Various Artistes ‎– "Back To Sing For Free Again Soon" (Fuck Off Records – F.O. 001) 1979

Here we have, in a limited edition of 5 Million, catalogue number Fuck Off 1 (yes, the first Fuck Off Records release!); “Back Again To Sing For Free Again Soon.The fabled compilation from the beyond great Fuck Off records from UK DIY's year zero.Now re-edited and remastered in 320kbps.

Side one (Slightly Sanesville), kicks off with a 21^st century Glastonbury act  from 1979? It's the unbelievably

awful Dick Heley; who was an unwelcome manifestation of the kind of earnest young man with acoustic guitar that still plagues modern pop deep into the teenies of century 21! Its the kind of crap that makes one want to punch some fucker and beat them to death with one of Mumford and son's fucking banjo's! (Growl!)

It gets worse, because he seems to have three tracks rather than the two listed on the insert....Ouch!

It make it slightly better, three tracks from free festival stalwarts “The Astronauts” repair the damage somewhat with some lyrically aware nu folk with a punk rock slant. Never really my cup of tea,but after the first three tracks they almost sound like the first time I heard Joy Division.

Then, “Fuck Me!”, its that Dick Heley AGAIN!....this time backed up by the half-decent Prog of Blankspace, so its not so shit this time!

Moving swiftly on, this compilation really starts cooking with the proto-indie anti-pop classic from the Anal Surgeons, “Where's That Fag”; referring more to the personal servant tradition in English public schools* called a “Fag” rather than a cigarette or a Homosexual.(Although homosexual could apply to public schools also, as being arse raped is a rite of passage, or back passage, in these despicable factories for the Illuminatti; burn the fucking places down!....ps, its funny how the word illuminatti is never in any spell-check programme?).

The Dog Ends remind me of the more annoying moments from the Missing persons cassettes.They probably are missing persons....mentally I mean.

After the extra track not listed on the insert, of a sing-a-long version of “Jungle bells by persons unknown, we get an exclusive track from the fantastic “Vibing Up the Senile Man “ era Alternative TV. A brilliant audience losing, noise improvisation on piano, radio, guitar, and drum machine, called “Terrified of Dogs”. Its hard to describe how great ATV were in 1979,but this piece sums it all up very concisely indeed.

Side two (Crazytown), starts with the wilful stupidity of uber-dumb manc punk band, Wilful Damage. Famed for the singer being thrown offstage at the legendary Deeply Dale Free Festival 1978, by the king of “TeePee People”, who said that he would personally stop any of these “Punk” from playing. Mr Wilful Damage consequently broke his arm in the fall, but returned to finish the set. The crowd were suitably Impressed, and probably turned quite a few 'Hippies' over to the cause; probably including certain members of Here and Now,who, as we know, started Fuck Off records.

The band itself is classic thoughtless Punk mimicry,and the introductions between the tunes, in a moronic Lancastrian accent, are hilarious.

OMG, its Danny and theDressmakers!(giggle)

They turn me into a silly teenager again everytime I hear them!

DATD are worth a small essay describing how fucking perfect they are. I do have ambitions one day to create a Vinyl on Demand style Box Set containing all this wonderful groups major works.I may give that crowd-funding thing a go,is anyone interested in contributing a tenner?

Dream the dream!

To finish off, we are hit by the revelation that there were musicians in 1979! Seventh Angel's jazz-prog opus is superb,as is Blankspace's floyd style prog closer.

Is the ZeePee Silence Orchestra those TeePee chaps who attacked our mate from Wilful Damage? And were they called the ZeePee people after all??

Anyway, their track is, predictably, an Amon Duul 1 / Hawkwind hybrid,but nevertheless pretty entertaining.

Planet Gong......mmmmm.......I hate to say it,but I like their track rather too much!

I'll leave you with the parting words of Danny and the Dressmakers from the Deeply Dale Festival 1979:

“We were Planet Gon-g, goodbye!”

