Early career

Turkington rose to prominence in the mid-1980s as the publisher of underground zine Breakfast Without Meat which brought punk respectability to "square" musical artists such as Tiny Tim, Jimmy Webb, the 101 Strings, and Richard Harris through feature articles. A frequent contributor to the zine was Derrick Bostrom of the Meat Puppets.

In the 1980s, Turkington also performed in obscure San Francisco bands such as Caroliner, Hello Kitty on Ice and Bean Church, and worked at Subterranean Records, contributing artwork and live recordings to Flipper's Public Flipper Limited Live 1980-1985 album.

In the early 1990s, Turkington operated the Amarillo Records label, which released works by many artists from San Francisco's post-punk avant-garde music scene. He was a member of The Easy Goings, Totem Pole of Losers and the Zip Code Rapists (with John Singer). He collaborated with Trey Spruance of Mr. Bungle in The Three Doctors, Faxed Head (with James Goode, Trey Spruance, and Phil Franklin), Secret Chiefs 3, Colonel Truth (with Brandan Kearney and Rebecca G. Wilson) and The Bon Larvis Band. Many of these bands appeared on 1996's Amarillo Records compilation CD, You Gan’t Boar Like An Eabla When You Work With Turkrys, along with the likes of Sun City Girls, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, U.S. Saucer, Harvey Sid Fisher, Dieselhed, and Church of Satan founder Anton Szandor LaVey. He was also a tour manager for both Link Wray and Mr. Bungle. He contributed lead vocals to two tracks by the Secret Chiefs 3.^[5]

In the late 1990s, Turkington had abandoned Amarillo Records and all of his musical projects and moved to Melbourne, Australia, where he lived until 2003. Since then, he has written the book Warm Voices Rearranged: Anagram Record Reviews with fellow Three Doctors alumnus Brandan Kearney, also of World of Pooh, Caroliner, and Archipelago Brewing Co. He was a contributing editor to the British version of Maxim in 2005 and 2006, as well as to Johan Kugelberg's 2013 book Enjoy The Experience: Homemade Records 1958–1992.

In 2005 and 2006, after ten years of inactivity, his musical duo Zip Code Rapists did a handful of reunion shows, performing in San Francisco, Saint Paul, Minnesota, Toronto, and Montreal.

He has provided various voices for the animated series The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Aqua Teen Hunger Force,^[6] Adventure Time, Sanjay and Craig, and Gravity Falls. A parody screenplay entitled "Bicycle Built for Two" which was co-written with Tim Heidecker was published in McSweeney's #36 in December 2010.

Turkington appears in the full-length independent drama The Comedy, directed by Rick Alverson and starring Tim Heidecker.^[7] The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2012.

On Cinema era

Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington star in Adult Swim's web series On Cinema at the Cinema, portraying a pair of hapless movie reviewers. Turkington's persona in the series is that of a self-described movie expert, although he rarely provides any useful criticism, lauds forgettable films, and often fails to correctly answer simple trivia questions.^[8] The series has run for thirteen seasons thus far,^[9] with guest appearances by Jimmy McNichol, Joe Estevez, Sally Kellerman, Candy Clark, Peyton Reed, and John Aprea. In 2013 the On Cinema Film Guide app was released, featuring the voices of Turkington and Heidecker reviewing over 17,000 films. Turkington also co-stars as Special Agent Kington in the On Cinema at the Cinema spin-off series Decker.^[3]

Turkington had a role in Marvel Studios' 2015 movie Ant-Man.^[10][11] He appeared in the series finale of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation as bombing suspect Lawrence Territo.^[12][3]

In 2022, Turkington appeared as his On Cinema persona in the episode about The Wizard of Oz of the Shudder movie documentary series Cursed Films.^[13]

Solo

as Neil Hamburger

• 1992 – Great Phone Calls Featuring Neil Hamburger – (Amarillo)
• 1996 – America's Funnyman (Drag City)
• 1998 – Raw Hamburger (Drag City)
• 1998 – Neil Hamburger Pays Tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales (EP) (Planet Pimp)
• 1999 – Left for Dead in Malaysia (Drag City)
• 2000 – Inside Neil Hamburger (EP) (Drag City)
• 2000 – 50 States, 50 Laughs (Million Dollar Performances)
• 2002 – Laugh Out Lord (Drag City)
• 2003 – Live at Phoenix Greyhound Park DVD (Kung Fu)
• 2005 – Great Moments at Di Presa's Pizza House (Drag City)
• 2005 – The World's Funnyman DVD (Drag City)
• 2007 – Hot February Night (Off-Price Value Center)
• 2008 – Neil Hamburger Sings Country Winners (Drag City)
• 2012 – Live at Third Man Records (Third Man Records)
• 2012 – Margaret Cho and Neil Hamburger (7") (Million Dollar Performances)
• 2013 – Incident at Cambridge, Mass. (Burger Records)
• 2014 – First of Dismay (Drag City)
• 2019 – Still Dwelling (Drag City)

as Totem Pole of Losers

• 1993 – Jesus, I Am Loving You (Amarillo)

as The Golding Institute

• 1994 – Sounds of the American Fast Food Restaurants (Planet Pimp)
• 1997 – Sounds of the San Francisco Adult Book Stores (Planet Pimp)
• 1998 – Sounds of the International Airport Restrooms (Planet Pimp)
• 2006 – Final Relaxation (Ipecac)

Collaborations

with the Zip Code Rapists

• 1992 – Sing And Play The Three Doctors (Amarillo)
• 1994 – The Man Can't Bust Our Music! (EP) (Ectoplasm)
• 1994 – Sing And Play The Matador Records Catalog (EP) (Ecstatic Piss)
• 1995 – 94124 (EP) (Amarillo)
• 1995 – Live "In Competence" (Beast 666 Tapes)
• 2005 – Here at Last... Live!!! (Freedom From)
• 2009 – Sing And Play The Three Doctors (with 24 bonus tracks) (Eabla)

with The Easy Goings

• 1989 – The Easy Goings (Bee-Fast)
• 1993 – Cigarettes (Nuf Sed)

with the Three Doctors

• 1994 – Back To Basics-"Live" (Amarillo)
• 1995 – Archaeology of the Infinite (Amarillo)

with Faxed Head

• 1995 – Uncomfortable But Free (Amarillo)
• 1997 – Exhumed at Birth (Amarillo)
• 2001 – Chiropractic (Web of Mimicry)
• 2008 – From Coalinga to Osaka: Live in Japan 1995 (Web of Mimicry)

with Secret Chiefs 3

• 2007 – Path of Most Resistance (Web of Mimicry)

with Hard-Ons

• 2011 – American Exports (Alternative Tentacles)

Television

Film

Applications

Web series