{"id":637,"date":"2016-05-23T15:28:42","date_gmt":"2016-05-23T15:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=637"},"modified":"2016-05-23T15:28:42","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T15:28:42","slug":"ftv-mudcrutch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=637","title":{"rendered":"FTV: Mudcrutch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Mudcrutch. \u00a0This article isn\u2019t going to be about Mudcrutch, per se, I just like to say the name: \u00a0<\/span>Mudcrutch. \u00a0This FTV is going to be about the mystical process of coming up with a name for a band and I just happen to be reading <\/span>Petty: \u00a0The Biography <\/span><\/i>by Warren Zanes (2015 Henry Holt & Co). \u00a0Petty and Zanes spend quite a bit of time on Tom Petty\u2019s earliest bands and the one that jumped out at me was Mudcrutch. \u00a0Why? \u00a0Mostly because Petty himself reveals that, more or less, \u201cI have no idea why we thought this was a great name. \u00a0Mudcrutch! \u00a0Maybe we thought it sounded kind of dirty.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The truth is, very few bands come up with the perfect name on the first try. \u00a0The best example I can think of (where the first name was a great name) is Lindsay Tomasic and Jesse Fitzpatrick\u2019s band, Trees. \u00a0Trees came together in Houghton when they were in their teens and carries on to this day even though Jesse lives in the Copper Country and Lindsay works out of Los Angeles. \u00a0Lindsay has played with other musicians during the years, but Trees is a common thread dating back to the beginning of their collaborative efforts.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Petty\u2019s band history in his home town of Gainesville, Florida revolves mostly around a band called The Epics. \u00a0The Epics did the normal amount of \u201cmusician roulette\u201d where band members come and go while they try to forge something special. \u00a0When the earliest pieces of what would eventually become Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers first came together, The Epics was deemed \u201ctoo corny\u201d so they somehow came up with Mudcrutch. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Long time Heartbreakers keyboard player Benmont Tench had begun jamming on stage with The Epics – Mudcrutch while he was still at prep school in the northeast. \u00a0He more or less blew off his second year of college at Tulane to join Mudcrutch full time. \u00a0When his parents laid down the law (Tench\u2019s father was a judge, after all) and told him, \u201cIf you aren\u2019t going to college, you will need to find a different place to live.\u201d \u00a0Petty went to the Tench household to talk to the judge and convince him that it would all work out. \u00a0I wonder how on earth Petty managed to explain to the imposing Judge Tench that his son\u2019s future lay with Mudcrutch? \u00a0\u00a0Petty\u2019s band members all agree that he was very persuasive; \u00a0\u00a0he talked most of them into ditching college to be in his band, so none of them were surprised that he convinced Tench\u2019s parents to let him live at home while pursuing a musical career. \u00a0Perhaps they wanted to see if the hours of piano lessons they had insisted Benmont endure would amount to anything. \u00a0In light of the stellar career he has had, I am pretty sure they are satisfied that they made the right decision.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When I first started playing the drums, I used black electrical tape to form the words \u201cTHE END\u201d on my bass drum with \u201cTHE\u201d running downward and \u201cEND\u201d going sideways making an \u201cL\u201d shape with the two words sharing the \u201cE\u201d. \u00a0One of the songs I had been playing along with was <\/span>The End<\/span><\/i> off The Doors first album. \u00a0I thought this would be a cool name for a band until I was in eighth grade and Ron Phillips came by with his band. \u00a0\u00a0His lead vocalist-drummer had switched to keyboard and they were looking for a new drummer. \u00a0I didn\u2019t get the gig but what I did get was somewhat embarrassed when their old drummer looked at my artwork and said, \u201cWhat the heck is that? \u00a0Are you in a band already?\u201d \u00a0I admitted that I just like the sound but the shared eye-rolling by the band had me peeling the tape strips off my drums the next day. \u00a0Drummer household hint #1: \u00a0Do NOT use electrical tape on drum heads as it takes a lot of alcohol pads get the sticky residue off a drum head!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Flash forward a couple of years; \u00a0\u00a0Mike, Gene and I had been woodshedding long enough that we knew we needed a name before we started playing gigs. \u00a0I trotted out The End to more eye rolling and left it at that. \u00a0For a while, we called ourselves The Bight over our habit of saying, \u201cThat bites\u201d to anything we didn\u2019t like only we would always say, \u201cThat B.I,G.H.T.S.\u201d by spelling it out letter by letter. \u00a0We got tired of this really quickly and Mike pointed out spelling it out with the periods would make people think it meant something else. \u00a0We couldn\u2019t even think of what someone might think this meant, but we did not want to have to keep explaining it or spelling it over and over.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I believe it was Gene who offered up The Twig. \u00a0Once he said it, we liked the way it sounded and it looked even better when Mike made up business cards for us in his voc ed printing class. \u00a0\u00a0I found \u00a0it was a nice feeling to be identified with a band name. \u00a0Seeing it on posters or in ads meant that people outside of our circle of friends knew who we were. \u00a0We were now, in effect, branded. \u00a0Just as Mudcrutch meant something to Petty and the boys, The Twig meant something to us. \u00a0I occasionally run into old school mates and when they ask if I am still playing, The Twig usually comes up by name – not bad for a band that played its last gig at the Munising Youth Center in the summer of 1971.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Unless I find where I packed away my high school yearbooks, I could not tell you the name of half the bands that played for dances at our school. \u00a0The names I do remember brought something to the party that made them memorable. \u00a0My first failed audition was with Sweat Equity. \u00a0My summer as a practice fill in drummer gig was with The Self Winding Grapefruit. \u00a0East of Orange was THE dance band in Marquette County for many years. \u00a0Walrus was the one band that came out of Marquette who everyone knew was going to make it big when they relocated to Ann Arbor. \u00a0No one makes a big deal about them not making it big, but they are remembered by name to this day. \u00a0Cooper Lake Road, \u00a0The Joe Arkansas Band (which slowly morphed into a band people \u00a0are more familiar with today called Da Yoopers), \u00a0The French Church, 4 Degrees North, Conga se Menne, \u00a0Sunstone, The Excells: \u00a0There were more bands before, during and after my years gigging in the Marquette area and everyone of them has a backstory to their name.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When Escanaba\u2019s Steve Seymour was still writing his Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll Graffiti articles in the Daily Press, he sent me an e-mail looking for some band names from the central U.P. and the Copper Country. \u00a0Of course I shared my story of \u201calmost joining the Self Winding Grapefruit\u201d. \u00a0Months later, he wrote me a note: \u00a0\u201cHey Ken – I was at a concert at the casino in Harris and got into a discussion about music with the guy sitting behind me. \u00a0We talked about a bunch of things and w<\/span><\/p>\n

hen we started talking local bands, he said, \u201cI used to be the drummer in a band called The Self Winding Grapefruit.\u201d \u00a0He almost fell out of his seat when I said, \u2018yeah, I have heard of them\u2019\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It seems that bands come and go, but the band names have the ability to live on. \u00a0Mudcrutch rebanded with the original members to make an eponymous album in 2008 just to see if they could do it. \u00a0It isn\u2019t the Heartbreakers but it isn\u2019t a cover band either. \u00a0A rare case where the name lived on long enough to resurface and produce a very good album. \u00a0<\/span>Mudcrutch 2<\/span><\/i> is now in the works but the band is mum if there will be a <\/span>Volume 3<\/span><\/i> down the line.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Top Piece video – Tom himself explains Mudcrutch