Room 512 :: an unofficial wonder stuff fansite

Rumours began circulating in early May that something was up in the Wonder Stuff camp. At a recent solo concert, Miles had showcased a number of tracks from his forthcoming new album 'Escape From Rubbish Island' which he had recorded earlier in the year, of which after one track 'Are You Ready For A Fist Fight?' he said could be the next single from The Wonder Stuff but no-one would elaborate further on this.

However, plans were also underway to discontinue work on the group's official website which would obviously make no sense if the group were making a comeback. It was also already known that there had been disagreements after the last tour and that Miles and Martin Gilks were no longer in regular contact with each other.

In the interim, in a bizarre move by Eagle Records at the end of May, a one disc compilation of the 'Cursed With Insincerity' album under the title 'Welcome To The Cheap Seats : Greatest Hits Live" was released. The album, distributed on their budget Music Club label contained nineteen tracks out of the original twenty-six with a reprint of Miles' original liner notes. The 'Cursed With Insincerity' album was still on general availability though and the new release did not state the tracks had previously appeared elsewhere on the outer packaging so a number of fans went out and bought in only to feel slightly conned when they opened the disk contents and played it.

A couple of months later, an announcement appeared on the official site from Martin Bell and Martin Gilks stating their views on the proceedings where it was effectively confirmed there had been disagreements within the group again which had led to a acrimonious split and Miles had decided to continue working under the Wonder Stuff name with a new line-up.

AN ANNOUNCEMENT

It may not have escaped your notice that there is a band out there purporting to be "The Wonder Stuff" who are touring in October. As we see it, we feel that you are owed an explanation. This band is releasing a solo album by Miles Hunt provisionally titled, "Escape From Rubbish Island" and has re-branded it under the name of "The Wonder Stuff" (to be released on IRL recordings, an independent label associated with Spirit Music & Media, Miles' management company). However, we feel it is only right to point out that Martin Gilks & Martin Bell, along with Stuart Quinnell and Peter Whitaker, have nothing whatsoever to do with either this tour or the recording. We perceive this as merely a marketing ploy by Hunt & IRL. It appears that Malcom Treece will be making an appearance with this group, although we have had no confirmation from Malcom at this time.

We would like to thank everyone who has supported us since the reformation concerts in December 2000 and are sorry that things have ended up the way they have. But this situation is not of our making.

Martin Bell & Martin Gilks.

Miles chose to wait a couple of weeks before launching a new official website at thewonderstuff.co.uk where he gave his own response to the changes - "...for those of you that would've like to have seen me take part in the debate over the line up change that the band have recently gone through.... I simply have better things to do." The new line-up would consist of Miles and Malc in their familiar roles with Mark McCarthy (formerly of Radical Dance Factory) on bass. Drumming duties were to be split between Luke Johnson (studio work on the new album) and Andres Karu (live performances).

The first offering to feature the new line-up would be on September 27th with the release of the 'Escape From Rubbish Island' album. This would be followed up shortly after by the group's first single release since Unbearable in 1994 with the aptly-titled 'Better Get Ready For A Fist Fight'. The album's release would be followed by a full tour of the UK covering a wide range of areas such as Leeds, Glasgow, Nottingham, Birmingham, Norwich, Bristol and London. A warm-up was scheduled for the Cambridge Junction.

The album was originally planned to be offered as a limited edition double album featuring a bonus disc of cover versions recorded by Miles and amusingly titled 'Hunt Sings 'Em For The Ladies'. The tracks, all performed acoustically, included Adam Ant's 'AntMusic', Thin Lizzy's 'Whiskey In The Jar' and Wreckless Eric's 'Whole Wide World'. However, by the end of August it was clear that the tracks would not be finished in time, indeed many had still not yet been recorded, so the bonus disc was shelved.

The remainder of August and early September was taken up with the group rehearsing for the forthcoming tour. The plan was for the concerts to include 6-7 tracks from the new album, with another 18-19 taken from the group's back catalogue. The group were keen to explore new ideas and worked on a number of older album tracks and early B-side material such as 'Grin' and 'Ooh She Said'.

Promotional beermat (!) issued at Cambridge and London gigs only

The release of the album at the end of September was met with mixed reception. Many were unsure of the new line-up but reviews for the album cited it as a more rockier return harking back to the days of 'Eight Legged Groove Machine' and 'Hup'. Indeed, the line-up were indeed back to being purely eight legs again and there was not a fiddle in sight on the album - organs, pipes and cowbells made an appearance though. The first track on the album, and it's title track, spoke to Miles' disgust at the state of the country at the present time. Fuelled by policitians, the Iraq war and the general state of the nation, Miles had been saying for a number of months that he had had enough and was planning to relocate to Southern Ireland, probably around the Dublin area. Having spent some time there in recent years, including playing a special Wonder Stuff concert on New Year's Day at the start of the year with the previous members of the group (ie Gilks, Fiddly and Stuart), Miles had developed a love for the country and was keen to up sticks from his current London home to a new location over the Irish Sea. These plans were changed during the Summer months however when it emerged he was now likely to stay in the country and either move back to the Shropshire area or relocate to Devon as he had a three year old daughter whose mother thought he should take more involvement in her life.

Three tracks on the new album were co-written - two with new bassist Mark and another with Jonny Male (of Cheapglue and Republica) who Miles had struck up a recent friendship with through their management company. Despite the lack of liner notes which fans had grown to love from previous albums, Miles was happy to divulge information about some of the tracks when pressed - 'Head Count' was written with Stuffies manager Les Johnson in mind, the idea for the song coming after the two of them had a disagreement about something and both realised they were as stubborn as each other to back down; 'Was I Meant To Be Sorry's' opening line ("Was I meant to be sorry that I didn't look good enough, when this is the only face that God gave me") came from a conversation Miles had had with a close female friend who had recently been left by her partner. She made the quote when she was talking to Miles about the break-up and Miles just had to stop her mid-flow and go to write it down.

