Stump

Among the eccentric acts signed to Manchester’s Ron Johnson imprint and steeped in the spirit of Captain Beefheart, Stump stood out for both singularity and warmth. While their labelmates favored manic delivery and abrupt guitar stabs, the quartet—vocals handled by the wide-eyed Mick Lynch, guitar by Chris Salmon, bass by Kevin Hopper, and drums by ex-Microdisney member Rob McKahey—favored jarring shifts in harmony and meter alongside playful, off-kilter lyrics. Those traits surfaced first on the appealing Mud On A Colon EP, released in March 1986. Radio 1 presenter John Peel quickly championed the group; the session they recorded for him that year finally appeared on record the next January. Meanwhile the band found itself swept into the NME’s C86 initiative and performed on The Tube, where an eccentric clip accompanied their track “Buffalo.” As Ron Johnson encountered monetary woes, the debut album Quirk Out surfaced instead on the Stuff label, yet Ensign Records soon signed the quartet to a major deal. The single “Chaos” heralded the arrival of A Fierce Pancake, an album that preserved the band’s idiosyncratic voice intact. Greatest notice, however, went to “Charlton Heston,” notable for the phrase “lights camel action” and its amphibian-heavy video. A wider reissue of the strong “Buffalo” single appeared poised to chart the following November, but once it stalled the group disbanded. Hopper later pursued a solo career.