drum samples or presets on drum machines! Although the finished recording does not contain the myriad samples from the demos, the sound does take on a more lo-fi trippy pop style. It definitely has the sound of D.I.Y. It was released on CD only via the UK label One Little Indian, the run of CD’s sold out and has not been in reprinted in physical copy since its 2004 release.
One single was released: ‘Grease Monkey’, with a double B-side consisting of a remix of Grease Monkey and a bonus track ‘The Last American Hero’, featuring Grand Prix car racing sounds from the movie ‘Le Mans’ and Nascar racing sounds, telling the story of Junior Johnson, a moonshine runner turned Nascar hero, as told by author Tom Wolfe.
The release was reviewed incredibly well in The Guardian newspaper and spurred Wendy into performing her first ever shows with new musicians! She played NYC at the Tribeca Grand Hotel, Madame JoJo’s in Soho, London and the Islington Academy. Her co-musicians for the brief outing were Ray Sullivan aka Chip Striker on drums and Singh Birdsong on guitar and bass, with Wendy playing guitar too.
The artwork is a take on a cover of an obscure 50’s American style magazine called ‘Flair’. A compendium of Flair magazine art and design would provide inspiration in the presentation of Wendy’s tenth album ‘The Shape Of History’. The magazine itself only existed for one year, the details and design of the magazine were so labor intensive and expensive that the editor Fleur Cowles ran out of money to keep it operational. Since then original editions of the magazine has become highly collectable and an icon of style magazines.
Track List
The Man – 3.44
Grease Monkey – 2.59
Princess Patience Blues – 3.20
Hip Hop 156 – 3.39
W.13th – 4.45
Blonde Mink Mimi – 4.32
Heavy Metal Dude – 5.14
That’s The Breaks Junior – 3.36
Cakewalk – 4.20
Life Goes On – 4.42
Deluxe – 4.29
All tracks mastered by Howie Weinberg at Masterdisk, NYC
* Buy Now
Ⓟ & © Wendy James 2004. All rights reserved. Unauthorized Duplication is a violation of all applicable laws.
3. RACINE 2
2007
This is Wendy’s second official solo album. (*Not including her post Transvision Vamp previous release, a collaboration with Elvis Costello). RACINE 2 was recorded in New Jersey and Brooklyn, USA and mixed in Brooklyn, USA and Tokyo, Japan. The Japanese part of the recording happened because Tomoyasu Hotei, he of Quentin Tarantino movie KILL BILL’s theme tune ‘Battle Without Honor or Humanity’ was a big Transvision Vamp fan and invited Wendy to Tokyo to do some recording and mixing in is studio! He is a megastar in Japan and so the trip was really top drawer! A Bentley car and studio engineers in lab coats, like The Beatles and George Martin’s Studio Abbey Road! Hotei and Wendy also recorded a bonus track ‘Schneider’s Ride’, a sensitive song about the ennui of Vietnam War as proposed by the author Michael Herr in ‘Dispatches’. RACINE 2 has 11 original songs on it and really planted the flag for Wendy’s production and sound going forward. Under the name Racine, Wendy wrote and produced and co-mixed this album and made clear her musical intentions and contains some scorchers and classics, referencing Hunter S. Thompson and counter culture writ large! RACINE 2 was released on 12” vinyl and a cd packaged with the Racine No.1 demos in 2006. Now, not only is it available as a digital download it is also a collector edition 12” vinyl picture disc a with fully printed matte inner-sleeve and jacket cover, consistent with the original artwork of RACINE 2. The cover photograph by James Traill was taken in the mens cubicle lavatory of an East Village NYC club called ‘Death Disco’ run by rock n roll legend B.P. Fallon, the club was an NYC outpost for the club Alan McGee had started at the Notting Hill Arts Club in West London. RACINE, the band, went touring extensively across Europe and Scandinavia and it was wild.
