Independence Days

by Alex; Ogg

  Meanwhile Kostrzewa was growing “extremely envious” of the success of CNT. “He was very angry with The Mekons,” says Worby, “very angry with Jon because of the breakdown of the relationship with Adrian Collins. I never actually found out what the argument was between Tony and Adrian; even Adrian never told me. But it went very deep.” CNT was effectively ended by Kostrzewa’s retaliatory actions. “Tony basically put the boot into CNT. CNT was distributed by Rough Trade, and the Cartel was forming – Tony said to them, if you distribute CNT, I’m out of here. Tony wanted to destroy the label, basically. It was a vicious, malicious, spiteful act by Tony, and that scuppered CNT.”

  Collins elected to stick with The Redskins, managing them and signing them to Decca. Eventually Worby too would make his exit from Red Rhino. “I was doing more and more with The Mekons, I went on tour with them in 1986 in America, and Tony was getting really pissed off with this. He said, unless you can turn up once a week, forget it. I couldn’t guarantee that. Gradually I crept away from Red Rhino. I’d gone by the time they collapsed. Tony’s A&R skills were not very good. Kelvin [Knight; shop assistant and drummer for Delta 5] tried to become the A&R department with Tony. We had a tea chest heaped with demo tapes, and he’d listen to some of them. Tony would do that initial filtering, then play me some stuff. I would say yea or nay, or say if I thought I could do something. Kelvin was also doing some production with Red Rhino, trying to get more involved in that. I’d moved from the production side into trying to sell records, which was extremely difficult. Before I left, the label was in decline, because Tony was managing things extremely badly. He was moving money around, trying to keep things going. He began lying about things. He would lie to me, lie to the bands, lie to his wife. Gerri was keeping an eye on the money, she worked in an insurance company as a computer programmer or something, and she was worried the money was going down the drain. Tony had a brick in the wall behind his bed where he kept cash. He’d made a load of money selling bootleg records at record fairs – he had one of the biggest collections of bootlegs I’ve ever seen. Friends of his sold them rather than him. And those were the people who became Nine Mile. That’s where they got their money from originally, bootleg record fairs, funded by Tony with the cash behind the brick.”

  Simon Morgan was there when Red Rhino spread its wings to help bankroll Nine Mile, initially titled Red Rhino Midlands. “I first hooked up with Robin Hurley, Graham Samuels and Simon Holland in the early 80s,” he recalls. “They seemed to have a farming background.” Hurley admits there’s a grain of truth in that. “I went to Welsh Agricultural College in September 1975 to do a qualification in agriculture. Probably like a lot of young men at that time, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do in life. And due to my parents living near to a farm, I ended up working on one. On the very first night I got to college, we went down to the pub and I bumped into Graham Samuels. We hit it off and became friends, mainly through a passion for music – which even then superseded our interest in agriculture. Neither of us had any thought of getting into the music industry. My course involved a year away from college, so from July 1976 to August 1977 I went up to a farm just north of York, as part of the course. During that time Tony opened the Red Rhino shop. And me being a young guy there with a love of music, every Saturday I would make the pilgrimage into York and buy records from Tony. It was the era when punk really started breaking and it was an exciting time.”

  The customer-vendor relationship flowered into a social alliance, but stayed as such while Hurley completed his studies. “I finished my course, and I started working for ICI and Ciba-Geigy in agricultural chemicals. I kept in touch with Tony and Gerri and would go visit them and see concerts in York or Leeds. At one point I said, ‘Tony, I really admire what you’ve done, you’ve built a great record shop. It’s got a fantastic reputation, I’d love to do something similar.’ He told me how he’d done it, and the money he’d needed. So I started looking round in the Midlands – we’d identified a slight gap in terms of strong independent record stores in certain cities. I looked at vacant shops and went to apply and found the landlords wouldn’t let to a young guy with no retail experience. The Cartel was gradually gaining strength, and I went to Tony and we talked about starting a distribution business – he may have suggested it. ‘Why don’t we go into partnership and do Red Rhino Midlands?’ So it was in effect a mirror image of what he was doing in the north.”

