"We ain't got no money, we don't have no car, we stay down on depot street, just dancin' in the park" Between seasons we check out 2 singles from TOM PETTY'S pre-fame southern rock group MUDCRUTCH, UP IN MISSISSIPPI & DEPOT STREET (1971/1975)

The songs Up In Mississippi and Depot Street, and other Mudcrutch songs, can be found on the Playback boxset from 1995 on Disc 5: Through The Cracks & Disc 6: Nobody's Children. The B-Sides can be found on YouTube. Check out this YouTube playlist for all 4 songs we reviewed. 

Mudcrutch was an American rock band from Gainesville, Florida, whose sound touched on southern rock and country rock. They were first active in the 1970s and reformed in 2007, and are best known for being the band which launched Tom Petty to fame.[1][2]

Mudcrutch formed in Gainesville in 1970 and soon became a popular act across Florida. The band moved to Los Angeles in 1974 to attract the attention of a record company. Though they signed a contract with Shelter Records, they released only one poor-selling single before breaking up in 1975. The following year, former Mudcrutch members Petty, Mike Campbell, and Benmont Tench formed the core of a new band, the Heartbreakers.

Transcript

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ready for this? You all ready for this? Welcome to Side One, Side B. I'm Steve. I'm Dave, and I'm ready for this. I'm Sean. And today we're taking a look at a couple of singles from the Southern rock band Mud Crutch. Have you guys heard of the band Mud Crutch? I've heard you mention them, but I won't say where. And I have not heard of Mud Crunch. Mud Crunch. Mud Crunch, that's what you call it when you're wearing, like, the big rubber work boots and you're out in the mud and you hit a skeleton. LAUGHTER You said mud crunch. That's what it sounded like you said. Mud crutch. Mud crutch? Yes. Oh, okay. What the fuck's a mud crutch? It's when you hit a skeleton when you're working in the muck. Oh. Okay. The band Mudcrutch was the band that Tom Petty was in before. Don't look at me like that, Stalin. Fuck you. I have my Russian political leader nesting dolls supervising him right now. Well, I have the Gorbachev's a judgy motherfucker. Well, I have U.S. presidents. A random smattering of U.S. presidents. Mudcrutch is the band that Tom Petty was in before he was famous. They released a single Well, today we're going to be listening to a single that they released independently while they were still in Gainesville, Florida, and then a single that they put out when they were seeking out a major label deal before That didn't work, and they ended up breaking up and forming the Heartbreakers, and Tom and Mike Campbell and Ben Montench went over to the Heartbreakers, and then the rest is history. Oh, nice. Proto-Heartbreakers. Yeah. What's interesting about them is in 2007, 2008, after they released the Tom Petty documentary, which is I watched recently is very good. They got together all the guys from Mud Crutch who didn't end up joining the Heartbreakers. And they all talked about like Tom Petty and that kind of stirred up Tom Petty's like nostalgia. So he reformed the band in 2008. And next season, we'll be listening to this album, the self-titled Mud Crutch album. which I think will be a fun listen. But before we get to this, we're going to listen to the stuff that they put out in the seventies. Does that actually have Tom Petty on it? Yeah. He actually plays bass in this band. Huh? Whoa. Cool. Weird. Wild. Yeah. Did they re-record their old material? They didn't. Or did they write new stuff? And part of the reason why we're doing this is I think it'll be kind of interesting for us to listen to this, and then when we follow up when the season starts, we can compare the songwriting. But so At first, I don't want to go too terribly into it since this is an EP bonus episode, but the long and short of it was they got popular while they were in Gainesville. They were making decent money playing at a bar with a scummy bar owner, but they kind of wanted to see if they could get a little further, so Tom and Mike traveled across the country to L.A. The future was wide open. Yeah, they got a record deal. create wide open mud crutch tried to record one of the singles we'll be listening to today it didn't get anywhere so they the label said look we're gonna sign just tom so uh tom got the record deal they kept mike on retainer because tom said he needed mike and then uh They went through some session musicians, which included Jim Gordon from the bread episode. Commissioner Gordon. Yes, Commissioner Gordon. And none of that was working out until the Heartbreakers got together. So, yeah. So today we'll be listening to 2 singles with 2 songs each. And I think for fun, we're going to listen to the Mud Crutch version of Don't Do Me Like That. So, yeah. Which they did do him like that. Because he did do him like that. What a dick. Yeah. He left them in the great wide open. And they were free falling. He just left them free balling. Falling. But at least they didn't back down and the band reformed. Eventually. Eventually. After he's like, yeah, I've had my hits. Fuck. Why not? We see you've been living like a refugee. Yeah. All right. So this first one last dance with Mary Jane. Let's just do some Mary Jane and see what happens. Anyway, there was a change of heart. This first version of Mud Crutch was formed in 1970 in Florida. And Tom Petty and Tom Ledin were both kind of the the leaders of the