ORGAN zine – art, music, underculture… London.  (The mailing list details and the review policy are bother further down, so are the contact details)

The Organ policy, right back to day one back in the last century, was to only cover the things we feel positive about, we still pretty much stick to that way of thinking. We’re not the mainstream press, it isn’t our job to be cluttering up our pages with negative critical analysis , it is the job of the mainstream music/art press, we’ve never said it wasn’t. We’re about the signposts to the things that are exciting us, the things we think might interest you. We simply don’t have time for the not very interesting art exhibitions we go to, the hundreds of pieces of music that flood in on a weekly basis that don’t inspire us…

“I love Sean Worrall’s writings, his tireless writings in his ‘Organ Thing’ journal/blog. Here is a fine text about the exhibition at Angus-Hughes Gallery. At some point in the not too distant… one has the inkling (more than an inkling, I foresee it) his wonderfully written texts/reviews, will be an absolutely go to historical resource, and I look forward to some intelligent/clever publisher throwing him a book contract to put the best together under one cover, again one hopes, in the not too distant …” (Paul Sakoilsky, Artist, October 2018)

CONTACT>>>  if you want to get in touch then the ONLY e.mail address is organzine at aol dot com – that is where you find us, there is no other address, please RESPECT THIS AND don’t try to bypass things by seaking out personal addresses or addresses associated with other things we do.  And there is no street address, if you wish to send something for review via the physical post then please contact us first (we really don’t want thousands of CDs we didn’t ask for, we already can’t move in here for them), feel free to send links to your Bandcamp pages and such, if we like what we hear, we’ll be on the case. We can’t always reply, we do get lots (and lots) of submissions but we do REALLY listen to everything and we do get back when we can.  Please be reasonable before you contact us though, have a look at what we cover, ask yourself is it really the kind of thing they cover or play on the radio show? If you think it is then fire it our way and if it is we’ll get back to you. Do please remember though, support is a two way thing…

In terms of visual art, if you’re running a show, if you have something to say or share we welcome it all, we do read everything, we do check out the links, we do especially want to know about shows in smaller artist-led spaces, yes there is a slight (East) London bias but that is where we’re based right now. Art is probably the priority these days, more than enough has been given to music, before all else I am a painter, a working artist, a curator here in East London with a passion for music, paint is the priority though. Do respect this and don’t be sending Organ business via any address you might find on my art website, the Organ e.mail address is up there, it is the one to use for art shows and everything else. E.mails sent about anything you want coveriing via the Organ pages or things you want featured on the radio anywhere else will, with polite respect, be ignored. If on the other hand you want to talk to me about my art then please go to my art website, about Cultivate then the Cultivate website is the place, Other Rock Show stuff to the Organ address. Press releases and links about msuic, your art, yuor exhbitions, your gallery to the Organ only please – organzine at aol dot com. 

GET ON THE MAILING LIST…

You can keep up with daily news updates in terms of what we’re posting here on these Organ pages by following the Organ Facebook page or the Twitter feed or better still get yourself on the mailing list and get a mailout around once every two weeks or so with updates on what we’re covering

MAILING LIST>>>  SIGN UP HERE >>>> Would you like an update on everything featured on the Organ pages?  A once every couple of weeks or so update newsletter e.mail reminder to keep you in touch with who and/or what we’ve featured and what you might have missed?

REVIEW POLICY – We do really look at or listen to everything that comes in via e.mail and such, we really check out all your press releases and such, we honestly do, you don’t need to send us those (very) annoying “ICYMI” e.mails again and again, we didn’t miss it! You really don’t need to keep on sending us the same press release with the same link to the same piece of music or art show again and again.  We do listen to everything, we do go to lots (and lots) of art shows, we read the many many press releases and if we have something positive to say we say it.  If you’re in a band or you’re an artist and we don’t get back to you then that only means it didn’t really interest us or we’re waiting until we have a moment to come check it out, we’ve given up actually replying now when something doesn’t” do it” for us, the reason for this is because it tends to result in an abusive response from you and we really don’t have the time to be dealing with it. If we have something positive to say we say it, or we come along and check it out, we write about it. if you want to invite us to something then feel free to do so, if you want to ask us if we’re interested in recieving something feel free… 

So please, enough with those damn annoying “in case you missed it” e.mails, we get hundreds of them…. Oh and when we do cover something then please support us, share it, tell people, post the link on your social media feed and such, support is a two way thing, a litlte more than a “like” on Twitter please, if you can’t support us back then do’t expect us to just support you again and again, we are not here as part of your PR campaign or your marketing plan, don’t be like that lot at that other record labelor that art gallery up the road, don’t take it all for granted and then come back and demand more.

