by Alex; Ogg
Razor’s seed money came from Geoff Hannington of Logo Records, with whom Greatrex had a separate management company. Hannington had just started his own distribution network in East London, I.D.S., which employed Peter Misson, who would become Greatrex’s right-hand man. Misson looked after Razor’s royalties and invoicing and “kept everything on an even keel”. Initially, finances were impossibly tight, as Greatrex notes, “Peter and I never took a farthing from the label in the early days. All our money went on producing records and licensing.” With their I.D.S. advance they signed Max Splodge, who had enjoyed some unlikely novelty punk chart success but fallen out of favour at London Records, as well as Suffolk’s Clockwork Orange-inspired punk band The Adicts. The latter had graduated from Dining Out, arriving at Razor following a brief stay with Jungle subsidiary Fall Out. Contrary to expectations, “The Adicts did really well,” recalls Greatrex, “but Max’s single did really badly.”
“Essentially it was a punk rock label,” Greatrex reflects on Razor’s development. He was far from being a punk himself, of course, but found himself well disposed to the urchins his label sheltered, “especially after being a manager for a long time, dealing with aspiring artists, the punks were just a breath of fresh air. They were great fun.” The Adicts took off almost immediately. They were, after all, nothing if not photogenic, in a genre where the defining visual characteristic seemed to be unyielding conformity. “They got the front cover of Sounds and Melody Maker,” Greatrex remembers. “Carol Clerk was walking on ice doing that at the Maker, she really went out on a limb.” The Adicts also built up a following in America, where they were signed by Seymour Stein at Warners subsidiary Sire after touring the west coast. “But it didn’t work, and in the end we got the album back from that. It just didn’t really take off. And the Warners thing, you need success before they throw all the marketing behind it.”
There were great hopes for another punk band distanced from the leather jacket and mohican image de jour. “We loved The Newtown Neurotics, they were like a rawer version of The Jam,” says Greatrex. “I just wanted street bands with guitar based music. The Adicts were great live. I came from a background of live work – you had to see something before it made sense.” Cock Sparrer came with a reputation – enhanced but arguably misappropriated due to the emergence of Oi! – as London’s premier street punk band and most riotous live attraction. They too sold well. Things were destabilised to an extent when I.D.S. went bankrupt. “But then we joined the reformed Pinnacle. And we did lots of exports ourselves, packing the records and shipping them. Peter had been in Island Record in sales, and knew loads of little tricks to get by.”
Beyond punk, Razor engaged naturally with other youth cults. They licensed a Lambrettas record from Elton John’s Rocket Records, and released both a studio album and a live set recorded at the 100 Club by The Purple Hearts, as their contribution to the Mod Revival. Greatrex loved both acts. “It was great, being an old scooter boy myself! I couldn’t afford the sharp suits to be a proper Mod, though.” There was a rockabilly band, The Long Tall Texans and a Saints album licensed from EMI, while old stagers The Angelic Upstarts were signed to a subsidiary, Picasso. They also had a tilt at the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal market with Samson, featuring future Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson.
Stranger still was the liaison with punk’s sworn enemies and voodoo dolls of preference, Genesis. If Razor was never truly tied down to its caricature as a punk label, Greatrex severed any delusions of insularity by re-releasing their first album. Yet it was an astute move financially. “It was Peter Misson that spotted it,” he confirms. “We’d buy back copies of Record Collector and go through them. I found a shop in Notting Hill that had the Genesis first album for £40. That was a lot of money in those days. Jonathan King owned the rights. We contacted Jonathan’s representative, Carole Broughton, and did a deal. And that did really well, and we also acquired the Zombies catalogue from Carole.” Razor also mopped up the soundtrack to Spinal Tap. “We were in hysterics laughing at an early showing in Chelsea, but there were only about six people there, and they were mystified. They thought it was a real documentary. I had a press officer girl, Kate Harper, and she was very switched on. We put an application into what was then PolyGram, and as we were broke, we offered them just £1,200. And they took it. We were flabbergasted. We got massive press on it, the front cover of Kerrang! It did really well. We had a two-year non-exclusive licence, and after a year PolyGram put it out as well in a fit of pique.”
