Boys Wonder - Now What Earthman - 1987 - Sire
Click above for big pictures, click below to play me…
Britpop happened a long time ago.
The first time I heard Oasis for example, was on a free cassette given away by the NME just before their first single was released. It was a demo version of Cigarettes and Alcohol - and I thought it was the biggest load of crap I had ever heard.
I was wrong of course - the biggest load of crap I had ever heard would actually be released by Oasis much later in their career - but with that fact acknowledged let us instead focus on the most important word in the previous paragraph. The first time I ever heard Oasis was on a cassette. I slotted this cassette into a non-digital Sony Walkman which contained moving parts specifically designed for playing cassettes.
It is even possible that I pressed a small button marked ‘Dolby’.
At the time I probably looked not unlike Cliff Richard on the cover of his album ‘Wired For Sound‘ - within which he excitedly informs the populace that when it comes to era defining issues such as making a choice between the classic ‘tall speakers’ and those new fangled ’small speakers’, he didn’t really have much of a preference.
Yes, Britpop really did happen quite a long time ago.
Now, we can all argue about the details of exactly what single or which band first kicked Britpop off, but one thing is certain : somewhere around the time period I slipped that cassette into my Walkman, Britpop definitely happened.
Another thing we can also say with 100% certainty is that Britpop definitely wasn’t attempting to happen in 1987, and that it definitely wasn’t being played by a band called Boys Wonder. Or can we ? One listen to this really rather excellent song may well make you change your mind.
Let us check the Important Component Britpop Parts :
Silly over the top comedy cockernee singing accent ? Check.
Gallagher style stick on eyebrows years before they were socially acceptable ? Absolutely.
A real feeling that this could have actually been written by Chas and Dave ? Oh yes.
In fact, this record is so wondrously correct in it’s recreation of future events, it brings to mind previous I Am Not the Beatler’s Wild Weekend whose only crime was to also release a totally perfect pop record - but a few years too early.
Both songs are thrillingly wonderful, neither have dated and both would be hits if they were released next week.
So why doesn’t somebody do it ?
I (ahem) Wonder Where The Boys Are Now ?
There is an excellent Boys Wonder interview from 1987 here :
http://www.chrishunt.biz/features38.html
It is interesting in many ways, but the main highlight is the Union Jack conversation - which doesn’t just pre-date Britpop, but also that whole Morrissey debacle which took place a few years later.
Beyond that, those of you with your ear to ground will of course already know that two members of Boys Wonder went on to form Corduroy, who were most mainstreamly famous for the track ‘Mini’.
But did you know that they did so with two ex-members of Dr and The Medics ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corduroy_(band)
Did you also know that the frontman in Boys Wonder was previously the guitarist in Haircut 100 ?
http://www.myspace.com/boyswonder
Or that Corduroy like many others before them have just gone and bloody well reformed ?
I certainly didn’t.
So that’s two band members sorted out, where is everyone else ?
Well, Pascal the drummer has since played with an embarrassing array of people including Bjork, Sister Sledge and somebody called Chris Biggin :
Sadly that’s Chris Biggin by the way with no ’s’ in the surname, not Christopher with :
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shake-Up-Chris-Biggin/dp/B000231VRQ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Biggins
And Pascal now runs Sublime Productions :
http://www.sublimeproductions.com/
Take a look. He’s done tons - although if you click on ‘News’ the last update to the website was 2004 so, for all we know, he might actually be a pig farmer by now.
Boys Wonderer Tony Barber went on to join The Buzzcocks in 1993, and toured with Nirvana amongst others :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzzcocks
Whilst the only contender for Chris Tate I can find is in a band called Trash Money. I warn you now this is tenuous, and I am more than probably incredibly wrong as my knowledge of Trash Money is… well… zero.
In fact, I only include the possibility it may be Chris Tate because
a) Every picture I can find of the band is taken in such a way that it means they could all be 18 or 80 - and this immediately made me suspicious. And,
b) One of them is called Chris Tate.
http://www.trashmoney.co.uk/trashmoney.swf
Hmmm… Look at the chap in the Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot cap on the back cover of the Boys Wonder single, and compare it to the slightly podgier bloke at the back right of the Trash Money photo …
What do you think ?
