Whatever happened to ORG Records? Well it blossomed gloriously for a while and then I guess it all came to a natural end, it became a bit of a monster at the end, far too big when we never really wanted it to be. There were something like 200 releases on CD, vinyl or tape, there is a half decent but not always accurate list on Discogs (I have tried correcting them but they insist they know more than us, there’s quite a bit missing actually and one or two things listed that certainly have nothing to do with us, actually I’d give that Discogs list 6 out of 10 at most).  If we include the days of the very DIY tape label then ORG Records ran from the late 80s until something like 2007 and that Cardiacs Ditzy Scene single which kind of felt like a good time to stop). The first proper ORG Release was an Angel Inteceptor limited edition 7″ (1000 pressing) in a pink wraparound cover that had gloss paint dripped all over in a Jackson Pollock kind of way, that was back in 1993. There had been an Atom Seed 12″EP in 1990 that also came as a initial pressing of 1000 in hand customised hand numbered hand over-printed orange and black covers (that release was in conjunction with FM Revolver/Heavy Metal records). Before that Atom Seed vinyl there was a lot on tape releases, individual releases from bands such as No One, Stone Cold, Omnia Opera, The Lettuces, Bolt Thrower, Paradox as well as those Organ Radio compilation tapes sold by hand at gigs or via the mailorder networks and the underground distros of the time. Those Organ Radio compilations featured bands like Cardiacs, Sabbat, Ozric Tentacles, Webcore, Ring, Civilised Society? Wolfsbane, Slammer, Ark, Geoff Mann, Niadem’s Ghost, Oroonies, Osmium, Ullulators, Sea Nymphs, Saffron Dreamshadow, Lesbian Dopeheads on Mopeds (Gaye Bykers on Acid) and many many (many) more. There was that Goosebumps compilation tape in 1993, the first time we professionally duplicated something in serious numbers rather than in short batches, Goosebumps features a whole load of exciting bands – Scissormen, Mint 400, Cardiacs, Die Laughing, Pipedream, Frog, Poisoned Electrick Head, Homage Freaks and more…  

ORG Really properly kicked off as a label in 1994 with the follow up to that Angel Interceptor 7″ (Captain Scarlet’s lawyers didn’t like that name, Angel Interceptor became Angel Cage and hung around on ORG for a few years). ORG really kicked off with a couple of 10″ EPs from Huge Baby and Map, for fifteen minutes somewhere in 1994 Hugh Baby were just about the best thing out there, their gigs were vital, electric, alive, they could be very dangerous if you were down the front (even the mainstream press agreed, the NME talked of gigs that could be compared with early encounters with The Stooges or the Pistols), Huge Baby in their original form with the original frontman were rather special, if you were at one of those gigs at places like the Monarch, the Red Eye, the Robey, the Marquee or the Bull and Gate then you know and when they shared stages with Map well, wow! Hugh Baby really got a lot of attention then Angel Cage came back for more with that Boxtrimmer EP, then we were off with a Poloroid 12″ and a white label dance remix – Polaroid’s lawyers didn’t like that one, Poloroid quickly became Inaura, went off to a major label and once again came back to ORG later on as bands often did…). There were early releases for Pura Vida, the outrageous East End punk rock chaos of Gog Magog (they were excellent), there was The Monsoon Bassoon, Pepperman, Pop-A-Cat-A-Petal (later to become Ultrasound for their 15 minutes of moderate almost-fame, ego bombs and major label hype that inevitably crashed and burnt), then there were more singles and an album from Angel Cage, there was that excellent (and rather underrated) Rhatigan album, Dream City Film Club‘s early moves, then there was the first of a number of Cardiacs single that got them a little more exposure than they had previously enjoyed (radio play here and overseas, mainstream press, that big Blur festival in Mile End we had to fight to get them on and such, there’s a few radio DJs and music press people who will tell you they were always life-long supporters of Cardiacs who really weren’t willing to stand up back there, there were people at our distribution company who pleaded with us not to release Cardiacs records, of course we were always going to release Cardiacs records!).  