Gradually, however, Razor began to wind down. “I started doing some other things,” Greatrex admits. “Peter started his own royalty business. We were doing more and more reissues. We’d done punk, rockabilly, Mod, and the new wave of heavy metal, but we kind of ran out of things. We were doing four albums a month and the sales were slowing down. I tried to sign some more acts and they didn’t work out. Overheads were going up and we hit the end of the Thatcher era and it was very tough times. The reissuing thing, everyone got into it, but when we started there was nobody doing it, and we couldn’t keep up with it. And the majors got nervous about giving away the family silver.”
Razor’s primary acknowledged influence was Secret Records, run by Martin Hooker. Secret didn’t actually start out as a punk label; its first release being Martin Atkins’ Brian Brain project (which had so nearly been taken up by Ivo Watts-Russell as the putative 4AD’s first release). Gem Howard-Kemp served as Hooker’s right-hand man. “I joined up with Martin just after The Exploited’s Punk’s Not Dead came out, which was the label’s first album,” he recalls. “But for the first singles, they were more of an indie label. Martin was based in Luton, but then picked up the Exploited singles and went in that direction.” Secret subsequently enjoyed huge sales and an astonishing run of chart returns, with a roster featuring Infa Riot, 4-Skins, The Business and Chron Gen. The latter’s debut album arrived in a cover bedecked with a distorted photograph of Howard-Kemp. “I think I was the ugliest person they could find!” he says. “There was a guy called Mez who did our artwork and photography. People were taking whatever images they could get, particularly in the punk era, and we just used whatever was around. It just so happened that I’d had some photos taken by Mez, and they were stretched and the rest of it; the band liked it, and we went with it.”
Secret lasted for three years, and almost every album they released, which included a number of Oi! compilations, charted. However, in sales terms, The Exploited’s runaway success dwarfed all else. “That was the one that really took off,” Howard-Kemp acknowledges. “It was really UK hardcore rather than punk – the difference between the Exploited and the Pistols was enormous. The whole movement just took off.” He remembers being part of the entourage that rolled up for the Exploited’s Top Of The Pops debut with ‘Dead Cities’. “Surreal! The funniest thing was Big John [Duncan; the group’s burly guitarist] trying to dance to ‘The Birdie Song’ with Legs & Co!” The fact that this was the dancing troupe’s final credited appearance on the programme may be more than coincidence.
There was also some diversity at Secret, though – if you wish to acknowledge a record featuring not only Keith Chegwin but also his twin brother, as well as releases by Lovely Previn (André Previn’s daughter). “These things come along,” recalls Howard-Kemp. “Every so often you get offered things. And you think, actually, if we did that, we could make some money and it would fund something else. It opens doors. You suddenly get into different places. You can be as true as you want to your roots, but at the end of the day, you have to fund them.”
Hooker would betray his love of metal by signing Twisted Sister, at that time bereft of a contract, but then found himself out of a job. “The financial backers behind Secret decided to roll out the people who ran it,” remembers Howard-Kemp, “so Martin was gone. Then after that they did some ridiculous stuff. I stayed on for about a year, and we did things like The Dossers and Dinah Rod And The Drains – a song about Dennis Nilsen hiding bodies in his dra
ins. Sold about six copies. Then there was another band that was the son of the guy who ran the tyre company opposite – it was an A&R department gone mad. They didn’t bring in any new people, they just got rid of the person who had made them successful.”
Secret went into administration in 1983. Hooker, in the meantime, had founded metal imprint Music For Nations through Zomba. Howard-Kemp joined him there after Secret collapsed, “We had Rough Justice, with Agnostic Front, Crumbsuckers, GBH, a lot of American hardcore, and the thrash label Under One Flag. After Secret, we were better funded in order to give the labels an identity. You knew what you were buying – if it was on Music For Nations, you knew it would be some form of hard rock, Rough Justice was punk and hardcore, and Under One Flag was extreme thrash metal.” The duo also worked together at Dreamcatcher, purchased by the omnipresent Colin Newman of Receiver/Trojan fame in 2006 when Hooker retired. “It brings everything full circle,” says Howard-Kemp. “The company that Colin Newman owns that bought Dreamcatcher is actually Secret Records. Over the years, the Secret name has moved through different hands, so it still exists. And now Dreamcatcher is owned by Secret.”
