News

Whatever You Are, Whatever You Do is the latest song to be added to Pok the Bard‘s growing Anthology album. This song is a wonderful example of Pok‘s ability to tell stories through song. The lyrics have been firm favourites of the wider Wud posse for over three decades. It concludes, rather reassuringly, with the lines: “Whatever you are, Whatever you do, Do not worry – I am one too!”

Whatever You Are, Whatever You Do is the twelfth Anthology track to be released and was written by Pok in 1984. The song comes from his rock opera Chameleon and introduces us to the characters Jacob T. Blackmore and Alice, the play’s two central figures.

Pok sings the vocal and plays the guitars and the bass. The slide guitar is played on Marsha. The acoustic guitar is a borrowed Ovation-style instrument, which was a cherry red sunburst colour and rather pretty. Sven’s drumming is busy, precise and as loud as ever.

This song has actually been on hold for some time. This was because we had planned for a different musician to play the keyboard parts. Eventually it became apparent that due to health reasons this was simply not going to happen. The track has now been released using refreshed and improved versions of the guide parts originally created by our in-house keys man, Josh Reynes.

Two of the sounds Josh uses are VST plugins from DSK Music. They are the AcoustikKeyZ and the ElektrikKeyZ. DSK are well worth a visit! ;-)

www.dskmusic.com

Those listeners with a more trained ear may notice the odd two-beat bar that occurs once in every verse. If you follow the meter of the lyrics you will hear it quite clearly.

The whizzer whistle was something that was found online by chance in an old black-and-white comedy movie from the 1940s. As soon as we heard it we all felt that it was a perfect fit for this song. The clip was played over and over with an SM58 pointed at the computer speakers in our office at various angles and distances to get the right take, and some long cables were used to reach the studio. Very hi-tech.

We anticipate that more songs by Pok the Bard will be released relatively soon. We shall let fans of the PokStar know about such developments in our News service and on Twitter. You can also follow Pok the Bard on facebook and enjoy lots of wonderful footage at his YouTube channel.

If you would like to read the full official lyrics and all the fun facts about Whatever You Are, Whatever You Do at our sister site Explicit Music, please click here.

To listen or download Whatever You Are, Whatever You Do from Bandcamp, please click here.

If you would like to listen to the entire Anthology album by Pok the Bard as it stands at present, please click here to listen at Bandcamp, or please click here instead to listen right here at the Wud Records website.

A brand new playlist of all the favourite musical discoveries of the Wud Records team has been published at SoundCloud. All of the artists on it are amazing independent unsigned artists who are making great music that simply aches to be heard.

These artists are not associated directly with Wud Records in any way. We simply accumulated songs that we all liked during August 2019 into one agreed playlist and published it at the end of the month.

Tracks have been arranged according to the number of plays at the time of publishing, starting with the fewest. Tracks that are early in playlists tend to receive more plays than later tracks, and we feel that the ones with fewer plays need the best chance of exposure.

Can you complete the challenge of listening to every track?! If you manage it, tell us, tell some of the music makers involved, and tell the world on social media how you feel about what you heard. Everyone concerned would love to hear your thoughts.

If you find some new favourites on there, why not shout about them on social media as well? We are sure the artistes responsible for creating the music will welcome such word-of-mouth exposure and your friends and followers would probably love to enjoy hearing the music too. At the very least you might end up making an independent musician’s day.

As with many music streaming platforms, there is a vast amount of great music on SoundCloud if you have the time and inclination to filter through it. If you happen to be looking out for some great new music, we’ve already done that filtering for you!

If you are one of the bands from which we recently liked, shared or tweeted a track at SoundCloud, there is a chance that one of your tracks might be on this new playlist.

Towards the bottom of the page is a list of featured artists and tracks. The artist name is clickable and links to an external website where you can find out, hear and see more of the artist in question.

If you are the artist and would prefer us to use a different link to the one we added, please send an email to info@wudrecords.co.uk so we can fix it for you. Generally we try to use the artist’s own site where possible. We only linked to SoundCloud as a last resort when we were unable to find anything else, as users can already click the track and go to the artist’s SoundCloud page for themselves.

Are you a member of SoundCloud? We always follow back if you have your own tracks and we always listen eventually, even if it takes a few weeks. So if you would like the opportunity of a bit of free publicity you could follow Wud Records on SoundCloud. It’s even free to join with a basic membership!

We hope that a lot more people will find and listen to the wonderful songs on this new playlist of musical discoveries. Each and every track has something that we felt was special or interesting in some way. In many cases it was a tough job to choose just one track from an artist.

The playlist is very eclectic, so there is probably something on there to suit every taste. If the track you are listening to isn’t quite doing it for you, skip to the next one and perhaps that will please your ears more. Sometimes similar tracks end up next to each other, and sometimes extremely different tracks do, so we recommend you just try it for yourself.

