That “difficult second album”, although “HUP” didn’t feel like it was and certainly doesn’t sound like it was. It’s many TWS fans favourite TWS album, especially that girl in the “Welcome To The Cheapseats” rockumentary who proclaimed she preferred “the first HUP album”. Strangely time has proved her right as in 2010, the then incarnation of The Wonder Stuff re-recorded “HUP” for its 21st Anniversary making the version of “HUP” that we are concerned with here the first “HUP” album…maybe she was a time traveller ?

After the success of “The Eight Legged Groove Machine” the Stuffies jumped on the promotional bandwagon required of a band now signed to a major international record label. This consisted of tours of the UK, USA and mainland Europe, culminating in a show at the Batschkapp in Frankfurt (it was every bit has horrid as it sounds) on 23rd November 1988 after which the band decided to curtail the rest of their European activities, cancelling gigs in Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin, Dortmund, Amsterdam and Rennes, and headed home. They were fed up of playing the same songs in freezing cold, less than full Euro-venues when they could be back in Blighty writing and recording new material for their next album. It resulted in something of a rift with European promoters and they didn’t tour the continent again for two years.

Back home the writing and recording resulted in the non-album single “Who Wants To Be The Disco King ?” and in September 1989, after UK and US tours, came “HUP”. Again recorded at the Greenhouse Studio near Old Street in London under the careful guidance of Pat Collier. There was a new sound dimension added on “HUP”. Miles had written the song “Cartoon Boyfriend”, the band had recorded it but everyone felt it was still lacking something. As a fan of Bob Dylan (think songs like “Hurricane”) and The Waterboys, Miles was no stranger to the idea of the fiddle in rock and, at the suggestion of Pat Collier, session man Martin Bell was invited to add fiddle to the recording. Bell was a seasoned session musician and multi-instrumentalist having worked in musical theatre and had, at one time, been a member of English folk-rack stalwarts The Albion Band. No matter what else I think of him, when Miles first played me the recording of “Cartoon Boyfriend” in his hotel room, Fiddly Bell’s (as he came to be known) entrance on the intro fair took my breath away.

That wasn’t to be Fiddly’s only contribution to “HUP” as he added more fiddle to “Unfaithful” and the fiddle and banjo parts to Indie-Country hoedown “Golden Green”. The timeline gets a bit fuzzy on this but at some point after his arrival on the Wonder Stuff’s crew (we who came to be known as The Totally Crap Crew) former Only Ones, General Public and Clash (!!!) roadie Digby Cleaver had introduced us all to one of his favourite compilation albums, “Truckin' Favorites” (MCA Records Cat# 255 011-1 if anyone wants to track it down), 20 slices of prime Country and Bluegrass Music all about trucks and the people that drive them, featuring tracks such as “Six Days On The Road” (a favourite of Joe Strummer’s), “How Fast Them Trucks Can Go”, “Big Bertha, The Truck Drivin' Queen” and the Osborne Brothers ridiculous “Highway Headin' South” (https://youtu.be/aYLvA19BKEE?si=70piBidPYngCZckj&t=1305 please stick with it until the key change, it kills me every time). Anyways, this began an “ironic” love of Country music among band and crew and the Spring 1989 tour of the US only extended this with access to Country radio and endless cheap (mainly Johnny Paycheck I recall) cassettes at truck stops.  You wanna know how Blighty’s premier Indie kids of ’89 “invented country music” as Miles is often wont to say, well there it is.

Track 1 Side 2 is the Indie disco floor packer “Don’t Let Me Down, Gently”. Miles commented at a gig in Manchester 2023 that they were good at Track 1 side 2 and paid a lot of attention to it, check ‘em out “A Wish Away”, “Don’t Let Me Down, Gently”, “Inertia” and “On The Ropes” take up that position on the first four albums, that’s not a bad Wonder Stuff primer.

“30 Years In The Bathroom” and it’s almost psychedelic bookend partner song “Room 410”, “Let’s Be Other People” (on which Bass Thing used to sing on the “HUP” Tour), “Radio Ass Kiss”, “Can’t Shape Up” (which reduced me to tears when they opened with it at one of the 2000 reunion shows) and we haven’t even mentioned perennial live favourite “Piece Of Sky” ! Was there a better album released in 1989 (I think Faith No More’s “The Real Thing” was the only album that came close to it for me) ? And yet it still isn’t my favourite Stuffies album. One of its strengths is also one of its weaknesses to me, it’s just a little too diverse, how is that the same band playing “Golden Green” and “Let’s Be Other People” ? 

The “HUP” Tour was another triumph. 18 shows around the country and introducing the world to support bands The Sandkings, Eat and some bunch of ‘erberts from Stourbridge called Ned’s Atomic Dustbin. The floor collapsed at The Brighton Centre, the band sold out at the 5000 capacity Brixton Academy (a venue that would come to feel like home) and later in December saw the band play 3 sold out nights at Birmingham’s Ast*n V*ll* Leisure Centre, The Hometown Hoedown. Sadly those 3 gigs were the Bass Things last with The Wonder Stuff, he had decided to leave and jetted off to a new life in New York right after the last show. I only saw him once more before his untimely passing. The curtain came down on The Wonder Stuff’s opening act…but there was more, more, more to come…

Let’s Be Other People - https://youtu.be/aQ0SiBKIMxE?si=vUNlhf4t_bZyo92R