Then came the infamous Organ Radio compilation CDs that were a follow on to those underground compilation tapes sold by hand in the late 80s, the first two Organ Radio CDs emerged in the late 90s with a focus on the then rather heathy UK hardcore punk crossover scene and featured Pulkas, King Prawn, Assert, Pepperman, FLS (loved that FLS track!), Medulla Nocte, Applecore, Cynical Smile and more. We did go on to release what I still think was an excellent album from Southend hardcore fighters Cynical Smile. The Organ Radio CDs went on until there were 21 releases in the series, the final one featured 16 bands including San Francisco Hardcore Punk legends Everything Must Go (people from Neurosis and such) as well as Thee More Shallows, 65Days of Static, Suitable Case For Treatment, Troublemaker and more. Over four or five years of the 21 Organ Radio CDs we featured way too many fine bands to list here – Cay, Cardiacs, Herb Heinz, Raging Speedhorn, Iron Monkey, Rachel Stamp, Pipedream, Rothko, Jolt, Aerobitch, Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Gee Strings, Kane, Knuckles, Sugargun, One Minute Silence, Earthtone 9, Pop Tarts, Scarehead, Pornorphans, Muy Feo, My Vitriol, Monkey Boy, oh there were loads of great bands on those Organ Radio CDs, some who went on to make their mark, some who did very little more and just exist for those brief glorious moments in time… 

There was that Cardiacs And Affectionate Friends album, that aforementioned Rhatigan album, albums for Angel Cage, Inaura, Cynical Smile, Coptic Rain, prog flavoured Napalm Death offshoot Little Giant Drug, Global Noise Attack, the colour of that Sack Trick album, the glammy garage punk of those Sonic Boom Boys (RIP Geoff, Geoff Starr really was a beautiful guy), there was that Latch/Stoopi split album, that Charlie’s Angels album and those singles and that couple of weeks of chaotic TV appearances – Big Breakfast, those encounters with Lou Reed, that tour with PJ and Duncan, oh the tales we could tell about touring with Ant and Dec! A tour that ended at the Albert Hall an all kinds of things we really can’t talk about. There was that Jon Poole album of Zappa covers, there was a Sleepy People album, a Remote Control album, a Sunlounger album that got some rave reviews, if only the band had backed it up just a little.     

There were singles for Cardiacs, for Cuban Boys and that single John Peel loved so much and almost led to their follow up a Christmas number one, dashed only by Cliff, hey we’ll forgive him, Move It still remains the greatest seven inch singles released by anyone ever. There were singles for Mogul, Liberty 37, Disco Pistol, Breed 77, Beatmolls, Speedurchin, thart very first Brian Jonestown Massacre release in the UK and those 20 bonus tracks hidden at the end of the single that now changes hands for silly money (as much as we liked the music, that release became a nightmare, so much so we eventually aborted the idea of a follow up BJM album, yer man was just too unpleasant to put up with back there. I hear Anton has mellowed a little now, hope he’s a little more as ease with life and people now he’s got some of what he always wanted) there were debut singles for the brilliant Cay and My Vitriol (both who would later return to ORG after major label nightmares, that final Cay single was almost as brilliant as the first, RIP Anet, we have lost quite a few along the way, Cay were really underrated, they were special, still really proud of those Cay releases, wish we could have done more to get them back on the rails). There was that Sea Nymphs single that became a daytime BBC Radio One single of the week back there as well as getting the band a much deserved John Peel session as we carefully avoided mentioning that Sea Nymphs were really the quieter side of Cardiacs back in the days when people who now claim to be big Cardiacs fans wouldn’t go anywhere near them, oh the crap that was thrown at us for putting on Cardiacs gigs and writing about them on so much back there). Actually John Peel was a big ORG supporter, one of the very few, he would often chase us about bands before we chased him, he was regularly on the phone asking about some band we’d featured in Organ and where could he get a release or such, thanks Mr Peel, we still miss what you stood for). There was of course the ORG-AN-ISED Single Series, there was that rather fine rather experimental Schultz/Eriksson For The Sake of Clarity seven inch, that was a particular highlight. Oh, I’m going to miss out someone important while I bang this brief history out, almost forgot that Cardiacs/Camp Blackfoot split single (there was going to be a Camp Blackfoot album but they, as brilliant as they were, they were a bit of a nightmare as well), that Done Lying Down/Angel Cage split single, who else have we forgot? Can’t forget the glorious late-night chaos and the bruises of Anti-Marilyn!

