Dave, I hadn’t seen for about 15 years, but when we were playing Bristol last year he walked into the dressing room and went, ‘All right, Wendy?’” She laughs throatily. “It was so nice. When you’ve gone through so much with a gang of friends, it really doesn’t matter how many years go by. These are undoubtedly collectors items and of value… especially so as they will never be re-produced.

I was with a girlfriend, Kym Ellery, who’s an Australian designer. She got the beers in for breakfast and said ah, just take your top off. If I’d had a boyfriend who was fussing around me, maybe I would have dwelled on it, but I was surrounded by people who said, ‘They can go f*** themselves.’ I’m good friends with Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth from Talking Heads, who knew the Bowery when it was a rat-infested danger zone,” she swoons. In the season of festivities go ahead and buy whichever items you think would suit someone you know for a long-lasting gift that keeps giving! He said, ‘I’ve got no idea, probably in the vaults of Universal.’ But what are you going to do? Move to New York with a bunch of gold records under your arm? The idea of carrying loads of luggage was irritating to me.”

The album covers much ground, variously submerged in New York, the Great Plains and her adopted Paris, the latter of which is inspired by lazy French pop of the Sixties, such as the yé-yé derivative of go-go girls. Thank you to Amanda in Scotland, Jules in Ramsgate, Ben and Cal in London, Bernie in London… Thank you to Ricardo who travelled to UK and took incredible Live shots and always takes the most beautiful photos of me!

I was blinkered, and I mean that in a positive way,” she confirms. “The people that make it are the people who live and breathe it 24 hours a day, right? They’re not worried about getting married, having children or having enough money. It’s not a ‘hello boys’ pose. I’m not looking at the camera or inviting anybody in. There’s not a single man on the planet that can judge me for anything. Their opinion literally doesn’t count.” As she told Michael Aspel on Aspel & Co in 1999: “I started thinking as though I had created myself.” It brings to mind the magpie eye Patti Smith describes in her memoir, Just Kids: of being young and hungry, and constructing the self out of little ideas thieved from here and there.Having turned 50 in January, James has lost interest in trash-punk anthems and sending outrage meters into the red. There’s something about Downtown, with the artists, revolutionaries, activism, Max’s Kansas City, Patti and Lenny, the traffic lights, street signs, the rundown tenements… oh god. I could just eat it every single day.” Nowadays it’s an upper-middle class shopping mall for people who want to go to Bed Bath & Beyond and J-Crew, but it’s still exciting that I’m walking in the same Union Square that Andy Warhol’s Factory was in.

And once again Thank YOU for being so truly amazing in your love and loyalty for my music and for me… Literally, I couldn’t do it without you. THE WENDY JAMES BAND TOUR is getting bigger and bigger and I really think it’s going to work out to everyone’s advantage that the delay has happened… They’re just focused on what they’re doing. I wanted to be famous, rich, on Top Of The Pops. I was in a big candy store.”James voice and delivery has changed, it can still be bitter sweet, almost childlike, it can be snarling and deliver menace and lyrically this sweetness can hide a barb and many different levels of message, anywhere to the direct brutal truth downwards. What James also achieves is to make a cohesive record even though each song is so different to each other. The variety is such that I could break down and talk about every song on this album but times dictates you will have to discover them for yourself.

There is a bundle offer for both signed singles on vinyl or The second single on signed vinyl + t-shirt Buy here: Buy here: Since moving to New York in 2002 (Paris is but a dalliance), James has cultivated a psychogeographical fascination with the grimier neighbourhoods. I suppose if I’ve learned anything, it’s that before you burn all your bridges you should take a deep breath and look at the whole picture.”Thank you my wonderful friends who are there for me, at all times 100% no question. Thank you to Wolfe, Paula and Sean who have been my family in London while I’ve been here! It has been the most incredible month of UK shows, press, radio, rehearsals, laughs, love, challenges, triumphs, musical triumphs and moments with you: The Fans of my music, old and new, who have just kept on, kept on being with me, toe to toe, every step of the way! Plus at the moment, through until August 15th there is ‘SUMMER LUV-IN’ discount available for any item in the store…