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  1. 2023/4 Albums Thing 427 - The Wonder Stuff “Better Being Lucky”

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    If you’re going to produce short run/limited edition vinyl pressings of your albums then you might as well make them a thing of beauty to look at as well as a delight to  listen to. “Better Being Lucky” is not only a great album the actual physical thing is a work of art. Three 12” singles playing at 45RPM, one on blue vinyl, one pink and the third yellow (I believe they are officially Pale Blue, Fuchsia and Custard) all housed in a box. It’s an absolutely gorgeous thing.

    One VERY important thing to know about “Better Being Lucky” and its sound was that Malc was back ! After stepping away from the band after “Suspended By Stars” for reasons that shall remain unspoken it was a fucking joy to have Rockin’ Roy Treece back in the fold. I’d been looking after Malc and his guitars and equipment for almost 30 years and I know I’ve said before that so long as Miles is upfront it’s still The Wonder Stuff to me…but there’s only Milo and Malc left from that band that supported Pop Da Freak at the Railway in Birmingham in 1986 so to have done gigs without him there, stage left (and this is no slight to Stevie or Dan or Jerry who stood in for him for a few years) always felt a bit off to me. Love ya Malc…

    It was back to Mockingbird Studio in Stourbridge with Simon Efemey behind the mixing desk again (hey, if the formula works stick with it). This time we introduce another set of legs to the Groove Machine too, they are now twelve legged. The Wonder Stuff these days is something of an alt.rock supergroup. Miles and Malc are still there from the original line-up. Erica has now been in the band for almost 20 years (!!!) and has 3 solo albums to her name along with stints with The Proclaimers and The Mission. The rhythm section of Pete Howard and Tim Sewell played together with the mighty Eat and then there is 3rd guitar slinger Mark Gemini Thwaite who has played with such leg-ends as Spear Of Destiny, The Mission, Bauhaus/Peter Murphy, Tricky and Gary Numan. We’re getting close to that Skynyrd 3 guitar attack here.

    The first two songs on “Better Being Lucky” are honestly as good as any lineup of The Wonder Stuff has ever produced. “Feet To The Flames” and “Lay Down Your Cards” both made it into the set on the “Better Being Lucky” Tour (only 5 songs from the album were included in the set, all played up front so the crowd knew the hits were coming later), as did song number 3, the truly wonderful “Don’t Anyone Dare Give A Damn”. Taking its title from the tuning Miles used to write the song (D-A-D-G-A-D) it’s right up there with Miles best, full stop.

    Miles got some help with the songwriting this time around, only 2 songs are credited just to him (the title track and “Map & Direction”). MGT co-wrote 9 of the 11 songs including some crunching guitar riffs on “No Thieves Among Us” which I’m sure Simon enjoyed recording. Erica helped with “Lay Down Your Cards”, “It's The Little Things”, to which she also adds a wicked violin solo, and the beautiful “The Guy With The Gift”, Milo’s thank-you to those influential people we all have in our lives. With all those people contributing to the writing, for a band that have chiefly been led by Miles’ songs, at no point does “Better Being Lucky” sound like anything but a Wonder Stuff record. The overall sound is big and punchy but sympathetic to the quieter moments. 

    We’ve already established my bias when it comes to all things TWS and here it comes again, “Better Being Lucky” is bloody wonderful and we haven’t really mentioned absolute highlights like the thunderous “When All Of This Is Over” (aka “The Custodian”) and Miles' hymn to the Shropshire hills “Map & Direction” (“In this timeless place I’ve been living, Every woman, every dog has had  their day”).

    This was where my direct connection to The Wonder Stuff, as part of their crew ended. I’d tried to retire from the road once before, at the end of the 2013 “Sleigh The UK” tour. But in the summer of 2014 Miles coaxed me back to do “just one more gig” at V Festival in 2014 (it was going out live on the radio and I don’t think he was that confident in the crew they had around them at the time) and I stuck around for another 5 years after that. But after the Nov/Dec 2019 “Better Being Lucky” tour, the next thing we knew we were in the midst of a global pandemic and by the time the world got back to normal I stepped away for good. 

    As we come to the end of our journey through their albums (for now ?) I’ll say it, The Wonder Stuff don’t get anything like the respect they deserve to my mind (yes, as we’ve said before, I’m biased). From 1988 until they split in 1994 they were one of (I’d argue at one point in time actually) the biggest bands in the UK. They are still to this day a formidable live experience (watching them support the Levellers on tour in 2011 was to see a masterclass in setlist construction, hit after hit after hit with very little time to draw breath and I have no hesitation in telling you they blew the Lev’s away every night) with Miles one of THE great frontmen. Other contemporaries, or those that followed, that are eulogised over endlessly by critics to this day (The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Blur, Oasis, Pulp blah, blah, blah ) pale into the background in comparison while The Stuffies have almost been written out of history. Fuck it…those of us that know, know, and god bless the fucking lot of us x

    But as Miles would likely say...

