Dudes on Drugs was a free improvisational music experiment, recorded in 1982. The music was recorded on primitive cheap equipment in the living room of a house in Santa Monica's Rustic Canyon over many nights. Among more traditional instruments the recordings used such exotica as telephone, vacuum cleaner and typewriter to produce sound.
Once the recordings were done the Dudes pooled their resources and had 500 copies of the finished album pressed on vinyl. They were hoping to sell these at an upcoming Los Angeles avant-garde music festival. They did in fact manage to hawk some copies at the festival and then managed to sell the rest by lurking outside of LA live venues and ambushing emerging patrons. Eventually they managed to unload all 500 copies without losing any money. Having proven their point, the band decided not to press any more records.
Over the next 30 years it was assumed that the master tape to the record had been lost, until it was unbelievably discovered in a friend’s basement in 2015, much to everyone’s surprise. The tape was still playable (just) and we were able to get a good digital copy off a borrowed 2 track analogue machine before it started dissolving.
So here it is, for the first time in 36 years, the original Dudes on Drugs.
David Fenton - guitar, bass, percussives, voices, piano, synthesizer, glasses, typewriter
Stathis Gourgouris - clarinet, piano, bass, percussives, voices, poetry readings, glasses
Todd Brunner - guitar, piano, bass, percussives, voices, vacuum cleaner, glasses
Recorded 1982, Santa Monica, California by Dudes on Drugs. Produced, assembled and mastered 2018, Lushwood Hills, England by Todd Brunner.
You can download the album for free below (we couldn't in good conscience ask you to pay for it).