  To this point the region lacked a specialist distribution point. “The Midlands was serviced from the south by Rough Trade, from the south-west by Revolver, from the north-west by Probe and from the east by Backs. But given the number of people from the Black Country, there wasn’t really a proper Cartel member. So we started Red Rhino Midlands in 1983. At that point, the partners were me and Tony, and possibly Gerri too. It took me about four years to save up enough money. I put up the start-up capital and Tony put in the stock. I think it was about £15,000 I’d saved.” And yes, some of that money did come from behind the brick, and from bootlegs, but only a fraction of it. “I would go to record fairs to make money for this long-term goal,” Hurley states. “I’d buy bootlegs off Tony, but collectibles too, Siouxsie and the Banshees picture sleeves and things like this. But the majority of that money came from me saving up from working for agrochemical companies. I had a wife then who was very supportive, and we saved up. And at a certain point we took the plunge and went to find a warehouse in Leamington Spa. We identified that as an area where you could feed the Midlands of England, and also, quite frankly, it was a pleasant place to live. And getting a lease on an empty warehouse was easier than getting a shopfront. I needed a number two, and I’d kept in touch with Graham Samuels. I met him at a pub in Camden and persuaded him to move up to the Midlands to join me. Then we hired Simon Holland [a former member of The Great Outdoors], then Simon Morgan [also a former band member, of Domestic Bliss and The Hop], as a general helper, as we needed.”

  While still known as Red Rhino Midlands, Morgan got a tantalising look at their warehouse. “I was blown away. It had previously been a carpet joint, but was now filled with records. Every record I’d ever wanted to own, but had never been able to afford. There was a small office area at the far end, and a desk and three phones just outside that for taking orders. I was so excited when Robin asked me to work for them; I could hardly contain myself. One of the first things they gave me was a white label of Spy vs Spy by Billy Bragg. I loved it. Of course, it was all Sisters Of Mercy and March Violets on the national scene then. One of the first jobs they gave me to do was to drive up to York to collect some stock from Red Rhino North.”

  They were admitted to the Cartel shortly thereafter. “Richard Scott once told me that Tony didn’t tell anyone in the Cartel that he was starting Red Rhino Midlands,” Hurley recalls. “Suddenly, at one Cartel meeting, he promptly announced he was starting this company in the Midlands – a very typical Tony K move. I think there was a little bit of controversy, as you can imagine, because all the other companies had some income coming out of the Midlands. It may not have been their lion’s share, but it was part of their income. But we were welcomed in as fully-fledged members, so we had a seat at the table at subsequent Cartel meetings. We had an equal voice in the sense of voting, but obviously it took a while for me to get my equal voice in that – in terms of speaking up at meetings when you’re dealing with strong characters like Tony. At that point, Tony was one of my closest friends and I very much deferred to him. I guess there was a sense that we were junior partners in the early days, but that’s to be understood. But the other Cartel members welcomed us very quickly and very willingly. That’s one thing I always liked about the Cartel; they were always really nice people to work with.”

  From Morgan’s viewpoint, the pecking order at Nine Mile ran Robin, Graham, Simon. “And then me! I made most of the tea! My official job was Order Puller. Simon would take the orders over the phone, hand me a piece of paper with records and quantities on it, and I would ‘pu
ll’ the order, pack the boxes, label them for postage, and plonk them by the double doors for collection by the daily courier van. Robin and Graham sat in the back office drinking tea, talking to important people, and playing the kind of music I regarded at the time as ‘adult’.” That’s a scenario Hurley somewhat disputes. “I didn’t just sit in the back room drinking tea! Everyone was packing records and pulling orders and that was a really enjoyable part of the business.”

