The Secret History Behind the “Porky Prime Cut” Etchings
The whole “Porky Prime Cut” mystery starts with one man: **George Peckham**, a Liverpool-born mastering engineer with a wicked sense of humor, golden ears, and the kind of chaotic creative streak that you’d normally associate with drummers, not vinyl cutters. In the 1960s and 70s, Peckham became a legend in UK mastering rooms — not because he behaved, but because he *didn’t*. While most engineers quietly cut lacquers and went home, Peckham turned the dead wax into his personal graffiti wall.
The story goes like this: after years working at Apple Studios and cutting everything from punk to prog to pop, Peckham started etching little messages into the runout groove — partly as a signature, partly as a joke, partly because he liked leaving fingerprints on the music he touched. His favorite tag became the now-mythic phrase **“A Porky Prime Cut”**, stamped onto thousands of UK records. It meant one thing: *George cut this lacquer, and he thinks it sounds damn good*.
Collectors eventually figured out that a Porky cut often *did* sound better — louder, punchier, with more presence — because Peckham didn’t shy away from pushing grooves to their limits. His cuts for bands like Joy Division, Led Zeppelin, Buzzcocks, and The Fall became prized because they had that extra, almost reckless energy. Punk bands loved him because he treated their racket with the seriousness it deserved; major-label bands loved him because he gave them edge. Everyone else loved him because his sense of humor leaked straight into the records.
And the inscriptions? They got weirder. Porky would scratch in cryptic phrases, inside jokes, personal messages, and occasional nonsense — “Don’t waste your time,” “Loud cut,” “You’re lucky,” “I’ve had a hard day,” and dozens more. Two copies of the same release might have totally different runout messages, which only fuels collector chaos today.
What started as a one-man Easter egg hunt turned into a fully recognized part of vinyl culture. Spotting a Porky etching in the dead wax gives the whole record a little spark: you know someone cared, someone laughed, someone pushed the limits of a cutting lathe late at night in a smoky studio.
The beauty of it? Peckham never acted like he was creating a legacy. He was just carving personality into a format that usually hides the human touch. And decades later, every time I tilt a 7-inch under good light and see “A Porky Prime Cut,” I feel that little jolt of connection — like catching a wink across time from someone who absolutely refused to be boring.
