Rough Trade 1970's

How did rough trade start?

-Rough Trade began when Geoff Travis opened the one record shop 30 years ago.

Which music trends were popular?

-In the summer of 76' the punk rock era had exploded.

What was the ethos of Rough Trade?

- At this time punks were revolting against all mainstream music, and they wanted to support this by selling a different genre of music to mainstream.

How was rough trades different to large corporations?

- Instead of matching their music to what was popular at the time, they went against the norm by selling 'challenging' records (e.g punk) so they didn't coincide with mainstream culture.

What techniques were used to expand the Independent music scene?

- Rough Trade created an alliance between punk and reggae music, which was seen as a "unique/alternative spirit".

How did this lead to Rough Trade's expansion?

- This created a new type of music and showed independent artists that you don't have to be part of mainstream music culture, to become popular. This led to artists sending in their recordings and approaching Rough Trade as an Independent music label.

What type of business structure existed in the 1970's?

- Rough Trade was given a record by a french band - this prompted them to start their record label. When they signed artists they weren't interested in building an empire or just making money, so they shared profit equally with the artist. This type of contract by independent labels were dominating over mainstream labels as it was more relaxed.

Explain the successes of the distribution department and record label..

- In the 70's record distribution was controlled mainly by big companies, so Rough Trade started mail orders to other companies to sell independent records, giving independent artists a chance to get the music across. Where the profit was cut exactly by half more artists began to contact Rough Trade, this is when Independent labels started to affect the big companies as the artists began to abandon mainstream labels. In 1978 Daniel Miller set up 'Mute Records' and used Rough Trade as a distribution service, allowing Rough Trade to start using new records to sell.