Word may or may not be out about this, but if you’ve not heard the news yet you may as well hear it from me (even though I’ve not been ‘officially’ told myself..and don’t expect to be). Anyway, it turns out that the Stupids are doing a few more gigs this year, but as a trimmed-down 3 piece (I assume) and most definitely without yours truly doing the awkward frontman thing with the mic and no guitar - and I was just warming to the whole idea finally!! No-one from the band has actually been in touch to say they don’t want me to sing onstage anymore despite the fact that the gigs are already booked and I was bound to find out at some point, but as shit as that makes me feel (the ‘not being told’ bit, not the ‘not being in the band’ bit), I can’t say I’m too surprised. Ho hum. Anyway, thanks to Sean Forbes for telling me almost immediately he found out and thanks to Aston for calling a few days later to talk it over.I’m not sure of the details of all of the gigs, but the one I definitely know about is at The Grosvenor in Stockwell (London) on Dec 19th with The Shitty Limits and Hardskin also on the bill. I’ll be there for sure; it’s the annual Hardskin Christmas gig and with The Shittys supporting it’ll be one not to miss.

Videos:

• Elephant Man - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k90bOXZCBKQ
• Yah Dude! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRzIfADB5BI

Photos:
Slideshow of Damion Rice’s photos from the gig.

Slideshow of my photos from the gig.

Reviews:

• James Sherry’s review in Crossfire.

Stupids rehearsals went really well. We were sounding pretty tight by the end of last night. Gig is on Saturday. I was chuffed that John Hannon was able to pop in for the last 20 mins and that Southend Pete stopped by too. I should rehearse in Rayleigh more often Here’s a camera-phone snap of Martin doing his thing; nice a blurry due to sweat on the lens.

….as it’s all over the HC parts of t’Internet I may as well say that rumours of a Stupids reunion gig are finally true. Tom and Martin have apparently been playing together for a while and with deluxe new re-issues series about to hit the streets they decided the time was right to play a ’secret’ show at the wonderful Portland Arms in Cambridge as part of Aston’s all-Boss Tuneage extravaganza on Saturday 26th July. Info here.

Tom’s asked if I’d like to join in proceedings as vocalist, so it’s all the way back to 1986-87 for me and trying desperately to remember how to be a frontman without a guitar. It’s a tiny venue (ironically the same one I played the recent gig with John Ruscoe), so I expect it’ll be rammed, but I’m looking forward to it…I just hope we get an opportunity to rehearse before the gig!

Aston Stephens from Boss Tuneage just got in touch via email with news of the Stupids re-issues collection that he’s been co-ordinating since 2005…yep, it’s been a long road, but we thank him for his endeavours

The set will finally be released on 30th June 2008. James Sherry (ex-K-Line drummer and star HC journo) is doing all the liner notes, which is a good thing I think. The other interesting thing is that Sanctuary - who bought the rights to the early Stupids releases from Trojan/Clay who had originally bought them from Manic Ears who bought them from C.O.R….no-one said this was going to make sense!!! - were recently themselves bought by Universal. This means that Aston is licensing all the C.O.R. era releases from Universal! Hah! The Stupids finally make it onto a major…sort of.

I haven’t heard at lot of this stuff for 20 years and I honestly can’t remember half of the songs that the band released on Vinyl Solution so I’m looking forward to the trip down memory lane. Tom has been closely involved with Aston during the time it’s taken to get the stuff put together, so I think it’ll be a really great collection with all boxes ticked. Highlights for me will be hearing the Peel sessions again and also the original Frankfurter 4-track which I definitely remember as being ‘a good thing’.

Packaging-wise CDs will be digipacks with 16 page booklets and “vinyl effect” CDs, the vinyl will be 12″ gatefold sleeves on coloured vinyl. Anyway, here are some headlines about the releases. More details and (hopefully) artwork nearer the time. 
 
Release #1:  
VIOLENT NUN - as an 12″ LP with the extra Leave Your Ears Behind tracks - CD Version also includes the entire FAT DRUNK AND STUPID demo (26 tracks total)
 
Release # 2: 
PERUVIAN VACATION - 12″ LP as per original album, CD has Mr Adult and the Jan 85 demos on it plus 3 Coolest Retards tracks (33 tracks total)
 
Release # 3:
RETARD PICNIC - 12″ LP as per original album , CD has Retard Picnic outtakes and “stupids Flexi”, plus the Washington DC 14-1-87 live show with Stu Hill on bass (42 tracks)
 
Release # 4:
COMPLETE PEEL SESSIONS - containing the three STUPIDS Peel sessions and FRANKFURTER peel session; 12″ LP and CD with new cover art from Chris Shary (20 tracks)
 
Release # 5: 
VAN STUPID / FRANKFURTER -  12″ LP like the French version (ie Van Stupid less Stoopie Boys on one side/Eat EP on the other) - CD has the Frankfurter Jim P demo as bonus tracks - Jim P supplied me a CDR of it (23 tracks total)
 
Release # 6: 
JESUS MEETS THE STUPIDS - 12″ LP like original album, CD curently has the 5 track 7″ as bonus tracks - plus ”Live To Rock” and “Buttum”.