All this just leaves Graham Jones - but, alas, he has completely disappeared. Graham ? Where are you ?
Money Update
Cost : 8 pence
Current Value : Bloody Hell. Some people are charging a fortune. In fact the cheapest I can find is… 8 pounds and 86 pence. This puts it straight into 4th place valuewise - just behind lovely Sonya Grier, and just in front of manly FM’s slightly cheaty box set.
Current Profit : 131 pounds and 70 pence. Gosh. That was exciting, wasn’t it.
Supporting Cast Update : Oasis - Richard, Cliff - Chas and Dave - Beastie Boys - Dr and The Medics - Haircut 100 - Bjork - Sister Sledge - Biggin, Chris - Biggins, Christopher - The Buzzcocks - Curiosity Killed The Cat
Update Now available ! Thanks to http://www.boyswonder.co.uk, pop off to Corrections and Clarifications - we have even got a picture of Graham Jones. Gosh :
RSS Blog
October 10th, 2007 at 10:26 am
I always thought the whole Morrissey condemnation was over the top anyway. I am not conviced that him saying anything at the time would have helped. That whole time where they went through all his ‘racist’ lyrics was funny. It was just a case of you always hurt the one you love.
And this song ? Top.
October 10th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
I was a big Boys Wonder fan and saw them loadsa times I’ve even got the Boys Wonder/Burger king T shirt.The Radio Wonder EP and a white label 12″ of All Because the Lady Loves.
And - I liked ‘em even more as Corduroy, they were always well ahead of the game
Well done for giving the credit the’re long overdue for
October 26th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Wow,
Boyswonder were fabulous live. I spent many a happy (and drunken) night watching Ben and Scott at venues all over London and then went on to watch Corduroy quite a bit too. They were good lads and me and my mate Ian (who got to know them quite well) always ended up having a drink with them at some pointy in the evening.
Happy days.
Marmiteboy
June 21st, 2008 at 9:37 am
Thanks for the BW reminder! Graham Jones was the Haircut 100 bloke, he was in the Bands Reunited show on VH1 about them a while back, he’s a tree surgeon in Cornwall now I think.
I thought you might be interested in this. I tracked down the original BW manager, Paul, a few years back. BW actually recorded an album for Sire before they were dropped and it obviously never came out. As the only album is Radio Wonder, and as such not entirely indicitive of their best-remembered incarnation, I asked him if he had a copy anywhere or even if it might be released one day. He told me Never Been To Mayfair was meant to be being released as a single and the album was being remixed by Ben and Scott. This was about three years ago, so obviously nothing happened, but if anyone sees B&S at these Corduroy shows maybe they could give them a nudge? This is a bit from one of Paul’s emails I kept:
*****************************
Boys wonder fans were always great -
they knew what it was,
they saw what it would be,
they were the hippest kids on the block,
mod deluxe, sussed, snappy dressers,
the whole sixties meets the 23rd century type of person
They were the ones who understood
all the strange references to pop culture and Stanley Kubrick
The problem is for me that so many emotional links were tied up
Through the band I met George Martin for gods sake
He nearly produced their first album
Do you know what I mean?
I wanted Linda McCartney to shoot the cover of the album
I was told by high end WEA personnel
These people are not HOT
Sheesh
For me boyswonder were much more than a band - it was a one band movement
against the idiocy of the music business in the mid eighties
we were just ten years ahead of our time
*****************************
Viva!
Nick
June 22nd, 2008 at 9:01 am
In fact I got so Boys Wondered up yesterday that I put up a website. Why haven’t they already got one?
It’s at boyswonder.co.uk if anyone has anything I can add to it. Thanks!
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:58 pm
I was one of the BoysWonder faithful back in 85/86. I remember the t-shirts were always a year ahead. We were part of a small group that hung around the band, at placed like the old Spice of Life pub in Soho.
There was also a lunchtime club called The Popin Parlour, which was held at the Rock Garden in Covent Garden. I think a girl named Claire ran that. Vic Reeves was the compare helped by Les and various buskers that did a turn.
Great memories of sitting n the tube from Dagenham wearing white Levis, a striped blazer, horse brasses on my shoes and a feather cut.
Did i get some looks.
There was always a great sense of excitement around the band, the night Seymour Stein came down to the Spice before Sire picked up the boys.