Riot City grew out of Simon Edwards’ Heartbeat Records in Bristol. Its second single by The Glaxo Babies had been funded by Cherry Red in one of the first production and distribution deals in which both benefactor and frontline label were both independents, and its success encouraged a long-term collaboration. Ultimately, Heartbeat’s most lasting contribution was arguably the finest of the local band compilations that thrived in the early 80s, Avon Calling. Featuring artists such as The Europeans, Glaxo Babies, Private Dicks, Apartment etc, all of whom released singles for the label, it led John Peel to pronounce it the regional compilation by which all others should be measured. Although the tone was decidedly post-punk, angular and experimental, one of the bands featured on it were unreconstructed punkers Vice Squad, fronted by Rebecca Bond, aka Beki Bondage.
By 1980, Vice Squad were in the dumps. They only played six gigs in the entire year, after being banned from just about every venue in the Bristol area, due to violence. A planned Rock Against Racism tour fizzled out due to bad organisation. Then, at the final scheduled show at Trinity Church Hall, Simon Edwards turned up. He liked the band – and indeed, had fought for their inclusion on Avon Calling much to the disgust of some of the other acts. He took a deal to Cherry Red, but this time the answer was a firm ‘no’. “Bottom line was that I loved it,” Edwards recalls, “and Iain [McNay] didn’t. It was the first time he had ever waned from my choice of releases. That prompted the parting of ways for Heartbeat and Cherry Red, not because of any great falling out, but more due to the general sales of recent releases, probably not having been as good as Iain had hoped. There was still the joint publishing deal that would remain, and hell, we had become friends and have remained such ever since. Irony of irony would be that in years to come, Vice Squad would eventually sign to Cherry Red’s Anagram label after leaving EMI!”
As a result of McNay’s rebuttal, Edwards offered Vice Squad a singles deal, providing finance for the pressing if the band could cover studio expenses. The new label would be a joint partnership. A friend of the band, Bill White, put up the money to vouchsafe their end of the deal. Guitarist Dave Bateman coined the (intentionally topical given the social climate) name Riot City, which was launched with the release of ‘Last Rockers’ in January 1981. John Peel played the track several times, and drummer Shane Baldwin had the initiative to track down journalist Garry Bushell to The While Lion, the Sounds staffers’ favoured watering hole, in order to get some coverage. The ruse worked well, and the single would go on to sell more than 22,000 copies, reaching number seven in the independent charts.
The band remained involved in the day to day running of the label until their touring schedule and recording commitments, which eventually led to Vice Squad signing to EMI, began to take precedence, at which time Riot City was effectively run by Edwards alone. In the meantime, however, the label had attracted a roster of bands which the founding group either introduced to the label or approved of – the Insane, Court Martial, Abrasive Wheels, the Expelled and Chaotic Dischord. Edwards certainly had his critics – Garry Bushell, a seemingly natural ally, would refer to Riot City as ‘the dustbin of punk’ (though in releasing Emergency’s ‘Points Of View’ it housed one of the finest examples of third generation UK punk). Crass criticised the label for being a ‘back door’ to EMI, given that they retained the Riot City logo on releases – even though Edwards was against Vice Squad’s migration.
In fact, the provenance of that ‘back door to EMI’ story is rooted in the paranoia over authenticity, integrity and independence that always attended the anarcho-punk scene. It actually had no basis in reality whatsoever. “I was partly to blame,” notes Charlie Mason. “Having read a piece by the Chumbas, in, I think, Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll, I wrote an embarrassingly sympathetic article in the zine I co-edited urging people to boycott Riot City. It was lurid and Sun-like. Truly atrocious 16-year-old snotty boy half-baked politics – no fact checking, ‘believe the hype’ drivel. Which might have been OK had we not had some articles in the same issue by another co-editor about Riot City bands. Simon received a copy of the finished zine from this other guy and not surprisingly, he hit the roof. He called my mate and extracted my phone number. That evening I had a barely restrained though just polite phone call from an apoplectic Mr Edwards who told me he had considered driving down to Dorset to have it out with me face to face! That I was 16 and very apologetic as he explained how wildly wrong the whole ridiculous farce was, was enough to dissuade him. Though he rightly made me agree to paste an apology over the offending article in all remaining copies – which I did. I did however think ‘I’ll just check this though,’ shutting the door after the horse had bolted. I wrote a letter with a stamped addressed envelope to EMI and asked if Riot City was a subsidiary of theirs. I’d intended to print their reply either way and apologise in the next issue of the zine. Bizarrely, rather than replying to my letter, EMI forwarded my letter and SAE to Simon to reply to! Shortly after, I got a sarcastic note from Simon on the EMI compliment slip he’d been sent by them. It took me an hour or so to realise exactly what had happened there, and that I’d probably added insult to injury, though ironically this was a bit of penance on my part for the first error of judgement. Shortly after that I got a photocopy of a letter Simon drew up and sent round to the whole zine network wherein he decried the misinformation foisted by “Crass, Chumbawamba, Chaz, and others…..” That Chaz, sadly, was me. He urged us to ‘get back to our copies of The Sun’. It stung, but he was right.”