Running Time – 35.01
TRACK LISTING
Side A
1. WAY – 2:48
2. I’M FREAKING OUT – 1:58
3. RACINE – 4:14
4. BOBBY’S GOING ELECTRIC – 2:58
5. YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, SISTER – 3:16
6. THERE AIN’T NO WAY – I CAN’T DO NO TWENNY IN THIS – 5:00
Running Time -19:34
Side B
7. OUI OU NON – A STRAIGHT BOOGALOO – 2:48
8. STONED, RIPPED AND TWISTED – 4:00
9. ESSEX DOG – 3:01
10. THOSE LEG MOTHERFUCKERS – 2:52
11. BITTER FUNNY – 3:26
MUSICIANS
Vocals – Wendy James
Guitar & Bass – Henric Strahl
Bass – James Meynell
Drums & Percussion – Ray Sullivan
Written, Produced and Mixed by Wendy James
Recording Engineers – Ted Young & Josh Copp
Mix Engineer – Glen Robinson
Recorded and Mixed at Water Music, Hoboken NJ, McKibbin Street, Brooklyn NY & Atomic Studios, Brooklyn NY
*I’m Freaking Out, Oui ou Non – A Straight Boogaloo, Essex Dog & Bitter Funny – Mixed by Kunihko Imai and Hideyuki Matsuhashi at IRc2 Studio Tokyo, Japan
All tracks mastered by Howie Weinberg at Masterdisk, NYC
*Stoned, Ripped & Twisted re-mastered by Fred Kevorkian, NYC
Photography – James Traill
Art Direction – Wendy James
Layout Jeremy Lawson & Angela Won-Yin Mak at A•WY•M Studio
*Mastered for Vinyl
*Limited Edition
4. I CAME HERE TO BLOW MINDS
2010
This is Wendy’s ‘break-out’ album. The first recording to be in Wendy’s name as opposed to RACINE. This time Wendy traveled from NYC to Paris to record the album with selected French indie musicians in the ground floor recording studio in the atelier of clothing designer APC. Jean Touitou, the owner of APC was/is a huge music fanatic and had built a little studio in his design complex so he could play his guitars and host his favorite musicians and film makers, including Sofia Coppola, Wes Anderson and Jarvis Cocker. It was in here that Wendy recorded ICHTBM with the exception of the track ‘Speedball’, for some reason that track never clicked with the French musicians and it remained unrecorded at the end of Wendy’s recording budget! However, Wendy had just been invited to Sydney, Australia to do some ‘celebrity DJ-ing’ and during that time she met a bunch of Sydney indie musicians and a producer Scott Horscroft in the Surrey Hills district. So it was in BJB studios in Surrey Hills that a) Speedball was recorded and b) where the album was co-mixed, between Wendy and Scott. It features 13 original compositions.The songs are typically ranging from Wendy’s love of New York New Wave Rock n Roll through to more Country Ballad and Phil Spector ‘Wall Of Sound’ production and once again shows the depth and range of Wendy’s song writing . The cover photo by James Traill was captured on a sidewalk early in the morning, in Sydney, outside a photography studio where Wendy was scheduled for a fashion shoot. Still available on original cd and reissued as a hi res digital download and as a Special Edition Color Splatter 12” vinyl. Not only that… the artwork: jacket, inner-sleeve and labels have been re-envisioned and updated, clearly this is a one-off run of vinyls!
TRACK LISTING
SIDE ONE
1. The Moon Dead in the River (4.57)
2. Where Have You Been, So Long? (4.27)
3. Don’t Shoot – I Ain’t Dillinger (4.41)
4. Municipal Blues (3.26)
5. New Wave Flowered Up Main Street Acid Baby (2.44)
6. Speedball (3.59)
Side One – Total running time: 23 minutes
SIDE TWO
7. No Dice (3.22)
8. You Tell Me (3.46)
9. King Hoodlum (3.26)
10. One Evening, in a Small Café (3.45)
11. These Beggar Memories (4.21)
12. You’re a Fucking Mess, But You Sure Is Pretty (2.19)
13. I Came Here to Blow Minds (3.21)
Side Two – Total running time: 23 minutes
Total Running Time: 46 Minutes
MUSICIANS
Wendy James – Vocals, Rhythm Guitar, Keys
Jeremy Orsel – Rhythm & Lead Guitar, Bass Guitar
Hadrien Grange – Drums
Brock Fitzgerald – Guitar
Wade Keighran – Bass, Percussion
Sam Pearton – Drums
All songs written and produced by Wendy James
All songs mixed by Wendy James & Scott Horscroft
Photography by James Traill
Art Direction by Wendy James & China Heights
*Mastered for Vinyl
5. THE PRICE OF THE TICKET
2016
6. QUEEN HIGH STRAIGHT
2020
7. THE SHAPE OF HISTORY
2024