For a while it seemed like a secret club of like minded dreamers, rebelling against the shoulder padded electronic eighties that was happening to everyone else.
Vote BoysWonder
June 29th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Hello Angels!
I am JONES from BW with the Les Paul and pink motocross trousers seen at
boyswonder.co.uk
If there is enough interest I will put some long lost tracks forward for the faithful, maybe even some demos worth hearing.
Visit the site and ask Nick to hassle me to upload.
Graham and Donna I remember you and little Jimmy! Venner rd an’ all.
Jonesy
July 19th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
I am pretty sure that if Graham uploaded the entire album Sire wouldnt do anything about it, it was 50 years ago haha
The reason the band was dropped was that Seymour Stein lost interest because he only wanted to have a number one hit in every territory in the universe and beyond infinity with ‘I Never Been To Mayfair’ but the band didnt want to release that as a first single.
If they had we’d all be millionaires now hahaha.
I always thought it would be a very BoysWonder thing to do - to release an Englebert Humperdink kind of record instead of BLISTERING QUOASIS STUFF.
July 20th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Hello all, Corrections and Clarifications has now been updated with all the latest info mainly thanks to http://www.boyswonder.co.uk.
We have even got a review and a picture of Graham playing on stage with Nick Heyward in 2002 and let’s face it , it doesn’t get much more exciting than that.
http://www.iamnotthebeatles.com/?page_id=308
July 24th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Jonesy!
Madden!
Wheres the Les Paul?
Yep.
In my lock up.
July 24th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
TB!!
What’s it doin’ in yer lock up daley?
Is my pink lady still on her. She’s got a better neck than the guitar!
Rock legs and Pink Cakes
September 17th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Jonesy….
Just the had all me LPs out the other day and did guitar workshop. Like a modern day Jack Hargreaves. Had a butchers at the SD pick up..all these years i never knew it was a kent armstrong job!!??
September 18th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
You know me…I never had rubbish gear.
Busy converting cassette stuff to mp3. Any requests?
Speak with Nick C for contact detail.
Fruit juice or cereal?
Right Result!
September 24th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Yeah mp3s would be great of all your 4 track stuff…i liked em better than some of the records…!!
Pink lady is coming off now.
September 25th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Hi,
Im a big Boyswonder fan andvery excited at the prspect of hearing some of the previously not available material
Heath
September 25th, 2008 at 10:50 am
See im that excited my spelling is awful !!!!!
Heath
September 29th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
TB… Save the lady and get her to me. Get my address from BW site.
Health and Efficiency!!! Eh Pasc!!
January 5th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
OK if anyone wants a cd send me an email I dont care.
I only ask for £5 to cover the cost of the cd the jiffy bag and the postage.
UK ONLY! UK ONLY! I only accept paypal
I repeat UK only.
lespaul2012@hotmail.com
January 15th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
reply to madden…i emailed u but got nothin back.i need a bw cd.please please get in touch cheers deanroy …viva bw
January 20th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
The excellent ‘Down with Tractors’ featured ‘Shine On Me’ a little while ago, with similar sentiment on Oasis:
From http://downwithtractors.blogspot.com/2008/01/boys-wonder-shine-on-me-expanded-second.html :
*****
Cast your mind back, gentle reader, to when you first heard about Oasis. Remember what we were promised? Well, we were promised the “Sex Beatles”(It’s in there somewhere). That was the phrase that Creation’s PR department had managed to get the press to use; the “Sex Beatles”. Let’s face it, which self-respecting journalist wouldn’t have jumped on the phrase? It promised the best of two of our most iconic acts: the swagger, punky attitude and insouciance of The Sex Pistols, and the wonderful pop melodies of The Beatles- perfection!
But what did we get? Well, we certainly didn’t get The Sex Beatles. In fact, after we’d got about halfway through “Definately Maybe”, there were a great many people who’d realised we’d actually been sold The Eater Clark Five. Damn.
What fools we all were then, not to notice that the “Sex Beatles” had actually happened a few years before…
*****
The Eater Clark Five - still makes me chuckle
February 12th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Sorry to retract the offer following legal advice. Why not write to Seymour Stein at Sire and suggest a greatest hits reissue?