by Alex; Ogg
Prior to Red Rhino’s collapse, Nine Mile had been annexed into the central Rough Trade operation, as Hurley took up the offer of an expeditionary role in America. “Rough Trade Germany was doing well at the time, and they were doing quite well in Benelux,” he recalls. “They had this outpost in San Francisco and they wanted to grow Rough Trade in America, so that when Geoff Travis had a band, they didn’t necessarily have to license it to a major label in the US. They asked me if I would like to work in America for a year and assess the growth potential for Rough Trade. I jumped at the chance, it was a dream come true. I decided to merge Nine Mile into Rough Trade so that it would become more like a sales outpost. I was optimistic and naive and very idealistic at the time, as were a lot of the people working in the Cartel, thinking this could be a new model, and an industry that would thrive for a lifetime. In hindsight it didn’t, obviously. Graham Samuels went on to run Rough Trade Benelux in Amsterdam. People like Simon Holland stayed in Leamington and ran that division, with a few other people. But I moved to America in July 1987 and shortly after Graham went to Holland.” Samuels would eventually oversee BBC Music (where he was partially responsible for the success of ‘Bob The Builder’) before joining Sony, while Hurley heads Warners’ Rhino (no relation) imprint.
Fast Forward, which grew out of Bob Last’s Fast Product label and was based in Alva Street, Edinburgh, offered a slight diversion from the norm in that it was a standalone distribution point. Most of the other Cartel members were shops who’d taken gladly to a wider role in distributing the products of their peers. “By the time it was Fast Forward, it was nothing to do with me,” states Last. “We did continue for a while looking to be part of that whole distribution system, but I couldn’t make it work. So we shut down and some people who worked for me took it over, using the Fast Forward name for some continuity.”
“The Cartel discussions had started in 1982,” notes Fast Forward’s subsequent manager Sandy McLean. “We agreed on a name, and Lloyd Bradley from Revolver did a few designs and the company bosses voted on them. We met every couple of months, with Richard Scott and Tony K from Red Rhino being the most active. Fast Product was seen as an equal partner, as Bob was making big waves with his acts. Fast Forward basically ended when we did a quarterly stock check in early 1984, I think, and the results were a £3,500 loss for the quarter. It wasn’t even our main year-end stock check, but rather than trade on or try to turn things around, Bob declared we were insolvent and immediately pulled the plug on the operation. Overnight he laid off everybody except Nick Haines and myself, and we were given a week to return stock to the suppliers. Nick was guitarist in The Flowers alongside Hillary Morrison [Bob Last’s partner]. He was at Fast when I arrived. And Simon Best was the drummer. Simon was running Fast Product for Bob. Simon went off to go to university and he head-hunted me from Virgin – I’d joined them after Bruce’s Records went bust.”
“Bob had wanted to have a one-stop wholesaler operation,” McLean continues, “like EUK, rather than the purely indie model of Rough Trade and Red Rhino. So we had been buying stock from Virgin and Island Records (where he had contacts via the Human League and Heaven 17) on a ridiculously low margin of 5%. That was probably the main reason for the collapse of our profits. With a 5% profit margin (at best) you have to sell every copy of every release to make any money, whereas with the Cartel product it was exclusive to us and the margin was tripled. As the general manager of the company, I have to take responsibility for taking it down, but if it was my company I would have ditched the major label stuff and traded on longer, as turnover was good and we had The Smiths just kicking off.”
“It turned out to be a very good break for me that Bob withdrew from distribution,” McLean continues. “I got to start my own company and my own label, and get paid a wage by someone else while doing it. My first call was to Tony K. He arranged a three-way meeting in York with himself and Richard Scott, where I showed them Fast Product’s turnover figures and accounts. They were puzzled with the decision to close so abruptly, but thought there was good turnover there and wanted to keep the Cartel flag flying in Scotland. Tony came up with the model we later adopted, and the money to get an office and pay wages for Nick Haines and myself. He encouraged me to start my own distribution company, while wholesaling Cartel product to the Scottish record shops and sending the orders to York for despatch by Red Rhino. Tony was incredibly encouraging and generous with both his time and money, and I owe him a lot.”
