711 Goodbye Transvision Vamp - If Looks Could Kill

Chart  entered :  22  June  1991

Chart  peak : 41

Transvision  Vamp   had  enjoyed  their  best  year  in  1989  with  a  number  one  album  "Velveteen"  and  a  number  3  single  "Baby  I  Don't  Care", one  of  four  Top  30  hits  from  the  LP. They  then  spent  a  bit  too  long  on  the  follow  up. The  lead  single  "( I  Just  Wanna  )  B  With  U"  peaked  at  30, lower  than  any  of  the  "Velveteen"  singles,  in  April  1991  and  MCA  began  to  have  doubts  about  their  prospects. They  delayed  the  release  of  the  new  album  "Little  Magnets  Versus   The  Bubble  of  Babble".

"If  Looks  Could  Kill"  was  therefore  something  of  a  deal  breaker.  It  was  never   going  to  rescue  them. Written  by  guitarist  Nick  Sayer  , it's  just  an  empty, blustering  rocker,  bereft  of  a  tune,  a  sharp  lyric ,a  decent  riff  or  any  of  the  sense  of  fun  that  made  their  earlier  hits  reasonably  attractive. Wendy  James's  vocal  inadequacies  stand  out  more; she  has  to  drawl  her  way  through  the  second  verse. It's  an  ugly  record  and  got  higher  than  it  deserved.

The  band  made  MCA's  decision  on  the  album  for  them  by  deciding  to  split  up  which  was  announced  at  the  beginning  of  1992. Wendy  wrote  to  Elvis  Costello  for  some  career  advice  and  received  in  response  an  album's  worth  of  songs, some  co-written  with  his  wife  Cait  O'  Riordan. Not  one  to  look  a  gift  horse  in  the  mouth, Wendy  recorded  them  as  the  album  "Now  Ain't  The  Time  For  Your  Tears"  released ( still  on  MCA ) in  1993. Pete  Thomas  was  the  drummer  on  the  sessions.

I  haven't  heard  the  entire  album   but  from  6  out  of  the  ten  tracks  I'd  concur  with  the  view  that  it  was  better  than  expected. Producer  Chris  Kimsey  does  his  best  with  Wendy's  voice; this  was  as  good  as  she's  ever  going  to  sound, aiming  for  a  Marianne  Faithful  vibe  on  "Basement  Kiss" and  third  ( non-hit )  single  "Do  You  Know  What  I'm  Saying ". The  album's  chances  were  not  helped  by  someone's  bizarre  decision   to  put  out  the  cacophonous  alt -rock of  "The  Nameless  One"  as  the  first  single. Wendy  sounds  like  she's  more  interested  on  getting  on  the  bill  at  Lollapalooza  than  having  another  hit. It  stalled  at  34.  The  less  bracing  Clash  tribute  "London's  Brilliant "  reached 62, not  enough  to  rescue  the  album  which  had  a  single  week  in  the  chart  at  43.

Wendy  dropped  out  halfway  through  a  tour  to  promote  the  album. MCA  cut  her  loose  and  she  took  an  extended  sabbatical  from  the  music  business, no  doubt  looking  wryly  on  at  the  success  of  the  likes  of  Garbage  and  Sleeper.  She  had  her  own  studio  and  taught  herself  to  play various  instruments   in  order  to  come  back  as  a  genuine  solo  artist. There  was  an  attempt  to  work  with  Nick  again  in  the  mid-nineties  but  it  was  soon  aborted. In  the  early  noughties  she  moved  to  New  York and  became  a  fan  of  drag  car  racing.

She  eventually  re-emerged  in  2004  at  the  head  of  a  group  called  Racine  where  she  called  all  the  shots. She  wrote  all  the  songs, produced  it  and  released  it  on  her  own  label. Optimistically  entitled  "Number  One ", the  album  has  a  certain  lo-fi  charm  matching  kitchen-ish  vocals  to  grunge-lite  guitars  and  programmed  beats, sounding  a  bit  like  mid-eighties  shamblers  Talullah  Gosh  discovered  a  drum  machine. There  are  one  or  two  decent  tunes  in  there  like  "Princess  Patience  Blues"  and  the  reggae  number  "W13th "  though  the  latter  also  proves  that  Wendy  still  suffers  from  the  delusion  that  name  dropping  serious  cultural  figures  conveys  some  gravitas  on  her.  The  muted  electronica  of  "Grease  Monkey"  was  released  as  a  single  with  an  odd  video  of  Wendy  wandering  distractedly  around  a   drag  race  meet. Wendy  came  to  the  UK  for  a  tour  and  received  a  moderate   amount  of  publicity  but  sales  were  minimal. Their  second  LP  "Racine  2"  sank  without  trace  in  2007  and  Wendy  put  the  band  to  bed  around  2009.