Tracklist:

A1	–Dick Heley	Void Burstin
A2	–Dick Heley	Photograph Of Feeling
A3	–Astronoughts, The	Secret File
A4	–Astronoughts, The	All Night Party
A5	–Astronoughts, The	Back To Sing For Free Again Soon
A6	–Dick Heley & Blankspace	Fantasy
A7	–Anal Surgeons	Wheres That Fag
A8	–Dog Ends, The	Aint No Free Unless Its Free
A9	–Alternative T.V.	Terrified Of Dogs
B1	–Wilful Damage	You Hang At Midnight
B2	–Wilful Damage	No-one Cares
B3	–Wilful Damage	Fictitious
B4	–Wilful Damage	Farewell To Innocence
B5	–Danny + The Dressmakers	Ernie Bishops Dead Body
B6	–Danny + The Dressmakers	How Hot Is A Match
B7	–Danny + The Dressmakers	John E. Begood
B8	–Danny + The Dressmakers	What The World Needs Now
B9	–Danny + The Dressmakers	Whole Lotta Pinball
B10	–Danny + The Dressmakers	Dont Make Another Bass Guitar Mr. Rickenbaker
B11	–Danny + The Dressmakers	Manchester United
B12	–Sell-Outs, The	Rock + Roll Concert
B13	–Seventh Angel	From A Sly Fox To A Pack Of Wolves
B14	–Amazing Zeepee Silent Orch.	No Kung Future
B15	–Planet Gong	Psychedelic Man
B16	–Blankspace	Take It Or Leave It / Nowhere

Be Back To Download For Free Again Soon HERE!

The 012 - "White Patterns On Her Dress" (Fuck Off Wreckords FW001) 1980

Before they got “professional”, the 012 made an even more amateurish single sided C-90. Full of trademark atonal, arrhythmic, deconstructions of well known hits, and improvised Free punk numbers. Keith 'Kif Kif' Dobson's cheese grater on slack fishing wire guitar sound is unparalleled in the modern idiom of Pop and rock and Roll. Some would call it a terrible racket, but I would describe it as the sound of year zero, liberating the open eared from the manacles of corporate rock, which had a stranglehold on pop culture just five years before; but then 'I' would say that wouldn't I?

The ambitionless looseness, unrehearsed for weeks, almost Coltrane-like confrontation of popular taste; make this tape essential listening for the hive dwelling masses of this increasingly amorphous planet. The sound of freedom from acceptance,and the creativity numbing power of 'needing to be liked'!

Now preserved for posterity in a high quality 320kbps replication of its original lo-fi glory(and edited into individual tracks at last!), this is your chance to flush your sound receptor synapses of that subliminal garbage that penetrates us from every angle.

The album title eerily seems to predict future institutional abuse! Does it refer, retroactively, to Monica Lewinsky's dress? If only we had listened,we could have stopped Clinton's long trail of sexual abuse that continues to this day. Maybe even Saville would have been outed, if only we had understood this channelled message from the 012!!?

Don't forget kids, it starts with the classic “Fish From Tahiti”,and it's better than their second 'proper' album“Let's Get professional”.

TRACK LISTING:

1 Fish From tahiti

2 The Age of Aquarius

3 Turn The Bass Down

4 Muluver County

5 Don't tread On My Dreams

6 Mama Mama

7 Use it Up Wear It Out

8 Love Like Anthrax

9 Fish Don't Have To Shout

10 Blabber and Smoke

11 9 to 5

12 In The Ghetto

13 There Ain't No Love In The Heart Of The City

DOWNLOAD onto her Dress HERE!

The 012 ‎– "Let's Get Professional" (Flicknife Records ‎– SHARP 020) 1984

Whatever happened to the 012 ? Not to be confused with Birmingham incompetents the 021, from the wonderful 'Mell Square Music' ep.

This combination of the first three numbers in the arabic numerical system were basically a Fuck Off Records 'super-group', containing ex-Here and Now drummer boy, Kif Kif le Batteur (on guitar and vocals!); and even features top producer Grant Showbiz on Bass for tracks 2 and 3.

This belatedly released vinyl outing from 1984 is a sort of free-form UK DIY version of 1983 Sonic Youth with Dead C no-fi recording A-quality. Featuring thee most untuned guitar this side of AMM's Kieth Rowe, backed up with down tuned white-dub Basslines(played by one of the best stage names ever,the one and only, Dog End),and jazz tinged cardboard boxy drums.