There were singles for Your Highness, Saint Silas Intercession (who evolved out of Dream City Flim Club and later became the excellent Miraculous Mule), there was thar The Once Over Twice, Everything Must Go, Desman, Three Children of Fortune, Our Lives, The Smears (the UK band although we did almost put out an album for US band of the same name), Leave The Capital, A secret Society (aka My Vitriol), the awfully mismanaged Imperial Leisure, that excellent To The Bones/Herzoga split CD single that also featured hidden tracks on the same disc, and a hidden Organ Radio Number 20 that featured Vile Vile Creatures, Flies Are Spies From Hell, Map, Lower Forty-Eight, Vessels, Cove, Cerebus Shoal, Zag and The Coloured Beads, Ral Partha Vogelbacher and a few more. There was that Pure Reason Revolution single, singles from Gene Serene, Stimulator, Inimenter, Shindler, Syndrome, oh there was a lot of singles, we liked releasing singles, I grew up on seven inch singles. It all got a little too big in the end though, as did Organ magazine (that by the first decade of this century had become something far bigger and far more glossy than the handmade zine it originally was).  We only really wanted a DIY homemade label, and the ethics of it all meant that we gave all the bands artistic control when really I should have been a dictator and said no to some of that (awful) cover art and insisting on a more in-house look to it all. The whole thing got too big, dealing with distributors, bands that just used us as a stepping stone and forgot to say thanks, annoying managers, I could write a whole book about clueless managers like the one who would pretend he was talking on his mobile phone walking down Charring Cross Road just to impress people back in the days when mobile phones were a relatively new thing. And I really didn’t like all the download and the idea of not having a physical release, the illegal sharing, that final Cardiacs single was a particular nightmare with everyone thinking they could just post it up as a free download pretty much before it was even in the shops and all that “we’re just supporting the band” and not much of a thought for the label that really was supporting the band from some of the fans who were sharing the release on line, that really was pretty much (one of) the very last straws and well it was mostly fun and there was to be three Cardiacs singles of which Ditzy Scene was the first and daily plotting with Tim about the album they were working on and then, well you know the rest. We’ve lost far too many people along the way, there isn’t a day when we don’t talk about or think about Tim Smith.   

Mostly ORG Records was a positive thing, I really don’t want to pick out highlights, we still feel good about pretty much all the music we put out, the numerous Cardiacs/Sea Nymphs releases and the adventures that came with them were obviously special, people still talk in dark corners about that Hugh Baby ten incher and those blistering early gigs. Those beautiful Cay singles meant a lot, Charlie’s Angels were glorious pop art fun for fifteen minutes, that Angel Cage album still sounds good (besides that cover art, I did argue about that cover art at the time, the Boxtrimmer cover was way more in line with their attitude back there). The Brian Jonestown Massacre/Dandy Warhols period and all the fighting for the Dandys when their label wasn’t interested in releasing their music in the UK was certainly “interesting”. Still feel good about the early raw Motorheadness of that very punk rock Everything Must Go single, that Map ten inch was glorious, Cynical Smile’s very Southend take on Hardcore crossover punk rock that America got far more than England ever did and no, I really don’t want to pick out highlights, we enjoyed (almost) all of it, would we do it again? No chance! It ate up far too much painting time, although… (sw)   

There might be a few things here on Bandcamp or via the Cultivate shop from time to time    

One we’ll take some better photos…