Wud Records: December 2022 top ten tracks published at SoundCloud

The top ten tracks for December 2022 on Bandcamp and SoundCloud have been published in a new compilation.

How Did We Calculate The December 2022 Chart?

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.

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 January 2023 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! It absolutely can make a difference.

Thanks For All Your Help!

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

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! :)

Thank you very much to everyone who bought items from our merch store. Anyone who shares a photo of themselves with their Wud item on social media will receive an extra goody from oursevles once we have seen it and shared the photo on to our community as well. There are numerous upcoming changes planned for our merch store, so please keep an eye on our News service and Twitter for future announcements.

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 December 2022 Top Ten?

The Bastard Sons of Dennis

Congratulations to The Bastard Sons of Dennis! They enjoyed a particularly splendid month on the December 2022 chart, occupying four of the places. All four of their songs on the new chart come from their splendid Cosy Lube Turtle album.

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.

A re-entry tops the chart this month. Seven Screaming Diz-Busters is a highly esoteric and extraordinary piece of progressive rock composition, beautifully interpreted by The Bastard Sons of Dennis. It is a song for which they were well known.

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.

Falling from number one to number three on the new chart is Astronomy. This is a beautiful and haunting song composed by the Bouchard brothers, Joe and Albert, and Sandy Pearlman. It is the final track of Blue Öyster Cult’s 1974 Secret Treaties album, and an absolute masterpiece of progressive rock composition.

The version of Astronomy by The Bastard Sons of Dennis is a little more produced in the opening bars than their live performances. They would often end a show with Astronomy, introducing it as a song that was famously covered by Metallica. “We wrote it, of course; ahem, cough…” Chuck would quip.

A re-entry at number five 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. The version by our dynamic duo adds a twist to the versions heard on Blue Öyster Cult’s eponymous studio album and the live On Your Feet Or On Your Knees album from 1975.

Derek would sing “Now and then a duck” instead of “truck”, which caused fans of the duo to bring toy ducks with them 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.

Dropping down from number two to number nine we see another song from the Cosy Lube Turtle album. This is the opening track, 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 had a very strong month and achieved three entries on the new Wud Records chart. All three came from their incredible 2002 album At Least 1000 Words.

Welcome to the Family returns to the new chart at number two. Welcome to the Family is a wonderful latin-jazz-rock-fusion instrumental. It builds from its acoustic guitar beginings to a heady climax of guitar feedback and noise. There is a lovely bass solo from Dave, who also plays all the keyboard parts with outstanding aplomb and sensitivity.

Although Welcome to the Family has not appeared in the Top Ten since June 2022, it would have been a regular in a top twenty. It is one of Flicker‘s most enduring and popular releases.

Dropping down one position this month is Oily Road Hideaway at number six. 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 panned to the left on his Fender and George panned to the right on the Plank.

A very unusual instrument called a string fish appears towards the end of the tune. This is a home-made creation, from the workshop of Pyg frontman Martin Dearmunn. A string fish is a little like a pair of dulcimers or zithers, joined together at an acute angle. The strings are vertical and played with fingers, like a harp. To play a scale, the player must alternate between the left and right side, like a kalimba.

Week Five falls seven places to number ten on the new chart. Week Five has a remarkably live-sounding feel for a studio recording. It is a breezy feel good latin rock dance number with summer vibes that wouldn’t sound out of place in a set from Carlos Santana.

Week Five is a piece about looking forward to the future and feeling excited about forthcoming adventures and new experiences. It begins with a sample from the Prague metro and as the tune builds it becomes progressively more intense.

Dark Company

Standing steady for a second month at number four 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. In Dancing In The Dark, Pete 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.

Rough Terrain

It’s a joy to welcome the mighty Rough Terrain back into our top ten. The bemulleted 80s Exeter quartet have not made such an appearance in some time by now. A rocking new entry from their Howell Road Demo and Exit Stage Deaf compilation surprised us all by landing at number six on the last monthly chart of 2022.

Down at the Elephant Fayre is a snappy uptempo song about attending a wonderful music festival in St Germans, Cornwall, in 1985 and looking forward to going again the following year. As it happens, 1986 was the final year the event was run. Down at the Elephant Fayre is a slight gauche song and very much a thing of its time, and rather fun all the same, with its lovely catchy riffs and Andy’s infectious vocal.

Alchemeon

Alchemeon return to the charts after a short sabbatical. Alchemeon were an awesome foursome powered by the phenomenal Iggy on drums, Jim Iz on his copious racks of keys and harmony vocals, Pok on guitar and voice and George on bass. They were an amazing quartet whose progressive/psychedelic/space/cosmic rock sound was something truly special. Sadly the band’s existence was far too short lived, due mainly to Jim’s poor health and Pok’s desire to follow the way of the bard rather than the way of the band member.

September 2021’s chart topper, Alchemeon‘s Castrol GTX a-Go-Go, is a re-entry at this month‘s number eight. Besides being a work of insane genius, there is a tremendous backstory behind the composition of Castrol GTX a-Go-Go. You can read it at any of the song’s own web pages, such as on Bandcamp, SoundCloud, and Explicit Music.

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

Listening Options

If you would like to go to SoundCloud to hear the top ten songs from Wud Records in December 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 less than a year behind in this work now, as some 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.