Wud Records: November 2023 top ten published at SoundCloud

The November 2023 Chart

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

We almost included data from Spotify and the other streaming platforms, but unfortunately the data arrived too late from one of our distributors. Maybe next month!

How Did We Calculate The November 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.

If we were to start including streams from Spotify, and other platforms that our distribution companies reach, the only artists to chart would be the ones being distributed. There is a certain disparity between the amount of streams that come from our distributed albums compared to what we put on SoundCloud and Bandcamp, even though our figures there remain good. Perhaps things might change and in the future we might include more platforms. But for now, it remains as it is.

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 December 2023 chart. So if there is a track you particularly like, keep playing it! Leave a comment, repost it, share it to your social media feeds! Download it from our Bandcamp! Add it to a playlist! 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 November 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 feel 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 November 2023 Top Ten?

The Bastard Sons of Dennis

Congratulations to The Bastard Sons of Dennis! They dominated the chart in November 2023, claiming five of the top ten positions, including four of the top five. All of the songs are from their fabulous Cosy Lube Turtle album, with their cover of Blue Oyster Cult’s Astronomy holding on to the top position for an eighth consecutive month. Can anything top it next month?

Cosy Lube Turtle has been available on Bandcamp for some time. About a year ago we released the Cosy Lube Turtle album to SoundCloud as well. Recently it was sent for global distribution.

Since the studio upgrade earlier this year, we have been working on improving the sound quality of everything we released in the last few years. Another album by The Bastard Sons of Dennis, Cherry Smoke Empire, is currently on the slab.

A progtastic full-band mini-album by the dynamic duo is also in the early stages of finalisation. Sadly we tend to feel that further recordings of their many remaining Blue Oyster Cult covers seems an unlikely prospect. This is mostly due to “discommunication, disorganisation and general untogetherness”, as the legend who is Paul Bateman once said of them when they were in Rough Terrain.

We have finished the remixing and remastering of Cosy Lube Turtle now. The new and improved Cosy Lube Turtle album was re-released early in October. We are considering holding a Cosy Lube Turtle listening party at Bandcamp.

This month‘s number one song, Astronomy, is a profoundly beautiful and haunting song. It was 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 more produced 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.

Then Came the Last Days of May climbs three places to number three. 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.

Up one from number five to number four 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 distributed them to the audience. Both the stage and the band were covered in them.

Falling from number two to number five is the next Cosy Lube Turtle song. It 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.

Another faller, from number four to number eight, is the next song from the Cosy Lube Turtle album by The Bastard Sons of Dennis on the latest chart. 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.

Flicker

Flicker had another good month with three entries on the new Wud Records chart. All of them come from their incredible 2002 album At Least 1000 Words.

At Least 1000 Words was remastered and re-released recently. It has also been distributed worldwide to sites such as Spotify, YouTube, Amazon, iTunes, Deezer, Tidal, and so on.

If you wish to download the album At Least 1000 Words by Flicker, we absolutely 100% recommend doing so from Bandcamp.

Whilst several of the other platforms also offer a download, they charge a lot more and take a much bigger percentage of that higher price. This means that you pay more, the band recevies less and a big greedy corporation takes a big chunk for itself, just because it can. It’s a lose-lose situation, unless you happen to be a big corporation who can rip people off however they want.

Buying the album from Bandcamp will cost you less and support the artist more. It’s always a good idea to download from Bandcamp whenever possible as they are the best site for supporting artists.

Up six places from last month‘s number eight is 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. For the full backstory, we recommend the tune’s page at the Explicit Music website.

Welcome to the Family is another climber, from number seven to number six. 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.

Oily Road Hideaway just manages to cling on to the number ten spot in this month’s chart, falling seven places from three. 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.

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.

The Subterraineans

Short and Sweet is an amazing, beautiful, wonderful, epic classic rock song. It re-enters the new chart at number seven.

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 few months is the recent remastering and re-release 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.

Mark Drower and the Everyones

The 215th new entry to the Wud Records charts is I Know I Know You by Mark Drower and the Everyones. This is a beautiful song with a lot of history.

I Know I Know You was composed by Mark Drower for the King’s School Ottery St Mary Project Week of 1982. As such, I Know I Know You is one of the oldest recordings in the Wud Records pantheon of fantastic songs.

I Know I Know You features a teenage Pok on lead guitar. It was performed live during the performance of the play Everyone by Frederick Franck, as well as by other bands that came later, such as Wud. It came in Act One, directly after the scene where Everyone talks with his Friends. The drop-D tuning Mark often used on his acoustic is still known as Drower Tuning by many of the wider Wud posse.

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

Listening Options

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