The title of this LP is obviously 'Ironic', but one does detect an overly deliberate atmosphere of amateurishness that can irritate if you are aware of it ; so I apologise for ruining it for you......just don't read this,or if you have already read it, unread it.

I smell good musicians trying to be bad musicians.......and why not ? 'Tis a noble quest to rediscover ones musical innocence is it not ?

These fellows went on to be World Domination Enterprises, who made one of the greatest singles ever ; 'Asbestos Lead Asbestos'.

You ,ay have noticed that an early version of the aforementioned classic is included on this album ?

You are correct,but one must say, that it is just a tad inferior to the future Indie hit version from '86.

They also redid a version of 'Funkytown' on their LP,which was inferior to the version by the 012, so they didn't improve in all departments.

Summing up, great band name, great album, great sound ; now available again for y'all in totally inappropriate 320kbps MP3 quality from Die or DIY ?

the 012 on this record are kif kif le batter - guitar and vocal, Jose Gross - drums and 
laughing, crazy alan Dogend - bass, Granto showbiz - bass on *, Richard ans Adrians rankin 
horns on three little birds. Recorded at Street Level 1981* and on the Street Level mobile 
83/84 cut by Jacko at tape one. 

Tracklist:

A1	Let's Get Professional	4:19
A2	I Feel Cool	3:27
A3	Three Little Birds	4:26
A4	Funkytown People	4:12
A5	Asbestos Lead Asbestos	5:29
B1	San Andreas Fault	1:45
B2	She Doesn't Come	1:11
B3	Rio Tinto Zinc International	3:08
B4	Live Fast Die Young	3:37
B5	Meltdown Situation	3:28
B6	Three Days Then 4	1:53

DOWNLOAD professionally HERE!......0,1,2,GO!

Various Artists - " The WEIRD NOISE E.P." (Fuck Off Records FEP 001) 1980

This is the record that really sucked.....(not 'sucked'!)..... me into the vortex of the glamorous and frightening world of the U.K. d.i.y. scene, which began roughly with a "Spiral Stratch" (Buzzcocks) and then got philosophised by some Desperate Bicycles in 1977; "It was easy,It was Cheap,Go and do it!".
(It was only 60p, so i went and bought it.Best 60p i ever spent).
This slogan was taken on board by a vast legion of bedroom dwellers across the land ,frustrated by their lack of ability to play or afford the mega expensive Gibsons and fenders played by so-called "punks" like Strummer and Steve Jones. The Sex Pistols had become another untouchable Rock Groop which the average kid had no chance of emanating.
The answer? Simple, buy that cheep organ from the junk shop instead of an American guitar. Plastic bins,cardboard boxes and tin cans replace the drum kit. That crap mono cassette recorder can be your recording studio, and then you can start your own record label and advertise in Sounds or the NME's D.I.Y. corner.
This was/is the REAL punk.
The EMI of the genre was of course Kif KIf le Batteur's profoundly titled FUCK OFF RECORDS, and his Street Level recording studio was the Abbey Road of ,what they regularly referred to as the "Weird Noise " scene. Hence the title of Fuck Off records first vinyl release from 1980, The "Weird Noise E.P". This collected a few of cassette culture's leading lights together in one 33rpm 7 inch diameter work of art, worthy of display in place of the mona lisa in the louvre of D.I.Y.
It contains my personal favourite tune from the genre by the untouchable Danny and the Dressmakers, the fantastic "(Don't make another Bass Guitar) Mr. Rickenbacker". That closes Side Awful, side Bad, I assume is the B-side? Although conventions like side A and B rarely existed in this basement world.
Danny and the Dressmakers included Graham Massey ,of 808 state fame, and Alan Hempsall of Crispy Ambulance, amongst their other more dubious side projects( some dodgy prog included).
We also have those blues masters of the Humber delta themselves, The Instant Automatons, who headed the prolific cassette label Deleted Records. Fuck Off Records chief rivals, but we were all friends in the world of DIY, had morals etc.
Also featured are Kif Kif's (Keith Dobson) 012, which featured members of Hippy improv combo Here and Now.

