Skip to main content

'It was like working in a mill, but with drugs': how indie labels reinvented British music

It’s 40 years since Rough Trade, Mute and Factory Records used an anti-industry attitude to give a voice to the likes of Joy Division and Depeche Mode. The labels’ founders recall why they had to rip things up and start again

‘We did have a minor armed robbery, but nobody got killed,” recalls Rough Trade’s Geoff Travis, looking back on a shaky moment for the west London record shop in 1978. Staff lay on the floor at gunpoint as the till was emptied along with their wallets, although one employee was shown some mercy and allowed to keep the gram of speed that was in his.

The shop had become a target due to its success. After opening in 1976, Rough Trade was soon more than a retail outlet. It became a cultural hub, a place where people socialised, read fanzines, listened to chest-pounding dub reggae or, increasingly throughout 1978, tried to sell the records they had made.

Continue reading...

from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2r7r3gW
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tracey Emin decorates Regent's Park and a celebration of Islamic creativity – the week in art

Emin and others survey the state of sculpture, Glenn Brown takes his decadent imagination to Newcastle and artists offer northern exposure – all in your weekly dispatch Frieze Sculpture Park Tracey Emin, Barry Flanagan and John Baldessari are among the artists decorating Regent’s Park with a free survey of the state of sculpture. • Regent’s Park, London , 4 July until 7 October. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2IDCpPV
Post a Comment
Read more

When Brooklyn was queer: telling the story of the borough's LGBTQ past

In a new book, Hugh Ryan explores the untold history of queer life in Brooklyn from the 1850s forward, revealing some unlikely truths For five years Hugh Ryan has been hunting queer ghosts through the streets of Brooklyn, amid the racks of New York’s public libraries, among its court records and yellow newspaper clippings to build a picture of their lost world. The result is When Brooklyn Was Queer, a funny, tender and disturbing history of LGBTQ life that starts in an era, the 1850s, when those letters meant nothing and ends before the Stonewall riots started the modern era of gay politics. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2H9Zexs
Post a Comment
Read more