Room 512 :: an unofficial wonder stuff fansite

Around the beginning of February, the group left the UK for a tour of America supporting Siouxsie And The Banshees. The group say that they really enjoyed the tour for the effect it had on them to dispense with the trivialities of setting up for a gig and simply get up on stage and play. The pressure of being a headline act was off them, and consequently, their sets were often shortened to just 40 minutes.

To coincide with the tour Polygram released 'Welcome To The Cheap Seats' as a single - for which a rare appearance as musical guests on the popular David Letterman late-night chat show programme was secured. With the other members not wishing to appear (possibly due to an excessive intake of alcohol the night before), Miles performed the track with the in-house group backing him. Feeling that the track, at around 2½ minutes, was a bit too short, the backing band fleshed it out a bit with additional instrumental breaks and vocal assistance.

Despite being regarded as an excellent rendition of the track, the video footage or sound recording has never been seen on British shores. Martin Gilks, upon hearing he could have earned an appearance fee of £150 by being on the show that day, was reported to have expressed more than a little regret.

Whilst on the tour, the band also played their own headlining dates during gaps in the Banshees' touring schedule. Due to many of their fans being unable to see them as a result of the prohibitive 21+ licensing restrictions in many of the venues that Siouxsie played, the band arranged a series of gigs held at record store car parks, including one at Tower Records in California.

NEW YORK RITZ, FEBRUARY 1992

The Ritz show is two-thirds of the way through The Wonder Stuff's support tour with Siouxsie And The Banshees and, although the cabalistic hordes of wannabe witches may not be the perfect Stuffy audience, Miles and Co.'s Goth-grabbing tactics appear to be working well. No Sisters Of Mercy cover versions for these boys, no sir. The Stuff get 40 minutes to poach punters, and they go for the hard, fast and right-between-the eyes approach.
'Red Berry Joy Town' and 'A Wish Away' have already flashed past at full throttle before Miles finds a moment to politely inquire "How the fuck are you?" By the time 'Circlesquare' and 'Cartoon Boyfriend' have beamed past, the wedge of generic rock lads down the front are well into their human volleyball 'bodyswimming' act.
Maybe it's not having the pressure of carrying the whole evening, but the Stuff seem especially focused and relaxed. Gilks, dapper in pale blue knee-length shorts, nonchalantly flicks around the drum kit. Clifford, dapper in black shorts, bounces with the bass lines. Treece and Bell, dapper in long trousers, trade banjo lines and gnarly riffs. Hunt, also dapper, in a black windcheater-esque jacket, suggestive of a man who's just got off his bicycle and popped in out of the rain, hits all the right notes, and keeps the verbals down to the odd jolly jibe.
"I've got one piece of advice for you tonight," he tells a hushed hall in presidential tones. "Just stop buying records by The Farm. They don't get any better. They just stay consistently shit."
Oddly, there is not a single dissenting voice raised. With the entire venue united by a shared Farmophobia, the Stuffies power on through the crème-de-la-crème of their back catalogue, harvesting eyeliner victims by the song. 'Golden Green', 'Size Of A Cow' and 'Don't Let Me Down, Gently' are delivered with enough ebullience to thaw out the iciest of Ice Queens. 'Donation', with Hunt yawping "motherfuckers" through a megaphone and jigging like a boxer, is fiery enough to squeeze juice out of Ice-T.
As they turn their collective heel on the spotlights, the Siouxsie-ettes in the balcony are starting to fiddle with their 'Stiff Stuff' clogged hair, and wondering whether a nice clean 'bob cut' like Miles' might not be a good idea. The Anti Nowhere League's 'I Fuck Sheep' is still the best-selling 'button' on The Ritz's badge stall, but there's a new one saying 'Miles Lives!' which is starting to do good business.

Roger Morton, New Musical Express

Meanwhile, back in the UK, 'Welcome To The Cheap Seats - "The Motion Picture" video' was being released. Filmed as a documentary about the group (spanning the period between June 1990 to November 1991), it featured the videos for the singles released from 'Never Loved Elvis' plus live tracks, behind-the-scenes banter, interviews, and some previously (officially) unreleased material such as 'Room 512', 'Sing The Absurd', The Jam's 'That's Entertainment' and an extract of Steppenwolf's 'The Pusher'.

