News

Cute But Weird, the 1995 studio album by The Ug Brothers, has finally been remastered. All of the remastered tracks have been uploaded to Bandcamp and SoundCloud. They can also be enjoyed right here at the Cute But Weird page, among The Ug Brothers’ pages of the Wud Records website. They are, without any doubt whatsoever, sounding significantly better than the previous versions of these splendid tracks. The album consists of eight studio tracks and a bonus live recording of The Ug Song.

Due to the effects of cassette copying from the old master back in 1995, the original files that we have seem to have suffered a certain amount of audio degradation and distortion. Using modern techniques, we were able to minimize some of these losses and repair some of the distortions.

We were also able to go a little way to balancing the original mix a bit better, which was always somewhat light in the guitar department. This was due to it originally being mixed by the guitarist in the band, who wanted to be sure he didn’t mix any of the other band members too quietly. The final result was far from what we would call ideal.

We are still in possession of both the master tapes and the DAT masters. Sadly we have no DAT machine in our studios any more. Not only that, the ancient device on which the raw audio tracks for the songs were recorded is no longer working and replacement parts are extremely hard to come by.

However, we believe that during the course of 2017 we may be able to repair our old recording device and acquire a decent DAT machine. This means that a complete remixing and remastering of Cure But Weird is a definite possibility for the future, especially if fans of the band are interested in such a thing. If there are any further developments on this particular front, we shall inform you in our News service and on Twitter.

If you would like to download Cute But Weird from Bandcamp, or simply listen, you can do so by clicking here.

If you would like to listen over at SoundCloud, please click here instead.

If you prefer to listen to Cute But Weird by The Ug Brothers here at the Wud Records website, please click here.

Watershed have a brand new Archive page here at Wud Records. Plymouth’s finest exponents of reggae music are one of our favourite bands of all time and after some research and some delving in the cassette vaults we are delighted to be able to bring you a few goodies from them.

When we discuss the various truly great bands that we have encountered over the thirty-ish years that we have been doing this kind of thing, Watershed are always pretty much at the top of the pile. It seems a great cultural crime that they were never picked up and developed by a major label. If in the early 90s you were to compare Watershed with the band Muse, both of which were operating at the same time within just a few miles of each other, Watershed had a substantially bigger fanbase and arguably better material. We are not saying that Muse don’t deserve all the success they have had because they absolutely do, they are still a fantastic band and we love their music as well. But back in the day, Watershed were better.

However, such conjectures are for an alternative reality. Is this one, Watershed have never been easy to find on the internet. As massive fans of the band, we felt that their music still needs to be heard and appreciated by the world and adding some material to the Archives section of Wud Records seemed like a reasonable way to go under the circumstances.

Our searches for them have gone largely fruitless over the years, although we did find a couple of links to their later works on MySpace and Bandmine. Fans of bands on the Plymouth music scene may well be interested in the link that we found to past bands on the Plymouth Live Music site.

There are two links to YouTube as well, which are both fantastic! One of them takes you to their 1992 demo If The Sun Don’t Rise, which features five of the tracks they frequently used to perform live. The other one is a real beauty. It is a video of the band performing the song I’ll Take You With Me When I Go (also on the demo If The Sun Don’t Rise) in 2013, to commemorate the sad passing of the band’s long-time piano, Fender Rhodes and synthesizer virtuoso Dave Gregory.

We have a small amount of material to add to this meagre collection and hope to do so in the coming days and weeks. We shall keep you informed of any such developments in our News service and on Twitter.

In the meantime, if you would like to read some more about Watershed or check out the two pages of them on YouTube, you can visit their new page by clicking here.

The Bastard Sons of Dennis and their return to top form continues! They have now had two rehearsals in the space of a week, having not had one for around three and a half years before that. They have been through just about all of their previous songs over the two rehearsals and seem to be able to remember most of the parts. Apparently they were sounding even better than last week, according to our admin team, who could hear all the goings on as the boys had left the studio doors open.

As well as their previous songs sounding great, there are several new ones in the melting pot. These include one Blue Oyster Cult song (Flaming Telepaths from the wonderful Secret Treaties album) and a handful of originals. There are only about three of four tracks that have not had the dust and spiderlings blown off them, so a full set is a definite possibility.

With all things being well, some of their recordings, which have lain dormant for a few years, will be completed soon. This will hopefully complete their two unfinished albums, both on Bandcamp. If you would like to hear Cosy Lube Turtle, their Blue Oyster Cult covers album, as it stands right now, you can click here. If you would like to listen to Cherry Smoke Empire, an album of original tracks, you can do so by clicking here.

