by Alex; Ogg
Or perhaps we can alight on The Fall and Mark E Smith’s spoken observation on the title-track to Live At The Witch Trials, before they moved from Step Forward to Rough Trade, that “I still believe in the R ‘n’ R dream”. A statement he would partially qualify in an interview with Tony Fletcher. “It’s ambiguous. But I do, in a lot of ways. Like, people say The Fall aren’t rock ‘n’ roll, you know. My attitude is that we are rock ‘n’ roll and no other fucker is.” “Everything that makes a mark as a movement tries to have a break with the past,” Travis notes. “Sometimes it’s artificial and sometimes there’s a validity to it. As an artist, you sometimes have to draw a line in the sand, and say – ‘We oppose that. That’s rubbish.’ And that’s just the history of art. You reject the past to make something new. But of course you can’t really reject the past, because it’s always got its claws in you.”
Cabaret Voltaire’s ‘Nag Nag Nag’ was trashed by Danny Baker in the NME for being ‘as flat as a witch’s tit’, which is one way of analysing its attempt to quash harmony and conventional song structure. It was nevertheless part of a looming electronic scene alongside various Mute projects. The influences here were James Brown and Can, Stockhausen and Eno. Alongside 23 Skidoo and Clock DVA on Fetish and Throbbing Gristle at Industrial, the cumulative effect was a wave of ferociously intelligent, subversive artists punch-drunk with the possibilities offered by increasingly cheap technology. While some took punk’s clean slate as an opportunity to open up a new channel for ‘classic’, 60s-inspired songwriting (Mike Alway at Cherry Red, and later Alan McGee at Creation) these were a cadre of groups who wanted to phase-jump to a new universe of sonic possibility altogether. Which is why comments such as those by Baker and Silverton are so interesting – both were punk era writers who shared an affection for the roots and the legacy of rock ‘n’ roll – seeing its best instincts and practice as salvageable. There is some substance, then, in shifting the common perception of ‘year zero’ to 1978 or 1979 and the dawn of post-punk rather than the established reading of 1976.
The Cabs, Clocks and Gristles of this world were, in turn, antecedents both to the industrial genre and the rise of dance music in the late 80s and beyond. Probably the most critically revered independent dance label of the 90s was Warp, formed in Sheffield, and steeped in the cultural capital of that city. Fittingly, it would release work by Richard H Kirk of Cabaret Voltaire. The Industrial label bequeathed its name to an entire music genre, one that continues to thrive in Europe. With a side-serving of angsty self-reverence, Nine Inch Nails would make elements of that sound palatable to Stateside rock fans (though a possibly more accurate comparison would be to Al Jourgenson’s Ministry).
But rather than be defined by a musical genre, which to a certain extent Mute was, at least momentarily, Rough Trade signed whatever appealed to the tastes of Travis and other Rough Trade insiders. Hence amid the shock of the new came reissues of material by the Television Personalities and Prefects, as well as Scottish kindergarten punks The Prats. The latter were veterans of Fast Product’s Earcom sampler series, while the now defunct Prefects, who had also appeared on the White Riot tour, only agreed to their retrospective single on the promise Travis would release something by Rob Lloyd’s new band, The Nightingales. The Television Personalities’ ‘Where’s Bill Grundy Now’ EP had originally been housed on their own King’s Road imprint in 1978 – an enterprise predictably indebted to The Desperate Bicycles and Scritti Politti (see chapter four). Scritti themselves eventually found a natural berth at Rough Trade. Their records are lynchpins in the development of a post-punk aesthetic, explored in depth in Simon Reynolds’ Rip It Up, where vocalist Green observes that “We were anti-rock, it was too strong, too sure, too solid; a sound. We wanted music that wasn’t, because we weren’t strong, sure or solid.’ If the previously mooted crossover that existed between the ‘punk’ and ‘independent’ mentality had great and obvious commonality, that was equally true when the former genre acquired its historical prefix.
