After the fantastic response to this week’s ‘When in Rome, Kill Me‘ Twitter Listening Event, we’re coming back for an encore. Join us on Tuesday May 12 at 8pm for a Leggy Mambo Listening Party!
Anyone who wants to join in will need to play CUD’s ‘Leggy Mambo’ album (LP, CD, MP3, cassette, streaming) starting at exactly 8pm. As the album plays, track by track, Carl, Will, Mike and Gogs from the band will be online, commenting live and fielding your questions.
To join in, you need to be on Twitter, using and following the hashtag #LeggyListening. All comments using this hashtag will appear in one long stream. Be sure to follow the band @CUDband, Carl @CarlPuttnam, Will @willcud, Mike @mikedmfy and Gogs @GogsByrn too, and ask questions as we go.
If you missed the #WhenInRomeAtHome event, you can still read all the comments here.
With us all stuck at home, and the band unable to rehearse, record or tour for now, we’re inviting you to join us for a Listening Party on Twitter on Wednesday 29 April, 8pm.
For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, the plan is for anyone who wants to join in to play CUD’s first album ‘When in Rome, Kill Me‘ (LP, CD, MP3, streaming, however) starting at exactly 8pm. As the album plays, track by track, Carl, Will, Mike and Gogs from the band will be online, commenting live and fielding your questions about the ‘indie rock opera’.
To join in, you need to be on Twitter, using and following the hashtag #WhenInRomeAtHome. All comments using this hashtag will appear in one long stream. Be sure to follow the band @CUDband, Carl @CarlPuttnam, Will @willcud, Mike @mikedmfy and Gogs @GogsByrn too, and ask questions as we go.
And if you don’t want to join Twitter (you can always quit right after!) you can still play the album, of course, and following the hashtag #WhenInRomeAtHome by using the Twitter search function to see all the mentions with it.
Next March, CUD are playing two mammoth shows with Embrace and Starsailor. To keep ourselves on our toes, we’re also playing an intimate warm-up show for the Leeds Arena date at Hull’s New Adelphi Club on Friday, March 13, 2020.
Tickets go on sale from 9am on Monday here and here.
Bass player Will recorded a lengthy interview with David Eastaugh about CUD’s history and future plans for the C86 podcast. It is now available for streaming and download here.
Officially sanctioned CUD tribute band CAREFREE SUD, aka Carl and Mike, are joining the line-up for next year’s Shiiine On Mini Cruise. The full CUD Band played aboard the ferry in 2018 and had a fantastic time. The return trip from Hull to the Netherlands is well recommended.
Taking place over the weekend of 20th – 22nd March the two night Hull > Amsterdam jaunt will be headlined by Pop Will Eat Itself, Jesus Jones, Space and Goldie Lookin Chain.
There will also live performances onboard from the legend that is Pete Wylie, Gomez’s Ben Ottewell, Kingmaker 4AD, Matt McManamom (Dead 60s) and Carefree Sud.
In Amsterdam there’s a special ‘Afternoon With’ Miles Hunt of The Wonder Stuff. Expect tales and stories from The Stuffies past as well as a brilliant solo set in the Waterhole. EMF will be in support for the afternoon for a rare stripped-back acoustic set.
Cabins start from just £159 per person for 2 nights of brilliant music, 2 nights of accommodation and shuttle buses to and from Amsterdam.
One last blast before 2020! CUD have been invited to join Pop Will Eat Itself for a pre-Xmas show at Leicester’s O2 Academy 2 on Friday December 20.
PWEI will be playing the whole of their classic album ‘This is the Day…This is the Hour…This is This!’ while CUD promise a longer-than-usual support in our last show of the year. See you there!
CUD bassist Will Potter is working on a comic-book side project. Following the success of the CUD: Rich & Strange strip, Will is contributing to a new anthology, HEY, AMATEUR! with top-notch writers and artists sharing their hidden talents in a collection of one-page comics. The book is being launched on Kickstarter now. Click here to find out more.