That  year  she  released  a  second  single  the  grunge-y  "You  Tell  Me"  heralding  a  return  to  guitar  rock.  An  album,  titled  with  characteristic  modesty, "I  Came  Here  To  Blow  Minds", followed  in  2010. The  opening  track  "The  Moon  Dead  In  The  River"  is  agreeable  enough  perhaps  because  the  guitar  work  has  distinct  echoes  of  Losing  My  Religion   but  thereafter  it  just  offers  further  proof  that  Wendy  isn't  the  talent  she  thinks  she  is. The  singing  remains  inadequate, the  spiky  lyrics  are  often  clumsy  and  pretentious  - the  title  track  offers  the  customary  meaningless  bran  tub  namechecking   and  "One  Evening  in  a  Small  Cafe"  drops  in  a  line  from  The  Wasteland   for  no  discernible  reason - and  none  of  the  tunes  are  memorable.

But, six  years  later  she  was  back  again  with  "The  Price  of  the  Ticket "  with  her  breasts  out  on  the  cover  ( not  in  bad  shape  for  50  actually )  and  she  appeared  just  up  the  road  from  me  at  Darwen  Live  in  the  summer.  It  was  funded  by  Pledgemusic  and   recorded  with  punk  legends  Glen  Matlock  and  Lenny  Kaye  ( and  ex-Stooge  James  Williamson  on  two  tacked-on  covers )  but  having  famous  names  on  board  isn't  much  help  when  your  songs  are  crap  and  this  is  barrel-scraping  stuff  with  Wendy  drawling  rather  than  singing  much  of  the  time. Maybe  her  new  trout  pout  got  in  the  way.

Nick  became  a  single  parent  and  has  had  no  further  involvement  in  the  music  industry.

Bassist  Dave  Parsons  really  fell  on  his  feet,  joining  the  band  Bush  who  proceeded  to  sell  a  shedload  of  albums  in  the  States  with  their  take  on  grunge. Their  debut  album  "Sixteen  Stone"  wasn't  released  until  six  months  after  Kurt  Cobain's  death  so  we'll  never  know  what  he'd  have  made  of  these  British  copyists. They  got  a  predictably  rough  response  from  the  UK  music  press  but  I  don't  think  they  were  that  bad, a  bit  same-y  but  I'd  sooner  listen  to  them  than  Pearl  Jam. Their  commercial  peak  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  came  with  their  second  album  "Razorblade  Suitcase"  a  US  number  one  and  number  4  here  in  1996. Its  lead  single  "Swallowed "  was  their  only  Top  20  hit  here  reaching  number  7. Their  appeal  waned   with  the  twentieth  century  and  they  disbanded  in  2002  after  relatively  poor  sales  for  2001's  "Golden  State  " LP. In  2010  the  band  re-formed;  Dave was   invited   to  re-join  but  ultimately  decided  the  commitment  was  too  much  and  declined.

Keyboard  player  and  drummer    Anthony  "Tex  Axile"  Doughty  joined  Max  who  we   covered  in  the  Goodbye  post  for  Adam  and  the  Ants. After  they  broke  up  in  1994,  he  moved  to  New  York  where  he  co-owned  a  bar. He  put  out  two  very  obscure  solo  albums  "Diary  of  a  Genius"  ( 1998 )  and  "Little Monsters  ( 2000 ) . In  2001 he  moved  to  the  Pyrenees   and  worked  on  a  documentary  about  female  ski  racers.

Original  drummer  Pol  Burton   was  subsequently  in  the    bands   Angora  and  Tom  Patrol, fronted  by  ex  - Heart  Throbs  singer  Rose  Carlotti  but  they  never  amounted  to  much.