band. leader of the pack and then uh they also had a guy named jim lenahan they had a randall marsh on drums and then mike campbell who was also in the heartbreakers eventually they got ben montench the keyboard player he was like related to a judge so it was kind of weird that he went into music but he was going to like some fancy university and then he would come back and play with mud crutch like when he was in town basically and then he and then he obviously went and joined the heartbreakers but the first single we'll be looking at today was a locally distributed single that they uh that they recorded in uh and then it features 2 songs called up in mississippi and uh cause is understood awesome okay so yeah we'll start out with that awesome i'm looking forward to this up in mississippi i didn't even know this existed so it's it's actually quite nice to to hear some early tom petty so i'm i'm really excited about this yeah i didn't really know it existed until uh you know i i went into a tom petty phase after my dad passed away yeah yeah and i heard about this and i it was one of those uh i didn't know about mud crutch uh but after i put their album on it's like oh man i would have showed this to my dad if he was still around but oh yeah this is awesome okay yeah all right here we go excited we're back. All right, we're back from the first single. Instead of flipping this time, we're just going to listen to each single individually because we're just listening off the internet because these are really, like, rare singles. Yeah, ain't nobody got that kind of fucking money. Yeah, I didn't even see one on Discogs, and I'd imagine it'd probably be, like, three hundred dollars for one of these if you wanted one. That'd be my rough estimate, too, just out of thin air, what I would think. Yeah. But, yeah, what did you guys think of these 2 songs? They were pretty good. I think the Heartbreakers were the right way to go, but I also think maybe it was because with the Heartbreakers, he had a little more time to develop the songs. But, yeah, I thought they were pretty good. Yeah, you can definitely tell it was early Petty. Like, he was still finding his voice, you know? Yeah, I could recognize him, but, you know, he definitely didn't have the same exact voice that he ended up using for the heartbreakers although i would also say that tom had a few like distinct voices depending on the song he was singing like the like the uh the first song definitely sounded like tom petty early tom petty The second one sounded like it was being sung by a different member of the band at first, at least to me. Tom Ludden did vocals too, so you might have been hearing him at certain points, but Tom was the lead vocalist on both songs. But yeah, I think what's really interesting, I don't think this is the case on the second single we're about to listen to, but on this single and the album we're going to listen to during the season, Tom Petty's like the bass player, and I think he's a pretty good bass player. He had some pretty interesting bass lines on both of these songs. I thought so too, yeah. One thing that I thought was interesting about it is like how busy the bass was while he was singing. Yeah. Yeah, that's not easy. Yeah. Additionally, I thought the guitar playing had some really good accents, and I think that might have been Tom Leden's guitar playing, like the accent points and a lot of the leads. Mike Campbell was also in the band, too, and as we know, he's an amazing guitar player, so maybe a lot of that was him as well. But Tom was let go from the band between Like, they had a gig where the bar owner pissed them off, and, like, Tom Ludden, like, stormed backstage, and, like, what happened was the bar owner kind of, like, subtly insulted them, so he went to, like, kind of defend their honor, and as a result the bar owner like fired them from their like house gig and that pissed tom petty off so he got rid of tom leaden and uh i think when we go to the next side we'll probably notice uh his loss quite a bit but so you want to do each song yeah so uh first one up in mississippi uh this is the one i thought it sounded like as soon as i heard it i'm like oh wow this does sound like early tom petty like the first album tom petty like american girl tom petty I think the vocals kind of did. I think it was more boogie-woogie than the hard rock, hard-edged type of stuff of the Heartbreakers. Yeah. Yeah, the southern rock sound didn't really transfer over to the Heartbreakers at all. I wasn't digging the backing vocals, though. I thought the backing vocals kind of sounded off-key in this song. They were kind of weird and didn't fit the song very well. I did not pick up on that. I don't know. Every time the backing vocals kicked in, I was like, ooh. But I thought the guitar work and stuff was good. I thought it was a good song, but I guess I can tell why they weren't bigger or why they were like, okay, Tom Petty, you're good. Yeah, I thought it was interesting that the drums, bass, and piano were all really busy, but then there's kind of a straightforward acoustic guitar part and then more of a straightforward slide guitar part. It was good, but slide guitar, you end up having to sustain a lot, so it's not going to sound as busy. So I thought it was interesting just how busy 3 of the instruments were while the guitar was more grounding. Yeah, I thought the guitar was leaving a lot of, like, really tasteful accents at certain points. Yeah, it