Band’s musings attract more fans than its music

With record albums that are literally off the charts, it seems unlikely that the Dudley Corporation, a struggling pop-rock band from Dublin, Ireland, would have much to celebrate. But judging by its four-year gig diary, https://www.thedudleycorporation.com/, the band does quite well despite low record sales, over-imbibing. and overaged groupies. “The site tends to get more compliments than the band,” says Dudley Colley, guitarist-singer, band namesake and gig chronicler.

The road may be hell for the Dudley Corporation, but it occasionally sounds like a surreal, “This Is Spinal Tap” corner of heaven. Some excerpts:

05/02/04 Freebut, Brighton with the Rock of Travolta and Hey Colossus: After leaving the ferry in Holyhead we followed the instructions to a tee and ended up 60 miles off course in a wee town called Cockshutt. While it may have been annoying to be lost, the manifold delights of a town called Cockshutt kept us in good spirits. First night was spent drinking fine ales and playing Pro Evo 3 in London after 8 hours of solid driving, ouch. No opening night nerves thankfully. The people organising it, Melting Vinyl, were utter stars and fed and beered us like kings.

21/09/02 Cedars, Youngstown OH with Dakota Floyd: An odd one this. We had been meant to play DC tonight but thanks to some spectacular incompetence the show fell through. With amazing swiftness and generosity, Dakota Floyd got us on a bill with them back in Ohio. Youngstown is an odd place, an industrial town which was pretty much deserted on a Saturday night. We still had fun though and hanging out with the Floyd was a boon. The foolish decision to drive to D.C. straight after was possibly not a good one and entailed sleeping overnight in the van in some truck stop. We all feel pretty unwell today.

22/09/02 Galaxy Hut, Arlington, VA with Firedean and Lying in States: Firedean was unusual to say the least. And I will say the least. The gig was great fun, tiny but lovely little bar just over the road from DC. Lying in States were in pretty high spirits and a lot of imbibing took place. We went back to where we were staying and enjoyed some more philandering and boozing. So much so that Pip dressed up in a Tigger suit, did some northern soul dancing and had a naked man sit on top of him. Then Pip and the naked man ran down the road to the zoo and tried to break into the monkeys at 3 a.m. Why must this tour ever end????

-- Michael T. Jarvis