Wud Records: August 2022 top ten tracks published at SoundCloud

How Did We Calculate The August 2022 Chart?

The top ten tracks for August 2022 from Wud Records have been published in a new playlist at SoundCloud.

Tracks are arranged from one to ten according to their popularity. The algorithm we use gives greatest weight to downloads and reposts, then likes and comments (active engagement) over plays (passive engagement).

When somebody reposts a track, that gives it the opportunity to be heard by a potential new fan. This is always a tremendous help for creative souls!

We have combined the stats from both SoundCloud and Bandcamp for the new chart. This is because it will not be long until all our Bandcamp tracks are also published at SoundCloud. There may be a news spoiler in that last sentence…

Radio play and songs published at other platforms are omitted from the statistics. There may be further developments when our music is added to more platforms.

Archive tracks and bonus tracks are also ignored, as are likes and comments from people who clearly didn’t listen to the music. We have ways of knowing these things.

Only you, the listener, can influence our September 2022 playlist. So if there is a track you particularly like, keep playing it! Leave a comment, repost it and share it to your social media feeds!

Thanks For All Your Help!

Massive thanks go out to everybody who helped to support all of us during August 2022 by listening to, commenting on and reposting our bands’ tracks on SoundCloud, Bandcamp and other platforms.

All the wonderful fans of our bands who supported us with downloads from Bandcamp are especially appreciated. You genuinely help us keep the fires burning and collectively we thank you for that most graciously. May you be blessed by the gods of rock n roll! :)

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. All the support and positive feedback has been incredibly heartwarming for us all. It makes our endeavours here seem worthwhile.

Who’s In The August 2022 Top Ten?

The Bastard Sons of Dennis

Congratulations to The Bastard Sons of Dennis! They can claim dominance over the August 2022 chart, occupying four of the top five places. All of their songs on the new chart come from their splendid Cosy Lube Turtle album.

Cosy Lube Turtle is an anagram. Can you solve it? It is a whole album of wonderful acoustic Blue Öyster Cult covers.

Cosy Lube Turtle has been available on Bandcamp for some time. We recently released the Cosy Lube Turtle album to SoundCloud as well, and sent it away to a distributor for global distribution. More news on this will follow soon.

Straight in at number one on the new chart is Seven Screaming Diz-Busters. This is a highly esoteric and extraordinary piece of progressive rock composition, beautifully interpreted by The Bastard Sons of Dennis.

Originally it was released by Blue Öyster Cult on their 1973 Tyranny and Mutation album. It was big crowd favourite at a live performance by The Bastard Sons of Dennis and you can enjoy watching a video of them playing it live by clicking here.

A new entry at number three is Then Came the Last Days of May. This song tells a true story of how three university friends of Blue Öyster Cult’s guitarist, Donald ‘Buck Dharma’ Roeser, were brutally murdered in a drug deal that went wrong.

Derek would sing “Now and then a duck” instead of “truck”, which caused fans of the duo to bring toy ducks along to live performances. Chuck’s solo is largely based on the live On Your Feet Or On Your Knees version, and his little whistle at the end (which didn’t always come out quite right in a live show) came from the character Tom Good in the uk tv sitcom The Good Life.

Another new entry at number four is Redeemed. This song is the final song on Blue Öyster Cult’s 1972 eponymous debut album. Donald Roeser‘s guitar tone at the very end is so incredibly beautiful. We highly recommend listening if you don’t know this song already.

Redeemed is the only recording on Cosy Lube Turtle where Derek and Chuck both played their guitar parts at the same time. They referred to it as their Christmas song, even in summer. The count-in was always improvised and somewhat unpredictable, due to the odd number of beats in the intro.

The final new entry for The Bastard Sons of Dennis on this month’s chart is Dominance and Submission. Originally released by Blue Öyster Cult on their 1974 Secret Treaties album, The Bastard Sons of Dennis would indulge in various acts of tomfoolery during a live performance of this song. Derek would introduce the band and thank the venue and sound engineer. He would also encourage the crowd to join in with the cries of “Dominance!”, “Submission!”.

