Right after graduating from college in 1989, I started reading all about this new British indie band called The Wonder Stuff. I think it may have been in SPIN (where I’d shortly go intern) that I first read a small feature on them, accompanied by a band photo revealing them to be hairy, cheeky chaps who looked worthy of ridicule and contempt. But after reading some rapturous reviews of their debut LP, The Eight-Legged Groove Machine, I picked up the cassette of same on a whim, … and was completely hooked. Like a more contemporary version of the Buzzcocks, the Wonder Stuff – at the time – practiced a blend of concise, guitar-driven pop, rife with big hooks and lead singer Miles Hunt’s signature brand of witheringly acerbic wit. I was an instant fan and evangelized their greatness to my little gaggle of similarly inclined idiots. You can read more about this fertile period of British indie pop on this ancient post.
Over the next couple of records, the `Stuff gradually moved away from the very sound that first recruited me, but I actively followed them through their first run for four studio albums and innumerable EPs, seeing them live several times (most notably at the Marquee in October of 1990 for an acrimonious show wherein bottles were thrown and the cops showed up). After embracing a more produced, accessible sound that owed more to The Waterboys than the aforementioned Buzzcocks, they dissolved by the middle of the `90s, only to return to active duty several years later. Sadly, original bassist, Rob “The Bass Thing” Jones* died shortly after leaving the band after their second album, Hup, and drummer Marin Gilks passed away in 2006.
I remember getting quizzical stares from my then-new colleagues at MTV News when I confessed that I’d actually flown overseas to see their reunion shows in London in 2000. Whatever. I regret nothing.
In any case, here in 2025, while a re-constituted version of the Wonder Stuff is still going (they released five more albums after formally reforming in 2004, albeit with an entirely new line-up), I cannot say I’ve followed their trajectory as closely. That all said, when I spied the video below, recently, I did audibly gasp. Released sometime after their second LP, Eleven Appalling Videos was a compilation of their early work that I had on VHS (never released on any other format), featuring various promo clips and footage of the band dissecting same in between.
If you’re even remotely curious, do please enjoy…
*After quitting the band, Jones moved to New York and got a job at Tower Records. I remember encountering him behind the register, on occasion, and he absolutely never wanted to talk about the Wonder Stuff -- much less anything else – with the likes of me.
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