was interesting. I don't think it's as good as what the Heartbreakers became, but, yeah, I thought it was interesting, and it was cool to see it kind of in, like, its embryonic stage. Yeah. All right, the next one, Causes Understood. This one, we were all very surprised by the abrupt ending, which I think is how it actually ends. We just listened to it on YouTube, so maybe it's possible we listened to a weird version, but Yeah, it felt like they didn't know how to end it. Yeah. Well, and the song itself, it kind of went through a few different phases. You know, it sounded like kind of a Southern rock song at the beginning, but it had like a psychedelic breakdown. I was like, there's all of a sudden this psychedelic breakdown. I was like, what the fuck? I'm like, this does not match the tone of this song at all. And then I don't know. This song was really rough. Yeah, the guitar solo was really wah-heavy, which I think worked for the song, but it is definitely a very specific tool to use. Yeah, like I can tell this was the B-side. It felt less fully formed than up in Mississippi. Yeah. But, yeah, it was interesting. The vocals didn't sound like Tom Petty to me, at least not at first. As it kept going, I started to hear it a little more. I don't know. They never really sounded Tom Petty to me. Maybe it's just because he was kind of, it felt buried in the mix, like his vocals. One thing I noticed about Tom is he's not afraid to try different vocal styles. That is true, yeah. But yeah, both songs I think are really interesting. I'm pretty sure they used this EP to shop themselves the labels when they drove out to Los Angeles. What ended up happening is They started their trip across the country and it was at, I think at some point their van broke down in Oklahoma and they got invited to a studio that was run by eventually the, the label at the heartbreakers are on, uh, Denny Corden's label. And he just like, he helped them and he gave them like a big old pile of cash to get to California. How the hell does that happen? Like you just break down and all of a sudden this fucking guy gives you money. It was incredibly good luck. Like I recommend listening to Mike Campbell's book. That's what that's kind of what I'm sourcing for. This is he talked a lot about their early years, but also the Heartbreakers documentary that I saw on Tubi. I think that one's called Running Down a Dream. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've been meaning to catch to watch that because it's been out for a while. since like 2007. It's really good. I definitely recommend it. So this next one, the single is Depot Street and it's got a B side of wild eyes. This one's going to have kind of a genre shift. This one's more like, well, you guys will hear it. But Tom Ludden was fired from the band, as I mentioned before. And Tom Petty doesn't play bass on these. It ended up going to, I think, a session guy named Charlie Souza. But otherwise, it's got Tom Petty, Randall Marsh, and Mike Campbell, and Denny Cordell, the guy that they came across in Oklahoma producing it. Is it only 2 more songs? I thought you said there was 3 songs. And then we're going to listen to the Mud Crutch version of Don't Do Me Like That. Okay. Are we just going to do all 3 of them then? Yeah. Okay, so yeah, all right, I think that's all I got to say so let's All right, and we are back we just listened to the Single that they released after they got signed to Shelter Records. That was 2 songs, Depot Street and Wild Eyes. What'd you guys think? That was an abrupt shift. They hadn't I still feel like they hadn't quite found their voice quite yet, but they were getting much closer to it. I did think these songs were a little more interesting than the other single, the first single. But yeah, it was like almost there, but not quite. I liked them a lot better. Yeah. I thought they were a little bit more formed. Both the songs just sounded better. I don't know. It's hard to put my finger on why I liked them better than the other 2. Well, this one was actually produced. The first one was independently done at a random Florida studio. This one had actual label backing, so I think that might be part of it. They were doing full-on you know recording sessions and they recorded like many songs for this and then i think they just kind of put this one out to test the waters it uh unfortunately didn't do very well which is obviously why they fired the rest of the band and then he went and formed a different band but Yeah, it was definitely a big shift. The first one was more of like a southern rock vibe. This one, like the first one, was kind of a reggae-tinged song. The second one at least started out as more of like you described it as like a Stones-type song at first, and then it got kind of deep-fat fried for the lead guitar. Yeah, brought the south back into it by the end, but yeah. The South will rise again. No, no, no. Cut that out. You're canceled, Sean. Shit! And these 2 songs were different from each other in a way, like they were still dialing in what their voice was, but it was much closer to the Heartbreakers, and I feel like from working on this and from these songs feeling more complete and more fleshed out than the first one, this one is almost there. I can see myself listening to these ones For fun, more than the first single. Yeah. Just, like, on my own. Like, I didn't think Up in Mississippi was bad. No. The second one I thought was kind of bad. Yeah. Like, I