In the long pauses before “It will be time!”, Derek and Chuck would spin their guitars upside down. Stuck on the back of Chuck’s guitar was a large sign that read “Throw panties now!”, and on the back of Derek’s was a similar sign that read “If no panties, bras!” Very few undergarments were ever actually tossed onto the stage, apart from on one occasion when somebody had brought a big bag full of old knickers and distribued them to the audience. Both the stage and the band were covered in them.

Flicker

Flicker enjoyed another good month on the new Wud Records chart, occupying two of the positions. Both Flicker tracks are from their wonderful 2002 album At Least 1000 Words.

Climbing this month from number nine to number two comes Farsight by Flicker. Farsight is a wonderful piece of music, progressive rock or indie jazz perhaps in style, highly melodic and decorated with samples from Captain Kirk’s USS Enterprise, Jonathan Agnew and Maharaj Ji, among others.

Farsight was originally an Ug Brothers creation that came about very late in that band’s existance, and didn’t make it to a live show before they folded in 1995.

Dropping five places from number three on last month’s chart is Oily Road Hideaway at number eight. This is a delightful and catchy latin jazz dance. Oily Road Hideaway is the only track from Flicker‘s first album with programmed drums. It also has twin bass guitars playing in unison, with Dave on his Fender and George on the Plank.

Flicker‘s second album, HappySad, is under construction and you can listen to it as it stands right now by clicking here. Several more tracks are likely to be released in the coming weeks and months, so please keep an eye and an ear on our News service and Twitter.

Dark Company

An excellent month for Dark Company sees them occupy the remaining four chart positions. Three different albums are featured – Signmaker, Alien Heat and Noir. Alien Heat and Noir are both still work in progress.

Cable Guy from the Noir album is a re-rentry into the August 2022 chart. Although still a work-in-progress recording, its amazing power can still be appreciated by the listener. It features a well-known speech by Donald Rumsfeld and a wonderful guitar riff that is glorified by the tremendous bassline. Cable Guy regularly receives love and streams. We are looking forward to the day when it is finally mixed, mastered and fully released.

Last month’s number one falls six places to number seven this month. Astrologer is the second song from Dark Company‘s first album, Signmaker. Astrologer is a wonderful song with elements of progressive rock and psychedelic jazz folk.

Astrologer features the youngest performer ever to feature on a Wud Records recording. Sammi was only 11 years old when she performed some of the flute parts. The rest of the flute and the saxophone was played by Rowena Parsons, and she did a wonderful job.

When Pete wrote the lyrics for Astrologer, he was on holiday in Bexhill-on-Sea with his wife and daughter and sent a postcard to George to let him know of its manifestation. George says he had the idea for the music after hearing a James Bond theme tune.

Re-entering at number nine this month is Dark Company’s awesome alternative / hard / psychedelic rock and funk song Dancing In The Dark. The version you can hear is still work-in-progress.

Pete wrote the lyrics in 1989 and the song was originally performed by Alien Heat. Dancing In The Dark describes his memories of going nightclubbing in the West End of London after being revved up by his good friend Billy.

Pete was not actually terribly keen on the song and would always refer to it as “Farting in the Park”.

Back in the days of Alien Heat, Dancing In The Dark included Graham’s drum solo. This was when everyone in the band would roll a cigarette (or something a little more flavoursome) while he performed it, hopefully having the deed done and the object lit in time to carry on with the song at the drum solo’s conclusion.

Falling from number two to ten is Crash, also from Dark Company‘s first album, Signmaker. Crash is a high octane esoteric mix of hard rock and jazz funk. It has been likened to Talking Heads, Van Halen, AC/DC, ZZ Top and The Who amongst others.

Crash was originally an Alien Heat song, and Alien Heat used it to open their live shows. Sadly, no recording of the Alien Heat version still exists, as far as we know.

There is also a different work-in-progress version of Crash on Dark Company‘s forthcoming Alien Heat album and a wonderful remix featuring lots of voice samples from an omnibus edition of EastEnders, broadcast on BBC television in late 1991.

* None of our other acts made it onto the August 2022 chart. *

Listening Options

If you would like to go to SoundCloud to hear the top ten songs from Wud Records in August 2022, as played, liked, commented upon and reposted by listeners, please click here.

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

Recently we have added a few more of the previous charts as pages to their section of this website. We are still more than a year behind in this work, but at least a little catching up has been done. If you’d like to see all our old charts, they can be accessed easily by clicking here. More pages will be added soon, when there is time.