Though the album mixed with varied reactions due to the recent publicity of the split, it usually helps to be able to actually buy it rather than just hear people's views on it and getting the album wasn't so simple. Though a number of the larger record retailers such as Virgin, HMV and Tower carried some stocks in stores, many online retailers such as Amazon, CD-Wow, Play, Esprit and others were not provided with stocks until over a week after the album's official release date. The order process wasn't helped by the late withdrawal of the double album which many had ordered although one online retailer said that their shipments had been delayed by the distributor who had been informed the album was now not being released until mid-October. None of which can have helped sales of the album. Though no-one was expecting a huge revival of the 90's where The Wonder Stuff were media darlings and guaranteed promotion at every turn, luck was not shining on them at this time.

During the course of the tour to promote the album, Miles was invited to take part in a number of radio interviews at a number of the cities and towns visited. Many of the interviewers were keen to find out more about the acrimonious split within the group and find out more about the line-up changes. In an interview on the eFestivals website prior to the group's appearance in Nottingham Miles said, "the truth of the matter is we had a disagreement after the gig we did last Christmas, I was trying to call them, they wouldn’t return any of my calls, they wouldn’t return any of my emails. Eventually one of them phoned Malc and told him that he couldn’t work with me anymore. I was told to get my equipment out of the storage space by a certain date, and that my last cheque would arrive on a certain date." In another interview he went on to say "...it got to be a situation where we were always arguing and banging heads. Martin was acting as our manager and trying to sort gigs where we would be playing huge places and charging the fans £25 per ticket. That wasn't on at all. Anyway, in the end, Martin said he didn't want to be in a band with me anymore. Fine by me."

After three years of Christmas gig reunions playing the old hits to pay for the turkey and trimmings, THE WONDER STUFF have decided to go the whole hog and make a new album too. Well, sort of.
Check the official band website at www.thewonderstuff.com (as opposed to the other official www.thewonderstuff.co.uk) and you'll find a note from Martins Gilks and Bell to the effect that neither they nor Stuart Quinell and Peter Whitaker have had any involvement and that, while featuring guitarist Malc Treece, Escape From Rubbish Island (IRL) is actually a Miles Hunt solo album, recorded with Radical Dance Faction bassist Mark McCarthy and Amen drummer Luke Johnson, that's been rebranded under the band's name.

Whatever the politics, it ultimately comes down to whether the album's actually any good. Which is most certainly is. Variously veined with Hunt's acrid views of Britain (the rubbish island), his cock rock influences (the title track struts like the Stones), love of the Beatles (Bile Chant borrows from George Harrison's Within And Without You) and growing fondness for Americana, it's a guitar driven number that's both very much in the classic Stuffies mould and, in the moody Eastern-flavoured Head Count and the fabulous Celtic-hued anthemic ballad (with Bill Hunt on soaring organ) Love's Ltd, far beyond anything they could have attempted.

The usual sharp, biting lyrics and contrasting mix of self-assertiveness and self-criticism Better Get Ready For A Fist Fight, You Don't Know Who, Was I Meant To Be Sorry) are present and correct while if anything Hunt's melodies have grown even stronger over the years, producing what's arguably the best thing he's done since the band's debut. Of course, it should also be said that his borrowings have become a lot cockier, Another Comic Tragedy sounding not a million miles away from Aztec Camera's Somewhere In My Heart!

Mike Davies
The Beat

Following the completion of the Autumn tour, the group returned to the studio to record new versions of some of the tracks from the album. After playing a selection of the new tracks to the live audience, the group felt that they could improve on the previously released versions and give them a harder, more rockier edge. In total, six tracks were re-recorded - 'Bile Chant', 'You Don't Know Who...', 'Back To Work', 'Escape From Rubbish Island', 'Better Get Ready For A Fist Fight' and 'Another Comic Tragedy'. It was decided to include these new versions on the eventual American release of the album (planned for early 2005) rather than their UK-release counterparts.

Rumours also started about the next appearances for the group. A planned appearance at the CMJ Music Festival in New Jersey was shelved due to travelling difficulties but quickly followed by rumblings of plans for another UK tour in early 2005 which would be followed by a series of live dates in America to promote the release of 'Escape From Rubbish Island' over there. Miles also spoke of plans to record new material with Vic Reeves, although whether this would be a solo or Wonder Stuff project is as yet unclear.

In mid-November, details of another UK tour to take place during March 2005 were released. It was also announced that a new single (planned to be a double A-side) would come out in January 2005. Adverts for the single's release in December issues of New Musical Express indicated that the 'Bile Chant' and 'Escape From Rubbish Island' would be released in February. With the single containing the newly re-recorded versions of the tracks, it's content would be enhanced with the inclusion of three remixes by Johnny Dope of Alabama3. It emerged that Mark McCarthy knew Johnny and he had been given a number of tracks to work with during Summer 2004 thus bringing the possibility that mixes of other album tracks may also have been made.

During a solo acoustic tour in December, Miles was heard to mention on a couple of occasions that plans were already underway for a new Wonder Stuff to be released in 2005, with the additional possibility of another single with Vic Reeves. No more news was available on either of these though and he would not comment further on this information.

In mid-January, the release date for the single was confirmed, along with the release in America of the EFRI album with it's re-recorded content. It was also announced that the six tracks would be available for download from the group's official website shortly after the release of the single in an exclusive tie-up with Universal Music.

Details were also released of the group's agreement to appear at South Bromsgrove High School in February as part of a charity concert with funds intended to go to one of the villages affected by the Tsunami disaster which occurred at the end of 2004.