Ladies and gentlemen, MUD. I had no idea these guys existed until the early '90s, when one Christmas I saw Bernard and the Genie. It's probably the greatest holiday movie ever. With Lenny Henry and Alan Cumming and an incredibly nasty Rowan Atkinson. I taped the movie from the television broadcast, and for years and years we'd re-watch our spotty copy, complete with the cheesy commercials. The soundtrack to the Richard Curtis film was absolutely amazing, and among the many, many classics was "Lonely This Christmas" by MUD.
Okay, to be fair, I didn't know who sang the song at the time, but I really, really liked it. When I found a CD called Instant Christmas Collection that featured a lot of UK artists I finally knew, there was MUD. Of course it was produced by the kings of Glam, Nicky Chinn & Mike Chapman. Goodness gravy, them there two dudes were a gold-spinning dynamic duo.
Oh, the remake, simply called Genie with Melissa McCarthy ... um. Pass. I tried, and I guess if I hadn't seen the original it would have been passable, but man, it was so disappointing.
Back to MUD. Of course, despite looking and looking, I couldn't find anything by the band. I'm guessing on this side of the pond the band didn't get a chance to find an audience. Which really surprised me, as I figured that since Canada was (is still) a card-carrying member of the Commonwealth, we'd see more of the releases from the UK. Australia got the album for crying out loud.
It's weird that a band who was seeing a fair amount of success at home wasn't given the same shot as many of the band's glam counterparts. When I check through Discogs, I don't see any of their releases with a North American imprint.
Shame.
I'm guessing that's why they were so hard to find here. I got Use Your Imagination by accident. I was ordering an album, and found out that it was coming from Europe, and I got a message from the seller saying I should consider adding an album or two to the order, as the shipping was the same regardless.
I scanned through the albums for sale and actually found a few I wanted. I settled for this one, although I was hoping to find their earlier "Chinnichap" releases, but no luck.
Still, the cover was Glam gold and looked like a lot of fun. The record jacket was in pristine shape and the vinyl looked new, which is always a bonus when you're ordering by mail. You really hope the seller isn't taking the piss when they say, "It's mint."
The album is a tad muddy sounding. Sometimes I can't tell if it's my system or the source material. I'm going to go with it being a thick-sounding record with a lot of lows and mids. I just crank the treble a bit and it's just fine.
By the time the band released their third album (and second of 1975), Use Your Imagination, they had left RAK Records and the production team of Chapman and Chinn. With a new label and producer, they still sounded like early Sweet, with the high harmonies, but they also clearly loved Elvis, and singer Les Gray really sounded like he had his own jumpsuit in his closet. The insert photo does have him sporting one hell of a belt buckle.
The rest of the band was made up of guitarist Rob Davis and the rhythm section of Ray Stiles on bass and Dave Mount on drums.
The album works best, at least for me, when the band was working full tilt as a party band, and the opening track "Are You Man Enough?" (or is it "R. U. Man Enough") is probably my favourite track on the album, which is what I was expecting (hoping for).
Despite what drew me in as a fan - their Elvis Christmas song - I was hoping for the full-blown, beat-driven glam rock. The guys actually cover more musical ground than I expected, from the straight-ahead power pop to the '50s-infused classic rockers to a ska/reggae song. But boy howdy, they really loved pulling off songs that sounded like old-timey doo-wop rock and roll standards. You could hear they were having fun.
This was my first real exposure to MUD, and I really was quite surprised at the diversity on display. I had actually just expected a collection of foot-stomping mid-'70s Glam pop songs. What I got was pretty varied.
Heck, one of the songs, "Use Your Imagination" (the title track, no less), is a mid-tempo pop song that features some really tasty lead guitar work, and strikes a balance between not being too hard or too soft. It was a straight-ahead pop song. This is a song I can imagine being a hit ... although I don't think it was.
Then again, the ballad "Show Me You're A Woman" was a mid-'70s syrupy love song, complete with what sounded like an electric sitar. Yeah, the '70s, baby. The best and worst all squeezed into a decade.
The band's first two albums, MUD Rock and MUD Rock Vol. 2, both went gold in the UK (100,000), and the band also pumped out non-album singles that were hits. With Use Your Imagination, it seemed like they were striking while the iron was still hot. While the album went silver in the UK (60,000), it would be the band's last charting album. The ride was over. Glam was fun while it lasted.
It's really a shame these guys never got a shake over here. There's not a lot of information out there, and it seems like they were just relegated to the Glam box and, more or less, after 1975, they were done, along with many of their contemporaries.
You certainly got the sense that there was more going on than just silly kitschy suits and nods to Elvis. More often than not, the songs here all stuck the landing. "Bird Dog" is just weird. But good weird, and repeated plays have just made it more fun - it honestly reminded me of something The Monks would do a few years after this came out with "Nice Legs Shame About Her Face."
Les Gray, when he put on his rock voice, was equal parts Noddy Holder (Slade) and Brian Connolly (The Sweet, for the Glam era, and just Sweet when they wanted to be rockers) - he was really good, and the band was right in the pocket when they took things seriously.
I'll keep looking for their stuff in the bins, and who knows, maybe something will turn up. Probably not. I suppose I could just go and stream their stuff.
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