The Eight Legged Groove Machine

The Eight Legged Groove Machine is the debut album from The Wonder Stuff from August 1988. Maybe it was the fact that the uncle of singer Miles Hunt had played unhinged French horn on the very weird first ELO album and sax with retro rock & roll pranksters Wizzard which so inspired the irreverent humour and common pop touch of the Wonder Stuff. Appearing from nowhere (well, Wolverhampton actually) in 1987 and with girls' hairstyles, The 'Stuffies dutifully stuck a whoopee cushion beneath the raincoat-covered arse of a glum English indie scene with their 1988 debut Eight Legged Groove Machine--a winning mix of brisk, skiffle-light, laddish pop and quite swaggering impertinence. "Unbearable", for example hammed it up with a sawn-off That Petrol Emotion riff and the almost Churchillian barb of "I didn't like you very much when I met you/but now I like you even less" while "It's Yer Money I'm After, Baby" ("It's not your heart/it's your bank I want to break") was something akin to Ray Davies with behavioural problems. "Astley In The Noose" (one of four b-sides added to this repackaged edition) was a call for the hanging of a certain manly voiced 80s pop star for the crime of singing oldies.