Rough Trade and the 1970's?

How did Rough Trade start?
Rough Trade started over 30 years ago on February, 20th, 1976. It started as a small but 'hip' record company in a small studio. Jeff Travis, a Cambridge graduate began this record company by opening a shop off West London. He brought loads of records from San Francisco, America to London and began to sell them in his shop, which lead to this company turning the record industry 'on its head'.

Which music trends were popular?
At this point in time the genre of music that was popular was Punk. Therefore, this shop began to sell Punk orientated, 'middle of the road music'. This company also did not stop at selling music as they started to sell Punk magazines too.

What was the ethos of Rough Trade at this time?
Rough Trade wanted to be somewhere they felt comfortable. They were an independent record label at that time which differed from other labels as most of them were major mainstream labels. Also, Rough Trade had a 'do it yourself' attitude as they sold their own records.

How was Rough Trade different to large corporations?
This record company was different to large corporations due to the fact that they received 50%
profit and the bands/artists also received 50% profit; this meant that the band/artist could leave the company whenever they wanted. This was uncommon at the time because most record labels would have received most of the profit and would have kept their artists under a contract so that they cannot go until the end of the contract. In addition to this, they put costs on the records so people knew how much they cost.

What techniques were used to expand the independent music scene?
Rough Tradeformed an unlikely alliance between Punk and Reggae music, it was very important that they sold reggae music at the time. This 'unlikely alliance' gave Rough Trade a unique spirit. Also, they began to release singles with a major independent record label which granted them good support.

How did this lead to Rough Trade's expansion?
This lead to their expansion as new bands began to join. One of them being 'Scritti Pollitti. This a Marxist, democratic, anti-capitalist band that went against what a majority of people thought during that time.

What type of business structure existed in the 1970's?
Firstly, record distribution was controlled by major companies. Secondly, there was a principle project, they wanted to promote good music and they put principle before profit, they was not interested in building an empire. Also, the shop offered experimental musicians a chance to sell records worldwide.

Explain the successes of the distribution department and record label?
Richard Scott joined Rough Trade in 1977 and he thought of the revolutionary idea 'independent nationwide distribution'. This record label was also granted more success as they becamea record label on 'its own' when French Punks entered their shop. Also, in February, 1979 Rough Trade and band The Stiff Little Fingers released their first industry album, it was the first album in British music history to sell over 100,000 copies. Also when they released their first single it went to no.14 in the U.K. charts. Their band, Scritti Pollitti, changes their direction of music to Pop which was indeed very successful.