Various Artists – F.O. Cassettes – 1980

Posted on May 24, 2009May 25, 2009 by Penguin

Astronauts – Thats Where I Will Be / The Night / Midsummer Lullaby (live) – Danny And The DressMakers – Song Chocolate – Zoundz – I Made It Happen / Holland Park (live) – Bob Green – The Last Great Rolling Stone Lick – Daevid Allen – Zero (live)

The Mob – Crying Again (live) / Frustration (live) / Never Really Cared (live) / Youth (live) – Cardiac Arrest – A Bus For A Bus – Horrible Nerds – Pope Paul Is Dead (live) – Androids Of Mu – Every Time I Here The Spirit / Pretty Nun / Ride Me Easy Rider (live) – BlankSpace – You Can Try – Rest On Still Water (live) – Danny And The DressMakers – Edward Exposes

This tape supplied by Jon From Bromley, has some good moments held within its 90 minutes playing time. Unfortunately it also has some proper stinkers.

To be fair the cassette sleeve actually has a small warning hidden within the artwork ‘Parts of this cassette are crummy recordings and some of the editing is a bit duff’. Fair enough, Daevid Allen and Danny And The Dressmakers both suffer with the crummy recording curse.

The Mob tracks are also pretty poor, BUT luckily I have the original mixing desk tapes that ended up on this F.O. cassette so if you want a little better quality on your 1979 Mob live tracks then go to the bottom of this post to find links for two of the gigs that the band performed in Holland.

The best tracks on this cassette are courtesy of The Astronauts, with a 15 minute epic entitled ‘The Night’ and the two Androids Of Mu studio recordings. The Zounds tracks are fair, but you can hear better material on the ‘Tribute To Bert Weedon’ cassette which is uploaded on this site and can get quick access to, on the link below.

The Mob mixing desk recordings from the 1979 Holland tour with Here And Now are well worth listening to and available HERE and HERE

Zounds – ‘Bert Weedon’ tracks HERE also the Free Freak Out tracks HERE

Flyers courtesy of the Vince Pie collection

It may interest folk based in London that Mark Astronaut and Steve Lake from Zounds will both be appearing at :The Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High St, London, E1 7QX on Thursday 28 May 2009 – 19.30 – 22.00 – Nearest tube is Aldgate East.

14 comments

Tony Puppy
May 25, 2009 at 10:23 pm

Another cracking artifact.
Eddie
May 26, 2009 at 11:50 am

Thanks for this. I used to have it, but it was stolen by a “friend” soon after the mob single came out on crass records. I don’t suppose there would be any chance of a flac version and a bigger scan of the cover?
fetchampunk
May 27, 2009 at 12:08 am

Hiya, This is such a great blog/site. This tapes also includes the Cardiac Arrest single who after this become CARDIACS!
Nic
May 29, 2009 at 11:13 am

Thanks Penguin – it’s been a while since I’ve heard this…
Great stuff..

I have the Androids of Mu ‘demo’ tape and the Blank Space ‘demo’ somewhere on cassette…
Eddie
May 29, 2009 at 12:24 pm

I would be interested in the Blank Space tape. Them and Dick Healey (?) were my 2nd favourites from the first Back To Sing For Free tape. Did they ever make it onto vinyl?
Nic
May 29, 2009 at 3:41 pm

I think Dick Heley had been a member of Blank Space at one time too…
As far as I know, they never managed any vinyl…
Rob
June 22, 2009 at 9:33 am

I bought this tape down Portobello Road around 1981 and still think the epic ‘The Night’ is one of the best things the Astronauts ever recorded.
Eddie
June 22, 2009 at 11:31 am

A shorter version of The Night is on The Otters Back Soon EP.
devotionalhooligan
June 23, 2009 at 4:01 pm

as usual a great post mick… F.O. was an inspirational label & the astronauts tracks are ace.
i recently uploaded The Otters Back Soon EP for anyone interested… as it’s now sold out. xx
Rob
August 29, 2009 at 8:51 am

devotionalhooligan said:
“i recently uploaded The Otters Back Soon EP for anyone interested… as it’s now sold out. xx”

Thanks a lot for that.I do feel that the Otters as a live band equal/surpass the Astronauts at their peak.Mark Astronaut also seems to have been creatively re-energised.
legalise vimto
September 16, 2009 at 1:17 pm

danny and the dressmakers fan blog here! –

http://legalisevimto.blogspot.com/
Richard
November 16, 2009 at 1:05 pm

Cheers for this gem. More Horrible Nurds, please!
murraymarine
February 19, 2013 at 2:10 pm

excellent upload penguin…class act.
Richard (Dick) Heley
April 5, 2013 at 4:47 pm

Hi friends
I finally made it onto cd with an album named “Perfect Mistakes” available on http://www.cdbaby.com/richardheley
I was a founder member of Blank Space and played/sang/wrote songs with the band for many years. I recorded most of the tracks on Perfect Mistakes with Jose Gross fellow songwriter from BS
Check my website http://www.richardheley.com for recent songs, videos, paintings, stories
love to y’all
Richard