This marriage of the old and new was indicative of a commonplace attitude across the independent landscape. At this stage the reissue industry was nowhere near as mature as it would become a decade or so later with the advent of the compact disc boom and specialist reissue labels. Records, once released, were conventionally deleted. That offered the gap in the market that stalls such as Rock On and Beggars Banquet fed. But it also meant that, particularly as the majors generally ignored anything that didn’t yield much greater potential margins, there were opportunities for ‘retrospective A&R’. Geoff Travis recognised this just as Chiswick had done before him. As an extension of that, Travis would work with artists of distinction who had disappeared off the radar. The most obvious example being Robert Wyatt, formerly of Soft Machine, who came to Travis’s attention via Vivien Goldman and Brian Eno.
Wyatt’s recordings betrayed an idealism much in sympathy with Travis’s own, though his output was more in keeping with the traditions of fifties folk-protest songs from Topic Records’ heyday. His debut for Rough Trade, ‘Arauco’, a cover of Chilean political activist Violetta Parra’s song, was sandwiched by releases from The Swell Maps and Cabaret Voltaire in a perfect encapsulation of Rough Trade’s refusal to be limited by genre or generation. Wyatt would later provide Rough Trade with one of its most enduring singles, when Elvis Costello and Clive Langer specifically wrote ‘Shipbuilding’ for him, as a lament for the Falklands War in 1982. At Wyatt’s insistence it was released on Rough Trade (it was originally envisioned to be the first single on a new label founded by Costello) out of loyalty to Travis.
Wyatt is not any less fond of Travis to this day. “The first few records I was on in the 60s were recorded for a massive US label called CBS, which became Sony,” he states. “I found that really unsatisfactory. There’s no-one really there, it’s just accountants and lawyers. When you’re trying to check up on stuff, it’s just an anonymous corporation. They may have been a small bunch of enthusiasts when they started out, but they became a big, bland institution. It was cold, you couldn’t feel that warm, beating human heart there.” Later, he’d seen the false dawn of the first wave of 60s independents. “Virgin made a few innovations. For example, Richard Branson grew his hair – that was a new one! He looked like one of the lads. They made LPs by people who wouldn’t necessarily make singles, like Henry Cow, Mike Oldfield and me, really. They realised there was a gap there. Before it had been the case that you had to have a hit single before any record company would finance an LP. And they said no, you don’t need to. They looked on the continent to see how many groups were popular just as live acts, didn’t have hit singles and weren’t really pop groups anyway. They had the bright idea of altering that. But in terms of the way the contract was worded and the economics of it, I have to tell you, it was absolutely straight-forward, old fashioned – ‘We take the lot, and we give you the crumbs’. So the first indie label that I think deserved the name in terms of an ideological shift was Rough Trade, and the lovely, wonderful Geoff Travis. What a great man. Just a lovely bloke. As ramshackle as it was, it came from musical theatre rather than business school, but it was worth it for the heart and enthusiasm. Not just that, but the real intention to do things that were worth doing, and to risk making mistakes. And I think it’s great that Geoff’s still like that, picking up Anthony And The Johnsons and stuff, the unusual projects he takes on. That was my first realisation that the record industry doesn’t have to be this massive, anonymous, untouchable behemoth.”
