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Fast Tunes Ltd

@fasttunesltd.bsky.social
227 followers 137 following 200 posts

We are Fast Tunes, the smallest recording organisation in the world. Twenty-five years ago, give or take 6 months, vintage telly nerds Gavin Sutherland and Martin Fenton started compiling a list of broadcasting-related things they’d like to record.

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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Corporation Tax collywobbles: 1. File tax return in timely manner. 2. Wait a year. 3. Get fined by HMRC for not filing. 4. Send HMRC proof that you did, in fact, file your tax. 5. Get a letter saying you need to file your tax for ONE DAY last year. And so it goes…
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Spare a thought for Arthur Wood, a jobbing library music composer who had only just started receiving appreciable royalties for his work when he died. The theme tune to The Archers. Has there ever been a complete recording of My Native Heath? I only know of recordings of 3 of its 4 movements.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
I remember that week. We’d moved house on the Saturday and I had measles. I spent the week sitting miserably in bed with a transistor radio for company while my poor mother unpacked an endless stream of boxes. On a more positive note, it was the week I discovered Radios 3 and 4.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
The Dreaded Auntie Sheila, who had form for buying Cliff Richard records, announced he’d “gone too far this time,” like he was Johnny Rotten or something.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Ooh. Terrific. Thank you.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Literary genius meets tiresome old shit.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
A precursor to Sorry! then?
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
What is The Magicians?
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Stockton Rush did the same thing.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Lacking a proper Crystal Baschet, I cobbled this together with half a dozen wine glasses, water, a moist finger, and lots of patience. The country was in lockdown. Time was the only thing that wasn’t running short. Double LP, CD, and digital download available now at fasttunes.bandcamp.com
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
The Churchill who, famously, detested the BBC? That Churchill?
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Tom Baker’s most memorable line. bsky.app/profile/andr...
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
In the silent version of Blackmail (1929), the Whites’ loaf is sliced lengthwise. They must have had a huge toaster. In both versions, the knife is revealed to be clean after the murder. This means that Mr Crewe was cooked through.
Still from the silent version of Hitchcock’s Blackmail showing a psychopath’s method of slicing a loaf.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
I see what you did there. “Lost their shit.” Applause.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Starring Joy Sarney?
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
I’ve got the jingle going round in my head now. “Check it out, check it out!”
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Brigit Forsyth told me and my mother I was “a lovely, polite little girl” when I was 8. I was a boy. bsky.app/profile/kayl...
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
When Stephen Milligan‘s death was announced on the news, I didn’t catch the first name and thought it was poor old Spike at first.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
We love you.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
I wrote to Pebble Mill some time around the year 2000 to point out that a their stock footage of the North Staffs Royal Infirmary showed a building which had been demolished a good decade earlier. They sent somebody out to update it shortly before they tore the rest of it down.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Round about that time, a teacher of mine insisted it was pronounced “Minnog,” to wind the kids up. Analogue. Monologue. Catalogue. Minogue. I couldn’t fault his logic.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
I was the voice of DEFRA on Farming Today for one week in 2003. bsky.app/profile/kayl...
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
I was the voice of DEFRA on Farming Today for one week in 2003.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
The nastiest of the premium brands by far, until they outsourced manufacturing (the era of clear shells in novelty colours.) The felt pads were guaranteed to rot and shed inside your cassette deck. Should have spent the extra 10p on TDK.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
I still think “Blue Heaven Is A Place On Earth” is the better lyric. We didn’t get Radio 1 on VHF for another couple of years round our way.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
You’d be thrilled if you were sitting on a lot of warm valves.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Pick a Bond villain from the photos already on your phone.
Gurning idiot from an old Lyril soap advert.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
She made 3 lovely albums before she transitioned.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Jim Davidson’s Little Acorn & 2 Crab Apples, more like.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Ye Gods! youtu.be/zdKiERHttZc?...
youtu.be
Cilla Black - Norwegian Wood (1971)
YouTube video by Mac Pattaya
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
There was a 10-second long cutdown version, too. Just the last scene.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Her version of Act Naturally has done the rounds on the bootleg market (because Ringo was on the show that week.) That’s, erm, a thing. I’d like to hear her singing You Know My Name, Look Up The Number. All of it.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
It must have been special for dad to remember it so clearly. Apparently, the backdrop was a crudely painted cyclorama of a street of terraced houses which looked as though it had been borrowed from Play School. “McCartney’s committed some musical crimes over the years, but he didn’t deserve that.”
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
My dad said that the Cilla version of Penny Lane, performed on BBC-1 when it was still a recent hit, was the most tasteless thing he’d ever heard. It had a “good evening friends” coda: “So now you know the score, ‘Cos all these things and more, They happened On Penny Lane.” Mercifully wiped.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Thank you. The Major needs a new needle for his gramophone.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Double LP. CD. Digital download. fasttunes.bandcamp.com
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
Gavin Sutherland Fans! I’ve found what might be the last surviving sealed copies of 4 albums I recorded for Gavin back in the 2000s. All proceeds to go into the Saving Up For Vol. 2 pot. tinyurl.com/nw95tnur
tinyurl.com
Pardon our interruption...
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
SALE! SALE! SALE! PLEASE BUY OUR RECORDS! THE MAJOR WILL NOT STOP SHOUTING! bsky.app/profile/fast...
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 01/11/2025
PRICES SLASHED IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS! SURPRISE YOUR LOVED ONES ON CHRISTMAS MORNING WITH A BLAST OF THE SWEENEY! fasttunes.bandcamp.com/album/the-ne... www.ebay.co.uk/itm/40582709... www.ebay.co.uk/itm/40634188... www.ebay.co.uk/itm/40528402...
fasttunes.bandcamp.com
The Next Programme Follows Shortly, by The Fast Tunes Orchestra arranged and conducted by Gavin Sutherland
50 track album
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
They knew how to build a good shockmount in 1935, even though the mics could barely reach 150Hz.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
“I’d like to publish the sheet music, Gordon.” “Get onto Hamlyn’s, Freddie. They’re doing the printed merch.” “Won’t they package it as a children’s book? The music is a bit advanced for children.” “It’s 13 bob a copy, Fred. Everybody’s got to learn somewhere.” I’m 49 and I’m struggling with it.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
Trumpton, 1967, and Paul Hamlyn Limited can’t decide on how Mrs Cobbit spells her name. I’m sure Mrs Honeyman would have told them if they’d asked. (Yes, I know. They lived in different towns.)
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 01/09/2025
Gavin Sutherland's fantastic composition Gairloch Variations is out today on Spotify. Give your ears a treat! open.spotify.com/track/10PWHB...
open.spotify.com
Gairloch Variations
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
Badly-framed image of spurious printout intended to suggest something is afoot.jpg
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
TV in the background, 20 years ago: “We’re introducing the new Sugababe. And you are…?” “I’m deranged!” At least that’s what I thought she said. I’ve just found out she was actually called Heidi Range. Me with my finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist, there.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
I’m only assuming it’s not mid-side because it’s Decca.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
But it’s good stereo, just not mono compatible. There’s a solid centre image. It might even be mid-side with an outrigger on the piano. There’s no way of correcting for that (unless you involve AI, I suppose) without throwing the piano out of phase. It should decode to surround nicely, though.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
That would make sense. My favourite engineer.
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Fast Tunes Ltd @fasttunesltd.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
It’s essentially reduced to two mics - the main stage mic, and the piano. I know about the phase problem because one of the Hattie Jacques tracks is in stereo on a compilation. I’ve added the stereo to my want list, but I’m questioning myself whether I’ll ever listen to it.
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