The cover, above, is illustrated by superstar artist Mike Allred. Details of Will’s contribution, with Ghost Tree artist Simon Gane, below. The book will also reprint Will’s page on ‘How To Play Barre Chords’ from Black Crown Quarterly. The Wedding Present’sDavid Gedge is also writing a page, plus comic-book luminaries Simon Bisley, Philip Bond, Mark Buckingham, Glyn Dillon, Leah Moore, Jill Thompson and many more. For a full list of contributors, visit the web-page.
Any support and shares to help get the book launched is appreciated.
Our friends Embrace have just announced two massive arena shows for March 2020, with Starsailor and, yes, CUD in support.
The dates are Friday March 6 at Manchester O2 Victoria Warehouse. And Saturday March 14 at Leeds First Direct Arena.
This will be the first time for CUD playing at our home city’s biggest indoor venue.
Tickets go on general sale on Friday August 2, 9am. Ticket link here.
For those that don’t know, Embrace’s Mickey Dale played keyboards on CUD’s Magic single (when he was a member of the band Poppy Factory). Ahead of the Embrace shows, Mickey will be joining CUD to play keyboards on this and other tunes for our album shows in October/November this year. Hope to see you all at both events.
For the Leeds and London shows, we’ll be celebrating the 30thanniversary of our first album, ‘When in Rome Kill Me’ by playing the whole of the ‘rock opera’.
On the Saturday, for its 25thyear, and for the very first time, we’re playing the whole of ‘Showbiz’.
If you want to see both shows – and why wouldn’t you? – there are discounted combined tickets available for the Leeds shows. See you there!
For the recent Black Crown Omnibus of the CUD Band comic strip (by Will, Carl and artist Philip Bond), Will wrote some lengthy sleevenotes, too many to fit in the book. With special permission from Shelly Bond, here are the unexpurgated notes to read along with the comic book (still available in all good comic stores).
The comic-book adventure Rich and Strange had a nebulous aim to tell the tale of British indie combo CUD’s unmeteoric rise to renown, subsequent slump and accidental revival. We framed it within a semi-fictional turn, where the writers were attempting to revive their musical fortunes later in life than is sensible. But where does fact become fiction? Which events have been changed to protect the idiot? This complementary commentary may confuse the subject even further by making wild claims that some of the story is true and less believable than the lovingly engineered strip would have you think.
Page 1. Panel 1. Rather than start humbly, here we stake our claim that CUD were a genuine band, with some success, despite our efforts to sabotage our career. We had records out and got in the charts and, as a result of the comic-strip, made it big a second time, or so was the plan… Glastonbury is the UK’s biggest outdoor festival. 1992 was a rare mud-free, not CUD-free affair.
Here, I must praise talented and tireless letterist Aditya Bidikar for adding the lines under the U in CUD. This harks back to an early logo when the U was a cow’s udder, complete with three teats. (Cue joke: How many tits are in CUD?)
Lyrics: ‘Eau Water’.
Panels 2-3. The original script had Carl listening to a prog tune he is more likely to play in the dressing room. For legal reasons, we switched it to CUD’s ‘Love in a Hollow Tree’, which he wouldn’t play in the dressing room. Currently, he plays a lot of Cheap Trick.
Page 2. Panels 1-2. Carl is particular about his tipple, having spent some years in the wine trade. I deferred to him here as to the vintages. The Duband Vosne Romanée is recommended served with a salad of pigs’ feet in truffles..
Note the seated doll in panel 1. This is Space Baby, a plastic knick-knack picked up on a tour of Poland, made cover star of our 1990 LP ‘Leggy Mambo’ and an unpopular T-shirt. He reappears later.
Panel 3. Lyrics: ‘Purple Love Balloon’.
Panel 4. There are hints throughout that other 90s British indie bands ended up in Dying Embers. Matt Cheslin is the bass player in Ned’s Atomic Dustbin. I wrote a whole scene with him later, which had to be cut, involving me leaving my used colostomy bag as an exploding cushion on his seat.
Panel 5. Mangal is a Turkish restaurant in East London.
I love the fact that old Carl and I spend the whole adventure without trousers. And me without undies either.
