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February
2005 to June 2005
The
month began with the group's hastily arranged
appearance at the South Bromsgrove High School
in Bromsgrove with all proceeds going to the
Hikkaduwu Village Fund, a charity recently set
up to assist villagers affected by the Tsunami
disaster which occurred at the end of 2004.
 With
the concert being held in the school's main
hall, capacity was limited to around 500 people
so tickets quickly sold out, especially as the
event was in aid of charity. Luke Johnson
was bought in on drumming duties for the show as it wasn't
practical to get Andres to come over just for
one night but as Luke had originally featured on
the album anyway, and had no doubt grown up
listening and playing the Stuffies tracks, most
of the tracks were already familiar to him.
 After
numerous release date changes, the 'Bile
Chant'/'Escape From Rubbish Island' single was
finally released on February 21st. There
were some initial concerns that the single would
be ineligible for the UK singles charts due to
it's five track listing but as the additional
remixes on the track were based on the primary
two tracks, this was acceptable. The only
other issue was the total running length and
this resulted in one of the remixes having to be
edited by around a minute to come in under the
20 minute ruling.
Media reaction to the single was disappointed,
although Channel 4's Teletext service ran a nine
page interview with Miles during it's week of
release. However, one of the reasons that
the release date was eventually reverted back to
a previously scheduled date was at the
insistence of a number of record stores and,
indeed, at one stage there were no copies of the
single available at the distributors as they had
all been shipped out to retail stockists.
Certainly more stores seemed to be stocking this
release and hopes were high for better success.
To
coincide with the release of the single, a press
release was issued which detailed information
about the new single. The release also
provided information on the group's forthcoming
UK mini-tour in addition to expanding on
previously released information on the group's
new deal with Universal Music. Following
the release of the two re-recorded tracks on the
new single, the remaining four re-recorded
tracks would be released online through
Universal Music as part of an exclusive
downloadable version of the album. Mobile
phone ringtones would also be available to
download for every track on the album along with
an exclusive promo video for the 'Escape From
Rubbish Island' track.
 The
same week, it was also announced that the group
line-up would be complimented by the addition of
a new fiddle player for the UK mini tour.
Erica Nockalls, one of the founder members of
Birmingham group Fireswitch, had met the group
at the Bromsgrove charity concert and had since
been rehearsing heavily with them since to bring
additional tracks into the set list. It was
also announced that the group had already
written a number of new tracks for the next
album (tentatively scheduled for release late
2005) of which some would be aired during the
forthcoming tour.
Confirmation was also being made of the venues
for the US tour to follow the release of 'Escape
From Rubbish Island' on March 22nd through the
Reincarnate Music label. With dates
spanning almost two months and stop-offs
including Detroit, Washington and Seattle, the
tour would see the group returning to some of
the venues last played during their final 1994
US tour and be the group's biggest tour run
since 1994.
The
group entered the digital age in mid-March with
the release of a number of downloadable
exclusives. Via the official website,
mobile ringtones for every track on the Escape
From Rubbish Island album were made available.
Shortly after, a number of online music download
sites began including the latest album in their
catalogue. The tracks available were based
on the US release of the album thus including
the re-recorded versions. Miles and Malc
also recorded a series of exclusive tracks for
the Napster music community which were made
available for download.
With the band
preparing for their forthcoming tour of the USA,
it was announced that they group would be making
some appearances at a couple of UK festivals in
the Summer months. The first to be
confirmed was the Beautiful Days Festival held
at the grounds of Escot Park in Honiton, Devon.
It was also announced that Miles would be
playing a solo acoustic warm-up show in New York
City a few days prior to the start of the Wonder
Stuff tour.
In May 2005, some
rare Wonder Stuff items were uncovered.
Shortly after the group had originally formed
they spent some time at the Workshop Studios in
Redditch, Worcestershire where they recorded
early versions of tracks which later appeared on
the Eight Legged Groove Machine album and
accompanying single releases. When the
studios changed ownership early in 2005, the new
owners decided to have a clearout of some of the
storage areas that were littered around the
building and came across a storage locker which
contained a number of master tapes, in excess of
150, from groups such as the Stuffies, Ocean
Colour Scene, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Fuzzbox and
many more Midlands-based groups. Due to
the age of the tapes, the owners saw no use in
the tapes, especially as many were unboxed or
the tapes inside the box did not relate to the
stated contents on the box, and planned to
dispose of them eventually changing their mind
at the last minute and auctioning the whole lot
as one item on the popular internet auction
site, eBay. The winning bidder, Keith
Belcher, has since being trying to re-unite the
master tapes with the original artists wherever
possible or, where the original artists are not
interested in the tapes, has been trying to sell
them to fans of the group.
Of the Wonder
Stuff items, two master tapes emerged. Recorded
January/February 1988, one tape contained three
tracks (A Song Without An End, Meaner Than Mean
and Sell The Free World) whilst the other
contained Unbearable, A Wish Away, A Song
Without An End, Meaner Than Mean, Give Give Give
Me More More More, Goodbye Fatman, Jealousy and
Happy:Sad. Although many of the tracks
were eventually lifted for use as B-sides on the
ELGM singles, at least two of the tracks (Give
Give Give... and A Wish Away) were never
released in these recorded versions.
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