Playground - Final - Cassette 1987

Playground started as an idea in 1985 by both Richard Johnson (4) and Andy P., who together were also respectively editing/publishing and writing the popular Grim Humour ’zine. Rehearsals intially comprised them and their friends Dylan Hollinsbee, Harvey ’Havoc’ Francis and a couple of others improvising a kind of industrial-tainted noise-rock around a drum machine. As well as guitars, the band would use backing tapes and a keyboard sometimes. During the course of a year, however, the sound developed from being ramshackle and sludge-like to something more powerful, helped no less by the arrival of Paul Dudeney on drums and Paul ’Fuzz’ Wright on bass (themselves replacing ’Havoc’ and was asked to leave the band for being too good a musician). Still drawing from industrial music and both post-punk (such as Wire, The Fall, The Cure, ATV - whose ’Splitting In Two’ they covered initially) and its sprawling into the then extremely vibrant scene centred around NYC and