In addition to the latest compilation being our pinned tweet on Twitter, every week on Twitter we boost a previous Musical Discoveries playlist and a featured track from that playlist. The featured track is chosen by the Wud Records team and is one which is a real favourite amongst us. All the featured tracks form an additional compilation which we also tweet daily. All of the featured tracks can be found on a separate page at our website by clicking here, or on SoundCloud by clicking here.

If you would like to listen to this special new playlist of August 2019 Musical Discoveries over at SoundCloud, please click here.

To enjoy this new playlist of great music here at the Wud Records website, please click here.

If you would like easy access to all of the previous musical discoveries playlists, please click here and bookmark the page, and remember that we publish a new playlist full of undiscovered gems every month!

The top ten SoundCloud tracks for August 2019 from Wud Records have been published in a new playlist. Tracks have been arranged from one to ten according to their popularity and take into account plays, comments, likes and reposts. The algorithm we use gives greatest weight to reposts, then likes and comments over plays.

Tracks published at Musicoin and Bandcamp have been omitted from the SoundCloud statistics. This is because we feel these results require separate treatment. Archive tracks and bonus tracks are also ignored.

Only you, the listener, can influence our September 2019 playlist. So if there is a track you particularly like, keep playing it!

Massive thanks go out to everybody who helped to support all of us during August 2019 by listening, commenting and reposting our bands’ tracks on SoundCloud, as well as other platforms.

A special mention needs to go to Atom Collector Records. Their service continues to help us achieve consistently and significantly better activity. If you have tracks on SoundCloud, Bandcamp, YouTube, Musicoin, Spotify, ReverbNation, dSound, dTube or Peertracks, you too could see considerable growth in activity. It’s even free to join. Just click here to go to their site.

We would also like to say a special thank you to all the splendid people on Twitter who have been enjoying and reposting our tracks to their followers. You know who you are and there are far too many of you to mention. All the support and positive feedback has been incredibly heartwarming for us all. It makes all our endeavours here seem worthwhile.

In the last two months our tweets have been seen by well over half a million people. The result of this increased exposure has made a huge boost to activity across our sites. This has also affected the many independent musicians we try to help a little. You too can follow us on Twitter if you don’t already – simply click here and then on ‘Follow’. :)

Congratulations to The Bastard Sons of Dennis, whose song The Furniture (part 1: overture) from their truly extraordinary creation The Furniture/Los Muebles remains at the top of our chart. The Bastard Sons of Dennis also claimed the number two spot of of our chart this month, with Good Times moving up from last month‘s number four.

Flicker took four of the remaining places, with three tracks from their 2002 album At Least 1000 Words and a demo version of the opening track from their growing HappySad album, It Starts Right Here.

Dark Company took three of the other four slots. The ever-popular radio hit from the 90s Medicines from their Rage In Heaven album is still attracting love after over a quarter of century. Two unfinished tracks, the splendidly guitarsome and atmospheric Heavy Touch from Benign Inquisition and In Case Of Emergency from Old Hands also appear in our chart.

Wud are the only other act to chart this month. Their best-selling song That’s No Way To Pay A Bodyguard has been pleasing ears around the world since 1983.

If you would like to go to SoundCloud to hear the top ten songs from Wud Records in August 2019, as played, liked, commented upon and reposted by listeners, please click here.

If you prefer to listen here at Wud Records, you will find that it is the new default music player. You will find it on all non band-specific pages at the site, such as our Links collection or homepage.

Photos of Emma from Clonk! have been discovered recently, whilst unpacking a box from our move away from the uk in 2017. We have no information regarding who the photographer was or the date and location of the shoot, but we do recollect that Clonk! were considering using them as elements of the cover art for their recorded music and in their EPK.

Whilst the original full-colour digital photos of Emma are now probably lying somewhere on a hard drive at her home, wherever that may be these days, the copies we have are ones that she printed out in black and white on her printer. It looks from the fold lines on the pictures as if they were stuffed into an envelope and delivered to George, her musical partner in Clonk! and Flicker, and then they remained languishing in a folder of assorted Clonk! material for a time.

One can clearly see in one of the scans a message that Emma has written by hand to explain the delivery: “Here are some of the best pics from the photoshoot. My printer’s a bit crappy so had to do it in black and white and they’re a bit wonky!”

We managed to unwonkulate them a little and touched them up a bit to compensate for the vaguaries of her dot-matrix. All in all they are not too bad, fold-lines and everything considered. The quality may not be super-fantastic, but we tend to feel it’s better to have something visual in the way of photos of Emma to share with fans and remember her by than nothing at all.

Should we ever manage to discover, or complete, or somehow release any more material by Clonk!, it is possible that some parts of this photographic find may be used as part of the package artwork, as originally planned. We shall of course inform fans of Clonk! of any such future developments via our News service and on Twitter.

If you would like to see the photos of Emma from Clonk! that we uploaded, please click here. You can listen to the awesome demo of Clonk! at the same time whilst listening.

If you would like to listen to the awesome music of Clonk! without looking at the new photos, you can do so by clicking here.

A brand new playlist of all the favourite musical discoveries of the Wud Records team has been published at SoundCloud. All of the artists on it are amazing independent unsigned artists who are making great music that simply aches to be heard.

