78. We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It - Rules and Regulations (Vindaloo)

Number one for five weeks from 3rd May 1986

“Some people do think we’re stupid, but that’s quite understandable really, isn’t it? I can’t think why people would want to come and see us” – Vicky, Record Mirror, May 1986.

“I’ve got this theory that we’re actually providing employment, because if we can’t play our instruments very well, we have to employ other people, like orchestras, to come and do it. So in fact, it’s quite politically and ideologically sound not to be able to play very well.” – Mags, Record Mirror, February 1987

Those two quotes, taken nine months apart, probably say more about Fuzzbox (and their attitude to the world and the music business) than anything I could possibly throw at my keyboard for the next few hours. It’s no wonder some music journalists found them infuriating – it was the job of the eighties rock press to peddle the idea that music has importance in either a technical or “revolutionary” way; if a record isn’t competently or artfully performed, then it should be offending someone in its attempts to rebel (usually parents, the powers-that-be or “the straights”).

We’ve Got A Fuzzbox And We’re Going To Use It (we’ll call them Fuzzbox after this point; they chose that abbreviated name for themselves eventually anyway) fitted the bill in theory. The “Rules And Regulations” EP was their debut release on Robert Lloyd’s Vindaloo Records, and lead track “XX Sex” was, beneath its chaotically fuzzy clatter, straightforwardly political. “XX sex sex gets ex-exploited” they chant, referencing page three girls and ranting “Cookery and hookery/ Exploit desolation and isolation”. If Huggy Bear had released that one in 1993, nobody would have questioned it – they sound similar enough, with only Vicky’s surprisingly clear and powerful post-punk vocals setting them apart (she's the only conventional musical talent evident on the track).

Title track “Rules and Regulations”, however, was the one with the home-made promo video which ended up picking up most of the airplay, and continued the usual punkish themes of a bleak pre-mapped journey through life, including workplace alienation, and the obviously feminist reference to a husband who “tied you down so you’re housebound”. It’s the ace on the EP, containing pounding drums without the use of metalwork, a central buzzing riff, and a chorus chant which isn’t a thousand miles away from Adam Ant, but taken as a whole, it clearly owes much more significant debts to The Slits and X Ray Spex.

When journalists saw the promotional photographs of Fuzzbox with brightly coloured, electrified hair and thickly made up faces, they must have already written their articles before interviewing the group or getting any quotes. It seemed a simple case; more punk rock, more anarchy, angry young women desperate to be heard in a society which hadn’t given them a voice…

And yet Fuzzbox usually didn’t want to be drawn. They were too busy having fun. They openly sniggered on stage and gurned in their videos. Their politics were left-leaning, perhaps not atypically for an eighties band from a major industrial city like Birmingham, but they clearly hadn’t pored over Sociology textbooks seeking to justify their views to journalists; Easterhouse they weren’t. They had a tendency to regard themselves as ridiculous as the world they inhabited, and were far enough away from the initial impact of punk rock to be able to use bright hair dye and super strength hairspray and seem cartoonish, rather than menaces to society.

And yet – there was something strangely exciting and confrontational about all this anyway. Four women who were self-confessed musical amateurs, making a noise like that and having FUN, not attempting to justify their mere existence to the rock press? The very thought seemed powerful enough to propel this EP up the official national charts so that it peaked just one space clear of the National Top 40 – and only two spaces away from Freddie Mercury’s latest single - despite being released on a tiny indie label set up by the lead singer of The Nightingales (it’s notable that when Robert Lloyd decided to finance this initial release, some friends assumed he was having a mental crisis).

66. The Woodentops - Well Well Well (Rough Trade)

Three weeks at number one from w/e 14th September 1985

In the Microdisney documentary “The Clock Comes Down The Stairs” – and indeed in some of the press interviews that surrounded its premiere – the group regularly mused on why they weren’t successful. The incendiary behaviour of their frontman Cathal Coughlan is frequently overlooked as an explanation in favour of other factors, such as the fact that The Smiths were dominating Rough Trade’s attention in the eighties.

I’m sure that this is largely true. Rough Trade were a small independent label often operating on creaky financial footing, and had to put the most money down on their leanest, speediest horse rather than gambling their lot on unknown quantities. The Smiths were certainly their prize filly, but what’s interesting is absolutely nobody in the documentary mentions The Woodentops, who were also rapidly catching up on the outside lane and were also stealing Rough Trade's attention.

The group, it seems, have largely been forgotten even by people who were actually in their vicinity at the time, but were distinct press favourites and earmarked as probable contenders even in the trade press. Rolo McGinty had previously unsuccessfully auditioned as the bass player for the Teardrop Explodes, and like that group, had a faint air of both the New Wave pop star and the magic mushroom guzzling hippy about him. His pixie-ish bopping made him a great English frontman in the Barrett/ Bolan tradition, while the group’s cocktail of influences made them a unique prospect.

McGinty’s rounded middle class English vowels met with frequently folky lead acoustic guitars, which mixed and matched with hyper post-punk tribal drums and squealing keyboards. The angular woodiness to their sound can’t have been unprecedented, but it felt simultaneously accessible and yet odd; the only real prior comparison I can think of is Unit 4+2 at the frantic and faintly psychedelic tail end of their career (give their final 45 “I Will” a spin to hear what I mean, but don’t ignore the better flipside). Even they never truly pushed the boat out this far, though.

McGinty made the approach sound very simple in a 1986 interview with “One Two Testing”, explaining “[There are] lots of different kinds of shapes but there's always this acoustic guitar and lots of backing vocals so it always has that kind of folkiness… The music of the drums, the bass, electric guitar and the keyboards is almost like a dream behind the acoustic guitar so the vocal and guitar are like Bob Dylan leaning against a tree, singing a song and the band is like a dream of the backing that's going on inside Bob Dylan's head when he's singing.

"He's not hearing this acoustic guitar, he's hearing this orchestra or something and he's singing with that. The acoustic guitar is just keeping his rhythm for him.”

They clearly weren’t approaching things from an orthodox direction, but the results could be astounding, and “Well Well Well” is marvellous. If you haven’t heard it in a long time, refreshing your memory is a valuable exercise – for one thing, it’s more intense than you remember, sounding polite and joyful but also faintly threatening. Rolo often sounds taunting while singing “Baby I know you like my way so wrap my soul and take it away” in the chorus, and the band pound, clatter and rattle like an old diesel train in danger of getting derailed behind him. It’s a steep downhill journey towards the buffers, or perhaps, in reality, towards a likely lady’s lap.

Usually when groups pick up acoustic guitars to enchant someone of the opposite sex, it’s done so with embarrassing displays of earnestness and passion rather than mischief, which is another way the group subvert expectations here. The fact that while doing so, they have a killer skiffling hook in the mix (Terry and Gerry would have undertaken unspeakable and possibly criminal dares to own this chorus) and know exactly when to stop is a sign that none of this is random, despite Rolo’s jazzy vagueness about their methods. It just feels eccentrically plotted, but unlike the off-kilter experiments of a lot of indie acts, it’s a scheme that Pops rather than jars.