Small Wonder Records - The Exhibition 5th-24th September 2016
Punk Waltham Forest September-November 2016
Writers Note: This article was originally due to be published by Maximum Rock 'N' Roll back in 2016, but a change of staff at the fanzine, meant the article was lost. It is published here in full for the first time.
In 1975 the suburb of Walthamstow located in the north East London borough of Waltham Forest gave birth to the seminal shop & pioneering punk label Small Wonder Records whose staff were fervently inspired by the Do It Yourself ethos of that musical movement. Shop workers would spend their days undertaking activities such as cataloguing the latest releases & fufilling orders at the tiny location of 162 Hoe Street & From the 5th-24th September 2016 & 4 decades on from it's original incarnation, Hoe Street once again became home to this influential record label in the form of a temporary pop up exhibition, a short distance from its previous location. Curated by video journalist Neil Meads & photographer Julia Spicer and assembled to recreate features of the original, with shop fittings, tills, posters & stickers lining walls and mirrors, even minor details such as the behind the counter storage for LP’s were accounted for. The resulting visual time capsule, created not in order to rehash times past, but instead acting as an informative historical experience as well as giving visitors an insight into what it was like to be part of the musical and political winds of change during the 1970’s.
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The Pop-up store front replicating the original location. Photo: Adam Farrar
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Crass 'The Feeding The Five Thousand' Banner. Photo: Adam Farrar
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A window decal based on the original 'Small Wonder' Logo. Photo: Adam Farrar
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The nucleus for the shop was first created when Pete Stennett who at this point in time, worked as a warehouse troubleshooter at the vinyl plating and pressing plant Phonodisc. Pete was given the opportunity to enter a competition to write as editor of the in-house magazine & as luck would have it he was announced the winner and remained in this this position for over four years before it was eventually axed and he made redundant. The money received from his redundancy helped kick-start his own record store, which would become Small Wonder Records
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Early label identity's, fanzines and assorted art. Photo: Adam Farrar
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The shops record label identity was cemented when a photograph discovered at Kensington market (although rumour has it, that it was actually found between some floorboards at a property) featured a caucasian wife and her black husband sat poised for a photo holding their baby, (mixed race relationships in the UK were still rare at this point in history, at least publicly) Pete felt that he identified with the baby in the photo, dubbed 'the small wonder' due to its circumstance.
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| Puncture's 'Mucky Pup' and The Zero's 'Hungry/Radio Fun' & associated paraphernalia. Photo: Adam Farrar |
Although Pete & his wife Mari Stennett initially stocked unusual & hard to obtain music that appealed their customers or their own tastes, It was a live performance by the Sex Pistols in June 1976 at the Assembly Hall in Walthamstow that would set the precedent for everything the label and shop would become. Changing their stock to accommodate this new breed of music, they eventually found themselves in the position of creating their own releases for bands that were friends & acquaintances, starting with the Puncture 7” Mucky Pup/You Can’t Rock ‘N’ Roll (In A Council Flat) (Small One, 1977) Later notoriously covered by Scottish punks The Exploited on their 1981 album Punks Not Dead. Reinvesting in the success of the Puncture record, Small Wonder became a launching pad for many new groups, a small cross section including Fatal Microbes (pre Rubella Ballet & Honey Bane) Leyton Buzzards, The Cravats, The Wall, Angelic Upstarts, Menace, Cockney Rejects & early records by inaugural Goth/Post Punk acts Bauhaus and The Cure. But the label was also on the cusp of the emerging Anarcho punk movement, with titles such as Hex (WEENY 4, 1979) by The Poison Girls and release of the debut Crass 12” The Feeding Of The Five Thousand (WEENY 2, 1979) with the penultimate single being, the Anthrax (Gravesend Kent) 7” 'They’ve Got It All Wrong' (Small 27, 1983)
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Interior photo of the venue.
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Backroom overview.
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Although the label grew in strength with each passing year, a succession of events in 1981 cut the lifespan of the label short, when local Walthamstow residents the Khans were victims of a racially aggravated firebombing incident, which claimed the lives of four individuals and led to an increase in the borough’s racial tension. The local neighbourhood came to pay their respects at their funeral but this was in turn marred by groups of National Front clashes while the public continued to mourn the loss of a respected figure in the community.
