REVIEW - The Wonder Stuff - Escape From Rubbish Island
Published February 04, 2005
Who was it said that I was fucked at birth
Don't have the right to walk God's green earth.
Is that riiiiiiiiiight? Is that right?
If violence is my only call.
Consider this. Consider that. Consider all.
Is that riiiiiiiiiight? Is that right?
That ain't right?
In what appears to be the inspiration for the title of the disc, though probably not its innards, Hunt wrote a fine piss-in-his-blood article in Jan 2004: "Escape From Rubbish Island" about avoiding the inside-looking-out feel of a blank-stare lifestyle. A screed also about undeserving celebrity, which Hunt clearly craves while decrying it.
But he's only got himself to blame. One Wonder Stuff album in the last decade will cede territory to four Robbie Williams flings every time when there's emptiness to fill.
Hunt is a former MTV UK presenter, a fact which just caused me to hold my head from trying to turn inside out. I can only think MTV UK is a wee but different than the USA original. Or that it was when Hunt was there.
Anyway back to the songs. Love Ltd, a way of saying Love Co. LLC, ends the disc and the 39th minute on a note of a veiled threat.
I just got this feeling around you
Don't know which way I'm gonna break
i just hit that ceiling that allows you
I've got to wrap it up and come out, my belly full of hate.
Did I really sat there was no love longing here? There's love of phraseology that strives for meaning and, like a less-beautiful Tori Amos, usually delivers.
The Wonder Stuff's last gig in their original run was at the summer Phoenix Festival in 1994. Since then hunt has never strayed far from one or another Wonder Stuff band member. They've been transformed in 11 years from long-haired iconoclasts with a fame buzz to niche-zine favorites. Along the way Hunt has continued to play live and keep his name aflame in various incarnations.
Today? Two new members have arrived just in time for the ashes to cool and that Phoenix to rise again. The 2004/2005 Wonder Stuff line up consists of band founders Miles Hunt (vocals/guitar) and Malc Treece (guitar/vocals) with the new additions of former RDF (Radical Dance Faction) bassist Mark McCarthy and Andres Karu, former drummer for Love In Reverse.
If this former .. presenter ... is going to rant - and oh how he rants as only an earthen Nottingham lad can, about empty-slate celebrities, surely Hunt and Co share must see their own culpability. Where have they been? And more importantly - direct question here - are you going to stick around and fight?
Yeah I'm calling you out.
- REVIEW - The Wonder Stuff - Escape From Rubbish Island
- Published: February 04, 2005
- Type:
- Section: Music
- Writer: Temple Stark
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Thanks Temple, very anxious to hear this. I met them and hung out for a while before a show at the Roxy in Hollywood in the early-'90s - really great live band but Miles was a total prick. Sounds like he still is, which musically is swell.
I wrote some about all that here
Still nothing fromm Miles eh. :_)
Yo Temple. Advance.net dude.
Let your contacts know - and thanks for the review. - Temple
PS No, really, you give others that contact advice but rarely do you do it yourself. Do it. (Godfather's Pizza jingle in my head now).
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I've been a long-time compadre with Miles Hunt and The Wonderstuff, and that they have a new album is wonderful. They, like a lot of other UK groups were much more popular in Canada than in the US. I even have an "Idiot" toque. One of the problems the band had was how to grow old gracefully. It sounds like they haven't succeeded.