We Had A Fuzzbox…and We Used It!!! by Martin Tracey

Published 15th January 2026

The authorised biography of the band We’ve Got A Fuzzbox… And We’re Gonna Use It, penned by author Martin Tracey, is a behind-the-scenes read, a map to secret treasure for those who enjoy connecting the dots in their music knowledge, says Ngaire Ruth.

They all changed their surnames to Fuzzbox. And singer Vix wore gold hot pants before Kylie; just saying.

Gary Dillan’s 80s glossy consumer magazine format, style and size, with the ZigZag pattern framing the coloured cover photo, is the perfect accompaniment to the content. Turn the page: the title of the opening chapter is Herding Kittens, they’ve renamed the epilogue Fuzzilogue, and there’s a short Brummie glossary… this is a prize of Jackie Annual proportions.

If you read the music press during the mid-80s, watched Top of the Pops, or the Chart Show, or listened to John Peel, you’ll remember them. Colourful, bold and united, Vix, Jo, Magz and Tina were everywhere, including the front cover of Melody Maker and N.M.E., staying 25 weeks in the indie charts, on Robert Lloyd’s (Nightingales) legendary Vindaloo label, before diving headfirst into the mainstream with the hits Pink Sunshine, Fast Forward Futurama and International Rescue. Over ten chapters, this book charts all their little and big steps over the decades, and reflects a combined will to embrace every opportunity head-on, with female friendship and a good sense of humour as their armour.

I love that gurning was a pastime (girls should stay quiet and smile nicely), and mooning, when on tour. And the Mohicans and coloured tights under fishnets thing. They swapped instruments in the beginning, which is now common practice for many feminist punk bands. Ahead of their time as individuals and as a band in many ways – the facts will unravel themselves during the reading. Vix, Magz and Tina – sadly, Jo Dunne, guitarist, passed in 2012 – contribute extensively within biographer Martin Tracey’s conversational narrative, filling us in on a long herstory of pranks, piss takes, and a repertoire of song medleys to erupt into Capela-style when they felt like it. I love Vix’s re-telling of their first recording, a double A-side, with Vindaloo: “We liked to mix fuzz and flange or fuzz and phase”.

In the book’s Testimonials, a crammed who’s who, LTW’s John Robb elaborates: “Precursors of Riot Grrrl, they were women in a boy’s club who just got on with being themselves with a genuine thrill for the off-kilter noise of homemade punk with raucous and life-affirming melodies.”

Vix recalls how male journalists thought they were thick because they were just a bunch of schoolgirls, who wore short skirts (Vix’s granny calls them ‘fanny pelmets’), and were from Birmingham, which a good few referred to as ‘up north’.

Bad geography and preconceived attitudes from the media were the norm. Maggie recalls: “Other times it was really annoying. Questions like How did you decide what colour lipstick you wanted to wear? Do you argue over boyfriends?” After that, they turned up with no make-up for the photo shoot, “…and scrubbed our faces to make them look red and spotty. I was doing my best to bring my birthmark out on my forehead and then putting grease on to look even worse and pulling horrible faces to make a point.”

‘For the fans’, sure, but the story requires rewinding the background on the community and creators behind Birmingham’s music scene, a city with a younger population than most in the UK even today (2025: over 50% are under 35). The forward is penned by Birmingham icon, Janice Connolly BEM, founder and artistic director of Women and Theatre, a comedian, and performer. Fact fans: her husband was the tour driver for Fuzzbox for a while. The connections give you faith. It shows the value of a bunch of punks in any town, city, or village (punk referring to a DIY and collaborative philosophy, not a genre or sound). One point of interest is the number of people who cut their teeth working with Fuzzbox, and the relationships built, which continue. No spoilers here: the names will amuse and surprise.

Three of the bands’ members were under 18 at the start –and there’s no doubt there’s a darker subtext here, once they leave the Birmingham nest, which demonstrates the power major labels had pre-digital (good riddance). ‘Not knowing what the hell is going on’ but never feeling ‘we shouldn’t be here’, what an emotional combination to carry around with all those hormones. Some anecdotes may come with a mental health warning. Vix also recalls being given barely-there costumes to wear that made her cry, but luckily, Top of the Pops wouldn’t allow them since it broadcast before the watershed. (On reflection, shocking to think some of its hosts were actual predators, criminals right under the Beeb’s nose at the time.)

Irony is not something that comes to mind when reading We Had a Fuzzbox…And We Used It!!! But by the end, I’m wondering perhaps the joke’s been on the music industry all along, most delightfully and childishly. And now for their next trick…?

Watch out for Vix’s next project.

~

Writer Ngaire Ruth has been a pioneer of the unconventionals for over thirty years, in both print and online music journalism, writing with a feminist agenda.  She worked at the Melody Maker for over a decade as a full-time weekly writer. Post-digital, she moved into online journalism as a section editor for an online magazine, focusing on women in music. She is now a non-fiction creative writer, educator at the Academy of Contemporary Arts, London and Guildford, and a consultant. She is writing a memoir.

Words by Ngaire Ruth. You can read her Louder Than War reviews here and follow her on Substack for vintage music journalism and new creative nonfiction.