Well it is a special number, ask Genesis P...
It was twenty three years ago this very day, the first hand made hand spray-painted
Organs with messy hand screen-printed covers came out. One hundred copies
of the first issue of Organ were printed, we had no idea what we were doing,
just had the idea we wanted to put out a fsnzine. Seemed like everyone
was doing it back then – Urban Guerrilla, Revelatory, Phoenix Militia,
Forearm Smash, there were loads - you couldn’t go to a small
gig without someone selling you their DIY cassette album or a fanzine or
trading something for something or....
So the first cut ‘n paste issue of Organ went on sale at a Hawkwind gig
on 4th December 1986 (out of the back of an 50’s ex-army ambulance being
driven by a man with a flying helmet and a smoke machine – you out there
Luke?). 36 A5 pages, interviews with Cardiacs, Magic Mushroom Band, Twelfth
Night and... well I can’t remember who else was in there now, (any one
got one? There was 300 printed in the end). Bits of Ring, Metallica (Cliff
Burton), Hellbastard, Wiggle The Womprat, Rip Cruncer (oh yes he is for
real) and... We took 50 copies of Organ number one to that
Hawkwind gig in Guilford, sold them all in about 30 minutes and regretted
not taking more... We took the other 50 to the next Hawkwind gig
at the Reading Hexagon and sold all those instantly as well. Did an interview
with Dave Brock, (encountered some red wine gums in the sky) and off we
were, Organ was up and running... Another two hundred copies of issue
one were photocopied, two hundred more covers screen printed by hand (on
big sheets of glossy white paper from a skip out the back of a printers,
if you really want to do it you can, doesn’t need money). Another two hundred
were spray painted and hauled off to long lost places like The Finsbury
Park Robey, the Hammersmith Clarendon, the Wardour Street Marquee (our
spiritual home in those early days), the Islington Powerhaus, the Wood
Green Trade Union Centre (the early home of Club Dog and some of the best
gigs ever – Webcore, Cardiacs, Ozrics, Dave Howard Singers, Ring, Oroonies...).
Then someone started talking about a second issue (it came out two months
later – more Cardiacs, Ring, Civilised Society, Webcore, Ozrics, Napalm
Death, Fish, that Hawkwind interview, The Babysitters and loads of bands
everyone’s forgotten now ...), them someone said hey why don’t we put out
a compilation tape, and then another zine, then an issue was screen printed
on a t-shirt, another one as a giant fly poster we pasted up outside London
venues - demo tapes started to flood in, mailart, underwear – everything
by hand, no internet, no PR companies on the case back then, there was
no crossover with the music industry . Everyone doing it themselves, bands,
zines, squats, Stonehenge, free festivals, trades, networks, FIN Cells...
People started sending in cash from all over the world for copies of Organ,
bloody hell, people are taking this seriously – fanzines were fun, a real
genuine set of DIY networks and good friends made everywhere. No one saw
any of it as a career or a drowned in whatever marketing plan back them,
real underground alternatives... And so it carried on, shall we do
another issue? Hey, we’re on number ten. We should put a gig on? How about
putting out some vinyl, can’t be that hard? Atom Seed 12” was the first
thing, somewhere at the start of the 90’s hand block printed covers of
course, more spray paint, second release was as an Angel Interceptor 7”
in a fold out cover that we Jackson Pollocked, third that Huge Baby 10”
with block printed gold hearts on the front... things came along, movements,
people, scenes, gone through so many of them now, UKHC, free festivals,
Riot Grrl, that IQ/Pallas/Twelfth Night prog scene, that brilliant weekend
at Hammersmith Community Centre when riotGrrl met handmade punk zines and
Crass, the Eight Day Itch with the TLF, us and Sonic Pollution, eight gigs
in eight days, riots, wrecked venues, more Cardiacs. Psychic TV and the
snake at number 53... Enough of this, we got things to get
on with....
Twenty three years, tens of thousands of demo tapes, tens of thousands
of hand painted covers, (we finally stopped doing that somewhere around
issue 20). Who knows how many records reviewed, bands interviewed (we should
put out a best of one day really), hundreds of Organ gigs, thousands of
great bands you’ve all probably forgotten about, some you may still remember
- Metallica got 48 quid for playing a support at the Marquee, standard
musicians union rates at the time, Suede pulled five paying people, that
Osmium gig, Conflict battles, Anti-Seen, secret Napalm Death pub gigs,
Poisoned Electric Head pulled a van load of pissed off police looking for
them, couldn’t find them, they were on stage at the time in their masks
– the book we could right, the tales we have to tell. So Organ zine grew
and ORG records evolved, Organ went big and glossy and in to high street
shops and being that big wasn’t so much fun really, small is so much better.
There was something like two hundred vinyl or CD releases on ORG (there
was a cassette label before that, two cassette decks! Until we started
getting them done ‘properly’ in batches of one hundred).. and on it went,
radio programmes, TV shows, tours, websites, Resonance FM, Cardiacs things,
art shows, album covers, animation pieces.... And it all started 23 years
ago this very day as a one off handmade zine on sale for 50p out of the
back of an ex army ambulance at a Hawkwind gig.. Wouldn’t have missed any
of it for the world... Thanks to everyone who ever got involved...
thanks thanks thanks!
Right, time to get on with reviewing this Shield Your Eyes album and get
off to the Cold In Berlin gig via an interview with the MuTate people and...
Happy Birthday to us!
S &
M.
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