How Soon is Now?: The Madmen and Mavericks who made Independent Music 1975-2005

by King, Richard

  Empowered and awake to the index of possibilities punk had thrown up, a generation of young men (and it was sadly, nearly always men, although today, in Jeannette Lee, Rough Trade now has one of the most respected and influential label owners in the music business) would start mapping their own physical and mental space where they could carry forward their own set of outlandish and impossible criteria, waywardly walking across the hot coals of punk’s embers, to create their own reality. Their names were Geoff Travis, Tony Wilson, Daniel Miller, Martin Mills, Ivo Watts-Russell, Alan Horne and Alan McGee. They would later be joined by a younger generation of backroom entrepreneurs: Steve Beckett, Richard Russell, and Laurence Bell. This book, with an additional cast of bands, artists, co-conspirators, miscreants, drug dealers, DJs and other visionary chancers and con men, is their story.

  Remembering his contemporaries, Daniel Miller reflects on their similarities: ‘If you look at all those people – we were all roughly the same age, in our mid-twenties, when we started, which meant we were old enough to remember the whole ’68 thing. We were all involved with the protest movement in some way or other. We were all young, but we were also old militant hippie types turned on by punk.’ A lack of music industry experience was a benefit not a hindrance. ‘Everybody was in the same boat – OK, Geoff had owned a shop for a little bit, Martin Mills had owned a shop for a little bit and Tony had had a TV show. But nobody had a clue about running a record company and that was the best thing about it … and I try to know as little about running a record company today.’

  The labels this generation started: Factory, Rough Trade, Mute, 4AD, Beggars Banquet and Creation, would trade on an ethos and identity no brand consultant would now dare dream of. Their releases enabled a fierce loyalty from their fans, resulting in a confidence on the part of the consumer to buy whatever the label released. As well as the music recorded, the distinctive logos and typefaces found on releases by Factory, Mute and 4AD were signposts to a secret knowledge. The sleeves celebrated the sense of artefact inherent in a 12-inch record cover and stretched its design possibilities to an almost ecstatic breaking point.

  Factory, in particular, under the guidance of graphic designer Peter Saville, who favoured mixed media card and die-cut or fold-out designs, revolutionised the concept of what a record sleeve could be.

  Between them Miller, McGee and Wilson, along with Travis, Watts-Russell, Mills and the labels that followed their lead, discovered and released music by artists who represent the DNA of popular culture: Orange Juice, The Smiths, Depeche Mode, Joy Division, The Fall, New Order, Cabaret Voltaire, Cocteau Twins, Happy Mondays, Sonic Youth, Primal Scream, Aphex Twin, Teenage Fanclub, Pixies, the Strokes, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, My Bloody Valentine, Autechre, White Stripes, Franz Ferdinand, Antony and the Johnsons, and Arctic Monkeys to name but a handful. The above bands barely scratch the surface of the independent catalogue but they represent the spine, if not the centrifugal force, of any record collection, etched as they are into the musical consciousness of generations. The independent catalogue has provided the soundtrack to self-discovery, teenage kicks and every other type of hedonism; it can be viewed almost as a contemporary art collection, but functions just as easily as a backdrop to everyday life. Above all, it’s the sound of musicians and artists being not only allowed, but actively encouraged, to do whatever the hell they want and damn the consequences.

  In today’s climate of demograph-dictated consumerism and the corporate desire to access the ‘reputation economy’, it is ironic that the independent music industry was birthed, and chaotically nurtured, in a scruffy anonymous shop in down at heel, if not downright knackered, Ladbroke Grove. In February 1976 Geoff Travis opened a record shop at 202 Kensington Park Road, Ladbroke Grove, London. The cheap rent and the premises’ former role as a head shop reinforced the area’s reputation as an ashtray for the burnt-out remnants of laissez-faire hippie lifestyle experimentation. In the back room Travis would set up a desk and, phone in hand, start fielding calls and making decisions that fell well beyond the remit of buying and selling records. Within a year of its opening, any surface not occupied by the shopfront activities of 202 Kensington Park Road was used to start organising and negotiating a new kind of ad hoc business.

