GREAT NEWS!
Wendy James is releasing her second 7” single taken from her amazing new LP ‘THE PRICE OF THE TICKET’ RELEASE DATE: 25th November 2016
The two tracks, double a-sides, are YOU’RE A DIRTBOMB, LESTER + FAREWELL TO LOVE. Both found to be favorites with her audiences when she has been playing live shows and two of her personal favorites from the entire album track listing.
Pre-order your copy of Signed 7″ You’re A Dirtbomb, Lester / Farewell To Love CLICK HERE
Pre-order the bundle of Signed 7″ You’re A Dirtbomb, Lester / Farewell To Love, AND Signed 7″ Bad Intentions & A Bit Of Cruelty / Indigent Blues CLICK HERE
AA side:
YOU’RE A DIRTBOMB, LESTER – is a pure garage, new wave, forceful, powerful steam-roller of a song, with some of her most exceptional lyrics on the LP. Detailing a time when she lived in the then broken down Gramercy Park Hotel in Lower Manhattan and lived wide-eyed every moment, seeking out the sites of Andy Warhol’s Factory, Max’s Kansas City, The Bowery, CBGB, mixing with denizens of Lower Manhattan, Graffiti Artists, Downtown Musicians, Painters, Writers and imagining one of her all time female icon Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol’s delectable superstar, walking the same streets… through to a more philosophical third verse whereupon she quotes notable moments in history and the great American author Mark Twain, she suggests the force of energy to create and make progress is innate within us, whatever period of time you are born into and whatever mode of communication you choose: music, science, art, letters, politics and it is an unstoppable and wondrous energy.
Wendy has said of her time: “I went to NYC and walked down 5th Avenue and 57th street, onto Madison, onto Lexington, down to Union Square, down to The Bowery, down to Chinatown, down to Wall Street, I knew I’d be back to live. I wanted the wide avenues, I wanted the tall skyscrapers, I wanted the neon signs, I wanted Times Square, I wanted the Brooklyn Bridge and the Williamsburg Bridge and the Mid-Town Tunnel, I wanted the Gramercy Park Hotel, I wanted the Chelsea Hotel, I wanted CBGB, I wanted Max’s Kansas City, I wanted The Factory, I wanted the 5 Points, I wanted Canal Street, I wanted Washington Square Park, I wanted Greenwich Village, I wanted the East Village, I wanted Chelsea, I wanted Hells Kitchen, I wanted Chinatown, I wanted it all!!! I wanted the subways, I wanted the 24 hour deli’s, I wanted the yellow taxis, I wanted the Puerto Ricans, I wanted the Koreans, I wanted the Upper East Side, I wanted the Frick, I wanted The Met, The Guggenheim, I wanted Central Park, I wanted the Robber Barons, I wanted the dive bars, I wanted the cop cars, I wanted the sirens, I wanted the West-Side Highway, I wanted the East River, I wanted the elevators, I wanted Gloria Steinem, I wanted Doris Kearns Goodwin, I wanted Joan Didion, I wanted Abraham Lincoln, I wanted civil rights, I wanted black power, I wanted female liberation, I wanted cable tv, I wanted the movies, I wanted the delivery guys, I wanted the cable guys, I wanted the superintendents, I wanted it ALL. I wanted Hank Williams and Gene Vincent and Buddy Holly and The Killer, I wanted Bob Dylan, I wanted Altamont, I wanted Woodstock, I wanted Chess and Checker Records, I wanted the Sunset Strip, I wanted the Holiday Inn, I wanted the Four Seasons, I wanted it ALL. I wanted Robert Rauschenberg, I wanted Jackson Pollock, I wanted Frank Stella, I wanted Andy Warhol, I wanted Keith Haring, I wanted Graffiti. I wanted Mark Twain, I wanted Hunter Thompson, I wanted Elia Kazan, I wanted Arthur Miller, I wanted Marlon Brando, I wanted On The Waterfront, I wanted Martin Scorsese, I wanted Francis Ford Coppola, I wanted Peter Bogdanovich, I wanted John Ford, I wanted Nicholas Ray, I wanted Robert Frank’s The Americans and Robert Frank’s Cocksucker Blues, I wanted Grey Gardens, I wanted JFK and La Guardia, I wanted it ALL!”
The title is in honor of the legendary rock journalist for Creem and Rolling Stone Magazine, author LESTER BANGS (Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung).
