In the early 1990s, blokes with questionable haircuts, tartan suits and a ragbag of influences sold millions of records, until Britpop spoiled the ‘grebo’ party. Now, after mental strife and ‘personal differences’, the likes of the Wonder Stuff and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin are back
The British indie timeline is well established – documentaries skip from Madchester to Britpop swifter than Keith Allen necking a pint of lager down the Groucho Club. But this was never the full story.
During the late-1980s, the small Black Country town of Stourbridge, just outside Birmingham, became the unlikely nucleus for a scruffily anarchic brand of indie that came to be known as grebo. Three bands – the Wonder Stuff, Pop Will Eat Itself and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin – emerged from the town. They fused ramshackle punk, folk, electronic and hip-hop influences with idiosyncratic styles – dreadlocks, undercuts, army surplus clothing, baggy shorts, questionable tartan suits – and instantly identifiable band logos. Their ascendancy was swift. Between them, they sold millions of albums, headlined festivals, graced the covers of NME and Melody Maker, sold out tours and soundtracked the lives of a generation of pre-Britpop teens. And yet Stourbridge never took its rightful place in the indie pantheon.
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