FROM THE SOUTH-WEST CORRESPONDENT…WHAT’S IN YOUR BOX (15)

A tale of love lost this week…..

Remember a couple of weeks back I mentioned the cute girl from Our Price in Chatham. Well her favourite band was Cud or The Cud Band as she affectionately called them. I have her to thank for introducing me to their music. Once, in a pub in Camden Town (that’s in London folks) we were waiting to go and see Cud at the old Town and Country Club, and ‘Changes’ by Sugar came on. This features on Sugar’s seminal ‘Copper Blue’ album and I happened to say that for me Copper Blue was the greatest record of the last five years (it was 1993 I think, so better than ‘Nevermind (which it is), better than ‘Debut’ (which it isn’t) and better than the just released ‘Asquarius’ by Cud (which it definitely without question is). An argument ensued, there and then and I am pretty sure that is the only time I have been dumped for ‘musical differences’.

Cud formed in 1987, when legend has it the four friends found a drum set in a skip and then gained other instruments. They had recorded their first Peel Session before releasing a record. All seemed perfect. They signed to the indie label Imaginary and they released their first two records ‘When in Rome, Kill Me’ and ‘Leggy Mambo’ and gained a fairly big following. Then they signed to A&M records and that is where it went wrong. Their first major label album was ‘Asquarius’.

Now don’t get me wrong, Cud are, or at least were, a fine band. They have some tremendous records, ‘Robinson Cruesoe’ for example is a wonderful few minutes of indie pop not bettered by many at the time and ‘Purple Love Balloon’ is in my opinion a record that should be in everybodys record collection (a song which started life as a B Side before getting a single release of its own).

mp3 : Cud – Purple Love Balloon

Before the age of ‘Asquarius’ (see what I did there, I’m wasted in the civil service I tell you, wasted) heralded Cud’s finest moments, they were quirky, very indie and one of those ‘cult status’ bands. To some (see above) ‘Leggy Mambo’ is one of the great lost records of our generation. The singles ‘Robinson Cruesoe’ and ‘Magic’ both failed to hit the Top 75. Although in fairness ‘Robinson Cruesoe’ deserved better.

‘Asquarius’ gave them moderate success, ‘Rich and Strange’ went Top 30 and the rerecorded B Side ‘Purple Love Balloon’ followed it but A&M wanted more. Cud didn’t look like pop stars, and no amount of soft focus press releases could change the fact that singer Carl Puttnam was not that much of a looker (although others would disagree, see above, sigh).

That night in Camden Cud were supported by The Family Cat, a much better band, and they were stacks better live than Cud. Cud had turned it a Vegas act, (something which I stated in the argument which continued on the train home, it didn’t help). Flooding the room with purple balloons with ‘Love’ emblazoned on them had for me killed the band, I don’t really do gimmicks and that to me was a gimmick, Our Price Girl loved it and actually punched a man on the tube who burst her Love Balloon (it wasn’t me). It shouted ‘Look at us’ when they should have been pleading ‘Listen to us’. Then again, maybe I am just bitter?

This song is taken from ‘Showbiz’ the follow up to Asquarius, which flopped. This was the lead single and to be honest was better than most of the last album. Bit more raw and less polished.

mp3 : Cud – Neurotica

JC adds

S-WC’s tale is a sad reminder again of how things can go wrong so quickly for a young, promising and highly listenable band once they find themselves signed to a major record label.  It always seems to be the case that the label bosses immediately want to shorn  all the things that made such bands so promising and exciting in the first place.  I’m still bitter 30 years later about what happened to Friends Again when Phonorgam got their hands on them….