The Wonder Stuff: Classic or Dud?

I had construction but it was most rubbish.

(That is meaningless btw so don't worry about it.)

I have a really happy memory of quitting my first ever summer job (a horrible one on a tomato farm) and celebrating getting my first ever paycheck (same day) by buying 8 Legged etc etc. I bought it because Q said it was good!! I never liked it all that much but it was a time when I had very few records so I really strained to enjoy them all. I bought HUP when it came out and liked that a lot more for a while but by the time "Dizzy" and "Size Of A Cow" hit I was sick of it and those singles made me sicker. Also by then I had the confidence to say I didn't like something. I kept 'Hup' for a while for sentimental reasons but they've all gone now.

Tunes, attitude, suss and great early B-sides too. What more could you want?

THEY WERE RUBBISH

THE REASON THEY GOT SUCH GOOD PRESS AT THE TIME MAY NOT HAVE HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THEIR ACTUAL MUSIC

TMFTML
http://intonation.blogspot.com

As if what the press has to say matters at all. I never read a syllable about'em before I heard them, and thought they were great.

Alex my story proves it matters - they got big cos of muppets like Li'L Tom reading Q and buying their records.

*bows*

Crazyhead were fucking crap on a stick.

there's a terry staunton NME live review from mid
'89 where he puts forward the notion
that the wonder stuff replaced r.e.m.
at that time, as the best band in the world.
i remember thinking he had a case.
briefly.

Didn't miles hu|\|t also pull thee k-klassick ole chestnut ov thee 3rd rate british indie band "we tanked in america b/c they didn't understand us proving that americans are idiots becasue we are obviously really wonderful & lovely & who could possibly miss that, eh? eh!? EH!?!?!?" (see also suede & prob 10000s ov others over the years) Pah what rubbish all it proves are that americans are more perceptive than britz at least in thee case ov the WONDER STUFF!@#!@#!@#!@~!@~

Yeah.....`cos that's really important, isn't it.

I certainly *WANTED* them to be good (even after seeing them live with Billy Duffy on guitar at the Limelight, opening for Foetus), but the album was just dull, Dull, DULL. Sure, you can blame Albini's flat production, but the songs just weren't there. Miles' solo work is simillarly yawnsome (only quieter).

But again, I only heard one song once so I refuse to say C or D. Love their album titles.

They pre-date both.

"Worse than Killing Joke, Belle and Sebastian and Carter. Imagine that!"

Miles is a huge Killing Joke fan, if that cheers you any, Doctor. Belle & Sebastian continue to mystify me (and not in a good way), and the `Stuff were *LIGHT YEARS* better than Carter USM.

Yeah.....`cos that's really important, isn't it.

it is to me alex!!

Anyway: when I was 14 or so I had pretty much a 100% record of loving any major British pop album I bought, including the awful ones and including loads of grebo (particularly Ned's and Carter but PWEI and the Levellers on occasion too) -- and I still hated the Wonder Stuff.

You are indeed correct. Jesus Jones are positively the worst (although didn't they cover a Crazyhead song? I'm not making that up.)

Jesus Jones' show I saw in early 1991 was hands down one of the best performances I've ever been to. Loud, exciting, the crowd was into it, the band was on. Yowsa.

Friend of mine just gave me the DVD of the very live show we'd flown to London to see in 2000. Dubbed Construction for the Modern VIDIOT (ho ho), it's a pretty straightforward documentation of their first reunion tour. Sped through one viewing of it, and it made me very misty for the early 90's, prompting me to toggle up a host of Wonder Stuff tunes for my walk to work this morning. I still lean towards their earlier material, but there were some gems to be found later on, despite all the mandolins, mawkish introspection, oblique lyrics and those fucking fiddles. Their live cover of "Fisherman's Blues" (by the Waterboys, in case you live at the bottom of a very deep well) is actually quite great. Too bad history has sort've erased them for the most part.

Saw them last night at Irving Plaza (well, Miles & Malc....no Fiddly and no Martin Gilks). Not really the Wonder Stuff, and sort've a sad circumstance, but great to hear "Unbearable", "Ten Trenchs Deep", "Don't Let Me Down Gently", "Poison" and a clutch of other old nuggets. The new stuff is dour and dull, though.

Actually, to be fair, I like a reasonable amount of their songs, and a recent re-visit of 8LGM was less horrible than I thought the passage of time would have made it. In fact, a carefully selected "Best Of" (selected by me) would be quite a pleasant thing to have, but I never really want to listen to any of their albums all the way through.

my how the supposed mighty have fallen.
jesus jones and the wonderstuff headline a very small local festival that i will be present at this saturday.
would have preferred a gboa reunion show, but hey.
i used to like jesus jones, the stuffies, debut album aside, nah.
but hey, its a local gathering, the cider will be plentiful, and for once the sun will shine.

There's only two original members in now, and one of them came back after quitting an earlier reunion; the first new album was literally recorded as a "Miles Hunt's other band" album

So positioning is apt enough

I really like the new album and the covers bonus disc is fun!

jesus jones and the wonderstuff

i saw this pair as a double header last year

totally professional all round etc but zzzz

that jesus jones frontman surely has a very very haggard dorian gray pic in his attic

Really don't know anything about the Wonder Stuff, but I'm listening to "Never Loved Elvis" right now, and am I right that they are very much of a piece with (early) James, Levellers, and Waterboys?

In the sense that UK students in the early 90s liked them. 'Radio Ass Kiss', 'The Size Of A Cow', 'Dizzy', and 'Welcome To The Cheap Seats' were all on the jukebox at the tech college I went to. Actually the last of those four is the last TWS single worth even half listening to - being roughly Carter USM with far less humour.

They seem to share a sort of rousing folk-anthem thing, though, variants on Waterboys Big Music, full of meaning and jangle and fiddles, to degrees of galvanizing politics.

I went to see TWS/The Wedding Present a few weeks ago. Enjoyed it enough. But what was unusual was that they played their new album over the PA during all the evening's sets. Never heard that done before. It's produced to sound exactly like the fiddlier songs on Hup, even down the dated snare sound. I guess it's an attempt to give them what they want. However, the audience booed quite heavily when they announced one of the mere two new songs they actually played that night.

*between all the others sets

whither norman ph4y

Through the reverse binoculars of history, the narcissistic small differences become very small indeed. The Levellers will always be ridiculous though.

Enjoying "On the Ropes" this morning. Not sure what made me dig it up on YouTube, haven't thought about the Wonder Stuff in years (and never thought about them that much in the first place). I like their power-pop more than their raggle-taggle, tho "Golden Green" is catchy.

the size of a cow is the most irritating song in the world

agreed.

I've always wondered what was so supposed to be impressive or intimidating about the size of a cow. I guess elephant doesn't rhyme with "wow."

What would a cow sized problem be? Like your car breaking down perhaps?

Water heater goes out. Kid's sick and has to stay home from school on the day you're supposed to give a Powerpoint presentation at work. Forgot to bring the chips to go along with the dip.

i recently found an old photo i took of my 2 best friends (for hs photography class lol) and i had this searing memory of pulling into the parking lot of the place we went to get hot oatmeal cookies afterwards and hearing "caught in my shadow" and feeling one of those super angsty teen feelings. i hadn't heard the song in idk 2 decades so i looked it up and found a youtube where they play the song forward and the video backward. it's oddly pleasing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXvepfdpk9I

these people used to talk to me
good lyric

offer me a cake and i'll bake it
not so good

Good band. I'll take 'em over Miles post Filles de Kilimanjaro!