With the success of their third album and the popularity gained from a string of successful singles and concert dates, the video went straight into the Number 1 position in the UK video charts. Initial plans were for the video to feature a lot more live performance clips and interviews, but these were cut out prior to final mastering of the movie and opportunities to see tracks such as those recorded at the Minsthorpe High School gig were lost. However, the longer version of the video must have come close to release as artwork proofs for the video, showing a different content, are known to exist. Whether there are any copies of the actual video itself, locked away in storage somewhere, is unlikely though.

If the group had got their way, this chart-topping video could also have been joined by a highly charting album as the group's original intentions were to release much of the material featured in the video on a budget-priced 'out-takes' album of live, rare and re-recorded material. Unfortunately, Polydor weren't so keen on the idea, preferring to keep the work back for possible use on a future album or single release and choosing instead to simply use the 'Welcome To The Cheap Seats' single as promotion for the video and 'Never Loved Elvis' album.

Continuing on their tour of the States, watching the success of their new long-playing video from afar, Miles awoke in his bunk whilst in Newhaven after one booze-fuelled night to find himself - or rather his underpants - covered in blood. "There was a ludicrous feeling of pride," he recalls. "I thought, I'm a real boozer now! What must've been a pint of blood was all over them. I thought, Jesus, boy, this is too much plonk - your arse can't cope with it and has exploded." The incident led to Miles penning a new track entitled 'A Great Drinker', also aimed as a tribute to the American cult poet & author, Charles Bukowski. Miles' love affair with the writings of Bukowski - whose most famous work was the 1987 film Barfly which starred Mickey Rourke as Bukowski's alter-ego, Henry Chianski - had developed after NME writer, and Wonder Stuff fan, James Brown had given Hunt one of his (Bukowski's) novels. The work of Bukowski led to Miles discovering John Fante and both of these authors would eventually turn out to be the inspiration behind another song, 'Hank and John' during which Miles mentions the titles of a few of Chinaski/Bukowski's book - [Dreams From] Bunker Hill, Dago Red, Bring Me Your Love, Ham On Rye and Barfly.

Prior to their Atlanta gig, Tommy Roe turned up wanting to join in when the group sang his song, 'Dizzy'. Miles: "We had to, like, decline, 'cos it's hard enough to get across what we do in 40 minutes without confusing everybody totally with Tommy Roe." On initially meeting the Stuffies however, Roe was heard to enquire "where's this Vic Reeves fella?" Hearing that Vic was actually a comedian, Roe seemed to take great offence - "so he thinks my song's funny?".

Following their return from America, March 19th marked the bands first UK appearance of 1992. Leicester University was the venue for a tribute gig for an ex-roadie, Spike, who had recently died in a car crash in Germany. The gig was billed as featuring the Milltown Brothers, Crazyhead, The Wonder Stuff and A Very Special Guest - the results of which can be heard on the bootleg album 'The Very Special Guest'. The 'very special guest' referred to was Loz Hardy of Kingmaker who filled in for Malc who had been taken ill with the flu. Called up only a few days days before the gig in front of a thousand people, aside from a brief soundcheck this was the first time Loz had played with the group and the other members of Kingmaker all stood in the front row of the crowd hurling abuse! It was during the soundcheck for the gig that the group premiered a new track for those able to attend, an acoustic number called 'Cabin Fever'.

The Summer of 1992 was spent by the group playing at various festivals in Europe, and the band confirmed a headline appearance at The Reading Festival. Being a headlining act at the Reading Festival should have been one of the high points in the band's career, but was not the case. Malc remembers how the gig felt to him, "We got away with it, but that's not what you go to do. Going on so late with no soundcheck, the pressure of headlining, and having to entertain the crowd for an hour and a half, it's very difficult. At some stages you could tell the crowd were losing the sound." However, Miles recollection of the event was that "it was a thrill to do - I thought the audience were absolutely fantastic. I was happy with the gig, but maybe that was because I was drunk." Indeed, in Miles' own words, 'A Wish Away' "was shit" and he later apologised for "one of the most incredibly poor performances in rock".

They did, however, give a taste of things to come when they publicly aired new track 'Cabin Fever' at the festival, though this version saw more of a full group contribution compared to the version soundchecked at the Leicester gig.