Page 3. Panel 1. 17 years after out last gig currently places this adventure in 2035.
Panel 4. We got Mike to contribute here, choosing his favourite yellow Telecaster, bottled Newkie Brown ale and cuss words.
Page 4. Panel 1. This is close to how our first gig went. There is actual filmed footage of it online, here…
At the time, Carl and I were Fine Art students. Mike studied Graphic Design (alongside comics ace Duncan Fegredo, as it happens).
Panel 2. Carl believes that a key theme of Rich & Strange is misremembering, with him recollecting our CUD adventures and perceiving events differently to me. That’s not how I remember it.
Lyrics: ‘Mind the Gap’.
Panel 4. True! Mike saw Carl and me play in our synth pop duo, Planet Wobblers, and offered his services as a bass player. We put him on guitar and in CUD instead. He bought the guitar for 50 quid from a mail-order catalogue.
Panel 5. True! We rescued bits of a drum kit before another bunch of kids smashed them to pieces.
Panel 6. Lyrics: ‘Art!’.
Page 5. Panel 3. Shelly insisted there be some cute women in the story because Philip Bond draws cute women, which is as good a reason as any.
Page 6. Panel 1. Kudos to colorer Lee Loughbridge for his cool cupboard blues here, flashback, cigarette-tinted tawny greys and the fawn and yellow splendour of Dying Embers’ lounge.
Panel 3. Flatmate and manager (for want of a person more available) Zed Baxter was indeed a Scrabble guru and enjoyed half an hour of fame as a contestant on long-running Channel 4 anagram-busting gameshow Countdown. He was also an ordained minister, albeit for the Church of Subgenius, and subject to a fee of $35.
Panel 4. Planet Wobblers (see above) was the name of a synth-pop duo that Carl and I performed as when other members of CUD went AWOL. Like a Pound Shop Pet Shop Boys.
Page 7. Panel 1. The original name for the original version of the band was Allez Cud Dem Nidd Du Prog, somewhat catchier than the name we settled on, I’m sure no one will agree. The River Nidd dribbles through North Yorkshire.
Panel 2. We did play the Hot Klub in Stalowa Wola, Poland in 1989.
Panel 3. A genuine issue in the Netherlands, this, and probably one reason that we rarely toured the Continent. That, and the fact no one wanted us.
Panel 5. These headlines are all from genuine press clippings that we provided for Philip. Others that missed the cut include Popular Chewnes, Holy Cow!, Never Kowtow, Just Be Cud To Me, Cow Soon Is Now?, and Udderly Fab-tastic!
Page 8. Panel 2. Another indie band name drop, David Gedge of The Wedding Present, who writes his own line of biographical comic books. Thank/blame the Weddoes for giving CUD our first break.
Page 9. Panel 1. This large panel is awesome! We were so lucky to have Philip Bond draw this strip. But this isn’t the first time Philip has drawn CUD. Back in the heyday, he worked on several singles inserts and an amazing poster for the album ‘Asquarius’, along with genii Glyn Dillon and Jamie Hewlett.
Lyrics: ‘Strange Kind of Love’.
Page 10. Panel 5. In real life, Mike does live in a mansion of sorts, with penguins for neighbours.
Page 11. Panel 4. Again, there is video evidence for this (above). I had booked a US road trip when CUD were offered a slot on Vic Reeves’ music/comedy show ‘Popadoodledandy’. Friend (and bass player) Jessica mimed my part too well. A longer version of the script included examples of times every member of the band missed a show. How many do we need to still get paid?
Panel 5. Love Philip’s CUD tots here, enough to rewrite history that we all met in indie kindergarten.
Page 12. Panel 1. Another pop star ref here. Look it up.
Panel 2. Space Baby, the traitor!
Panel 4. In 1987, having just spent £50 on our first studio recording, Carl sent a cassette to Peel and got the offer of a BBC session within the week! When we next turned up at Carl’s house to rehearse, he asked us which day would suit for going to London to record it. We laughed at this hilarious joke…until he picked up the phone and called the BBC…
Tragically, the BBC are now considering moving out of Maida Vale – the home of countless pivotal recordings.
