|
January
2006 to April 2006
The year began
with much excitement surrounding the group's
plans for 2006. With a new album and tour,
in addition to new releases to coincide with the
group's 20th Aniversary, fans were
understandably looking forward to an interesting
time for the group.
 Promotional
and pre-release reviews for the new album
suggested that the album would be a release
catering for all fans of The Wonder Stuff's
styles, from the raw sound of The Eight Legged
Groove Machine, to the folk/country-tinges of
Hup and Never Loved Elvis yet still combined
with some of the maturity of Construction
For The Modern Idiot. A number of tracks
had already been previewed in acoustic format by
Miles during his solo tour at the end of 2005
and digital radio listeners got their first
chance to hear more when new single 'Blah Blah
La Di Dah' was aired on BBC Radio 6 at the start
of the year.
As the release of
the new single approached, it was announced that
the track would be available as a download-only
track, which was received with much
disappointment from some fans.
Promotional-only copies of the single, sent to a
number of local and national radio stations,
would be the only was fans could complete their
Wonder Stuff record collections with proper
media.
However, to better
those fans record collections, the group agreed
to appear at a HMV record store in Birmingham
City Centre on 20th February, the day of the
album's release and also now the day which
Universal would be releasing the new Welcome To
The Cheap Seats DVD. It was expected that
Miles and Malc, at minimum, would perform a
number of new and classic tracks and would then
be available to sign copies of the new album
afterwards.
Prior to the new
releases, Miles exchanged his microphone for the
producers chair when he agreed to help produce
some new material being recorded by popular
Stuffies support act Dolittle for release early
in Spring 2006. Dolittle would also be
supporting on the forthcoming Wonder Stuff tour
in March.
A warm-up date for
the tour, to be held at Cox's Yard in
Stratford-Upon-Avon, was arranged for the end of
February with the ever-popular Dharma Drive in
support.
On the weekend
prior to the release of the first single from
the new album, Miles and Mark appeared on BBC
Radio London as part of an hour-long show
concentrating on the new material. They
were interviewed by Gary Crowley, now hosting
his own show on the station, who was friend of
Miles' but likely last publicly interviewed him
at the Phoenix Festival in 1994.
The middle of
February saw the release of the long-awaited new
album. Miles, Malc and Erica appeared at
Birmingham's HMV store and played six tracks
acoustically -'It's Yer Money I'm After, Baby',
'Last Second Of The Minute', 'Blah Blah La-Di-Dah',
'Sun Goes Down On Manor Road', 'Circlesquare'
and 'Mission Drive'. HMV also recorded the
performance with the intention of making it
available on their website at a later date but
this has never yet taken place. However,
some footage was captured by members of the
audience which is available from the Multimedia
section of this site.
Commercially, the
album was a big success for the group, charting
well in the independent charts and being
promoted by many of the high-street stores such
as Virgin and HMV. Indeed, demand
outstripped availability in it's first week of
release and the record company had to hastily
arrange for more copies to be distributed.
Whereas
'...Rubbish Island' had largely (by his own
admission) been a Miles Hunt album before having
the rest of the group add their own parts,
'Suspended By Stars' was a full group effort
with everyone contributing their own ideas.
The result was a more complete sounding album
which was promoted as being "their most
definitive album to date."
Following on from
the album's release came the UK tour which
received rave reviews. Many people felt
that the renewed vigour of the band made the
concerts some of the best performances in the
group's career. A mixture of tracks were
played, only only one from the Escape From
Rubbish Island album for which reason Miles
explained that they just didn't have enough time
to play all of the tracks they would have liked
to.
The anniversary
celebrations toured sour at the end of March
however. At a time when the group and
their fans should have been celebrating the
band's 20th anniversary, most notably on the
30th March which would have been the 20th
anniversary of their debut live performance at
Dudley JB's, the music world was shocked by the
announcement of the death of Martin Gilks.
Martin had been involved in a road accident in
London and subsequently died a few days later
from his injuries. Happiness turned to
sorrow during the following days and weeks as
friends, family and fans learned of the news.
Martin's company,
Furtive Mass Transit Systems, set up a online
book of condolences and through the Room512
messageboard, fans around the world joined in a
global tribute one week after Martin's death by
all playing one track 'Good Night Though' at the
same time.
|
