The Shapes (2) – Wot's For Lunch Mum? EP

"After a little rehearsal, we return to Woodbine Mobile Recording Studios and record what is to become the Part Of The Furniture EP on our own label Sofa Records. We record four songs, (I Saw) Batman (In The Launderette), College Girls, What's For Lunch Mum (Not Beans Again), and Chatterbox. The versions are faster and more urgent with two guitarists and we retire well pleased by the whole affair. Our money is duly spent on pressing and sleeve inserts and we dutifully spend an evening stuffing the inserts into the records. That took us up to the point that we knew, so after persuading everyone we knew to buy one, we sent one to just about every DJ at every radio station we could think of. We never really expected anyone would play it, especially not John Peel, because we had played a road show of his not long previously and had quite frankly gone down like a fart in a space suit. But play it he did, not once, not twice, but incessantly. The phone started to ring and suddenly we were a hot property. We couldn't get rid of the records fast enough. We would drive to London and starting at Westbourne Grove, start unloading them at Virgin, Rough Trade, Fresh, Cherry Red, and all the way up to Small Wonder in Walthamstow to hawk them to the lovely Pete Stennet and his even lovelier wife Marie. A cup of tea would be cadged and then off home again. The week would see trips to all the other major distributors, Red Rhino, Dead Good, and a host of others. Suddenly, places that wouldn't let us in were calling us, and the gigging never stopped. We started scoring supports all over, and so began the never ending swathe of gigs that became the Part Of The Furniture tour of 1979."

Title of the EP taken from the first track, also being how it is commonly referred.