These artists are not associated directly with Wud Records in any way. We simply accumulated songs that we all liked during July 2019 into one agreed playlist and published it at the end of the month.

Tracks have been arranged according to the number of plays at the time of publishing, starting with the fewest. Tracks that are early in playlists tend to receive more plays than later tracks, and we feel that the ones with fewer plays need the best chance of exposure.

Can you complete the challenge of listening to every track?! If you manage it, tell us, tell some of the music makers involved, and tell the world on social media how you feel about what you heard. Everyone concerned would love to hear your thoughts.

If you find some new favourites on there, why not shout about them on social media as well? We are sure the artistes responsible for creating the music will welcome such word-of-mouth exposure and your friends and followers would probably love to enjoy hearing the music too. At the very least you might end up making an independent musician’s day.

As with many music streaming platforms, there is a vast amount of great music on SoundCloud if you have the time and inclination to filter through it. If you happen to be looking out for some great new music, we’ve already done that filtering for you!

If you are one of the bands from which we recently liked, shared or tweeted a track at SoundCloud, there is a chance that one of your tracks might be on this new playlist.

Towards the bottom of the page is a list of featured artists and tracks. The artist name is clickable and links to an external website where you can find out, hear and see more of the artist in question.

If you are the artist and would prefer us to use a different link to the one we added, please send an email to info@wudrecords.co.uk so we can fix it for you. Generally we try to use the artist’s own site where possible. We only linked to SoundCloud as a last resort when we were unable to find anything else, as users can already click the track and go to the artist’s SoundCloud page for themselves.

Are you a member of SoundCloud? We always follow back if you have your own tracks and we always listen eventually, even if it takes a few weeks. So if you would like the opportunity of a bit of free publicity you could follow Wud Records on SoundCloud. It’s even free to join with a basic membership!

We hope that a lot more people will find and listen to the wonderful songs on this new playlist of musical discoveries. Each and every track has something that we felt was special or interesting in some way. In many cases it was a tough job to choose just one track from an artist.

The playlist is very eclectic, so there is probably something on there to suit every taste. If the track you are listening to isn’t quite doing it for you, skip to the next one and perhaps that will please your ears more. Sometimes similar tracks end up next to each other, and sometimes extremely different tracks do, so we recommend you just try it for yourself.

In addition to the latest compilation being our pinned tweet on Twitter, every week on Twitter we boost a previous Musical Discoveries playlist and a featured track from that playlist. The featured track is chosen by the Wud Records team and is one which is a real favourite amongst us. All the featured tracks form an additional compilation which we also tweet daily. All of the featured tracks can be found on a separate page at our website by clicking here, or on SoundCloud by clicking here.

If you would like to listen to this special new playlist of July 2019 Musical Discoveries over at SoundCloud, please click here.

To enjoy this new playlist of great music here at the Wud Records website, please click here.

If you would like easy access to all of the previous musical discoveries playlists, please click here and bookmark the page, and remember that we publish a new playlist full of undiscovered gems every month!

The top ten SoundCloud tracks for July 2019 from Wud Records have been published in a new playlist. Tracks have been arranged from one to ten according to their popularity and take into account plays, comments, likes and reposts. The algorithm we use gives greatest weight to reposts, then likes and comments over plays.

Tracks published at Musicoin and Bandcamp have been omitted from the SoundCloud statistics. This is because we feel these results require separate treatment. Archive tracks and bonus tracks are also ignored.

Only you, the listener, can influence our August 2019 playlist. So if there is a track you particularly like, keep playing it!

Massive thanks go out to everybody who helped to support all of us during July 2019 by listening, commenting and reposting our bands’ tracks on SoundCloud, as well as other platforms.

A special mention needs to go to Atom Collector Records. Their service continues to help us achieve consistently and significantly better activity. If you have tracks on SoundCloud, Bandcamp, YouTube, Musicoin, Spotify, ReverbNation, dSound, dTube or Choon, you too could see considerable growth in activity. It’s even free to join. Just click here to go to their site.

Congratulations to The Bastard Sons of Dennis, whose song The Furniture (part 1: overture) from their truly extraordinary creation The Furniture/Los Muebles remains at the top of our chart. The Bastard Sons of Dennis claimed three of the top four spots this month, with part 2 of The Furniture/Los Muebles and Good Times proving to be popular.

Flicker had three of the remaining places, with two tracks from their 2002 album At Least 1000 Words and a demo version of the opening track from their growing HappySad album, It Starts Right Here.

Dark Company took the other four slots, with two tracks from Rage In Heaven and two unfinished work-in-progress songs. No other act managed to break into our top ten in July 2019.

If you would like to go to SoundCloud to hear the top ten songs from Wud Records in July 2019, as played, liked, commented upon and reposted by listeners, please click here.

If you prefer to listen here at Wud Records, you will find that it is the new default music player. You will find it on all non band-specific pages at the site, such as our Links collection or homepage.