  “We were always busy,” Morgan continues. “I often didn’t have time to put me fag out! Shed loads of Goth fare, like the aforementioned Sisters, Violets, Alien Sex Fiend, Sex Gang Children, Danse Society, Play Dead… though the biggest ‘seller’ we ever shifted obscene units on was ‘Nellie The Elephant’. Bands would roll up looking for deals. Pop Will Eat Itself, The Wonderstuff, and Balaam & The Angel were all given deals of some kind, and Chapter 22 Records were bank-rolled.” Red Rhino Midlands was fairly typical of the broader Cartel in that its employees were essentially music enthusiasts; but many, like Morgan, were also politicised by the independent ethos. “I’d plaster the boxes with ‘Coal Not Dole’ stickers, pad the order out with miner’s strike literature, bung in stacks of free ‘Enemy Within’ badges, stickers and flyers, and conduct my own one-man war against Thatcher from deep within the bunkerage of Nine Mile Fantasy Island.” Morgan retained his job for 18 months, until Tim Niblett was taken on. “Sadly he was killed in a car crash one morning on the Banbury/Warwick road, and things were never the same after that.”

  Hurley and Kostrzewa would ultimately drift apart. “Red Rhino Midlands had made a bit of profit,” Hurley recalls. “Not a huge amount. Graham had put a lot of ‘sweat equity’ into it, so I wanted to reward him and give him a minority share in the company. And I wanted to give some profit-share and bonuses to the other people who worked for me in return for a good year. That was the first divisive conversation between me and Tony. He wasn’t keen on either of those proposals. I suggested I’d like to buy him out of the company and with Rough Trade’s help we bought out Tony and Gerri’s shares in about ’85 or early ’86. With that loan from Rough Trade, which was repaid, it brought me closer to Rough Trade both emotionally and philosophically. I started going down to London more often, and for a short period became the National Sales Manager for the Cartel, when we had things like New Order and Depeche Mode and Dead Kennedys and The Smiths, all these things becoming chart successes for the Cartel. That meant WH Smiths and John Menzies, people who hadn’t previously stocked Cartel releases, having to take notice. I would go the head buyers at Virgin and HMV and spent two days a week in London while Graham was running Red Rhino Midlands.” The operation was retitled Nine Mile on conclusion of the buyout. “The name Nine Mile came from my love of reggae,” says Hurley. “It’s the town in Jamaica where Bob Marley was born and is buried, a little hamlet.”

  Kostrzewa, meanwhile, had spread himself thinly, both in terms of finances and commitments. “One of Tony’s character flaws,” says Worby, “is that he was desperate to be liked. So he would promise bands all kinds of stuff he could never deliver. I remember a dreadful time when Ron Wright of Hula went to see Tony to get a cheque to pay for some studio time they had booked. ‘Tony, we need to get a cheque off you.’ ‘Sure, the cheque’s in the post.’ That was his famous line. And of course, it never arrived. So Ron went over to York, and Tony said, don’t worry about it, we’ll go to the bank now and get the money out, so you’ve got the cash to pay the studio tomorrow. On the way to the bank, it’s getting late, three o’clock. The bank closes at half past three. So Tony says, let’s have a chat. He sat Ron down and told him about how everything was going to be great, the new record was going to be fantastic, etc. He kept him talking till the bank had closed! Ron was livid. Basically Tony was robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

  Red Rhino Distribution, which had taken warehouse space in Eldon Street, collapsed in December 1988. It did so at exactly the same time as The Catalogue [the in-house Cartel publication whose ‘business manager’ was Kostrzewa] appeared with an editorial note stating that “rumours of [Red Rhino’s] demise are, as the saying has it, greatly exaggerated”. The label was also shut down, and bankrupt stock snapped up by Brighton shop Vinyl Demand, who sold it off cheaply via adverts in Record Collector. Three years later, the much-loved Red Rhino shop, having relocated to larger premises in Goodramgate, closed its doors for the final time.

  Kostrzewa became a manager at a Laser Quest centre before starting promotion and management companies. Worby remained on cordial terms with him post-Red Rhino, but events would see that relationship sour. “I was working with The Mekons but I was still in touch with Tony, and when he moved to Leeds he came round my flat a couple of times. One day [in 1994] we found out that Cherry Red had put out the second Mekons album, Devils, Rats & Piggies. Hmm. That’s funny – cos either Jon or me still had the tapes in our flats! And we hadn’t done a deal with Cherry Red. How come Cherry Red have put a CD out, without us knowing? Of course, Tony said he had the copyright on the record. There was no contract. All I had was a letter of agreement for The Distributors – we agree to release this record and share the profits 50-50. Of course, we never got any money because ‘profit’ was never defined. But The Mekons? They never signed a contract.”