Further upset came from a petrol bomb attack and a swastika daubed on to the shutters of 'Small Wonder' These events were considered another step too far, sealing the fate of the label and forcing the owners to shut the operation down, only to reappear as a short-lived mail-order service at a new location in Suffolk (East England)
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| Newspaper clipping discussing the Khans and subsequent increased racial tension. Photo: Adam Farrar |
Instantly apparent from working your way through the selection of artifacts on display at the pop-up are the overwhelming array of talent associated with the label, creating everything from disc art, sleeves, inserts & promotional material. A truly DIY operation from start to finish.
Local fanzines like Fair Dukes established the label in its formative years and live gigs promoted under the moniker of 'Final Solution' by Colin Faver (a sleeve art designer & producer at the label) helped to quickly establish the Small Wonder roster of bands & releases.
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A photograph of Pete Stennett & a Proles mock up sleeve and notes. Photo: Adam Farrar
Of particular note & slotted between walls of paragraphs detailing an informative history of the label, is the inclusion of archival material such as one off original comic strip drawings illustrated by bass player Tom Johnston of post punk outfit The, The making referencing to the store. Also featured were hundreds of original news clippings, articles, notes and posters. The back of the exhibit features a template sketch for the Proles self-titled 7 inch (Small 23, 1979) and the finished graphics based on this mockup completed by print studio, Delga Press Limited Archival material such as this is valuable in understanding what takes a release from point A to B but unfortunately is often lost. As a result we are given a real insight into the process of making a record. |
Another wall reveals full colour posters for neo-dadist act The Cravats and numerous flyers for various shows, giving further examples of strikingly effective traditional creativity made in the days of pre image editing software.
It’s fascinating to see that the original location of Small Wonder Records is now a rather unassuming looking convenience store selling Eastern European foods. Visiting the location in person gives you a clear feel for its history with its tight rooms and stacked shelves with only a blue plaque (usually reserved for the like of poets, writers & other such creatives) placed above the preceding flat entrance serving to tell you that this was once the location of this landmark piece of history. While the story behind Small Wonder was for many years conserved to the few who knew about it or were there in person (In fact little was documented on the Internet before this event) Thanks to this exhibition Punk Waltham Forest has put the label back firmly on the map with a wealth of other important independent labels from the 70’s and early 80’s.
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Plaque commemorating Small Wonders original location. Photo: Adam Farrar
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Running concurrently with the exhibition were a number of events happening in locations across the borough, including live music, films, a number of speakers discussing this era, music history tours and pop up art events. Penny Rimbaud (Crass) rounded out the program with a last minute Q&A session and Zillah Minx (Rubella Ballet) also introduced her documentary She’s A Punk Rocker U.K to a live audience, a film which explores female involvement in Punk Rock.
After the show had finished its stint in Walthamstow it was recreated as a short bitesized incarnation at the Hale End Library (also located in Waltham Forest) from the 3rd– 22nd October 2016 before finally completing its journey at the Leytonstone Library running from the 7th– 26th November 2016.
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Elvis Costello during His 'My Aim Is True' era. Photo: Adam Farrar
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Recreations of the shop interior. Photo: Adam Farrar
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| Examles of the type of records that would have been for sale. Photo: Adam Farrar |
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| The front desk. Photo: Adam Farrar |
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Newspaper clippings, label releases & the influence of the Sex Pistols. Photo: Adam Farrar
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The Cure's 1978 debut release, issued by Small Wonder. Photo: Adam Farrar
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Gig posters and label releases. Photo: Adam Farrar
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Further 'Crass' artifacts. Photo: Adam Farrar
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| Poison Girls and the Anarcho punk movement. Photo: Adam Farrar |
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Honey Bane with The Fatal Microbes. Photo: Adam Farrar
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A number of gig flyers, notes & further releases that featured on the label. Photo: Adam Farrar
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Further label overview. Photo: Adam Farrar
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Bauhaus 'Bela Lugosi's Dead' a benchmark in goth & post punk. Photo: Adam Farrar
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| Close-up of the Poison Girls/'Fatal Microbes' 12" Photo: Adam Farrar |
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Further label paraphernalia & article about the tragic loss of the Khan family. Photo Adam Farrar
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Two singles from the burgeoning early Oi movement. Photo: Adam Farrar
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Various collected newspaper clippings & photos. Photo: Adam Farrar
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Striking and thought provoking work by artist and musician Gee Vaucher. Photo: Adam Farrar
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| How the original mailorder forms looked. Photo: Adam Farrar |
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| Cover art for the debut LP by long running Dada, Jazz Punk outfit, The Cravats. Photo: Adam Farrar |
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Later releases in the label discography & the transition into Ugly Child Records Photo: Adam Farrar
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Charting the later years & demise of the record label. Photo: Adam Farrar
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