Fast Product
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Fast Product were an independent record label, established in Edinburgh, Scotland by Bob Last in December 1977.
They are probably best remembered for issuing the first records by the Human League, Gang of Four and The Mekons. Equally vital was their release of three 'ear comics': Earcom One featuring The Prats, The Flowers, The Blank Students and Graph; Earcom Two featuring The Thursdays, Basczax and Joy Division; and Earcom Three featuring DAF, Stupid Babies, Noh Mercy, The Middle Class and From Chorley.
Fast Product also produced 'subversive commodities' that problematised pop music (hence their early monikkers - 'difficult fun' and 'mutant pop') and politicised their youthful buyers into a consciousness of taking control of the means of expression, getting confident and reappropriating the means of production. Often packaging their 'products' with a caustic yet subtle sideswipe at consumerism (the image of a wall of gold disks on the cover of the Mekons first single etc), Fast Product showed how all aspects of the record business, from musicianship to design to distribution, could be taken out of the hands of the major labels.
Fast Product's activities have been taken as a blueprint for a 'living culture'.
Bob Last went on to establish the Pop Aural label with such acts as The Flowers, Boots For Dancing and The Fire Engines.