Tony K’s investment allowed McLean to adopt a dual role. “In the mornings I would phone the shops and work for the Cartel doing the wholesale side. And we’d drive to Glasgow once a week with a car full of records. Gordon Montgomery, who started Fopp (later the UK’s largest chain of independent record shops), was my best account. The freedom I was given in the afternoons was to do my own thing for Fast Forward distribution. I did the 53rd and 3rd label with Stephen Pastel [see chapter nine]. Also I had a label called DDT, which had bands like The Cateran, who later became the Joyriders. We put out the McCluskey Brothers, and James King and the Lone Wolves – tough Glasgow guitar player, really into Johnny Thunders. Charles Bukowski mixed with the Heartbreakers! And We Free Kings, who were Mike Scott’s favourite band at the time – he eventually nicked their fiddle player for the Waterboys – and Swamptrash, who were led by illustrator Harry Horse.”
“The first few years,” he continues, “when Red Rhino paid my wages, Tony K basically encouraged me to do that – he just said go out there and create product, promote good local music by Scottish bands. It was a great time. I used some of my contacts from the Fast Product days – like Rob [King] from The Scars, I put out a couple of singles by his funk band Lip Machine. Rob went off on a tangent and got into George Clinton stuff. Jo Callis [ex-Rezillos] was in the Human League at that time, and did a project called S.W.A.L.K. Jo gave me a master tape and the artwork for that, it didn’t do that well, but again, it was a really fun record. I also did a generic rockabilly label called Mental Records. Because I was doing the wholesale for the Cartel, I knew what sold to the shops. And I put out a heavy metal label too for my sins, picking up local bands like The Crows.”
The Alva Street office was both incestuous and “a real hub of activity” at that time. “Many times I would look up and there was John Robb typing a piece for Sounds,” McLean recalls, “or The Legend! labouring over something for the NME. When they were in Edinburgh they would hang out at the office. I hired a local musician to work on the phones, Chris Connolly from Finitribe. After a few months of working there, for little or no money, Chris called up Alison at Southern and told her how much he liked their records, which we were selling to the shops. He went down to London to Southern and ended up in the back room, where Al Jourgensen of Ministry was recording. Al gave him a big line of speed and got him to do some spontaneous vocals, which later ended up on a Ministry and Pailhead single. He lives in Chicago now, and Alison still distributes his records twenty odd years later. When he moved to Chicago I gave his job to Davie Miller, who became Finitribe’s singer.”
The Cartel members’ efforts were supported by an in-house magazine published by Rough Trade Distribution, Masterbag, which would subsequently evolve into The Catalogue. Edited first by Ian Cranna (in its Masterbag incarnation) then Brenda Kelly, Richard Boon took over after a five-year spell in production for Rough Trade when Kelly left to start Snub TV. “It was a very uneasy publication,” Boon recalls, “because it fell between two stools. One being the trade magazine for the independent sector, and also needing to have a consumerist element to survive. It was funny mixing between being the propaganda wing of the Cartel, and actually getting people to read it.” It’s easy to imagine the horse-trading for editorial space among its benefactors being a headache. “Different Cartel members would have different priorities at different times,” Boon says, employing what is doubtless a well-grooved diplomatic take on the subject. “It wasn’t quite as specific as you’re suggesting. But, yes, it was there
in the background.”
