» Listings for September 2024

1. 2023/4 Albums Thing 420 - The Wonder Stuff “HUP”

   Posted on 9:40am Saturday 14th Sep 2024

   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

2. 2023/4 Albums Thing 419 - The Wonder Stuff “The Eight Legged Groove Machine”

   Posted on 9:40am Friday 13th Sep 2024

   Friday 4th July 1986…the band I was in back then, Pop Da Freak, had a fairly prestigious gig booked at The Railway, Curzon Street, Birmingham. Don’t bother looking for The Railway now, it was demolished in 2007 as part of the redevelopment that saw the creation of the Thinktank Science Museum in Brum, and a somewhat ignominious period as a Mexican Restaurant, but back in the 80’s and all through the 70’s it had been quite the prestigious pub venue for Brummie bands along with the Barrell Organ and The Mercat Cross. On that night we had invited my brothers new band to support us, this would have been one of their first 10 gigs, they were called The Wonder Stuff. They played their, then, usual 20 minute set and off they went.

   We had also invited that night local journalist Paul Flower who wrote for legendary local publication Brum Beat, obviously hoping for a favourable write up. After what we thought was a great gig for us we were keen to see what Paul made of it when the next issue came out. I found the review in the paper, there we were, “Pop Da Freak & The Wonder Stuff, The Railway, Birmingham”, oh he’s put TWS in the header too. Then imagine my dismay after one sentence saying we were OK, to find that the entirety of the review was about how fantastic The Wonder Stuff had been and how they really were going places. That was the day my dreams of rock stardom died and I realised that Miles and his band of long haired, ripped Levi’s  and stripey shirted Indie poppers really did have something going on.

   This is where things start getting difficult to write. For those who haven’t been paying attention Wonder Stuff singer Miles Hunt is my brother, I worked on The Wonder Stuff’s crew from late in 1987 until the end of 2019 (on and off), these records we’re about to talk about mean as much to me as classics by The Jam, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie or any of the other artists that have helped make me who I am now (and make no mistake music has been that important to me being who I am). The people who made these records aren’t distant images on a stage or pictures in the music press, they are my mates, in some cases my very much missed no longer with us mates. So let’s see if we can explain these records importance in my, and maybe your, world.

   “The Eight Legged Groove Machine” (from here on referred to as “ELGM”) is that classic debut album, basically the bands live set up to that point in time, honed to perfection on stages of all sizes up and down the country with the addition of a couple of newer songs constructed in the studio, and all committed to tape with a little finesse courtesy of producer Pat Collier. Pat had been the original bass player in The Vibrators and just prior to “ELGM” had produced albums by the Motorcycle Boy, the Soup Dragons and King Kurt. He would, after “ELGM”, go on to become the Indie producer of choice, making records with Neds Atomic Dustbin, The Darling Buds, The Seers and The House Of Love alongside a long standing relationship with Robyn Hitchcock. Pat was an unflappable presence in the studio.

   The “ELGM” bursts into life on a song that is still close to the heart of many a Stuffies fan, “Red Berry Joy Town”, one of the very first songs they ever wrote. All ringing, scratching guitars and, psych-ie harmonies, you can almost hear all that hair flailing around. There’s absolutely no letup for the first 3 songs as that is followed by the breathless “No For The 13th Time” (or “No x 13” as it appeared on setlists) and the sarcy “It’s Yer Money I’m After Baby” (note the mis-spelling tip of the hat to the mighty Slade). All the live favourites up to that point are here, single “Give, Give, Give Me More More More” (the Kerrrching at the start was sampled from Wizzard’s “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday”…gotta keep things in the family), “Ruby Horse” (giddy up kiddies it’s the horsey song), “Poison” (nobody wants to get hurt…), “Grin” (during which myself and Roadie-ing partner in crime Digby Cleaver would sing “Shake it like a shaking thing that you’ve never seen, Cos the thing that pays your wages now is the The Eight Legged Groove Machine”) and of course “Unbearable” or as Miles often refers to it “the song that got us into all this trouble". It’s a manic pop rush from start to end equal parts Psyche Rock, Glam Rock, Punk Rock and the sound of 1988.

   Of those newer songs the most contentious was “The Animals & Me”. “Bass Thing” Rob Jones absolutely hated it, on his vinyl copy the track was scratched out, and I think I’m right in saying he doesn’t play on the album version (I’m sure Miles will put me right if I’m wrong on that). The reason it was re-arranged for it’s live incarnation wasn’t because they couldn’t play it live like it was on the record but that Bob wouldn’t play it like that !