    Don’t Anyone Dare Give A Damn - https://youtu.be/EKEyPzyqZQ4?si=cze-wd-hJexITlDz

  2. 2023/4 Albums Thing 426 - The Wonder Stuff “30 Goes Around The Sun”

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    The Wonder Stuff hit 30 ! Does any group, when they first get together and start to make a racket in a small rehearsal room expect still to be around and making that racket 30 years later ? Granted, this isn’t the same Wonder Stuff that started out 3 decades before, but most of the bands I’ve obsessed about over the years didn’t get anywhere close to that type of longevity (The Jam lasted just 5 years, The Clash not much longer). These days I tend to look at The Wonder Stuff in terms of pre and post the 2000 reformation and in the post 2000 years “30 Goes Around The Sun” stands out as one of the bands very best records.

    The album was recorded back “home” at Mockingbird Studios in Stourbridge with long term Stuffies live sound engineer Simon Efemey producing. This gives the whole record an overall sense of sound and a real punchy feel. Simon has been front of house for TWS on and off for over 30 years so he knows what they should sound like. He is also something of a renowned producer in the Metal world (his credits include albums with Paradise Lost, Wolfsbane, The Wildhearts and Napalm Death for whom he also mixes FOH) and while not quite turning the Stuffies metal he knows how to capture guitar music (Lordy I hope he never reads this, he loves himself enough as it is 😂. Luv ya really Si). 

    I know I keep rattling on about Track 1 Side 1 but they are important as they set the tone for a record and “Don’t You Ever” is a superb Track 1 Side 1…although technically it is Track 2 as the moody “Intro” begins Side 1. Miles lays out some of his life lessons in the lyrics (“I made choices that ain’t been so clever, But hold out that we learn from our errors”) and unusually for a song of almost 4 minutes length we don’t get to the chorus until 2 and half minutes in, it’s worth the wait. This may be a little controversial but as opening songs go, “Don’t You Ever” is right up there with “Mission Drive” fighting it out for the number 1 spot.

    I have my ideas about who the target of “In Clover” is (and BTW I’m likely completely wrong about it) but whoever it is I’m glad it’s not me suffering at the end of one of Miles’ most savage lyrics. “Last Days Of the Feast” is a rare TWS political song aimed at the “noses in the trough” career politicians who we thought were about to be swept away by a more human politics. Sadly the sharpening of knives worked to deny us that too. “Misunderstanding Burton Heel” introduces us to a character who Miles has yet to breathe more life into (ooooh, cryptic). “For The Broken Hearted” is a superb bouncy Wonder Stuff single that deserved much more attention and has possibly their 2nd daftest video to accompany it (https://youtu.be/VWEQyy6m4rg?si=KCn9Lvdwqlj_h3uu).

    “The Kids From The Green” is a dreamy look back at simpler times, The Green being Marston Green in South Birmingham where Miles’ and me grew up and made friends that we still have today. We didn’t care about school, we lived by Springsteen’s proclamation that “We learned more from a 3 minute record baby than we ever learned in school”, much to our parents frustration. Some of those in the song we don’t see too often, them having scattered around the world, some are no longer with us but it’s a fitting musical celebration of what now feels like an idyllic time in our lives.

    Everything wraps up with the upbeat title track (the lyric “And all this time I’ve not had one regret, I’m sure they’re all in the post but I’ve not had to face them yet” feels like a hook back to “Don’t You Ever”, closing the circle), it’s like a part 2 for “The Kids From The Green”, what happened next. 

    Released on clean white vinyl in a gatefold sleeve containing a pop-up ferris wheel and city skyline (including a Walsall FC badge) when you open it up, “30 Goes Around The Sun” was a thing o’ beauty too.

    Last Days Of The Feast - https://youtu.be/azbPA1IRzXg?si=AyZ3mzzBdlIBnYos

     

  3. 2023/4 Albums Thing 425 - The Wonder Stuff “Oh No It’s…”

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    The Wonder Stuff reformed for a series of gigs in December 2000. There were two warm up gigs at the venue they played their 1st gig back in 1986, JB’s in Dudley (although by 2000 JB’s had moved from its original site to new and bigger premises and I saw just last week that that 2nd site has now been demolished) followed by 5 sold out and sweaty nights at The Forum (I’m sorry, it will always be the Town & Country Club to me) in London’s Kentish Town. We had another new bass player, Stuart Quinnell formerly of Southend Post Hardcore band Understand, alongside the Hunt, Treece, Gilks, Bell quartet. The one thing I remember most vividly about all those gigs is, while the band were playing, if you looked around the room everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, had a big shit-eating grin on their face…it was joyous.

