One day, a friend of mine gave me a CD which he bought in second hand CD shop. (Yep, it´s true someone didn´t like it and sold it to this shop!) I looked at the cover, and turned to the back side for the song list... The only track I knew was "I Want Your Love". It was the Pop Art album. I told my friend that he´ll get his CD back in a few days, because I wanted to record "I Want Your Love", and to listen over the whole CD.

To my surprise, 9 of the 10 tracks on the album did rock me like never before (except Depeche Mode). It wasn't long before "I Want Your Love" slid down my personal charts (of this album). Number one became "Sex Kick" with Wendy's moaning making my brain crazy for her. I listened to this track hundreds of times, with my headphones on and the volume to its max. (I think since I did this my eardrums weren't getting any better.... HUH, WHAT DID YOU SAY??? :-) ) But I love Wendy´s voice not just her moaning.

By the way, I never gave back THIS great album to my friend. Instead gave him some money for it... This CD, when I listen to it today, causes me to do a timewarp back to 1988, and I remember my life as it was at that time. I think everyone would agree that is what music does to you in general.

The biggest memory for me was buying "Velveteen", and visiting TV`s concert in BONN/Germany at the BISCUIT HALL. There I bought Wendy James of Transvision Vamp....ok, just the POSTER (which reads that), but hey, it´s huge! (about 1.80 metres high, with the picture nearly the same as the one printed on the backside of the booklet from the golden japanese 12" collection CD). I glued it on a wooden plate, which got a special place in my room. (Well, today it rests in our cellar --sorry Wendy -- my wife doesn´t want it in one of our rooms. She says "It´s too big", or "There´s no room", but I think she´s only jealous, hehe).

I bought all the other TV CDs until the band broke up. That was a sad time for me when I heard this, and I turned to listening to my other favourites instead (sorry, but I´m a even greater DEPECHE MODE fan anyway), insomuch that I completely missed Wendy´s solo career. Ahem, I know I should be ashamed when I tell you, that the first time I heard about her solo career was when I was surfing the Internet for Transvision Vamp in 1998. I don´t know why, but in 1998 there was a period when I remembered the 80s, and of course all the 80s music (at last they were playing the old hits in the radio), and it caused me to put a Transvision Vamp album in my CD player... suddenly I was listening to ALL my Vamp CD's again, and I "just can´t get enough" ;-) !! That was the time when I´d found this swedish fansite on the Internet with the webmaster´s "rare collection", and I saw some CDs which I didn´t have! Something had to be done about that, so I went to a second hand CD shop to buy the missing ones....*not*! Now I know that the word RARE on his collection was painfully right. So even today I am still missing some CDs, but I hope to get them sometimes.

My message is: When listening to Transvision Vamp or Wendy James, it´s like a drug, because you don´t just listen to one track and stop - no you CAN´T STOP listening until you´ve heard them all!

- Roland Weidmann
(We Are Transvision Vamp! fan, aged 30 (for only some days left), Cologne/Germany)

Back to Fan Stories