   Following the albums release we set off on the “Groovers On Manoeuvres” UK tour. That was my first experience of working a  headlining UK tour. For some gigs I was on double duty as my band, The Libertines, were the support at shows in Manchester, Keele, Birmingham, London, Cardiff, and Liverpool. I would spend all day setting up the Stuffies show then, when soundcheck was over and I should be getting dinner, I would setup and soundcheck with The Libertines and as soon as we finished our gig, rush off, get changed and rush back to the stage for the changeover to start the Stuffies show…oh to be 25 again !!!

   From 2 nights at the tiny Newcastle Riverside to 2 sold out nights at London’s (sadly demolished) Astoria, the tour was an absolute blast. The band were on fire and the audiences were just wild. Within 2 years The Wonder Stuff had gone gone from support band in a backstreet Brummie boozer (£1 on the door just to make you all really jealous!) to headlining UK tours and a top 20 album, for which I still have the silver disc on my record room wall. It was bye-bye West Midlands, we were aiiirborne…

   Grin - https://youtu.be/6i4ha0Z831A?si=BTK2e2tauZGskgSg

3. 2023/4 Albums Thing 418 - Stevie Wonder - “Milestones: Talking Book/Music Of My Mind”

   Posted on 9:30am Thursday 12th Sep 2024

   This is a 1973 “twofer” (that’s two for the price of one for the uninitiated) from the Netherlands collecting together Mr. Stevland Hardaway Judkins (his name at birth, you didn’t actually think his name was Wonder did you ? Although checking the names of some current sportsmen in the US it wouldn’t be a surprise, my current favourite is Koolaid McKinstry…yes really!) 2 albums originally released in 1972. For some reason on this release they are presented in reverse order as “Talking Book” was released after “Music Of My Mind”, trust the Dutch to be contrary.

   Little Stevie Wonder, as he was known back in the 60’s, released his first single for Motown, “I Call It Pretty Music, But The Old People Call It The Blues”, in May 1962. 10 years on and Stevie had his head turned by synthesisers after hearing Tonto’s Expanding Head Band and had a hankering to write more socially relevant lyrics in the vein of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”. He began working with Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff of Tonto’s Expanding Head Band and their first project together was 1972’s “Music Of My Mind”.

   “Music Of My Mind” was Stevie’s first album under a new contract with Motown (although in the US it was released on the Tamla label. Confused ? Well in the US Motown and Tamla are separate imprints of the Motown company, as were Gordy, Soul, VIP, Rare Earth, Mo-West and a host of others. What we know as the “Tamla Motown” label only exists outside the US…clear ?). This new contract allowed him full artistic control over the music he recorded and released. Wonder produced the album and played all the instruments, except trombone on opening tune “Love Having You Around” and guitar on one song, himself. One thing that jumped out at at me is that almost every song on this album outstays it’s welcome, they are too long, just for the sake of being too long and not because the songs warrant it. A prime example is “Keep On Running”, it’s almost 7 minutes long and if it were only 3 you wouldn’t be missing out on anything.

   My folks had a copy of “Talking Book” so I knew it from a fairly young age.  I therefore find it strange that the two songs I most associate with it are the somewhat schmaltzy “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life” (we really should have seen “I Just Called To Say I Love You” coming shouldn’t we ?) and the beautiful closing “I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)” and not the synthesised mountain-o-funk known the world over as “Superstition”. The primary reason I grabbed this twofer was it had “Superstition” on it and every DJ at some point needs a guaranteed floor-filler, which “Superstition” most certainly is, but it was so nice to be reminded of ”I Believe…” when I played it in full.

   These two albums were released only 5 months apart in May and October 1972. Stevie Wonder, who must have been on a creative speed trip, turned 22 that year and, unbelievably, these two were his 14th and 15th studio albums in just 10 years. His next two, “Innervisions” and “Fulfillingness First Finale”, were also recorded with assistance from Margouleff and Cecil and together with Stevie’s 18th studio album, “Songs In The Key Of Life”, form what’s known as his classic period. We all love a bit o’ Stevie…right ?

   I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever) - https://youtu.be/VfDZNwJ3jVU?si=crOYrlqlaOOlwPNh