SIDE A
1 The Door And The Window - The Number One Entertainer (3:39)
2 Danny And The Dressmakers - Legalize Vimto (3:33)
3 Danny And The Dressmakers - Hey Ho Hey Ho My Cholestrol Level Is Low {0:25)
4 Instant Automatons - Electronic Music (3:10)
5 Danny And The Dressmakers - Don't Make Another Bassguitar Mr Rickenbaker (2:05)

SIDE B
1 The 012 - Fish From Tahiti (4:02)
2 Danny And The Dressmakers - Cathy And Claire (1:42)
3 The Sell-Outs - The Ballad Of Fuck Off Records (3:17)
4 Danny And The Dressmakers - The Truth About Unemployment (0:07)

Sleeve notes: "The Sell-Outs, The 012, The Door + The Window, and The Instant Automatons recorded at home on 4 track and 2 track tape machines. Danny + the Dressmakers get that unique "Dressmakers white noise" effect with 3rd generation cassette recordings. Whole thing got together by Kif Kif, Nag, Bendle and Protag and dedicated to the Street Level organisation. 60p maximum price."

Download this black slab of hissy ineptitudinal majesty HERE!!!!!!!!!

Various Artists - "The Street Level EP" - (Fuck Off Records FEP 002) 1980

The Street Level EP released on Fuck Off Records in 1980. What we have here is the usual mixture of Here and Now/Street Level supergroups, and Bands that existed purely to get on a vinyl record then disappear. Such a noble lack of ambition that many in this world could learn from and adopt it as a sustainable way of extending the life of this planet. Especially impressed by "The Entire Cosmos", with 'Gary from Newcastle' on Guitar, which shows off the 'prog' roots of the Street Level scene. The Voltones unleash an early indie pop classic in "Poisoned", with a jaunty punk pop number From Vince Pie and the Crumbs to complete this DIY quartet of Street Level classics.  

Track Listing:

Pontin Stomp VINCE PIE AND THE CRUMBS
Blues Exterminator BLUE MIDNIGHT
Poisoned THE VOLTONES
Looking For You THE ENTIRE COSMOS

DOWNLOAD the street level ep HERE!

391 - "New Roads:New Ruts" (Arts Council Grant recordings SWIZ 1) 1983

The 391 (the other band of Mark from The Instant Automatons in case there are some people out there who don't know!......what's that? Did someone say who are the Instant Automatons?....I give up....click here!) retrospective tape, which collects the various flotsom and jetsom of the 391 back catalogue that never had its own home outside of compilation tapes and other related bands works. This includes selections from The Alien Brains, and The English assassin.In which Mark Automaton collaborated with Nigel Jacklin. A high standard of lo-fi experimental pop is fused with the more avant-garde side of cassette culture, and it is often great, but never pretentious.All done of a budget of approximately Zero quid!  

Track Listing:
  
1 Introduction 
2 Leaning on a Lampost 
3 Whats wrong with my Hi-Fi? 
4 Brains under glass 
5 What makes people behave violently? 
6 Jelly Babies 
7 An Die freude 
8 Requiem for fashionable trousers 
9 Living in a factory (alt Version) 
10 Here Comes the Milkman 
11 The Landlady's disco band 
12 Revenge of the Lawn 
13 The Blind man 
14 Famous Last words 
15 Miles Apart 
16 Killed in the Rush 
17 Music from the Empty Room 
18 Blast! 

DOWNLOAD a new road HERE!
or
DOWNLOAD from another road HERE!

391 - "No Easy Way Out" (UnknownLabel-C60) 1982

Mark Automaton's other band, among many other 'Other bands' of course; was 391.Named after a Dadaist magazine by Francis Picabia, so it says; but of course you all knew that didn't you? Again, another hissy classic jam packed with sing-a-long numbers like "Mid 50's Teenage Dance Party", all sounding like they were recorded in a broom cupboard. This makes the Fall look like Led Zeppelin. The side long (the Way Out side) "In One Ear and Out Of The Other" is especially fine. DIY Prog at its very zenith! And to cap it all a rare cover version of a Public Image Ltd. Track(Bad bay), one of the least cover versioned bands of all time.(Check out The Controls version of 'Public image') If anyone's interested,Nigel Jacklin of Alien Brains makes a guest appearance on track 12, courtesy of  his membership of The English Assassins, with Mr M. Automaton, who penned this little number. "We're the same as everyone else", says 391; you wouldn't find Led Zeppelin saying that (and meaning it)?  

