Wud Records: June 2023 top ten published at SoundCloud

The June 2023 Chart

The top ten tracks for June 2023 on Bandcamp and SoundCloud have been published in a new compilation.

How Did We Calculate The June 2023 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 July 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 June 2023 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! :)

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.

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.

If you buy something cool from the Flicker merch store, or the Dark Company merch store, both of which opened recently, we shall also send you an extra goody if you show us a photo of yourself (or friend, or environment) on social media with the item you purchased.

Last and by no means least, we would like to say thank you very much to all of the splendid people who have been buying us coffees at BuyMeACoffee. It’s very kind of you to help us out. All of these things absolutely contribute to ourselves being able to keep going, and spend more time making beautiful music for you to enjoy. It is truly appreciated very much indeed.

Who’s In The June 2023 Top Ten?

The Bastard Sons of Dennis

Congratulations to The Bastard Sons of Dennis! They didn’t simply dominate the chart in June 2023, by claiming a remarkable seven of the top ten positions, all from their fabulous Cosy Lube Turtle album. They also took the top place, with their cover of Blue Oyster Cult’s Astronomy holding on to the top position for another month.

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 for global distribution.

Since our recent studio upgrade earlier this year, we have been working on improving the sound quality of everything we released in the last few years. Cosy Lube Turtle is currently on the slab. We have finished the remixing. The remastering will be started shortly after some Pok work has been completed.

The new and improved Cosy Lube Turtle album will be ready for a re-release in the coming weeks. More news on this will follow soon.

Astronomy is a profoundly 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.

Climbing three places to its highest ever position of number three is the next Cosy Lube Turtle song. This one is a cover of Blue Öyster Cult‘s Wings Wetted Down, from the 1973 Tyranny and Mutation album.

Wings Wetted Down is a masterfully crafted piece of songwriting, with its clever key changes and all its vocal and instrumental melodic hooks. It is considered a deep cut among BÖC fans. The version performed by The Bastard Sons of Dennis is largely true to the original, with the addition of a riff section that Derek solos over.

Up from number nine to number four 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 horribly and tragically 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.

Down from number two last month to number five this month is another song from the Cosy Lube Turtle album by The Bastard Sons of Dennis. She’s as Beautiful as a Foot is another Blue Öyster Cult cover, which originates from the Long Island quintet’s 1972 eponymous album, Blue Öyster Cult. The original version is highly psychedelic.

When covered by The Bastard Sons of Dennis, Chuck tunes his guitar to DADGAD. The twinkly noises at the beginning are created using an old computer fan and its assorted janglesome danglesome appendages. She’s as Beautiful as a Foot was often performed first in a set of Bastard Sons of Dennis songs, due largely to the tuning.

Before the Kiss a Redcap is a new entry and the fifth Cosy Lube Turtle song on the new chart. It is the song that The Bastard Sons of Dennis performed live the most frequently. It would often pique the curiosity and lure unsuspecting bar patrons to where the live music was being performed so they could see for themselves what was going on. It was a very popular and fun live song, and quite often a set opener.

Before the Kiss a Redcap is the story of some events that took place at Conry’s Bar, on The Turnpike in New York. It is the fifth song on the eponymously titled Blue Öyster Cult album, released in 1972. Its lyrics were allegedly inspired by a real event witnessed by Sandy Pearlman, in which a biker offered him a barbiturate to be taken via a kiss.

A re-entry at number eight 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. “One, one,” was a popular version.

Last month‘s number three drops six to number nine on 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.

The Subterraineans

Short and Sweet is an amazing, beautiful, wonderful, epic classic rock song. It rises from last month‘s number four to this month‘s number two.

A massive favourite for many years, Short and Sweet used to profoundly affect people listening to it whenever The Subterraineans played this song live. Like many of Dean’s songs, it is a rather poignant prophetic prediction of Dean’s ultimate fate and how he felt about his struggles.

Short and Sweet is well over eight minutes long and feels much shorter somehow. Jerry’s bass sounds a bit uncertain at the start, but he always played it that way so he must have had some idea what he was doing!

The main reason for the success of The Subterraineans these last couple of months is the recent remastering and rerelease of their Demo from 1987. The difference in sound quality of the recording after its enhancement in the new studio is remarkable.

The Subterraineans Demo was recorded on a 4-track cassette portastudio in 1986 and 1987, and mixed onto cassette. The audio degraded even further over the intervening 36 years. Even though it was never going to match today’s standards of perfect high fidelity, we felt that this recording was worthy of addition to our catalogue at Bandcamp.

Dean tragically committed suicide in 1994 by jumping from the Clifton suspension bridge in Bristol. He was just 29 years old. He received absolutely no professional help from the uk medical or social professions. With a little professional help he would surely still be here with us today. He was a unique and charming character and his passing was a great loss to the world.

As such, we have decided to donate all proceeds of the sale of this EP and its individual tracks, beyond the first euro, to The Samaritans. They do amazing and difficult work, trying to prevent more people jumping to their deaths from that notorious bridge.

Flicker

Flicker managed one of the entries on the new Wud Records chart. It comes from their incredible 2002 album At Least 1000 Words.

Welcome to the Family stands still at seven on the new chart. 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.

Welcome to the Family was inspired by The Godfather by Mario Puzo and a new chord from a Portuguese sea shanty. It is one of Flicker‘s most enduring and popular releases.

Laughing Sun

It’s A Blue Sky Don’t Hold No Rain is a song that Pok composed when he was still a teenager. It was inspired by Neil Young‘s Cortez the Killer and talks of the brutal genocide inflicted upon peaceful ethnic societies by the bloodthirsty conquerors of Europe. It is a remarkable song and a sublime progressive rock composition.

This song was also performed by Alchemeon. You can hear it on both their Winter and Spring collections. There is also a studio version of it in the works that will be added to Pok‘s Anthology album when there is time.

Most of the interest in this rather wonderful recording came from the fact that we enhanced and mastered Laughing Sun‘s Cander album and released it to Bandcamp a little earlier in 2023. This month the song falls from number five to number ten.

* None of our other acts made it onto the June 2023 chart. *

Listening Options

If you would like to go to SoundCloud to hear the top ten songs from Wud Records in June 2023, 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.

The June 2023 chart has its very own dedicated page among the charts pages of this website. You can listen to the new compilation on its page by clicking here.

Each of the previous charts also has its own page in the charts section of this website. If you would like to see all our old charts, or for any previous month you are especially interested in, all of them can be accessed easily by clicking here.