In late 1970s London, with an IRA bombing campaign going on, in the early days of Maggie Thatcher’s political career, Cambridge graduate Geoff Travis opened a shop off Ladbrooke Grove. It was a record shop, and he called it Rough Trade.
Travis was in the right place at the right time, and he was the right kind of person. Putting out your own records in the 1970s was unheard of, music was in the grip of the big corporates, But then punk rock exploded onto the music scene, and Manchester punk rockers The Buzzcocks pressed their own single – Spiral Scratch. Rough Trade stocked it, and sold it in the hundreds. Other bands got on board and Rough Trade became the place to go for a diverse alternative to the middle-of-the-road material sold by the big labels.
The music sold through Rough Trade proved that anyone could put out a record. The Desperate Bicycles printed instructions for how to do press your own records on their record sleeve. Scritti Politti printed the whole production document, and people realised that it could be done. Do-It-Yourself had come to the record industry.
Though the bands themselves were able to press their own records, distribution through a single shop in London was not going to change the record industry world. Other independent labels like Virgin and Island Records still had to rely on the retail outlets of the big outfits.
And then along came Richard Scott, and the world did change.
Click here for the 90 minute video of the Story of Rough Trade.