  Eventually the matter was resolved after a cease and desist order was issued. “What happened was that Tony had persuaded Iain McNay that he’d got the rights on the Mekons second record,” Worby continues, “and they cut it off a vinyl LP. And Tony just took the money – that’s how he operated. He presumed he had the rights, but he never did. Tony was never keen on contracts. He didn’t like the idea. He worried that he could be sued. Tony left a message on my answering machine [about this] that I kept, and it’s on a Mekons record. The message was, ‘I’m really, really sorry. I just wanted to get the record out.’ I just thought, you’re a pathological liar. You’re lying so much, you’re beginning to believe the lies you’re telling yourself. ‘I’m sorry Tony, but I don’t want to be involved.’ When he died, I wrote a letter to Gerri saying all of that – I said that Tony was doing deals that I could not be any part of. She wrote me a letter back saying, funny enough, if Tony was alive today, he’d agree with you.”

  For all that, Kostrzewa deserves credit for many things. For example, he sponsored the efforts of Dave Henderson’s Offbeat magazine [itself a successor to the similarly short-lived Underground] in the late 80s, and helped several labels get a start, as Henderson attests. “I know Tony made quite a few enemies over the years, but he also did propel the careers of quite a few people, too. Sadly he died last year [in May 2008] which was really sad. I ended up getting emails about his slow demise and eventually sorting tickets for his kids for Glastonbury and meeting his wife again. He was very outspoken; well, he spoke so fast you could never get a word in. And, as you know, dealing with bands, there are a lot of wayward egos and invariably there were a lot of people who didn’t make it in bands with similarly reactionary personalities. I kept out of it thankfully and to be honest don’t know exactly what happened. It was obvious there was a lot of friction and when people lose their jobs and money, as they did, it’s always going to kick off.” Richard Scott, too, credits Kostrzewa with being probably the most forceful presence in regional independent distribution. “Tony was the backbone of that regional structure, and I found him extremely good to deal with.” Despite misgivings Worby, like so many customers of the original Red Rhino shop, has fond memories too, not least of Kostrzewa’s legendary enthusiasm. “Tony could be such a great guy. We had some great times. It was extremely exciting selling Red Lorry Yellow Lorry into the States. We felt we were conquering America.”

  “One of the sad things about my relationship with Tony was how it crumbled,” says Hurley. “Rob’s comments about Tony becoming a pathological liar – sadly, I have to agree 100%. It became very disturbing not to know what to believe when he would talk to you about things. With me moving to America it naturally put some dista
nce between us, and there was no need to keep a dialogue. I always regretted it, but he was the sort of person who lived life his own way and no-one was going to change that. I did bump into him at the Cannes musical festival around 2001. It was very cordial, and we went for a drink and a chat. Later, Gerri reached out to me and said, ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Tony’s got sick.’ She said he’d really been getting back into listening to music. I work at Warners, so I sent him a big box of things like Neil Young, Warren Zevon, Jackson Browne, Fleetwood Mac, The Grateful Dead; things I knew he’d loved from the first time I got to know him. So I had an email dialogue with him and Gerri. But I never got to speak to him. I was due to speak to him the day he died, actually. I rang at the allotted time and Gerri told me the bad news. But what really affected me was going to the funeral. Quite honestly, I expected this huge Cartel reunion, a huge turnout. It was quite sad how few of the people I’d expected were there. Unfortunately, that was a reflection of Tony’s modus operandi, which was to fall out with people. It’s the saddest memory I have of the man. He was so great in a lot of ways. When I told people I was going to the funeral, they asked why. But frankly, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for this man, I wouldn’t be in the music industry. So while we had our major differences, I was glad we made up at the end. He was a pivotal person in my life, even though he was a royal pain in the arse for parts of it. It’s a shame that a lot of people whose lives he touched weren’t at the funeral. It’s a shame people couldn’t put it behind them.”