Set

Wud: WudSongs (Live Summer 1985)

WudSongs (Live Summer 1985), by Wud

Wud was a band based in Exeter in the mid-80s. The name ‘Wud’ comes from a special word that everyone used to say again and again when they were very stoned, which was often. The word stuck and we named our label after it.

The Company of Players:

Ken Staple – vocals, guitars
George Davies – guitars, vocals
Marc Greatorex – bass
Graham Barbe – buckets, tambourines, bowls, grass bucket from Suffolk Punch lawnmower, round files, mic stand legs, etc

Recorded live using a cassette machine in the room. Everything was plugged into an HH 5-channel PA with spring reverb, circa 1975.

Graham had no drums but was so keen to play that an assortment of percussive things were arranged for him. According to the notes written on the day in the cassette inner sleeve, these objects included the grass bucket from the lawnmower, various other (relatively) normal buckets, Ken’s tambourine, George’s young sister’s toy tambourine, some crockery and kitchen equipment, the legs of Ken’s micstand for some kickdrum thump, and ‘other’ now unknown items. The results were surprisingly good, all things considered.

Everything you can hear here comes from the Wudsongs cassette and the Cander cassette, and was recorded as follows:

19th August 1985 – What’s Going On, Take It Or Leave It, The Sidewalk Song, Planets, Dream, Planet Earth, So Begins the Crying, White Noise – ending Side 1 of the cassette.

21st August 1985 – Jamming, Magic, Hard Times (Flashback Part 2), Fading, New Socks and Underwear, Losing Your Grip, Indian Summer, This Time Tomorrow, The Mirror, That’s No Way to Pay a Bodyguard, Julia (curtailed) – ending Side 2 of the cassette.

21st August 1985 – Julia, Flashback, Leaving Me Here, 1984 (the start of Side 1 of what became Laughing Sun’s Cander cassette).

22nd August 1985 – Piestnia Za (just George and Marc, nobody else present).

4th September 1985 – I Know I Know You, Frog, Change (Change didn’t fit on Side 1 of the cassette and was placed at the beginning of Side 2, before Laughing Sun started playing their Cander songs later that same day).

Wud was just on the brink of becoming quite good when the band folded. It was not so very long after this recording, and was due largely to the massive personality clash that existed between Ken and George.

We tend to feel that Wudsongs is probably the most definitive collection of Wud’s songs, even though some of them are arguably not the best versions recorded. It shows what potential the band did have, even though it was never fulfilled.

The trio of Marc, Graham and George would go on to perform together again many times over many years, in Laughing Sun and The Ug Brothers, among others.

A few months after the band broke up, Ken became a born-again Christian and disappeared even further up his own fundamental orifice. He has not been seen or heard of for decades. A pity really, he had a great voice despite his difficult character and towering ego.