Muddy Turds, The - Dack Spud Machine (Single)
» Halfmast + The Belchers + Modus + The Muddy Turfs - Batman Fawkner, Tas - June 18, 2005
The Muddy Turds are a 3-piece act from Tasmania with a very peculiar name. They also take on various guest performers each gig that they like to call their floating turds. The core turds include Mark, the songwriter and 3-string bassist, Beau the drummer scholar musician and Pascal the blues harp player. I know it sounds like a weird combination but I assure you they pull it off well.
The Muddy Turds have supported their fair share of large named acts including Butterfingers, Mach Pelican and 67 Special, and released a number of triplesingles (first time I have heard of that type of release). Each multi-single has gained a lot of airplay from all the local stations all up the coast from their constant touring of the Australian mainland. With their live shows being very talked up and quite “unique”.
Upon listening to the triplesingle that has been sent to me it opened my eyes to the various offshoots of blues. It still uses the blues structure yet takes the idea of blues to the next level, using really weird lyrics and seedy seedy bass. The first song is called 'Dacks' and is all about using a pickup line in a pub that talks about eating pants, ands its surefire results. The vocals are really strange and are not really singing yet not really talking, its still confusing me now on the second listen. The drums on this track are really tight and really are quite impressive.
The second song is called 'Simplot Blues' and uses a lot of 12 bar blues in the structure. Yet it talks about how he is never happy about eating chips, I really don’t like the lyrics of these songs, I don’t mind comedic value, when it’s funny. But the lyrics are really quite bland. The punch line was not funny in this song. The 3rd song called 'ATM Machine', uses a banjo instead of the dirty bass, its almost funny; I really like the vocals on the female guest vocalist. And I can relate to this song because the girl on the Westpac ATM Machine is actually really quite attractive.
The production of this CD was done quite strange like, everything was recorded together and live except for the vocals, which really stands out in the mixing as the vocals are rather separated from the rest of the music, giving his vocals a clear crisp sound while the rest is rather muddy and blurry, I believe this CD would of sounded completely different (and better) if the vocals had of been recorded along with the rest of the instruments with “some” overdubs to really beef up the vocals, as well as distort them into a more true representation to how it would sound live. Then this review would have turned out completely different, and I may have actually enjoyed this CD. But I didn’t.
Disclaimer: Actual cover art unavailable; alternate art sourced