The tone of The Catalogue was, in retrospect, often gnawingly self-analytical rather than indulgent. As early as Masterbag’s fourth issue, an editorial fretted that “the use of the word ‘Masterbag’ is helping to reinforce sexual stereotypes through the use of language.” A later issue of the rebranded magazine (May 1986) saw writer Ian Johnson criticise Mute (who two pages later, paid for the rear page advert) for being “the worst example” [of the big three; alongside Factory and 4AD]. Daniel Miller’s transgression? Letting Spartan handle Mute’s product “as well as the Cartel… This means that the shops can hold out for a deal because both distributors are fighting for it.” Four years later, in 1990, the same magazine was still sniping at Miller for his intransigence. “The dual distribution was a major argument,” concedes Boon, “as Rough Trade and the Cartel expanded, there was a strategy to get labels exclusively through Rough Trade and the Cartel. It was a very polemical argument. Daniel only made his mind up in the latter days of Rough Trade, unfortunately. When Factory opted to go exclusively through Pinnacle, at the same time 4AD wanted to be exclusively through Rough Trade. The immediate thing that happened was 4AD had a number one with M/A/R/R/S and Factory had a number one with the New Order album. Because you’d have the reps from each distributor going into retailers offering them different deals, or discounts, it weakens everybody’s position.”
Yet despite such insular argumentative undercurrents, almost akin to family bickering, The Catalogue, leafing through its back issues, had an enviable cast of writers (Martin Aston, Ian Gittins and Boon himself) and was a fine shop window. Umbrella, an association of independent labels arising out of a series of open discussions held at the ICA, was another initiative. The immediate issue was to campaign against the intrusion of major label subsidiaries into the ‘Independent Chart’ hosted by trade publication Music Week. Formally launched in March 1985, these first tentative steps at collective advocacy are key to the development of the now powerful AIM organisation chaired by Martin Mills of Beggars Banquet.
“I think Umbrella was significant,” recalls Iain McNay of Cherry Red, “because it was the forerunner of AIM, and AIM is a big player now. Brenda Kelly called this meeting in central London of independent labels. I thought, here’s an opportunity, why don’t we start something a little bit, not formal, but organised? So we started Umbrella. I remember that one of the people who was very supportive was Richard Boon.” Other key staff included Brian Leafe, formerly of Caroline Exports, who counselled labels on such matters as changes in copyright law and dealing with collection agencies.
“It was Iain McNay who instigated a whole series of open meetings between labels and distributors,” Boon remembers. “Rough Trade had hired London Records’ sales force to work on The Smiths, which was controversial. Geoff had talked to some of his peers about this decision, and there was a meeting discussing that. Was it controversial, if the distribution was still independent? Was it OK to contract out services even if they were owned by majors? And at the meeting about that, Ted Carroll and Iain McNay came up as well. They said, we need some kind of discussion group or forum where all these things can be thrashed out. That’s how Umbrella came about. I think Ted came up with the name. People like Ted and Roger [Armstrong] and Jumbo Van Renen from Earthworks and Charlie Gillett from Oval had got together in a similar way earlier to put world music branding into retailers, and do rack cards that said world music. There were bits of co-operation and market strategies emerging out of what were very informal discussions.”
By the end of its first year, Umbrella was drawing 60 or more representatives at its meetings. “For two or three years, when I went on my travels, it staggered a bit,” recalls McNay. “But it was a regular forum for independent labels to meet and share experiences and views. And we did do a bit of lobbying, and discussed things like independent charts. And we organised a day school in London which was really successful – several hundred people came.”
“Iain put a lot of energy into organising a weekend conference, with panels and workshops, inviting as many people as he could,” explains Boon. “It was like an indie trade conference. It needed some people to co-ordinate it, and I became one of them. There was a sort of vague election, but actually, it was really people who had a bit of time and energy.” McNay was amazed at the response. “We had panels on helpful things for independent labels, such as international, A&R, etc. It served a valuable purpose and when AIM started many years later, I like to think, to some extent, they took some inspiration from Umbrella.”
According to Boon’s contemporaneous notes in The Catalogue, “The Seminar could have marked the death throes of The Umbrella’s young life, but turned out to be its salvation… the Seminar was a qualified success…. While some aspects of certain panels were blatantly advertorial, the willing participation of people more normally associated with the interests of majors and professionals from the industry’s ancillary workers (such as MCPS, PRS and PPL) was still to be welcomed. Providing, of course, that our callow youth remembers all those warnings about taking sweets from strangers.” New members were encouraged to join for the peppercorn rent of £10 per annum.