  ‘Our motivation was really to take control of our own destiny’, he says, ‘by making our own records. It was all about not being interested in joining existing systems, but just getting on with doing your art – and then there being an independent structure that you could tap into which gave you access to the market, without having to engage with all the normal routes. You know, going to Sony records saying, “Please, sir, will you give me five shillings?” – and that’s what independence is, it’s about building structures outside of the mainstream, structures that can help you infiltrate the mainstream. We knew that, and we knew that someone somewhere else was making decisions about what you had access to.’

  The name Rough Trade was delightfully apposite. It suggested a below-the-counter approach to commerce and a willingness to deal in black-market goods. In its appropriation of the slang term for male prostitution, Rough Trade carried a slyly knowing air of antagonism and wilfulness. The shop, as well as its name, caught the mood of the times and proved a success. Set up as a co-operative, it ran more or less as a collective with no real business plan other than to try to sell records that the handful of staff liked to anyone who was interested. Rough Trade quickly gained a reputation for both the depth of its stock and the knowledge of its staff. Rather than concentrate within a specialised genre it traded on the quality and diversity of the records it carried. Everyone who walked through the shop’s doors was energised by either the sweetly harsh buzz of the first punk releases pumping out of Rough Trade’s in-store sound system or the dubplate pre-releases the shop was importing from Jamaica. Or in many cases by both.

  New forms of music were attempted, often by people with only a passing interest, let alone ability, in their particular medium. Musical dexterity or accomplishment were blunt instruments compared to a speeding mind flickering with a newly discovered articulacy. The shop had created a rapidly growing microclimate that was now expanding at speed via the newly fused circuit board of punk. It sold interesting music in a way that no one else did. Increasingly its stock was being bought directly from the artists themselves while the shop could bypass the usual channels of record companies, their sales reps and their distribution divisions.

  James Endeacott, then a teenager, would go on, as A&R for Rough Trade, to help sign both the Strokes and the Libertines. He remembers the impetus abroad in the early and mid-Eighties. ‘No one knew what a manager was, no one knew what an agent was – we didn’t want to talk about that, we wanted to talk about records. I didn’t know when our records were coming out and I didn’t really care. I didn’t know the business – I didn’t want to know – now it’s all bands know. Now it’s, “Here’s this band who’ve done half a gig and they’ve got a lawyer.” It was never a career path to me, it was just what you did.’

  Travis realised that as well as selling records full of new ideas in the shop, he was getting requests to stock these releases from other retail outlets across the UK. However small, a burgeoning alternative to the mainstream Top Forty market was developing. Rough Trade was in a position to represent this music outside London and 202 Kensington Park Road would have to expand its horizons from retail to distribution. It would have to start reaching out to sell these records and would do so quite easily. And the records kept landing on the Rough Trade shop doormat, and they kept being dropped off at the counter. The recordings they contained highlighted strange new forms of creativity, artfully, at times almost gnostically, packaged. Along with the urgent need to create, these discs revealed a heavy degree of purpose and consideration. As well as starting bands these people had decided they were starting record companies with names like Factory, Mute and 4AD.

  Independence over the next thirty years would be tested, reinterpreted and fre
quently be pronounced dead. Despite all that, it would weather its way through the music industry and remain a constant source of new and irrefutable music.

  When Rough Trade opened for business in the late Seventies there were around fourteen major record companies. Today there are three. Even if their share of the recorded music market is still greatly outweighed by the majors, and even if that market is in decline, compared to their corporate rivals the independent music industry is flourishing.

  Bloody-mindedness remains a source of inspiration; for Factory, Mute, Creation, Warp, Domino and their peers, it has served as an engine room when all else has failed.

  Along the way the individuals who ran these labels went mad and went to the wall in equal measure. They stood their ground or relocated to the wilderness, having tasted both the sweet and bitter fruits of the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle as much as any of their musical charges. Hedonism easily blurs the thin line between success and failure. Walking the high wire of running a multimillion-pound company in a volatile high-stakes industry, with no business plan let alone safety net, takes its toll on those in charge. ‘The success of any independent label is down to what is in the person’s head,’ says Endeacott. ‘Rather than try to follow the market or plan for the future – it’s down to what’s in their head.’ Reflecting on the characters behind the independent industry he continues, ‘There’s always a price to pay. We call them mavericks. All those people you talk about – Tony Wilson, Ivo, Geoff, McGee, Martin Mills – they’re all mental. In the USA they’re mavericks, in the UK they’re eccentric, but really they’re all a bit nutty, they’re all a bit crazy. It’s about the beating heart; it’s the passion that drives it. Ego has a lot to do with. All those guys have egos, you have to have an ego.’