didn't think it was really great. But Depot Street was good. Yeah. Yeah. depot street kind of reminded me like you said there's a reggae um bit to it which yeah i heard that but it also sounded a little bit like if you combine television and bruce springsteen so mix that in with reggae and i think you got this and television was like doing their thing had been doing their thing for like a year at this point but they hadn't released anything so i think it was just something in the water was doing that kind of little to no distorted guitar type of stuff but yeah yeah One thing I'll mention, I thought that these songs didn't make sense to release under the Mudcrutch name. I think Mudcrutch is a perfect, like, Southern rock name. So maybe, I wonder if part of the reason they weren't successful is because of that name. That could have been it, yeah. Yeah, it's not the greatest name in the world. It's like At 1 point, when they were Workshopping names for the heartbreakers at 1 point they wanted to call themselves Tom Petty and the nitros. Oh new and Mike Campbell in his book said that names almost as good as mud crutch like sarcastic Man Yeah, Mud Crutch does sound too Like, it's like, what the fuck is Mud Crutch? Like, what the fuck is that? It's like It sounds very Florida to me. It does fit a Florida band. It's like, oh, we got a crutch in the mud. We're a mud crutch. We're stuck in the goop, in the mire. In the muck. In the muck. The muck crutch. These 2 songs were fine, but I could see why they didn't make it, like, until they formed the Heartbreakers and they did, like, Breakdown and American Girl. Like, those 2 songs just are, like, amazing. And these 2 songs are, you know, they're fine. They're fine, but they're not American Girl. Yeah. I just don't see people, like, getting excited about it when they hear it on the radio or anything like that. Because, I mean, okay, you can still have a southern rock band and be successful. I mean, like, Lynyrd Skynyrd proved that. Yeah. I think if Lynyrd Skynyrd had been named Mud Crutch in Leonard Skidder had been named Mud Crutch and released Sweet Home Alabama, I think people still would have loved that song. So I don't really buy that it was the name that made them unsuccessful. It was the songs were not great. Yeah. Depot Street, that was shocking when it came on. It's like that was an abrupt shift. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think the loss of their guitar player and then the switch to a session based player, I thought was kind of jarring. It changed the entire vibe from the first band. And I've listened to the album that they put out in 2008 to like. So I've kind of heard the the dynamic that those guys had. And yeah, it changed things. It made it like I. I see more potential with the previous lineup. You know what I'm saying? Even if maybe those 2 songs weren't as good as these 2 songs, I think the old lineup had more potential if they had like a producer behind them. Yeah, maybe. In other words, firing Tom Lennon was probably a mistake. They needed to cook longer is what you're saying. Yeah. And that's exactly what happened. I think when we do the album in the next season, I think you guys are going to really like it. So yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. I think sometimes like there's kind of a pressure for, especially in this era for bands to, okay, just get some songs out and get out there because you have to, you have to make enough money to keep doing music and not, not get a job at the grocery store or tending bar, that type of thing. But oftentimes it just needs a little more time to come together than when bands are pushed out there. So it's good that in the end this was able to lead to the Heartbreakers, but I think for Mudcrutch to have worked, it needed to spend a little more time cooking before it started touring and going all over the country and all that. Yeah. I thought Depot Street was good. It sounded more like the Heartbreakers. I like the guitar and the bass in the recording. I thought it sounded really good. Yeah. Television meets Springsteen meets Toots in the Motel. Yeah. wilded eyes i thought actually you were saying stones i thought bob dylan i thought like later bob dylan when he went electric that's what it sounded like to me yeah i kind of had that i don't know But then, yeah, the twangy, like, guitar lead came in halfway through and reminded you why they're named Mudcrutch. Yeah. The solo, I thought, in Wild Eyes kind of is what made the song. Like, at the beginning, it's like, yeah, just sounds like another Stones-y thing. But the solo and this, like, the tone, actually, like, the tone of the guitar and then, like the way the solo was played fit the song so much better and also brought it up. Like it, like it wasn't like a, what the fuck solo and causes understood. So yeah, this like, yeah, like wild eyes can tell why it was the B side depot street was the better song, but it was, it was interesting. You can see like more of what would become the heartbreakers coming together with that. Yeah. I thought, like I said, I thought both the songs were decent. But again, they weren't like, this is going to sell this band decent. You know, at that time, like they needed that American Girl song, you know, or something like that. Make it last all night. Make it last all night. yeah and um so yeah they put this single out it didn't do anything they uh languished in the studio for a few more months