“You know,” Travis continues, animatedly, “that whole idea of making money and being ‘successful’ just never entered the equation, perhaps naively. It just wasn’t part of it. It was more about having fun, and creating an opportunity, and creating a structure, which was hard, hard work, to allow these musicians and artists to realise their dreams – that was the all-important thing. It wasn’t even really about Rough Trade. It wasn’t about us. Always as a label, it might seem strange, but we’ve tried to keep a low
profile. It’s really about our artists. I’d much rather you talked to our artists. We always say that. We decline a million interviews – though it seems to be the time for it now!” He’s referring to the fact that, as well as the recent publication of a history of Rough Trade, at least one more is underway. “I do think that we’re just humble servants to our artists. I don’t mean that in a facetious way. We feel lucky to be working with some of the best working artists on the planet. We feel lucky to be involved with that. Because we have quite a high standard of taste, that’s what it really comes down to, and as I said before, we’re not insecure about that. But it’s quite hard to have your own original reaction to something, because there’s such powerful peer group pressure. And you think you should like something, because everyone likes something, or people you respect like something. So it’s quite difficult to create that state of innocence, when you actually respond to something unmediated. Maybe you never did, but when you’re 16, and you get a new record home and you play it hundreds of times, you know if it’s really reaching you. It gets harder and harder to find space to do that, but it’s really important, I think. It’s the only thing that matters, when you’re making a judgement. You’re lucky you can still recreate that thrill of listening to music. I’m sure you get that. That’s why I love music, really. And you want other people to share the things you love. People have a different relationship. It’s a difference in degrees. Some people are passionate, some less so.”
Stiff Little Fingers’ departure had, however, persuaded Rough Trade to take themselves more seriously in business terms. In March 1979, Scott Piering, previously PR for Island in the US, joined the label at Richard Scott’s suggestion, handling promotion as it continued to expand. Prior to this, Rough Trade had considered the process of sending out advance copies of records to journalists unseemly, though they were, of course, welcome to come into the shop to check things out. Piering started producing mail-outs and booklets with information on new releases. These grew into first Masterbag and then The Catalogue.
“The whole point was that, with Rough Trade, any information we had we would freely give to you,” says Travis. “Demystification was important. And that’s where the politics came in, really – the sharing of knowledge. And the encouragement of anyone trying to make any kind of artistic endeavour, or entrepreneurial endeavour, to try to make their own way and do things on their own without getting permission – all those things were very important and very empowering.” Of course, the rise of the independents happened only slightly prior to the advent of the Thatcherite yuppie archetype. “Horrifying to be aligned to that, but yes, you’re right,” Travis concedes, “there was a kind of weird, strange unconscious collusion in that ethic, if you can do something, do it yourself. But obviously what we were doing as an independent label was in opposition to the establishment. We weren’t trying to be a major label, we were trying to buoy people not having to engage with that system.” He lists, almost inevitably, the Clash signing to CBS as the perfect example of how not to do it.
Piering was crucial to so many of the Rough Trade acts but also the entire independent genre, fighting stiff resistance to get ‘indie’ records played on daytime radio against the stonewalling of dismissive BBC DJs and producers. “Without [Piering],” wrote Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty in The Manual (How To Have A Number One The Easy Way), about the KLF’s exponential success, “this book would have to be retitled How To Get To Number 47 – With A Certain Amount Of Difficulty.” Whether or not we wish to quantify the music industry’s current infatuation with ‘indie landfill’ as a good or bad thing, the transition in listening expectations had much to do with Piering’s inch by inch diplomacy. Ably assisted, as he was, by the efforts of Shirley O’Loughlin, who had the task of delivering new product to both John Peel and the music press.
One of Peel’s most beloved institutions was The Fall. Moving on from Step Forward, they released three albums for Rough Trade over two spells, bouncing back to Rough Trade after a brief interlude with Kamera Records. It was a highly productive relationship, though Smith would complain to the press about stipulations being placed on his lyrics – notably ‘Slags’, which, in his defence, he has always used as a non-gender specific term. He would maintain that Travis and Rough Trade’s functions should not intrude on his own – later growling in an interview with David Cavanagh for Volume magazine that Travis should “just sell the fucking record, you fucking hippy”. Yet those remarks, made in 1992, came ten years after the fact. “I remember Mark E Smith hated it when anyone had anything to say about anything he had done,” recalls Travis, clearly amused. “‘No-one has a right to say anything to me about music.’ That was hilarious, it really irked him. Mark would say, ‘I worked in an office, I know what you have to do. Why are these people not here yet?’ But I personally actually don’t like people running late, I think you do have to fulfil your responsibilities.”
