[TypicalGirls] Someone you leave out?

Chuck Warner chuck at hyped2death.com
Sun May 14 17:39:41 EDT 2006


No one seems to be responding to Annette's query, so I thought I'd 
contribute a couple thoughts about Vermillion.

My sense was always that more people had opinions (negative) about 
Vermillion than had actually listened to her two 45s: Wild Boys Ride 
Their Bikes / Angry Young Women / Nympho-mania -Illegal 010 and The 
Letter / I Like Motorcycles-Illegal 015 (the latter backed by Menace 
as Vermillion and the Aces, while the drummer of her first band went 
on to the  amazing Straps), although I can't really fault the 
[typicalgirls] crowd for ignoring her since it's all straight-ahead 
rock-punk and despite the group title, punk has never been this 
group's primary area of interest.

But that doesn't explain 29 years of shunning by the punk lot. I 
never saw her but I have some theories:

(1) She was American, and
(2) unlike Chrissie who was always emphatically one of the boys, V. 
was all estrogen --abrasively, and full-on. Nowhere near politically 
correct, but it was no marketing ploy, either.  So, basically,
(3) she scared people.
(4) and the records were ugly, or at least unhelpfully-packaged.

I can't imagine her having had any more success had she stayed in the 
States, however, or had she been on any other label in the U.K.  For 
that matter I can't think of another woman straight or gay who made 
it in the 70s or 80s (or 90s?) with the same attitude (no tease, just 
lust without apology ...for boys, motorcycles, guitars, whatever). 
She wasn't enormously talented, but her chops were certainly the 
equal of many another chart act fo the day.  We're still talking 
about the last taboo, no?

There were a lot of stories that circulated about Vermillion --I 
can't remember any of them closely enough to repeat them, but it was 
all plenty entertaining.  (Helen did you ever track her down for your 
studies?)

peace,

C.

Chuck Warner
Hyped to Death CDs
http://hyped2death.com
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