A full length compilation LP released with the help of no less than three record labels!
Fuck Off Records with the Blue Midnight material.
100 Things To Do Records with the Hamburger All Stars material, and finally,
Deleted Records for the Instant Automations material.
Mostly recorded at Street Level Studios with the help of Here And Now member Steffy and Grant Showbiz (below).
The Blue Midnight material is my favorite on this LP, kind of laid back jazz funk punk with big horns, but both other bands have there moments.
Hamburger All Stars have amongst the singers and players, Anno, Mark and Dennis from Alternative TV. Steffy from Here And Now, Justin Adams from Impossible Dreamers and Grant Showbiz himself. I also think Andy Morgan, one time Blyth Power backing vocalist and now world music supremo has a part to play in these recordings. I could be wrong though but pretty sure it was he who gave me this record and told me that many many years ago.
Instant Automations have there own brand of pop quirkyness at the end of the second side ‘Short Haired Man’ being a class tune.
Protag from Instant Automations (below) with Grant Showbiz organised the bi-annual Meanwhile Garden Free Festivals near the canal along Great Western Road in Westbourne Park W9, which run from around 1976 to 1988 (I think), so thanks to them both for the effort they put in, so us lot could have a free afternoon of music and fun.
More Blue Midnight, Hamburger All Stars and Instant Automations on this site if you search for the artists using the search function.
Meanwhile Gardens and Grant Showbiz photos from the Instant Automations website here.
devotionalhooligan
October 22, 2008 at 3:05 pmnice one,i would’ve loved this back in the day… i was well into atv/here & now/lemon kittens/henry cow/etc but stuck up in the frozen north we got only a handful of albums coming thru… so it was either buy local or mail order… i bought my first singers and players stuff from king penguin.
cheers for this,a great fuckin album
Nic
October 22, 2008 at 4:19 pmGreat stuff, great stuff, great stuff…
This whole F.O. Wreckords / Street Level studios / tape swapping scene was very, very inspirational to me between 1980 and 1982…
D.I.Y. music, free concerts inna Meanwhile Gardens, back to sing for free again soon…safe…
Better than putting more studs in your leather while listening to Varukers, Anti Nowhere League or Partisans…
Better than going for a full crimp while listening to Southern Death Cult and Brigandage…
Better than moaning on about how great it was ‘in the old days’ and listening to 999 records…
Just better…
🙂
Penguin • Post Author •
October 22, 2008 at 7:18 pmHigh praise indeed Nic, better than ANL? Nice one!
Devo: King Penguin Dist was my little company after All The Madmen went tits up, I took over the customers that ATM already had, which was a good start. Glad something went to a good home. 🙂
Steve
October 22, 2008 at 8:30 pmWow, I’d never even heard of this.
Can anybody advise me what was FLP1 ?!
Penguin • Post Author •
October 22, 2008 at 9:53 pmAndroids Of Mu LP Steve, somewhere else on this site.
Steve
October 23, 2008 at 10:24 pmCheers Penguin.
kashi
October 25, 2008 at 8:26 pmI’ve got this one too. I got given it as I left a party at Alan Dogend’s Little Theatre I think. We all did. I think thats right, it was a bit of a blurred evening.
We’d been to a gig, maybe Here & Now, maybe at The Tabernacle, maybe someone else, somewhere else. After the gig, a party was called. It sounded good, so off we went.
I think it was the litte Magic Theatre we went to, somewhere Ravensbourne Park way. All I remember of the party is climbing about between rooms by strange means … ladders?, shutes?, space trolley? … trolleyed, anyway … and then someone putting the LPs in our hands as we left. Granto? I don’t know.
Ain’t memory a great thing!