All the time Rough Trade Distribution had continued to grow. “People have a perception of Rough Trade as a record label,” states Richard Scott, “but that was only about one tenth of what went on in terms of turnover and personnel. The sales structure, in building an access system for DIY, was far more important than the label. At Rough Trade Distribution and Wholesale we had over 40 people working for us – which is more than the regional distributors put together – and looked after something like 200 labels.” His day to day memories of working in that environment revolve principally around the graft. “It was just dense, from about ten to seven, just fielding orders, talking to people and packing. It was one huge blur, in a way – just a phenomenal amount of very complicated activity. All we could do was respond as best we could to the demand, which was extraordinary. We didn’t really have much time to stop and think about it. People just drifted in, almost fell in off the street, and they always seemed to end up doing something different to what they were taken on to do. And they just gravitated to the bits that they did best. We didn’t advertise – only once, to bring in middle management, Mark Swallow, who was extremely good. It was all done by word of mouth. Later on we had interviews, but not in the early days. We just said, come and help us, please, and they settled in to what they did best.”
Between 1986 and 1990 the turnover had quadrupled to £40 million. Overall Administrator Richard Powell oversaw much of that, but would have to navigate a company whose agenda was never clear. “When Richard Powell was brought in,” notes Boon, “the drive was to be outwardly as professional as possible, but internally to be as radical as possible. They were quite different ambitions! I think Rough Trade Distribution and The Cartel were possibly over analytical internally, in constantly assessing the mechanism of what was going on. In hindsight, that was slightly blinkering.”
“The things that Richard Powell found that were wrong with the structure,” says Richard Scott,” “like duplicated transport costs, were unarguable. But as soon as you accepted that argument, you accepted that the regionally based structure had to change. It was the end of the cosy social structure. But those were the times. The nature of the overall record business was changing very fast.”
Powell was immediately a divisive figure. “We were shafted by Rough Trade,” states Sandy McLean of Fast Forward. “We were getting 7.5% at the top. We were charging a 30% distribution fee, but we had to give Rough Trade 22.5% of that. And the initial deal was, ‘You’ll get that back. The terms will change once we get the warehouse in King’s Cross.’ But the buggers never did change that. Our bank manager just said, this doesn’t add up. When it all got centralised, Richard Powell came along. He said I couldn’t do both – continue to work for the Cartel doing wholesale and having a ‘conflict of interest’ by having my own distribution company. He ma
de me choose. Only through some clever ducking and diving did I manage to continue doing both. I could be very, very brutal about the way it ended.”
It’s often stated that Fast Forward followed Red Rhino into receivership in 1989; but that’s not technically true. “We didn’t go bust,” says McLean, “we just ceased trading. Rough Trade had been really decent about Probe when it went under. But Fast Forward was closed by Mayking pressing plant. I owed Mayking £26,000 and [Mayking founder] Brian Bonnar said, ‘If you can’t pay me, that’s it. You’re insolvent.’ I could have kept going, but Simon Edwards at Rough Trade – someone I hope I never meet again – just decided, no, that’s it. One of my friends called from London one Monday saying, you’re on the front cover of Music Week saying you’ve gone under. ‘What? What are you talking about?’ He read me the article. Rough Trade had sent a press release to Music Week without telling me, saying I’d shut the company. They said I was going into administration. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ Simon just said, ‘I’ve heard from Mayking that you’re closing down. We’re not going to return your stock or give you a penny. We’re not helping you out at all.’ They basically just shafted me, left me swinging. I struggled on for a few more months, doing a bit of export. I did a deal with Mayking. Brian Bonnar was actually reasonable. He said if I could get together half the debt, he would get a county court judgement against me to cover his insurance policy, and he’d get the rest of it from that.”