Track Listing:
  
A1 Menanced By Nightingales 
A2 Parallax 
A3 The Failed Men 
A4 Derek Appleyard's Green Suit Boogie 
A5 This Vale Of Tears 
A6 Lizzie Borden 
A7 Mid-50's Teenage Danceparty 
A8 I'm So Happy 
A9 Overture 
A10 Bad Baby 
A11 Living In A Factory 
A12 I Passed By The Brock 
A13 Falling From Helicopters   
B1,2&3 In One Ear And Out The Other(parts 1-3)  

DOWNLOAD easily HERE!
or
There's an easier way out HERE! 

The Instant Automatons -"A Retrospective Anthological Career Overview 1979- 80" (Deleted Records)

(A further tribute to the recent sad passing of Protag,one of thee Heroes of UK DIY!.....much missed.)

I've got an awful lot of Instant Automatons Stuff hanging about in my hard drive that isn't complete or is homeless; and as they appear to be popular with certain members of the Die or DIY? readership/listeners out there, I have cobbled together a Retrospective of sorts to further demonstrate the hissy majesty of Mark Automaton and Protag(RIP).(As seen above with Technology).
You can also check out two of their early cassettes , "Blues Masters of the Humber Delta" and "Tape Transport" by clicking on the highlighted titles,just so.
'Twas late 70's in Grimsby, North Lincolnshire, United kingdom, and the dawn of Free music. The Instant automatons, gave you all their work for FREE, if you sent them a blank c-60 and a stamped addressed envelope. This is now commonplace amongst us bloggers,and file sharers, but in 1979 this was a principled attack on the corporate fascists of the record industry.
I'll leave it to Mark Lancaster (aka Automaton) to explain the politics of Free Music in his own words:

"One concept that is most closely associated with The Instant Automatons is that of "Free Music". It is also, I have discovered, a concept that is widely misunderstood.
Free Concerts have been around for ages, of course. That's something that, even in our materialistic society, people can get their head around. You go to the gig, you see the band, you leave; it's ephemeral - there's nothing concrete for you to hold in your hand, so you don't feel uncomfortable with the idea.

But when it comes to Free Music cassettes, records or CDs it's a whole different tureen of seafood. Those who don't quite "get it" fall into two distinct camps:

The members of the first group are the ones who say: "If this is a Free Music CD, why do I have to pay £3 for it? Why isn't it free?"

That's easy. What you're paying for is what you're holding in your hand - the plastic and paper. If we're selling something for £3, it means it cost us £3 to manufacture it. We make no profit from it - that's why the music is "free". In actual fact, we were making a small loss on every cassette we distributed via the good old "send in a blank tape" method, because we would enhance the cassette with a sleeve and a set of labels that we had paid for ourselves before returning it to the "customer".

The second group understands quite clearly that the music is free from profit. They just don't understand why. That takes a little more explaining:

Protag once read an article in which Colin Newman of the band Wire claimed that writing a song was simply a bodily function like evacuating the bowels. Steve Lake, one-time bassist with Zounds, said a similar thing: "Playing music was something we did like eating and drinking, breathing and shitting. It seemed to be a natural function."
Our view was exactly the same - and I would have felt as uncomfortable asking people to pay for my words and music as I would have done asking them to pay for the carbon dioxide I exhaled or the nitrogenous waste that came out the other end.

(As a sidenote: The Italian artist Piero Manzoni sold cans containing his own faeces - the Tate Gallery recently bought a can for £22,300 - and Australian-born painter Margaret Morgan uses human urine, blood and faeces in her works, but what that proves I have no idea.)

