A Rough Guide: Rough Trade by Rob Young

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Where would music be without Rough Trade Records? Well, for a start there would be no Smiths, no Fall, no Libertines , no Cabaret Voltaire, Scritti Politi, British Sea Power or Belle and Sebastian. Not to mention any UK releases for The Go-Betweens, early Arcade Fire or The Strokes. In fact without Rough Trade Records or Geoff Travis, I fear we would all be forced to listen to every  Red Hot Chilli Peppers recording ever released – surely a fate worse than death. There is a reason thousands of music fans make the pilgrimage to the original Rough Trade shop in London every year.

The second offering the Labels Unlimited series, Rough Trade provides an illustrated and comprehensive history England’s most notable independent record label. The label began its life as a small record shop in Notting Hill in 1976. Founder, Geoff Travis opened the shop in an attempt to off load part of the vast record collection he had built up while travelling through America. The Rough Trade Shop – which still stands today and is a pilgrimage for all true indie connoisseurs – soon became the haunt for London’s thriving underground music community.

Unsatisfied with merely providing an outlet for small and unsigned bands to sell their wares, Travis expanded into recording and producing records for new up and coming musicians. The venture was never meant to be a business one – Rough Trade was designed specifically to develop bands, giving them an opportunity to record while they waited for offers from larger commercial record companies. After years of struggle, it suddenly occurred to Travis that it would be more beneficial for the company and the bands to stick together: Rough Trade would generate a better profit while the bands could sign to an Independent label and retain free reign over their music. Influential post-punk and experimental acts such as Cabaret Voltaire and Stiff Little Fingers signed to the label in quick succession, and the Rough Trade legacy was born.

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 A regular contributor to The Wire, Rob Young presents a well-informed narration of the Record label’s past. From its zenith during the mid eighties, through the company’s disastrous collapse on the cusp of 1990, to the slow rebuilding that has returned Rough Trade Records to its former glory, Young spares no detail. The book is divided into time periods, with each chapter named after a song by a band signed to Rough Trade. The chapters contain an exhaustive guide to the bands signed to the label during the particular period – tours, fights, and, of course, albums. It is to Young’s credit that he did not succumb to the temptation of focusing only on Rough Trade’s biggest bands; rather, he discusses dozens of interestingly off-kilter acts that were on the label, and it is often these bands that afford the most amusing anecdotes. However, having said this, the inclusion of every single band or musician ever signed to Rough Trade at some point in the label’s history means that all but the most serious of Rough Trade fans will be left flipping through the book, looking for the three bands they know. And how often do you actually find someone who is a fan of a record company? 

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Most interesting, and undoubtedly the first part of the book most readers will flip to is the chapter detailing Rough Trade’s tumultuous relationship with The Smiths. Appropriately, but perhaps slightly bitterly titled ‘1983-1986: Money Changes Everything,’ it relates the early amicable days of the band’s time with the label and the gradual degeneration of their association which led to The Smiths leaving Rough Trade. One particular quote from Morrissey encapsulates the story perfectly: “I tremble at the power we have, that’s how I feel about The Smiths. It’s there and it’s going to happen... What we want to achieve CAN be achieved on Rough Trade. Obviously we wouldn’t say no to Warners, but Rough Trade can do it too.” Reading this, one is left thinking that surely Travis should have seen what lay ahead, after all, Rough Trade’s DIY ethic always meant that they were limited in what they could offer financially, and the lure of money should never be underestimated. Morrissey claimed they would not say no to Warners and clearly, they didn’t.

Rough Trade is certainly an attractive book to look at. The cover art gives a brief but bright pictorial history of the record label. The pages are colour coordinated – white pages contain the chapters; pastel yellow marks out written and illustrative band retrospectives and interviews with everyone from musicians to an in depth interview Travis himself; and a complete Rough Trade discography is printed on bright yellow paper at the back of the book. The text is tempered with hundreds of photos, and while there are plenty of shots of the bands, it is pleasing to see that Young has not limited himself to the obligatory candid pictures of musicians smoking or drinking. Album covers, promotional posters, cartoons, even hand written directions to the shop scribbled on a Rough Trade Distribution catalogue.  Everything has been included here, so much so that the book’s size excludes it from the practicality of being able to read it anywhere but home – it is simply too big to carry around.

 

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Rough Trade presents a thoroughly detailed and engaging chronicle of one of the most important record labels in the history of rock music. It successfully straddles the line between fascinatingly knowledgeable and pretentiously over-informed.

Where would the music industry be without Rough Trade Records, and where would any music fan be without Rough Trade?

Rough Trade available here.

ASHA.