Indeed (1985)

The inside sleeve of the cover of the Indeed tape by Laughing Sun had written on it:

“WUD PERSONNEL: George, Simon, Grape
Recorded 26/9/85
We are otherwise known as ‘Now and Then’, not strictly Laughing Sun, but as this is more of a ‘Masters of Drone’ project, not particularly ‘Now’-like songs, I guess we can all be parrots, n’est pas?

Gecko appears on credit but not song. Many implied vast group of people all excellent too numerous to mention. WUDLOVE”

Simon played Ken’s black Shaftesbury electric. Grape played Excalibur. George played the Ice Maiden. Everything went through an old HH 5-channel PA and was recorded on a nearby low-budget portable cassette machine.

Pok’s thoughts on Indeed:

Looking back to 1985 is not my favourite occupation personally. We were dead centre in the naffest decade I’ve known amid a sea of Haircut 100 lookalikes and identikid indie bands.

I remember gazing up through the shimmerings of a light show machine switched on in Cliff’s (?) room and feeling melancholic weird  rites of passage into my 20s and the world at large.

The Battle of the Beanfield where revellers had been brutally trashed by Margaret Thatcher’s police force had happened at Stonehenge summer solstice but 3 months and 5 days before.

This was when the last tattered remnants of  any 60s style optimism or mutated forms of it were ground into the dust. This government strategy did not erase the underworld of course. Something else came. It was a point zero that led shortly into a techno rebirth in the second summer of love in 1988, which to me was mostly anaesthetising thud, but actually did bring many tribes together for better or worse.

During this mid eighties period of musical non-entities the Wudcrew were busily plutting at various houses around Exeter.

Indeed remains as a surprisingly cogent collection of tunes played comprehensively if not with some loose sense of masterfulness.

That is to say that I thought my voice was supposed to be a lot worse then when I was 20, and the guitar too. All quite niftily executed if I type so myself. Not too scrappy/shoddly/brutally sh***some and quite pleasing as I listen now.

Twilight on the Moon is a improvisation based on Grape’s bass lines and it is really off the wall, mesmeric and atmospheric to boot. It is unlike other songs here in that.

The Other songs are rarely heard, with nuggets like George and Simon’s sixth form Coping with the Runs in Mexico Blues,  a sub-‘Now’ dog dribble of a song  that should have stayed in the attic at King’s school but didn’t.

There is an early rendition of George’s At One. A song of stupendous scope and verve, later taken up by Rough Terrain et al. with Andy Richardson singing. Marvelous.

Set the Marks is a curio that has rather nonsensical lyrics which form is extended by the odd tale of Wear a Feather in your Hat, but which I may revive for the pleasure of it. The Dark the Ring the Knowledge is a hopefully not over endearing paean to young love and caring for the scared.

An early version of Centre of the Cyclone is here, and a not too shabby Stella Blue, a song by the Grateful Dead that I still play, converting the guitar to mandola now.

Guitars rage with  gritty rasping growls and howls on Frog and Coping… yet bob along on Crazy Mandy and mesmer- out in a long E jam on Don’t Let It Pass You By.

Thanksgivings and perhaps Young Light could be totally embarrassing, but somehow they aren’t.

It is all better than it might have been, though is let down (except Twilight which doesn’t need it) throughout by lack of drums.