Although Edwards was initially upset by Vice Squad’s decision to move to EMI, the two parties remained friends, and members of Vice Squad would continue to appear on the label under pseudonyms. The most entertaining example being Chaotic Dischord, who gloried in taking punk profanity and sonic excess as far as they possibly could. This was actually a hoax band, started by Baldwin and Bateman of Vice Squad with roadies Igor and Bambi. The name, a corruption of Riot City signings Chaos UK and Disorder, was an attempt to ridicule Edwards’ tastes in ‘hardcore’ punk. In the event, Edwards discovered the ruse, but by then, incredibly, the joke, rather than wearing thin, had resulted in sales of 10,000 copies of 1983 album Fuck Religion, Fuck Politics, Fuck The Lot Of You. Eventually though, the label would close as the boom in third wave punk ground to a halt, Edwards concentrating on his full-time job as a route planner for the AA.
Other third generation punk labels included Inferno, overseen by Keith Thornton and Brian Harris out of Birmingham’s Tempest record store, which began life with The Varukers ‘Protest To Survive’ EP in March 1982, after the latter band simply announced themselves one day in the shop. They also released material by Dead Wretched and Criminal Class. Sheffield’s Pax was one of many labels set up by Marcus Featherby. Having started out as a budget domicile for the Sheffield post-industrial set, including releases from The Stunt Kites,
UV Pop and Danse Society, Pax briefly signed The Exploited after their split from Secret. They were firm friends until the latter’s Wattie took umbrage over perceived financial skulduggery and made threats leading to its owner going into hiding. From which he’s never returned.
Both WXYZ and ID were run by famed London promoter John Curd, of Straight Music fame, whose life in music saw him collaborate with everyone from James Brown to Talking Heads to Eminem. Between them his labels housed material by Anti-Nowhere League and a slew of psychobilly institutions including The Meteors and Guana Batz. The Damned also recorded for the label, as did the pre-Godfathers Sid Presley Experience. Eventually bought out by Link Records, the catalogue was subsequently passed on to Cherry Red. “Am I getting paid for this?” Curd queries down the telephone, on my tentative approach, before deciding, given the negative response, he’ll take his secrets to the grave.
Duncan ‘Dunk’ Mason founded Rot Records in 1981 to house the output of his band, Riot Squad, after watching John Peel eulogise the Desperate Bicycles on a TV documentary. Riot Squad would subsequently move on to local Mansfield label Rondelet, after owner Mike Commaford heard their first demo. Already home to Anti-Pasti and Special Duties, Rondelet initially couldn’t seem to make up its mind whether it was a punk or metal label, having been put together for the purpose of releasing Witchfynde’s ‘Give ‘em Hell’ single. Other NWOBHM artists included Gaskin and Heritage, while there was also, bizarrely, a contribution from ‘Britain’s first million pound black footballer’, Justin Fashanu, ‘Do It Coz You Like It’. Commaford and Witchfynde would soon come to blows, but the label also entertained The Membranes, whose John Robb remembers his handlers only as “inept” (though some of its bands, such as Dead Man’s Shadow, would follow one of the Rondelet staff to London imprint Expulsion). Robb himself had one of his innumerable tentacles in Vinyl Drip, forged as a sideline to his Blackpool Rox! fanzine exploits, which served as an outpost not only for The Membranes, but also Bogshed (Robb’s former Membranes collaborator Nick Brown, incidentally, would start Clawfist in 1990, originally a singles club based on the premise of Sub Pop).