The Vapors Are Back In Business

So here is the news that fans of The Vapors have been waiting over 30 years to hear. The band are and rehearsing for some UK and Ireland dates in the autumn. I can't wait to see one of my all time favourite bands play live as I was too young to see them first time around. Click here to go to the bands facebook page.

At the beginning of 2015 I was fortunate enough to meet Dave Fenton. I was writing a book to rasie funds for the Beating Bowel Cancer charity where I met and photographed people. I managed to track Dave down and he immediately agreed to me. We met outside Big Ben and I got my News At Ten photo for the book. The photo below is one that I didn't use in the book. Lives & Times was published last November and has raised over £1350 for the charity. My mother was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2012 and is still fighting this awful illness. The cancer has spread to her brain and she is now in hospital after her condition recently deteriorated. 

Although The Vapors are best known for their massive 1980 worldwide hit Turning Japanese, I was a massive fan of their second single News At Ten. It should have been a massive hit, but lack of exposure, including a strike at BBC's Top Of The Pops resulted in the single just missing out making the UK Top 40.

I have already booked my ticket for their gig in Wolverhampton on November 19th. I am forever playing their compilations on my iPod and the one track I am desperate for them to play on tour is Letter From Hiro, which is just most gorgeous song!

The Vapors

I absolutely loved The Vapors back in the early 1980s. Like most people at the time it was their huge hit "Turning Japanese" that hooked me in. The fact that Vic Coppersmith-Heaven producer of The Jam was producing meant there was a distinct similarity in the sound which I loved.

The follow up single "News At Ten" was probably my favourite song they did. A brilliantly melodic guitar driven sing with a great catchy bass line underpinning the song. The cover of course had to pay homage to the iconic ITV News At Ten clock.

A single I didn't get hold of at the time was "Jimmie Jones". Back in days of vinyl once these singles were deleted it was very hard to get hold of them. In desperation I wrote in to Mike Read on Radio 1 who was doing a feature where lost records were replaced and told a little porky about my copy being pinched at a party. Some months later I received a copy of the record so my story obviously made it onto his show!

Fortunately in the CD and digital age their material has since been reissued and I frequently have The Vapors blasting out on my IPod... The real gem I discovered was the track "Letter From Hiro" a slightly slower song but absolutely gorgeous. My one regret is never seeing this band live...