As for a return to the stage, The Bastard Sons of Dennis should be ready for a live performance in the very near future given the present rate of progress. They have played at many open mic sessions in the past and are not terribly keen to do much more of that as they find the format of such events rather tiresome. We will explore the possibilities with them of other feasible types of performances, such as being an opening act for other artistes, solo full-length performances or performing live at multi-band events. Whatever the outcome of these wranglings may be, we shall keep you informed in the Wud Records News Service and on Twitter.

There is also the possibility that Andy may be away for a few weeks in the New Year, which will slow the progress of The Bastard Sons of Dennis. However, all in all, we feel very positive about the continuing return to action and form of this fabulous duo.

Prism have become the newest addition to the Wud Records website with their eponymous cassette album from 1988 now added to the Archives. These eight lovingly-crafted songs, expertly recorded by Paul Bateman from Daylight Studios in Honiton, feature the amazing vocal talent of Emma Waters, with Allan mostly on bass and Tom mostly on guitar.

Prism were formed by Allan and Emma during the early part of 1987 and rapidly became favourites of the Art College crowd in Exeter, which is now a part of Plymouth University. They were well known for being a rock band with no drums, and used to use this as their unique selling point, with the catchphrase ‘wot no drums’ appearing on their gig posters. Eventually they added a drummer to their line-up, but that happened subsequently to the recording of these songs.

Each member of the band contributed to the songwriting and Paul, the engineer, added a few snatches of tasteful lead guitar here and there to round out the mixes. Paul did not appear live on stage with the band but was usually at the controls, twiddling the knobs on the desk. We believe Paul may have programmed the drum machine for The Story of Samantha Kite, but have no way to confirm this.

We have long since lost track of what happened to the members of Prism but at least their wonderful songs and those wonderful vocal performances by Emma are now preserved for everyone to enjoy here on the internet. We have also lost track of the milkman, who you can hear delivering the milk to the house where much recording was done at 32 Howell Road, Exeter at the end of Blindest Night. C’est la vie, mes amis.

If you would like to listen Prism’s eponymous cassette album here at Wud Records, please click here.

To listen to the Prism eponymous album over at SoundCloud instead, please click here.

A brand new playlist of all the favourite musical discoveries of the Wud Records team has been published at SoundCloud. None of the bands on it are associated with ourselves in any way. There are not even any of our bands’ songs included in this one. We simply accumulated the songs that we all liked during November into one 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. 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.

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 over there.

We hope that some more people will find and listen to these wonderful songs. Each one has something that we felt was special or interesting in some way. Because we enjoyed them so much, we feel that it would be great if the artists in question could have a bit more exposure for their fabulous works. So please listen, enjoy, share and check out some of these wonderful bands. The playlist is very eclectic, so there is probably something on there to suit every taste.

If you have a favourite or two on there, why not shout about them on social media? We are sure the artistes responsible for creating the music will welcome such word-of-mouth exposure.

If you would like to listen to this special new playlist of November 2016 Musical Discoveries over at SoundCloud, please click here.

The Bastard Sons of Dennis ended their prolonged sabbatical yesterday. It has been over three years since their previous live performance, at Sidmouth Festival in August 2013.

First they turned their guitars upside down and shook them until nearly all of the spiderlings fell out of the soundholes. Confused by the bright light and oncoming sonic waves, the wretched creatures scattered everywhere and ran about, this way and that, eventually hiding for cover behing the Trouser Press of Bewilderment, twitching and dribbling.

What then followed was an extraordinary rehearsal of seven hours during which the duo found they could still play an E and an A chord, even at 432hz, and could even remember (some of) some of their songs. There were a few new ones in there as well for good measure. They were a little rusty but still sounded awesome! All in all it was glorious. We feel very privileged to be witness to this reunion.

With more of the same already planned and a feeling that it will take a relatively small effort to raise the overall standard to a decent level, we feel hopeful that some finished recordings, videos, and live performances may all be possibilities in the forthcoming weeks and months. Any significant developments will be broadcast in our News service and on Twitter.

Once described as “arguably among the finest acoustic Blue Oyster Cult cover duos in the EX4 area (excluding Pinhoe)”, The Bastard Sons of Dennis have their own Twitter account and you can follow them by clicking here.

If you would like to see some of The Bastard Sons of Dennis in action performing live at various venues, you can subscribe to their YouTube Channel here.

You can also download two of their albums from Bandcamp. If you click here you will go to their collection of Blue Oyster Cult covers, titled Cosy Lube Turtle. If you click here you will go to their collection of original songs, called Cherry Smoke Empire.