The main reason Bob came to my attention was that Malcolm Treece of the Wonder Stuff often wore a T shirt with their rather fine logo on it. That was enough reason for me to seek out a 7″ single of this, that I think I bought in Frank’s Wild Records (a long lost Birmingham record shop that was located in a subway off the old Bull Ring, pretty much where the Selfridges entrance to the Bull Ring car park is now. )
John Peel was a fan and in ’89 this made the Festive 50 (I have an old tape somewhere) and has recently turned up on the Kats Karavan boxset.
I saw them live at the OVT in Selly Oak when it was the Old Varsity Tavern, now the Goose at the OVT. They played in the huge upstairs room on a stage in an alcove so small it was more like a shelf. They were great. I bought a badge. Couldn’t afford the T shirt that night. Wish I’d bought a T shirt. I’d wear it out now for the kudos.
I love this track. I think “visceral” may be the pretentious word to describe this slice of space rock. At college, when experimenting with getting a band together, we ended up spending a few afternoons playing our version of this track and very little else. Bash away at the droning riff, add a lot of noise, distortion and feedback and from time to time kick in the phaser pedal and/or the wah wah. Add a bottle of cider to the mix (that’s about how pyschedelic we were) and it’s a fun way to spend a couple of hours. The band never came to anything, mainly because, fun as it was, we realised that we’d never get a gig just having one song that lasted for two hours.
Listening to the Senseless Things today whilst wandering round the farmers market, I decided on this song for today’s selection. I can’t find a clip of it on YouTube or Last.fm although if you go to the rare sounds section on their site there is a stack load of other downloads to be had.
Shoplifting is from their first album, Postcard CV which was on the wonderfully named Way Cool records. Still got it all on vinyl although I was chuffed when it all cropped up on iTunes a few months ago.
One of the great forgotten Fraggle bands of the early nineties. I didn’t realise until I started searching online for a clip that this was actually a cover of a Slits song though.
Still got my Pop Kid T shirt and it still fits. I wore it to the Wonder Stuff’s 20th Anniversary gig recently.
The main reason Bob came to my attention was that Malcolm Treece of the Wonder Stuff often wore a T shirt with their rather fine logo on it. That was enough reason for me to seek out a 7″ single of this, that I think I bought in Frank’s Wild Records (a long lost Birmingham record shop that was located in a subway off the old Bull Ring, pretty much where the Selfridges entrance to the Bull Ring car park is now. )
Listening to the 