The festival itself, one of the muddiest in it's history, saw Public Enemy and Nirvana headlining the Saturday and Sunday nights although it was Nirvana who gained the most publicity from the event when their lead singer, Kurt Cobain, came on stage wearing the bloodied smock he had worn just nine days previously whilst his wife, Courtney Love, had given birth to their daughter. At the time, Cobain was also suffering from heroin withdrawal symptoms, which also attracted headlines in the media.

To coincide with the 20th anniversary of the festival the group donated a track to 'Reading: The Indie Album', a compilation album featuring studio versions of hits by artists who had appeared at the festival. As the group didn't feel happy to follow the lead of other artists on the album and allow a known track to be featured, they recorded a new track, 'Room 512'. An acoustic version of the tracks, played and sung by Miles, featured in the 'Welcome To The Cheap Seats' video although on-screen it appears as though Martin Gilks is playing the guitar.

Shortly after, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Spastics Society, the NME (in conjunction with the charity) released an album featuring modern-day artists covering some of the number one singles of the past 40 years. The Stuffies elected to cover 'Cuz I Luv You', a track which originally reached number one on October 30th 1971 when recorded by fellow Midlanders, Slade.

However, when they began to rehearse the track, Miles found he had difficulty getting the lyrics right so he contacted Slade's Dave Hill who faxed over the correct lyrics to Miles in the studio. "It was done the same way we do any cover version," Miles explained, "We play the seven-inch on the multi-track in the studio and then copy it. When we did 'That's Entertainment' we even copied the mistakes on the drums." The Slade cover also features on a sampler for the album, 'Ruby Trax Gems'.

The Stuffies in the new Far Out Recording Studios, London '92 With the festivals over and work on the new studio finally finished (once an air-conditioning unit had been installed after they found out that it became a sauna in hot weather!) the group spent some time demoing new material for their fourth album. Sessions were interrupted only briefly by an appearance, at London's Town & Country Club show on October 10th, as part of a benefit show to be broadcast live on the final night of XFM Radio.

London-based independent radio station XFM (partly owned by The Cure's Robert Smith) were attempting to provide a specialist radio station for the capital. Broadcasting on 104.7FM, the station contacted the Stuffies with a view to hosting a 35 minute concert to be held on the final night of the station's four week trial broadcast. Admission (by T-shirt only) cost just £7 and the band were supported by, amongst others, The Frank & Walters. The set opened with 'Radio Ass Kiss', premiered three new songs plus 'Cabin Fever' and, as part of the encore, Miles co-hosted a celebrity raffle with comedian Sean Hughes before the band closed the show with 'Don't Let Me Down, Gently'.

With the last long player finished in early 1991, there was around 18 months worth of subjects and ideas that could be put to music, not forgetting the material that was originally intended for the 'Welcome To The Cheap Seats' soundtrack album. The eventual result was that the group came up with over 30 tracks that they considered to be worthy of recording. Surely the next long-player could have been a double album? "It's a terribly sort of dinosaurish thing to do really," rued Miles in Guitarist magazine. "I think music like ours has a short attention span, so to ask anybody for more than 40 minutes of their time is a bit much. We're old fashioned in that way; a single should be like two and a half / three minutes and an album should have 12 tracks. That's the rules, and we stick to them."

After trying out all their ideas, the group moved to the Greenhouse Studios in London to begin recording tracks for the new album with Pat Collier, producer of 'The Eight Legged Groove Machine' and 'Hup', back at the production controls.

Partway through the proceedings, Miles briefly took time out to appear on BBC Radio Five's Fantastic Voyage - a radio version of the 1970's film in which a crew in a submarine were miniaturised and injected into a human body to travel around and find out more about it. During the braodcast, Miles performed a solo acoustic rendition of 'Sing The Absurd'.

In April 1993, Miles gave an interview on BBC Radio 1FM's Evening Session programme in which he hinted that the group were thinking of inviting keyboard player Pete Whittaker to become a full-time member as he was now becoming an important part of the group both in the studio and on stage. He also bought along a tape to the interview for broadcast on-air which contained an exclusive track that had only recently been finished, 'I Wish Them All Dead' - an attack at the Man Boy Love Association, a paedophile ring in the US.

