Wud: band biography

Wud as a band was a bizarre and odd entity. Beginning as it did on New Year’s Day 1985, it was something that was only ever going to be a bit weird, peculiar or strange.

Ken moved to Exeter on that day, and it was a very cold day. Being a bit the worse for wear from the previous evening’s festivities, which were not especially fun, the Wud posse were in no fir state to be able to meet poor Ken at the St Davids station. Instead he had to find his own way to his new flat. There he dropped off his cases and made the journey to Flat D, as it was known, which at that time was Wud headquarters.

Ken had arrived from Richmond in London, and certainly seemed not quite entirely normal to the rest of us. He had first appeared at the Sidmouth International Folk Festival in 1983, during an episode with Westcountry, the local ITV station. Westcountry were doing a piece on the Festival and happened upon Simon and George busking on the promenade. A short bit a persuasion from the presenter saw the two boys playing and singing on TV and a massive throng of people gathered around to watch.

After the shooting was over, this guy with long curly brown hair, mostly brown clothes and a manner reminiscent of Basil Brush crossed with Pingu appeared. His tall lean counterpart, with large blue eyes and a shock of blond hair, had prehensile lips and a long toothy smile. “Are you for real?” the first, foxy-faced man asked.

There then followed general chat and laughing and swapping of tunes, beginning with one certain Pretty Faces by the new arrivals. An original, perhaps? China Girl by David Bowie, Wild World by Cat Stevens and a remarkably good and complete version of Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin followed. The taller man played guitar and guerned, while the man in largely brown sang, and bloody well. We were impressed.

Later came the usual playing, singing and general quaffing of ale and queebing of smeej that was entirely natural under such circumstances. Agreeing to meet up again and do some more of the same, the inevitable had begun. Ken was the singer, the other man being another Simon Knagg, a most entertaining if quieter individual than Ken, most noted for his ‘wrong orifice’ quotation on that fine day.

We had camped in Calvin’s garden, where much silliness had taken place, such as writing a memento on his Calvin’s recently painted bedroom wall.

After just one night there, we moved to our usual spot where we camped for many years. The campsite was on the hillside overlooking the sea to the west of the town of Sidmouth. The spot was away from where the elderly tentmaster could clamber. It was a mighty cunning spot, only visible when standing right next to the tent. Even though it was close to the edge of the cliff, it was perfectly safe and shielded by the bushes. Many strange things took place there, such as jamming and verdrigulation, tea making and fire building, and sometimes uncomfortable sleep. This always involved everyone present ending up boiling hot in a heap looking at a totally orange world from the seaward side of the tent, as it was pitched on a slight incline. Some years later there was an amusing episode with a seven-legged spider, but that’s another tale altogether.

The following year, summer 1984, the four met up again in Sidmouth for the International Folk Festival. Everything was much the same – even George’s girlfriend being elsewhere on holiday – but no TV coverage took place. More music and jamming on the sea front, drinking and sharing of the odd nantsu or fluj. You know how these things are. As we had such fun, we decided to make more music together. The dictionary had become established by this time, and wuddage abounded, in the way a thing does when it is about to mutate and become a thing within a different sphere of things.

And so it came about, through miraculousness itself, that Ken, Simon and George should all appear on stage together at a party arranged by Tom Bombadil’s folk club in Wiveliscombe, Somerset in the autumn of 1984. How this occurred exactly is unknown, although it was funny fitting the three of them plus George’s girlfriend plus three cased acoustic guitars into a tiny little Fiat 126 that was known as The Glot and belonged to Simon. It was funny enough just seeing him get into the thing, he was well over 6 feet tall.

The audience at the forthcoming show, it finally transpired, were to be a group of retired firemen and their wives. This was not quite as rock’n’roll as was expected, although we were professionals (honest!), we’d just get on with it. Cliff Aungier was the headline act and he performed a number of duets with a friend of his, such as Cocaine Blues.

A most unfortunate incident took place at this event. George was to join Ken and Simon towards the end of their set as they had had virtually no time to do any rehearsals. Wearing his tight, light green jeans, George bought himself a beer and sat nervously alone at a table at the back, waiting for his cue to take the stage. Just as this cue was about to come, an elderly retired fireman bumped into George’s table rather hard, causing his fresh pint to plop neatly with a spray of slosh straight into his groinal area, making it look to all the world as if he had bladder issues. Undaunted, dripping a little, and with a loud groan of irritation and befuddlement as the retired fireman mumbled his apologies, George mounted the stage, furtively holding the guitar in front of his dampened trousers in a manner not unlike that of Peter Sellars at the nudist camp in A Shot in the Dark, and hoping, hoping, that no-one would think the worst.

After renditions of House of the Rising Sun and Stairway to Heaven, the three of them left the stage to tremendous applause, George still holding his guitar in front of his damp patch. A talent spotter and band manager, who at that time worked with the Barron Knights among others, was present. He had been most impressed by the performance and invited the trio to lunch at his farm the following day.

True to his word, the man turned up shortly after breakfast at the huge old manor house where many of the performers had spent the night. The foursome climbed once again into The Glot, with some difficulty. Then the A&R man drove carefully through the lanes of Somerset with the little Fiat struggling up the hills in first gear, until eventually everybody reached a beautiful old farmhouse in the middle of the countryside somewhere.

Whilst the four younger people gathered wood for the open fire, the man’s wife made a mixed grill for lunch. During the wood gathering, Ken kept saying how the man was only interested in him and he was going to become a star soon. Ken’s ego was in full flight and his dreams were running at full speed. Meanwhile, the others just sighed and carried on looking for wood. Whilst everyone had their lunch, the A&R man asked a lot of questions to find out more about us all, such as if George’s girlfriend had acquired her nickname from her mammerial protuberances. She hadn’t. George remembers swapping his large soggy mushrooms with his girlfriend for her peppery grilled tomatoes, a win-win, and in the kitchen was a record player which played records vertically.

After performing a few more songs in the kitchen, and a few more questions, it was time to leave. The A&R man was, indeed, most interested in Ken and his undeniable vocal talent. He didn’t think much of Simon’s guitar playing and although he liked what George did, he also understood that they were a scratch outfit that hadn’t had a lot of time to work out many songs.

Simon agreed to drive back to Exeter and on the way they all made vague plans to form a proper band. Ken was full of himself, “I told you he was only interested in me!” he crowed, repeatedly. Ken would move to Exeter once he had arranged a place to live and sorted out his affairs. They would form a band and play their own material. It was clearly an excellent plan. Ken left a bottle of Guiness in the fridge at Wud HQ and signed it, so he would know if anybody had drunk it, and then Ken and Simon departed.

> to be continued… <