However - and this is the really important point - this was (and still is) a purely personal ethic. I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with other people making a living from their art. It's just not for me.
I have to state this (to me) rather obvious fact, because I have been misunderstood in the past.
In my last year of school I tried my hand at sculpture. The piece I produced was an emaciated human figure, rendered in wire and plaster. Although it was essentially just a poor imitation of the works of Alberto Giacometti, the art teacher took a liking to it and said he would pay me £5 for it. I said if he liked it that much, he could have it for nothing.
He was horrified, and proceeded to give me a lecture about how, if one artist should give his work away, then all the other struggling artists would not be able to make a living, and no one would then want to become an artist and there would be no art. Then, presumably, Western Civilization would crumble. (You think I'm making this up, don't you? It's all true, I swear!)Given my well-publicised contempt for the faculty of my alma mater, I'm sure you realise that this tirade just served to strengthen my resolve. I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, that since that day I have never made a single penny from any creative work I have produced, whether it be words, music, photography or graphic design.

And did Civilization crumble? I'll leave you to answer that one for yourself."

Hints For The Housewife (Deleted Records DEC003):

The Machine Takes Over
Nigel Wouldn't approve
Underneath the Wardrobe
Eating people no 2



Not So Deep As A Well (Cd-r 2002):

Routine Habit	2:20
Invertibrates	2:11
Ignorance Is Bliss	2:10
Worchester Avenue	2:38
Catacomb	1:59
Too Big!	2:00
Violence	2:42
Drunk In Woolwich (On New Year's Eve)	3:04
Short Haired Man (In A Long Haired Town)	2:35
No Identifiable Sign Of Life	2:52
When The Pubs Close (Denmark St. Version)	2:25
Ballad Of The New Things	5:43
Emma	1:34
So It's Come To This	2:53
Gillian Is Normal (Boyce-Codd 2002 Remix)	2:56
Nothing Ever Happens To Me (Sam 'N' Ella Remix)	5:04

Peter Paints His Fence EP (Deleted Records DEP001) 1980:

A1		Nice Job For The Lad	2:45
A2		Laburnam Walk	2:57
A3		New Muzak	1:55
B4		People Laugh At Me (Coz I Like Weird Music)	2:52
B5		John's Vacuum Cleaner	3:19
B6		Peter Paints His Fence	2:00

Radio Silence(The Art Of Human Error) - (Deleted Records DEC001) 1979:

The Dentist
Radio Silence

Weird Noise EP (Fuck Off Records) 1980
Electronic Music

DOWNLOAD this Retrospective Anthological Overview of the Instant Automatons HERE!

and/or

Listen to the Cassette Culture Podcast on the automatons HERE!

The Instant Automatons - "Blues Masters of the Humber Delta" (Deleted Records DEC 010) 1980

Instant Automatons third cassette album release from about 1980, on the near mythical cassette label from Grimsby, Deleted Records. More of the usual bedroom acoustics, third generation tape overdubs, and cheapo solid state sounds from (the late and much missed)Protag and Mark Automaton(aka the instant automatons)................I thought they were called the Instant Automations (see the "tions" instead of the "tons") for years,and I still call them that,in fact i prefer it.
Anyway, another great tape from deleted.....the gods of hiss that they are.Recorded live at the London Musicians Collective where their chums The Door and the Window hung out,with other semi serious experimentalists David toop and Steve Beresford,among many others.

PS: You can get "Tape Transport", another great Instant Automatons c-90, elsewhere in this blog,or download it here.

As they say on the insert:

"The Instant Automatons; not published not copyright 1980 rip us off - see if we care"......a healthy attitude indeed.

Track Listing:

1. a version of a famous fab four track that i can't publish or i get shit! Incredibly!

2.Laburnum Walk
3.Mr. McPhee
4.Esoteric No. 2 - Blazing Pedals
5.Catacomb (live)
6.Catacomb (studio)
7.Prisoner Of The Grapevine (Whitfield/Strong/391)
8.I Think Somebody Must Have Poisoned Me
9.Then He Hit Me
10.Esoteric No. 5 - Brains Under Glass
11.Restless Night (live)
12.Ballad Of The New Things
13.Disillusion (live)
14.August '78 (live)
15.When The Pubs Close (Automatons/G. Bailey)
16.Outro (live)

Download from the humber delta HERE!