Panel 5. Gee, us and cover versions. Don’t think we chose any seriously, as fans. ‘You Sexy Thing’ was just something we played at parties but it sure got us attention.
Page 13. Panel 1. Ex-Mott drummer Dale Griffin worked as a BBC Radio 1 session producer from 1981 to 1994.
Panel 2. I knew our drummer tried this but only recently confirmed the rumour that Bonham lined his kick drum with foil.
Page 14. Panel 4. I’ll credit Shelly again here for saying there ought to be some entertainment put on for the Embers gang. An indie tribute act seemed fitting.
Panel 5. Here, I reveal the original plot, had the series lived on for several more episodes, while Carl quotes lyrics again – this from ‘Now’.
Page 15. Panel 4. CUD found their drums in a skip, and now we’re full circle. Almost like it was planned.
Panel 6. Just had to drop in to our local.
Page 16. Panel 4. Carl came up with the idea that the ‘new’ CUD should sing twisted versions of our old tunes. This, of course, is a play on ‘Rich and Strange’. Maybe we should add it to our live set.
Page 17. Panel 6. True. That bloody blue van! Nice painting on the side, but it had to be tow-started every time. We drove it all the way from Leeds, north England to western Poland. In winter. Even during this period of communism, Trabants and empty shelves, the Eastern European locals found our vehicle lacking.
Page 18. Panel 1. For this reason I am not allowed a mic on stage. Instead I feed Carl lines for him to sensibly ignore.
Page 18. Panel 5. A play on our tune ‘Hey, Boots’. (You should really give these songs a listen on some streaming service, or whatever.)
Page 19. Panel 1. See what we did there? (See page 4).
Panel 2. “Same faces from seventeen years ago.” We play to the same faces from 25 years ago now. Don’t see why this would change. Lyric is a spin on ‘I’ve Had It with Blondes’.
Panel 3. Lyric is a spin on ‘Now.
Page 20. Panel 1. Lyric is a spin on ‘Only (A Prawn in Whitby)’.
Page 21. Panel 1. I might be out the band when Mike sees this panel. (We didn’t share the script with the rest of the group.)
Panel 2.Boom-tish! Will there be a Side Two? (CUD did once release a one-sided single.) I had a sequel idea involving a quest to find the drummers from CUD but, for now, it’s a wrap.
Panel 3.Current drummer, Gogs, finally gets a look-in here. I did write a scene for him, as a scalper selling worthless CUD show tickets, but it didn’t make the cut. Sorry, Gogs.
And we end, where we began, singing our hit. Ta-ra!
CUD: Rich & Strange is available in Black Crown Omnibus through all good comic-book stores. Signed copies of Black Crown Quarterly #4, with wraparound CUD cover and 10 pages of story are available through the CUD shop.
After the fantastic response to this week’s ‘When in Rome, Kill Me‘ Twitter Listening Event, we’re coming back for an encore. Join us on Tuesday May 12 at 8pm for a Leggy Mambo Listening Party!
Our friends Embrace have just announced two massive arena shows for March 2020, with Starsailor and, yes, CUD in support.
As well as two ‘best of’ shows in Sheffield and Stowmarket, we’re planning two ‘weekenders’ in Leeds and London, with a different set each night.
The comic-book adventure Rich and Strange had a nebulous aim to tell the tale of British indie combo CUD’s unmeteoric rise to renown, subsequent slump and accidental revival. We framed it within a semi-fictional turn, where the writers were attempting to revive their musical fortunes later in life than is sensible. But where does fact become fiction? Which events have been changed to protect the idiot? This complementary commentary may confuse the subject even further by making wild claims that some of the story is true and less believable than the lovingly engineered strip would have you think.
Note the seated doll in panel 1. This is Space Baby, a plastic knick-knack picked up on a tour of Poland, made cover star of our 1990 LP ‘Leggy Mambo’ and an unpopular T-shirt. He reappears later.
CUD 