Another quickly-forgotten Sheffield band is remembered here

In the early 90s I remember Blammo! playing quite a bit live in and around Sheffield, but it was only when they changed their name to Speedy that the band properly caught my attention.

Most memorable for me was the promotional campaign for their Boy wonder single. The artwork for the release featured a striking illustration of a boy in his Boy wonder pants and if I recall correctly it was plastered on lampposts all over the city centre in the run-up to its release in 1996.

This was just around the peak of Britpop when guitar bands were getting top 10 hits, but for Speedy this wasn’t to be. Despite the promotional campaign, Boy wonder failed to break into the top 40 and a couple of years later they split, with their debut album recorded but unreleased.

I saw them at Music in the sun in 1997 and they were great, holding their own on the bill alongside Longpigs and Baby bird (Stephen Jones was in a very irritable mood that day though). Speedy stood out as a good guitar band and were described by Sheffield music journalist Martin Lilleker as “lyrically clever-funny”.

This website has more information including a discography, which for some reason is presented as a PDF, plus there is more information on Blammo! on karllang.co.uk and in this thread.

Boy wonder did make it onto Polygram’s Shine 7 compilation album, but you can also listen to it here, courtesy of elbondo.com:

Boy wonder (1996) record sleeve,
taken from elbondo.com