LYRICS:
I was lying on my bed
I just lay there
With New Wave rockers and Graffiti
And music and kicks in Gramercy
It was a scene, those endless nights
I traced my melancholy
I saw it was a trap
I just wanted to play music
It was a magic thing, that thrill that I got
I was very happy
True love and anguish
I don’t know quite what it is
He said “Darlin’, I just don’t get ya”
I said “You’re a Dirtbomb, Lester”
That love was there
When the foundations of Rome were laid
When Christ was crucified
When the Conquerer created the British Isles
When Columbus sailed
When the massacre at Lexington was news
(Credit M. Twain)
True love and anguish
I don’t know quite what it is
He said “Darlin’, I just don’t get ya”
I said “You’re a Dirtbomb, Lester”
MUSICIANS
Wendy James – Vocals/Rhythm Guitar/Piano & Keys
Lenny Kaye – Rhythm and Lead Guitar
Glen Matlock – Bass Guitar
James Sclavunos – Drums
Produced by Wendy James
Mixed by Wendy James and Jesse Nichols at Fantasy Recording Studios, Berkeley, CA. USA
photography – Ricardo Gomes
art direction – Wendy James & Ricardo Gomes
All songs written and composed by Wendy James. Ⓟ and © Wendy James 2014.
All rights reserved. Unauthorized Duplication is a violation of all applicable laws.
Track Time: 6’.38”
AA side:
FAREWELL TO LOVE
Wendy’s end-of-the-line cowboy ballad for the finish of a love affair, so delicately and beautifully presented! She says: “I’m a harmony and backing vocal girl. I love harmonies and backing vocals and I love when my voice sings to my voice: the texture blends and becomes very full, very pure. Whether it’s Bacharach and David (all their wonderful songs with Dionne Warwick) especially so their original soundtrack for the movie ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’, in particular ‘South American Getaway’ or Keith Richards in his song ‘All About You’ on The Rolling Stones album ‘Emotional Rescue’ and on my song ‘Farewell To Love’, the harmonies evoke June Carter Cash and The Carter Family, Loretta Lynn, and Patsy Cline. Lenny Kaye plays the most wonderful (chorus echo) guitar melody in answer to my rhythm guitar, weaving in and out with simplicity and precision, he has the perfect touch. I’ve mixed Glen Matlock’s bass up loud on this song, it sounds like he’s in his own skin, so easy, so effortless, it sounds like he’s enjoying every note! I watched him across the live room as we tracked it and he was just bobbing along, eyes closed, really in a good place! James Sclavunos drumming, as always, he conducts us and makes the song groove and soar high. I overdubbed a delicate Wurlitzer piano part echoing Lenny’s guitar melody line. That’s all it is, it doesn’t need a single thing more. Lyrically it’s “get-out-of-town!”. The waste of time listening to someone go round in circles under the impression they’re saying something different to every time they’ve said the same thing before. When it’s done, it’s done and you can’t buy back character at the end.”
LYRICS:
Take your belongings
And get out before dark
I guess you can’t help
Being what you are
You just hang on
To what you got
But you can say
Farewell To Love
You came here
For absolution
You’d like to be set free
For what you’ve done
You think punishment
Will set you free
That’s why you’ve come
Farewell To Love
Good Luck, Fool
Nothing’s true
In your cock-eyed world
You can’t buy back your life when it’s finished
You wanna know something honey
I’m gonna busy myself elsewhere
When you’re belly-empty, hollow-hungry
Don’t come see me all dreamy with temperature
Ain’t no in-between
Listenin’ to you come clean
That time is done
Farewell To Love
MUSICIANS
Wendy James – Vocals/Rhythm Guitar/Piano & Keys
Lenny Kaye – Rhythm and Lead Guitar
Glen Matlock – Bass Guitar
James Sclavunos – Drums
Produced by Wendy James
Mixed by Wendy James and Jesse Nichols at Fantasy Recording Studios, Berkeley, CA. USA
photography – Ricardo Gomes
art direction – Wendy James & Ricardo Gomes
All songs written and composed by Wendy James. Ⓟ and © Wendy James 2014. All rights reserved. Unauthorized Duplication is a violation of all applicable laws.
Track Time: 3’.16”
Pre-order your copy of Signed 7″ You’re A Dirtbomb, Lester / Farewell To Love CLICK HERE
Pre-order the bundle of Signed 7″ You’re A Dirtbomb, Lester / Farewell To Love, AND Signed 7″ Bad Intentions & A Bit Of Cruelty / Indigent Blues CLICK HERE
Release date: 25th November 2016
Buy THE PRICE OF THE TICKET CLICK HERE