HISTORY>>> Organ has taken many forms since the early hand screen-printed handmade photocopied zine days of the late 80’s (those days when zines were actually sold at gigs and such) These days Organ comes in this stripped-down back-to-basics blog-shaped form, a selected Thing Of The Day”,  an art event, a band, a book, a zine, a painting, a new album, a thing….

These pages are about digging around in the underculture, the creative underground, about sharing some of the music, art and more that excites us.  Create has always been the main word with Organ, “create” was often screenprinted across the handmade covers of early paper Organs.  Sharing links, posting up the signposts that point you in direction of exciting artists, new bands, galleries, exhibitions, events, animation, a new painting, a new video from an old band, an art show opening, a new wall painted.

We (we being Sean Worrall and Marina O) started Organ because, well besides being slightly addicted to creativity and wanting to be doing things rather than just consuming things, we started Organ because the bands, the gigs  that were exciting us at the time just weren’t being covered. On the whole they still aren’t really, neither are the many art events that excite us, the artists in the back street galleries, we’re seeing loads of exciting art and stimulating artists, great shows, alternative galleries and art spaces alive with things that really do deserve to be covered…

These days Organ is just a blog, no big deal, true it gets thousands of hits from all over the world every day, and yes we’re still throwing things out there, but Organ is no big deal these days. We’re just here sharing things, exploring things, posting about things, a thing of the day.it is;nt the giant oftern thankless operation it once was, it was deliberately scaled right back to make way for the priority of paint and art galleries and art show. However, we are still covering lots of things that aren’t being covered anywhere else, especailly in terms of art…

Do feel free to tell us what you’re doing if you think it might interest us and our readers and followers .

THE HISTORY – ORGAN zine, kissing big ugly sharks, in one form or another  since 1986, explore some past things here…

Since Organ’s birth back in late 1986, it has enjoyed a life as, firstly a very hand made, hand screen printed, hand painted underground zine, then as a full on glossy magazine (there was about 100 print zine editions), a very busy website.  There have been issues pasted on walls, released on cassette, there’s been a record label called ORG (I think we put out something like 200 different albums, singles, slices of vinyl and such back there).  There was a weekly TV show for a couple of years (way before the days of YouTube, this was on your proper TV), we’ve been regularly broadcasting on London-based arts radio station Resonance FM for a number of years now. Organ existed for many many years in many formats.

Back in the late 80’s Organ was a handmade labour of love, in the 90’s it was a full on time-eating glossy production, there was hundreds of Organ gigs and events all over London, there was a busy record label, at one point we were printing 20,000 magazines a month, way too big a monster). In the early part of this century Organ evolved in to a web-based animal.  In 2011, after 25 years of grinding, we knocked almost all of it on the head (besides the radio shows), we closed down the big website and went off to catch up with some of the other things the time eating Organ monster had got in the way of. Organ ate up far too much of our lives for far too many years, it was brilliant, thankless, annoying, invigorating, messy, chaotic, good, bad, angry, happy – we could have compromised and got rich on the back of it but sucking up to the music industry was never our way, we did it all our way, we mostly had a blast.

November 2012 and you find Organ coming at you in a low key no thrills no messing kind of way, no big noise, no big fanfare, no plan – a no thrills simple blog just for the pure enjoyment of discovering, sharing and enjoying, a stripped down Organ just for the hell of it. This page is not here to help further your career or be part of your marketing plan (ddin;t we say that already up there?), I’m just here sharing a few things (it is mostly me, Sean) and enjoying exploring some art, music and whatever else without any commitment to anything. It may go on for ages, it may stop tomorrow…

Just here to kiss that big ugly shark a little more, contact and switch the other… the word is still create and it is still about doing it yourself.

ORGAN – Music, art, underculture, and kissing big ugly sharks since 1986.

Organ is brought to you, by Sean, with the occasional contribution from Marina (who can mostly be found over there playing around in 5/8 with her Other Rock Show).

S.W

A very small slice of the Organ archives, click on a nimage to enlarge or to run the fractured slide show, there’s lots lots more here on the Organ Facebook page ….