  This is the story, set to an incredible soundtrack, of the enormous scale of those passions, the size of those egos, and the true extent of their madness; but above all, it is the story of the loud, wayward sound, reverberating around their beating, racing, and uncontrollable hearts …

  Cast of Characters

  Mike Alway, A&R Cherry Red, Blanco y Negro, founder él records

  Tom Atencio, manager New Order (USA)

  Dave Barker, founder Glass Records, A&R Fire Records, Creation Records

  Jeff Barrett, promoter, PR, A&R Creation Records, PR Factory, founder Heavenly Records

  Steve Beckett, founder Warp Records

  Laurence Bell, A&R Fire Records, founder Domino Records

  Richard Boon, manager Buzzcocks, founder New Hormones, staff Rough Trade

  Rebecca Boulton, manager New Order

  Mark Bowen, A&R Creation Records, founder Wichita Records

  Cally Calloman, A&R Mercury, Polydor, Island

  Cerne Canning, promoter, staff Rough Trade, manager

  Jimmy Cauty, the KLF

  Edwyn Collins, Orange Juice, Postcard Records

  Bill Drummond, founder Zoo Records, A&R Warners, solo artist, the KLF

  Dick Green, partner Creation Records, founder Wichita Records

  Rob Gretton, manager Joy Division and New Order, partner Factory Records, the Hacienda

  Martin Hannett, record producer

  Dave Harper, PR Rough Trade, Factory et al.

  Mick Hougton, PR Warners, Creation, the KLF et al.

  Alan Horne, founder Postcard Records

  Robin Hurley, label manager, Rough Trade America, 4AD

  Bob Last, founder Fast Product, manager Human League, Scritti Polliti

  Andrew Lauder, A&R United Artists

  Jeannette Lee, partner Rough Trade

  Johnny Marr, The Smiths

  Grace Maxwell, manager Orange Juice

  Alan McGee, founder Creation Records

  Nathan McGough, manager Happy Mondays

  Daniel Miller, founder Mute, record producer

  Martin Mills, founder Beggars Banquet

  Stephen Morris, New Order

  Joe Moss, manager The Smiths

  Liz Naylor, editor City Fun, staff Rough Trade, Blast First

  Vaughan Oliver, graphic designer 4AD

  John Peel, broadcaster

  Mike Pickering, A&R Factory Records, DJ and promoter the Hacienda

  Scott Piering, radio plugger, Rough Trade, the KLF et al.

  Ivo Watts-Russell, founder 4AD

  Richard Russell, MD XL Records

  Peter Saville, graphic designer Factory Records

  Richard Scott, founder The Cartel, partner Rough Trade

  Tina Simmons, label manager and partner, Factory Records

  Paul Smith, founder Blast First

  Seymour Stein, founder Sire Records

  Richard Thomas, concert promoter Factory, Rough Trade et al.

  Geoff Travis, founder Rough Trade

  Russell Warby, booking agent Nirvana, the Strokes, et al.

  Tony Wilson, founder Factory Records, broadcaster

  PART ONE

  I Hope to God You’re Not as Dumb as You Make Out

  1 Time’s Up

  Buzzcocks control the means of advertising as well as production for Spiral Scratch (author’s archive)

  In the summer of 1975 at the dazed and confused mid-point of the decade, the London office of United Artists at 14 Mortimer Street in the West End was somewhere where it could all hang out. Dai Davies had become David Bowie’s press officer while still in his teens and had recently returned to London from Bowie’s Diamond Dogs tour of America. He was a regular visitor to the United Artists office, which was something of a drop-in centre for the assembled misfits, outcasts and hustlers who comprised the record company’s roster. ‘The office was fantastic,’ he says. ‘There was a big long oak table and the whole place was decorated in late Sixties Rick Griffin posters. You’d go there and Andrew would be trying to work in the corner at one end of the big table, and at the other end would be Doug Smith or Jake Riviera or whoever happened to be in town.’