There were problems emerging, meanwhile, in the company’s separation between its label activities and its role as a distributor. Travis was primarily concerned with the A&R of the label, Richard Scott with distribution. They had built a second outdoor shed to serve as warehouse space, but that was quickly to prove insufficient, as the offices upstairs were colonised – often as living quarters. Rough Trade had become a rabbit warren wherein the pursuit of work, pleasure and sleep were confused and often overlapped.
Eventually the two discrete functions that Rough Trade had evolved were separated into difference premises. The label and distribution arm took a lease on 137 Blenheim Crescent, a ten-minute walk away. The two-storey detached house quickly became a drop-in centre for the waifs and strays of the music business, including sympathetic record company workers, journalists and a menagerie of artists. Many periodically slept there, while the building also sheltered equipment and a ‘free’ restaurant (though the food was intended for the consumption of the workers, it was often diverted to hungry visitors). In essence, Blenheim Crescent was the nearest the English music industry came, short of Crass’s Dial House, to a thriving co-operative in the spirit of Robert Owen or William King, with vinyl the economic engine rather than cotton or vegetables. Though it should also be noted that Travis’s and Scott’s own work ethics ill-fitted the stereotype, philosophically, Travis endorses the comparison. “No, I don’t mind being called a co-op,” says Travis. “We were in Dave Marsh’s book as ‘the only co-op in rock ‘n’ roll’. I’m quite proud of that.”
And then there were the meetings. These have been much mythologised as either key to Rough Trade’s ideological identity or a deep irritant, depending on whom you ask. But the committee structure of the enterprise prevailed. Fanzines that they might distribute were read from cover to cover (at least, in principle) and would be discarded in the event of the discovery of any sexist or racist content. That happened with records as well, meaning a number of bands would naturally take advantage of the situation by pushing the buttons of what were perceived to be the new purists on the block. Rough Trade would not, for example, sell Stranglers records due to Jean-Jacques Burnel having assaulted critic Jon Savage (strangely, Pete Stennet of Small Wonder would similarly discourage his clientele from purchasing records by the same group – though simply because he disliked them). Early punk band Raped’s ‘Pretty Paedophiles’ single was not stocked, causing them to change their name to Cuddly Toys, setting a precedent revisited when Steve Albini’s post-Big Black project Rapeman was turned away.
For Travis, though, there is little substance (or perhaps fibre) to the ‘brown rice’ myth of Rough Trade – a dismissive judgement that was based partially on punk’s aversion to any semblance of ‘hippy’ affectations. The perception was certainly abroad that sandal-wearing, middle-class drop-outs munching on health foods spent interminable hours discussing how their efforts split or enforced hegemony. Or the infamous dish-washing rota. The fact that Rough Trade did, indeed, release records that discussed ‘hegemony’ (for which, predictably, we have Scritti
Politti to thank) didn’t help. The assumption is largely a nonsense, though, given that most of those who worked for Rough Trade repeatedly point out the long hours this entailed. Travis is clearly weary of it. “We worked all the time. My lecturer at university in philosophy said that a meeting or a lecture should not last more than 20 minutes, because no human being has an attention span operating fully beyond that, and that struck me as very true. I hate meetings. Sometimes they’re very necessary. But I’d much rather be actively doing something than having a meeting. That’s a complete myth, I think. That’s kind of a lazy depiction of – that’s what a co-op is. We were a co-op, but it’s kind of a Daily Mail version of what a co-op is. Lots of people sitting around and doing nothing. There was no time to sit around. It might have been better to sit around a bit more!”
Describing those meetings, Richard Scott recalls that, almost despite themselves, a hierarchy emerged. “People who had been there longer held more sway; Geoff was never particularly keen on his line being voted down! Geoff is very eloquent. Broadly we’d talk about the line that Geoff and I had decided on. I think that’s fair. Everything was talked through, decisions were written down. The race was always to get out to get a gig that evening. There was a good saying in the early days – if there are more than six other people at the gig, you’re at the wrong gig. So there was that quest – to find things that people had never seen before.”