Lame Gig Contest is the only full-length studio album by the Berkeley, California-based punk rock band Crimpshrine. After previously being rejected by the band's label Lookout Records, it was finally released in January 1989 in Germany on Musical Tragedies. The first 1,000 copies of the album featured a yellow cover, while a later pressing of 500 was released with blue. Although the majority of the songs were recorded specifically for the album, Lame Gig Contest also contained tracks from previous sessions. The songs "Rearranged" and "Another Day" were originally featured on the Maximumrocknroll compilation Turn It Around! in 1987, while "Concrete Lawns", "MSFMB" and "2nd Generation Junkies" were unreleased recordings from the sessions of their Sleep, What's That? EP.

Having stayed out of print after its second pressing, the album was widely bootlegged by fans for several years. In 1992, a number of the tracks were featured on the posthumous Lookout compilation album Duct-Tape Soup, while most of the others were released on The Sound of a New World Being Born in 1998. The only songs from the album not to see release in the United States were "New Scenery" and "Concrete Lawns". Since the closure of Lookout in 2012, both compilations have gone out of print.

Shortly after the release of Crimpshrine's debut EP Sleep, What's That?, the group recruited friend Idon Bryant as their rhythm guitarist. Although the group was not searching for a second guitarist, Bryant had been previously considered the "unofficial fourth member" for some time and was hired because he "fit in really well" and added a "heavier sound" to the band, freeing vocalist/guitarist Jeff Ott to concentrate more on singing. The band decided to record its debut full-length in April, and set out to Dancing Dog Studios in Emeryville, California with Kevin Army. However, when the band attempted to release the album, it was rejected by Lookout Records so they scrapped the recordings and decided to release it on a cassette tape later. Despite this, one song from the session, "Summertime", was featured on the Lookout compilation The Thing That Ate Floyd later that year. Crimpshrine later embarked on its only United States tour in September and, due to tensions, Bryant and bassist Pete Rypins left the band abruptly after a show in Texas. Ott and Elliot then hired Paul Curran as their new bassist, and he and his brother drove out to finish the tour. After the tour ended in December, the band was approached by Florian Schück, owner of German label Musical Tragedies, who wanted permission to release a Crimpshrine album. The group accepted and gave him the rejected Lookout recordings, along with other previously-unreleased songs, and Lame Gig Contest was released on Musical Tragedies in January 1989.

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