    There’s a two album jump between “Construction…” and the release “Oh No It’s…”. Those two albums were 2004’s comeback album “Escape From Rubbish Island” and it’s follow up, 2005’s “Suspended By Stars” both of which were CD only releases and so don’t qualify for this blog. “Escape From Rubbish Island” was essentially recorded as a Miles Hunt solo album and got itself re-badged following some input from Malc and some marketing advice from management. “Suspended By Stars” was the first album since “Construction…” recorded from the off as a Wonder Stuff album, I listened to it recently after quite a long time and it’s a bloody great album. But as we’ve said, both were CD only and therefore do not qualify for inclusion here (there was some talk a couple of years ago about doing a limited run of each on coloured vinyl but that seems to have been placed on a shelf somewhere…Tommo ?).

    So the first post 2000 re-union album we get to talk about here is 2012 release “Oh No It’s…”. Between that re-union and this album there had been some membership churn and at this point in time Miles was the only remaining original member of the band. Bassist Mark McCarthy was making his 3rd album as a Stuffie, violinist Erica Nockalls (I cannot in good conscience call it a fiddle when it’s in Erica’s talented hands) was recording her 2nd and the balance was made up by drummer Fuzz Townsend (formerley of PWEI and BRA) and guitarist Stevie Wyatt who, until not long before this album, had been TWS’ front of house sound engineer, stepping up on stage when Malc had left the band. Some people have a problem with things like that but as Miles had always been the principle songwriter (despite what the writing credits may have told you) and so long as he is up front it will always be The Wonder Stuff to me…and yes, of course I’m biased !

    Again I have fantastic memories about stuff connected to this record. The day Miles and Erica bought comedian Greg Davies round to our house to film parts of the video for the perky title track and single “Oh No!”. We had a 50’s looking spaceship parked on the drive, neighbours coming around to ask “did I just see Greg Davies going into your house” (he is 6’ 8” so he’s a little difficult to sneak in anywhere) and the sight of Greg and Miles in silver and red spandex was equal parts hilarious and scarring (https://youtu.be/9THcoOgSSzw?si=CrvQ7LMiN24vl1WS). A lot of much needed (Deb was going through the start of her cancer treatment) laughing was done that day.

    One of my favourites is “Right Side Of The Turf”. The title was inspired by an old boy from Miles’ local in the South Shropshire Hills. George was in his mid 80’s and, when faced with the Brummie parting shot of “See ya George” at the end of a night in the pub, would respond with “As long as I stay the right side of the turf you will”. For a while “Be Thy Name” became something of a live favourite. A song that was regularly dedicated to the memory of Joe Strummer to who it definitely owes a debt of influence. And yes "Friendly Company" was written with the express aim of getting it into an episode of "Come Dine With Me" (after "A Wish Away" was included in a Hoseasons advert it seemmed like a financially sensible thing to do) and they succeeded !

    This vinyl release was issued as a double LP, the “Oh No It’s…” record being packaged together with a “bonus” LP, “From The Midlands With Love”. A pub conversation had turned to how bands from Liverpool or Manchester or London were good at “bigging themselves up” whereas the self deprecating nature of us Midlanders means we don’t run around boasting about ourselves. Slade didn’t need to shout at all and sundry “we’re the best band in the world”, they just got up on stage and blew your mind, geddit ? So “From the Midlands With Love” was the Stuffies little tribute/big-up to some great Midlands musicians, 10 cover versions of belters from our neck o’ the woods by the likes of Dodgy, The Primitives, Duran Duran, The Move, The Beat, Dexy’s, PWEI and of course, the mighty Slade. The two standout/most surprising selections are most certainly the cover of Beverley Knights UK Garage groover “Get Up!” (the Stuffies hit the dancefloor !) and a chilling acoustic version of UB40’s classic “One In Ten”, which is almost a style blueprint for Miles & Erica’s 2017 album “We Came Here To Work”…if you’ve never heard either then you really should.

    After the previous two albums “Oh No It’s…” felt like something of a new flowering of The Wonder Stuff as a band. They went full-on on the promotional front releasing this 2xLP version, a 2xCD version, a single CD in a hardback book style cover plus a new rockumentary “Oh Yes It’s…The Wonder Stuff”, all backed up by a 10 date UK tour through April 2013.

    I said back at the end of August last year that Miles had been on a creative high for 11 (now 12) years or so, where “each new release has been what I hear as “the best thing he’s ever done”…”, “Oh No It’s…” is where that run started.

    Right Side Of The Turf - https://youtu.be/B-XaqUgTIZk?si=BtAHPkqsJ8SJ7t5S

    One In Ten - https://youtu.be/lJfx6fynXBI?si=D0jPFnjuSmvv4HuH