By the end of May, the recording sessions were finished with some of the final mixes to be worked upon. To try out the new material, the group played some European dates where they appeared alongside Hothouse Flowers & Leonard Cohen at the Rock In Vienna Festival, Anthrax, Rage Against The Machine & Suicidal Tendencies at the Berlin Rock Festival and Status Quo at their Le Zenith gig in Paris. They then returned to the studio in mid-June for more mixing work. At first they brought in Matt Wallace, who had previously worked with Faith No More, but things didn't work out as hoped and the group finally opted for Mark Stent.

August began with all the recording and mixing now finished, leaving only the choice of track listings and running order to be decided upon. This was eventually determined as a result of the group, their management, Polydor representatives and close friends writing down what their ideal track listings would be and then choosing the most popular tracks from the overall list.

It was decided that whichever tracks didn't make it onto the album would appear as extra tracks on the singles which, it was announced, would all be four track cross-format EP's.

However, plans for the promotion of the album and the first single to be released from it were temporarily put on hold at the end of July when it was announced that, the day after Miles' 27th birthday, Rob Jones had been found dead in his New York apartment. The news came as a shock to all, despite the ill-feeling and animosity that had developed between them though for Miles it was a double tragedy as there had already been a death in his family only days before this.

WONDER STUFF BASSMAN ROB DIES, AGED 29

A Midland pop star has died suddenly in America. Rob Jones, a founder member of rock group The Wonder Stuff, is believed to have suffered a heart attack. He was just 29. Jones is not thought to have been suffering any illness and was attempting to get over the break up of his marriage to American wife Jessica.
The bass guitarist, from Kingswinford, near Dudley, had moved to New York in 1990 after quitting the group. Jones formed The Wonder Stuff in Stourbridge in March 1986 with singer Miles Hunt, guitarist Malc Treece and drummer Martin Gilks. He played on two albums and four Top 40 hits, including 'Who Wants To Be The Disco King?' and 'Don't Let Me Down, Gently'.
Jones, better known as 'The Bass Thing', provided the backbone of The Wonder Stuff's early sound and was a cult figure amongst their fans. Singer Miles Hunt recalled the night Jones finally left the band after a gig in December 1989. "The final night was sad. I remember leaving the bar of the Holiday Inn in Birmingham and using one of my friends as a crutch. I was quite tearful and so was Bob. He stayed up till 6am, got a lift to Heathrow and went to America. I never saw him again."
Jones settled down in New York and attempted to form a band called The Bridge And Tunnel Crew. Despite plans to tour and to bring the group to the UK, the whole enterprise fell apart with the deterioration of Jones' marriage.
The Wonder Stuff release a new album at the end of September.

Gurbir Dhillon, Sunday Mercury

Though they hadn't seen or heard much of The Bass Thing since his departure at at the end of 1989, they hadn't forgotten him completely and there was always something that would spring up from out of nowhere and remind them of him. A book called 'Rock Talk' by Jim Driver collected together stories from various groups about tour experiences and Miles contributed a chapter taken from one of his US tour diaries in which he had written "it was Bob's birthday yesterday, but I never said anything to anyone 'cause I didn't know how they felt about it."

Though little news had come out about Bob since leaving the UK, it was known that his new band, The Bridge And Tunnel Crew, had been preparing to approach US record companies to get a recording contract and had recorded an excellent demo tape. However, the lead vocalist in the group was his wife Jessica and with personal differences leading them in the direction of the divorce court, this could have had serious repercussions on the future of group.

Shortly before his death, Bob had contacted some of the Wonder Stuff's road crew informing them of a forthcoming appearance at the famous CBGB's venue in New York and asking them to see if they could get any UK record labels interested in attending the gig.

At the end of August, The Wonder Stuff played an exclusive gig at Bimingham's Irish Centre for members of their fan club. This would be the first time that they had played most of the new material to a home audience though it wasn't until nearly three-quarters of the way through the set that Miles talked about Bob, dedicating the track 'Piece Of Sky' to him. Never intended to be a tribute track for anyone, suddenly the lyrics seemed so much more poignant and many of the fans now regard this is Bob's track. The majority of this gig can be heard on a bootleg CD, 'A Tribute To A Bass Thing', though the gig was never meant to be a tribute performance.