until uh eventually shelter records said all right tom you know the record deal is just you we don't want the rest of the band and he said all right well i need mike campbell and then he let the uh the other guys go they did a couple songs with uh session musicians and they didn't really like the direction that was going in like they said they even like really respected the musicians they were playing with but They just didn't really get that magic until Bedmont Tench, the keyboard player, he kind of accidentally put the band together because he got Mike Campbell and Stan Lynch himself together to record one of his songs. And Tom Petty was invited over to, I think, do some backing vocals. And he went, well, I'm taking this band and making it my band. And the rest is history. So, yeah. We'll be taking a look at the, uh, mud crutch album, uh, next season. And, uh, I think it's, it's interesting cause it was years later, those guys hadn't played together for so long. At least, uh, Tom Lennon, the guitar player and, uh, and, uh, the drummer, they kind of did, uh, local music things but they never reached the success of the heartbreakers but then you got the 3 heartbreakers you got tom mike and benmont so it really resulted in a in a cool kind of unique record i think just because you rarely hear about that bands that just get back together like 30 years later a band that you brought in Dave they did that the the Vapors they yeah they did an album of 2020 I think yeah we should do that one we should at some point yeah i actually just listened to the episode uh thursday oh the vapors one the one that we did thursday i was like i haven't i was like oh i don't remember saying stuff like this it's funny re-listening to our episodes and like like oh man i am such an asshole It was interesting re-listening to the Ace Frehley episode after I re-ran it. Ooh, I'm a big asshole on that one. And, of course, I put it out the day before he fucking dies. And I'm like, we killed Ace Frehley! first we killed Paldiano, now we killed Ace Frehley. Yeah. I said that in a text to our crew. I said, we killed Ace Frehley. That was the last thing he heard. He heard Sean freaking out about the album, and then he got brain bleed. He was going downstairs to be like, who are these fucks? I'm going to sue the fuck out of them. Nah. Not Ace. Gene would. Gene would. Yeah. Hey, Gene Simmons. Hey, Gene, sue me. Sue me. Fuck you, Siemens. Siemens. Gene Siemens. Gene Siemens. Go fuck yourself, Gene Seaman. Actually, one of the better stories from Mike's book is they opened for KISS. And I forget which city it was in, but it was like more of like a secondary market i guess and so mike goes up to gene simmons and he's just like oh hey uh what brings you to cleveland or whatever and uh gene just turns to him and goes all right kid listen to this just like once and then he just like goes off about like on these dates, you want to play these cities, like the big money-making cities, but on these days, you want to play the secondary cities. And Mike's reaction to that was like, thanks, I was just saying hi. Just making conversation. but i guess uh gene simmons he uh after the heartbreakers opened for him he like talked him up to like all sorts of people in the press so you can kind of thank gene simmons for uh tom petty's uh at least initial start so i guess he's uh 1 point less of an asshole because of that yeah And then we can give them more points for other things. It's like the good place. Like, yeah, you're going to hell anyway, but I mean Yeah. Well, in the good place, everyone Oh, that's a spoiler, but yeah. Going to hell, going to hell, going to hell. The standards got too high, so everyone's just in hell. All right. It's a good show. Hey, everyone. Future Steve here. So I just realized that we completely forgot to talk about the Mud Crutch version of Don't Do Me Like That. After we said we're going to listen to it, and we did all listen to it, and we all liked it, and basically the gist of it was it sounds very similar to the eventual version that came out on Damn the Torpedoes, but it's a lot rarer, and it was missing some elements that I had the song a bit more hooky, a bit more easy to enjoy, easier to digest, and that kind of stuff. If I remember, I will make everybody talk about it when we do the full album next season. Thanks. That was Mud Crutch. That was Mud Crutch, and this was Side One, Side B. Catch you on the flip side. B is a floof goof studios production. Please check out the description for more information about the guests and the album reviewed. You can find us on blue sky under the names, kill rock music. That's K I L R a V O C K and Dave under beast master general. You can find us on Instagram under kill rock music, S W S and Dave underscore diction. And you can also find our regular contributor, Sean, under the name Boozer Slug. You can find Steve and Sean on threads with the same usernames as Instagram. Check out our post-punk band, The Illiterates, our experimental group, Lucid Fugue, and Steve's solo project, Kill Rock, on most major streaming platforms. You can visit Steve's website, killrockmusic.com, for easy access. That's K-I-L-R-A-V-O-C-K-music.com. And if you want to check out Dave's past band, Gong Farmer, and their album, Pop Dada, you can do so on Bandcamp. Thanks. Ejaculate and leave. Fugazi! Fugazi! Fugazi! Hey, I'm Fugazi in here. Hey! Y'all ready for this? Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.