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Clamor of Time

Spinning Fury (Part 1)

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Stream/Download

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We were jamming one day in the  “Harrow House of Horror” rehearsals studio, with its pink quilted walls and the gold giant Elvis logo painted on the floor, when some random conversation got around to Wendy James (no relation) and her band Transvision Vamp.  

We’d first met them when we were playing a gig in Brighton and they were fans of Sputnik and came up to us after the show. Wendy was small, blonde, confident and flirtatious when she came up to me.  The band didn’t make that much of an impression to be perfectly frank, with this thin girl singer and her unobtrusive partner, primarily because you meet so many wanna be bands on tour that they often seem to blur into the background scenery of the gig.  

Even as recently as 2004 when playing a small gig in Sheffield with Carbon/Silicon, the support band caught me and Mick’s attention for once as they seemed to have something special, but again I was too focussed on the work in hand to take much notice of them as I casually caught a couple of their numbers from the side of the stage. I remember thinking the singer definitely had the look, but I wasn’t too sure about the bands name, The Arctic Monkeys. 

Anyway, back to Transvision Vamp and months passed since that night we met then at the Sputnik gig  and would you believe it, the T. Vamps were now  having huge hits and we were probably -- dare I say -- a bit jealous.  

So there we were in rehearsals in Harrow Road, when we started jamming this riff and I quickly spotted that there was a song in the making.  We had the “She’s a Tramp” chorus and made up some lyrics as we went along. Actually listening now, it sounds like X singing a lot of the time so maybe this is X’s work on this one!  But by chance, this time we had my little tape recorder in the room, so we recorded this live jam straight to cassette with the machine propped up in the corner of the room.  Its quite a good guitar riff actually.  This song in creation is one of the few recorded as a live band with all six of us in the room. 

It’s actually good to hear Ray and Chris solidly rocking away, because history has overlooked the fact that they both became a really solid and reliable rhythm section. Unfortunately all my glib headline grabbing talk of “finding people who couldn’t play but who looked like stars” had backfired by then and was so totally taken as literal that the press just assumed I’d meant the band still couldn't play or had never learned.


And the “EMI paid $6m for a band that couldn’t play” was too good a headline to keep trotting out and it really dogged us negatively when we went to America. In fact Ray was one of the most solid drummers I have ever worked with and he combined brilliantly with Chris (who went on to play with MJ’s BAD 2) live. The two of them had developed a uncanny communication when playing live that allowed them to drop out or improvise simultaneously together, playing the groove in a dub style which was quite unique to Sputnik. It was these improvisational elements of the band that meant that no two concerts were ever the same. The music was a live beast that was able to react to the audience, giving us a confrontational capability that made every show so exciting and so different.  Live music indeed.

Now, ultimately, we were just joking around with this song and would never have actually put this out or recorded it. It’s got a certain vibe about Wendy that was probably based on a little bit of envy at the success she was having. I hate it when artists are anything less that supportive of each other on record, as we are all in the same difficult game and God knows there is enough other shit to deal with. Wendy and her band definitely were not a legitimate target, because I have to admit they were really good and the tunes were great.

Of course I’ve become friends with Wendy since then and have realised she’s actually an extremely smart and sassy girl. I had dinner with her recently and enjoyed every minute of the evening spent together. I’m sure she’ll forgive us for this light-hearted slight on her character recorded all those years ago and take it as it was intended in the spirit of the moment. 

Transvision Tramp

Sigue Sigue Sputnik - The Band, The Myth! - Electronic Rock 'n Roll.

Transvision Tramp

Sputnikworld

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