The Life and Times of V Transmission Part 2

Welcome back to the second instalment of The Life and Times of V Transmission! We now find Boucher at the centre of the Manchester backlash – after the nationwide success of the Baggy movement and on the back of the unexpected success of Oasis, the tide was turning unfavourably against any music coming out of the North of England, and in particular, from Manchester. This was the era of grunge, and American influence once against ruled the airwaves and tapped into the psyche of young music fans across the UK. Simultaneously the UK saw the birth of the Acid House movement – clubbing was the new gigging and live bands simply couldn’t get a gig for love nor money – not even a Sunday afternoon slot in the local Working Man’s Club. The death of the indie/alternative and rock scene seemed inevitable.

By now Andy Boucher was progressing well with his career as a Site and Projects Manager, and thoughts of a career in music were fading fast, particularly as there seemed no way back for British music. However, fate would intervene when he bumped into an old friend who was keen to know if Andy was still playing.

An old acquaintance was looking for a band to play at his wedding – but he wanted a band with a difference! Not for him the usual polite, bog standard pop classics – no he wanted a band that could really cut it live, and that could perform first class indie stomping covers live. Step forward Andy Boucher and his partner in musical crime, Jon Anson on guitar.

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After a truly rousing reception from the guests, plus the massively impressive £1000 earned, Andy’s passion for music was well and truly reignited and he is brutally and searingly honest in admitting he was also seduced by earning the big bucks! In an unbelievable twist of fate, one of the wedding guests present that evening just happened to be a booking agent, who immediately offered Andy and John more work!

At first Andy was daunted at the prospect of being a singer and frontman as he wasn’t used to being the ‘face’ of a music outfit, but he soon learned how to build a rapport with an audience, and his natural charisma and charm shone through in spades.

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After several years pounding the clubs and pubs of the Northwest of England as part of this very successful and popular cover act, Andy decided on a cold and rainy Saturday night driving back over the moors from a gig in Buxton that he was done and wanted to walk away. Frustrated by the lack of creativity, he desperately needed a clean break from everything and went off to some far off lonely planet places as a site manager for a Petro

chemical company, he ended up places like Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Algeria and spent months in the middle of the Sahara Desert! Even a cold and bleak Balkan winter in Kosovo while the civil war was still simmering as a site consultant for the MOD and was even shot at a few times while moving around under armed escort, all very character building as he recalls.

Eventually, Boucher returned home to Middleton, where he bumped into an old pal, Graham ‘Woody’ Woods – himself an amazingly talented guitarist – to quote Andy, Woody ‘played like Ritchie Sambora but looked like Billy Idol’ – quite a character clearly!

Woody remembered well the gig that Andy’s previous band Out Of The Blue had played at the Civic Hall all those years ago and was keen to know what had been done with all the great songs Andy had written and performed back at this time. Andy eventually found all of his old demo tapes and tracks hidden and forgotten about in an old shoe box in the loft and Woody got to work at home studio remixing and revamping the best ones.

Well Andy just couldn’t believe what Woody had managed to achieve – and on hearing the tracks for the first time was genuinely brought to tears – ‘Woody had changed the sound completely, the feeling was spot on and the energy he brought to them was just incredible. The songs sounded the way they had always meant to sound and really captured the essence of those early live performances.’ ‘What Woody had achieved made me want to go back and revisit the lyrics and make them better so I re-wrote the lyrics to three songs!’

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Rejuvenated and raring to go, Boucher and Woody made a brand new demo tape which quickly got the attention of the bands former keyboard player Paul Langley who was now DJ at various clubs and venues and he passed it on to his brother Bobby Langley; Head of Sony UK Marketing. The demo contained new versions of ‘All Tomorrows Martyrs’, ‘Suicide Love’ and ‘Red Cherry Smiles’. Bobby Langley’s immediate reaction was, ‘Andy you NEED to make an album!’

This was surely it – the big time was beckoning! But just as before, the path to success was taking a very sudden downturn, and this time, it would end in tragedy. Woody had been suffering with ill health and following a series of tests, was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. No sooner had he been diagnosed, his health deteriorated further and within three months, Woody very tragically passed away, leaving Andy utterly devastated and lost.

Andy then went on to experience some serious health problems of his own, but feeling as though his musical journey wasn’t yet complete, he felt compelled to record one more song. With dogged determination, and his friend Woody very much in his thoughts, he called on his best friend and guitar legend John Anson who was no longer playing the club scene anymore and together they went on to record ‘Silence with Guns’. In many ways, the journey to re birth and recovery was just beginning…

NEXT TIME….. Covid 19 hits, record label woes and the birth of V Transmission!

V Transmisson are Andy Boucher, John Anson, Mat Thorpe and Mick Bedford. For more information please visit http://www.vtransmission.com and follow on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Lauren Jayne