  Andrew Lauder was still in his early twenties and had an encyclopaedic musical knowledge matched only by his hunger for vinyl. Lauder had started working in London’s Tin Pan Alley – Denmark Street – as a teenager and made his way up through the West End music business. He was now running the British division of United Artists, an American record company owned by the Transamerica Corporation, a multinational conglomerate that included Budget Rent-A-Car in its portfolio. With very little pencilled in for the United Artists British release schedule, Lauder was left to his own devices to run the label as he saw fit. As long as the company turned a profit his American bosses were satisfied and Lauder developed a roster that reflected his love of esoteric, outsider sounds.

  ‘Andrew hijacked United Artists and turned it into an independent label,’ says Davies ‘The MD didn’t have a clue about music, but was happy for Andrew to take over once he’d had a hit with the Hawkwind single.’

  That hit, ‘Silver Machine’ by Hawkwind, complete with an attendant film of the band playing live in Nuneaton in lieu of the compromise of an appearance on Top of the Pops, had allowed Lauder a free hand in running the label. For Lauder’s acts and their respective managers, United Artists was a unique record company environment for mid-Seventies London. Two frequent visitors to Lauder’s office were Jake Riviera and Doug Smith; both were promoters and managers with lively reputations. Riviera, a refugee from amateur boxing and the murky world of East End concert halls, was in the process of booking his current charges, Dr. Feelgood, their first big national tour. In January 1975 United Artists had just released Down by the Jetty, Dr. Feelgood’s stripped-back debut album. On the monochrome cover, the band looked like a firm considering paying a visit to the Sweeney. The music inside is equally taut and menacing, a collection of stripped-to-the-bone white Sunblest R’n’B recorded in mono. Riviera had booked the group on a three-band package review tour entitled ‘Naughty Boys’. The name encapsulated an attitude, part pub back room sparring match and part Max Wall vaudeville, which Riviera, along with his future business partner Dave Robinson, would finesse
and distil into the identity of Stiff Records. In what would become an irreverent and uncompromising partnership, Robinson and Riviera started Stiff with a donation from Dr. Feelgood’s singer Lee Brilleaux, and some off-the-books funding from Lauder.

  As well as Hawkwind and Dr. Feelgood, Lauder filled the United Artists release schedule with acts from America and Europe and was in the process of finalising a release by one of his German charges, Neu! The group’s third LP, Neu! 75, was a perfectly nuanced synthesis of texture and rhythm. Thirty years later Neu! 75 is as canonical as the Eno/Bowie ‘Berlin trilogy’, but on release its fate was similar to that of most of the records from United Artists: a cult following in the press and a small but well-informed audience of record buyers, who shared a deep relationship with music that coalesced with their experimental tastes and lifestyle. For Lauder and his acts, barring unlikely crossover tracks like ‘Silver Machine’, the prospect of commercial success was not so much elusive as ignored. Alongside Neu!, Hawkwind and Dr. Feelgood, the United Artists roster comprised a disparate collection of head shop favourites: Can, Amon Düül II, Man and the Groundhogs. The bands’ shared defining characteristic was having their records released by Andrew Lauder and United Artists.

  The never-ending visits from characters and chancers to the Mortimer Street offices included unannounced appearances from acts with no formal connection to the label. Invitations were extended to anyone who shared Lauder’s love of experimentation. ‘It was towards the tail end of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band,’ he says. ‘They were pretty out of it and always kept coming around and then Lemmy would turn up with the Hell’s Angels.’

  Lemmy, who had sung lead vocals on ‘Silver Machine’ only to be sacked from Hawkwind, was exploring the possibilities of forming a new group. ‘It was right at the beginning, we were trying to make something of Motörhead,’ says Lauder. ‘It was a bit tough at the time. There was no real management. Actually, there was no real anything at all. It was a pretty eccentric office; it wasn’t really a music business at that point. It felt like it was coming from somewhere completely different. We had to get heavy-duty smoke extractors put in and after that the MD just thought, I’m not going anywhere near there again – let Andrew get on with it.’