The Asides
- Cacophony
- What Do I Know?
- Fuzz You Up
- High Noon
- Everyone Should Know
- I Like Stuff
- All I Hate
- (I Have Found a) Heartache (and its Name is You)
The Besides
- I Found Your Wallet (Sorry)
- Æ
- I’m Not Depressed
- Up & Down
- V6
- Inhaler
- PC Lover
- Something’s Definitely Gone Very Wrong (Again)
“Cacophony” // “I Found Your Wallet (Sorry)” was originally released 1st April 1977 as the first 7″ on Manchester’s Merde label. (MRD001) Later, it found its way to #43 in the singles chart after someone found it in the bin, and pinned it back up on the wall.
“What Do I Know?” // “ Æ ” was originally released 12th August 1977 as a blue/silver 7″ on the Merde label. (MRD007). Jubilee colours were favoured ultimately, in response to the original Graham Woodley picture sleeve design of the Sovereign wearing a Zulu fetish mask, which was outrightly banned in Scotland.
“Fuzz You Up” // “I’m Not Depressed” was released on 9th February 1978, and with astonishing speed it sank from the charts 3 weeks later. Not to be discouraged by this turn in events, they released the B-Side “I’m not Depressed” in time for fans to turn the record over. “Fuzz” was revived moments later by the release of the music video which featured the first viral cat shot entirely on Super 8 film, eventually becoming the first viral cat video.
“High Noon” // “Up & Down” was originally released on the 2nd October 1978, and again on 6th October (and again on the 11th October) to address print discrepancies on the picture sleeve.
“Everyone Should Know”// “EEC” was released on Top of The Poops, 31st March, 1979. A 7″ single of the lip-synched performance track (MRD019) was released April 1st but failed to find an audience when it was accidentally mis-marketed live on air the next day during an April Fool’s prank.
“I Like Stuff” // “Inhaler” 1979 was originally released 30th October, 1979 on brown 7″ vinyl. A molten fragment of brown vinyl was given away in a polythene bag with each disc, containing a remaindered “vinyl turd” as an affront to E.M.U. label boss Marty Zorozny after he commented to the press that Fuzzknobs records cost more than they were worth to make. The band hand-packaged each vinyl artifact personally in Peter’s bedsit in Macclesfield, which doubled as the Merde Label offices until January 1980, when the rent came up.
“All I Hate”// “PC Lover” was released on the 3rd March 1980, the morning following the Top of the Pops appearance of the same title. “Hate” is like a love song but in reverse, allegedly first sung by me about the bandmates during a period of tourbus claustrophobia during our heyday. “PC Lover” is a wordplay number about a conflicted couple whose relationship seems to be a confused amalgam of political correctness, a love of the Windows operating system, and policewear role-playing, although in no particular order.
“I Have Found A Heartache (and its Name is You)” // “Something’s Definitely Gone Very Wrong Again” 1980. “Heartache” is about the doctor correctly diagnosing an affair of the heart, and notably features the spurious vocal contributions of drummer Mal, who popped up after a decade of silence to voice a purely unsolicited final improvisational chorus sing-out, which shocked television audiences when the song went out live (and mostly unrehearsed) on the Top Of The Plops NYE 1979 Special. “Something’s Definitely Gone Very Wrong” is Fuzzknobs minor-key missive to an ever-growing, pulsating list of people (Sarah, Michael, Norman, Enid, my landlady, etc.) who need to be given repeated reminders when they pretend to ask for an update but apparently want some kind of notification system to go off, it drives you bonkers. It’s a “petty song” from the perspective of being given the run-around by a service person on the phone. The ludicrously long list of names released in the aforementioned also demanded a Remix, properly representing the even-angrier phone call back, later the same afternoon.