Rogue Traders

“The idea was just to pump out music at shrieking volume and just enjoy yourself, and hopefully sell some records. I hated that whole thing of going into HMV, asking for a record and being told to fuck off.” – Geoff Travis, Rough Trade Shop and label founder.

The first Rough Trade Shop opened in February 1976 at 202 Kensington Park Road in Notting Hill, selling mostly Jamaican pre-release reggae and esoterica to small coterie of discerning London hipsters. A neat example of the right people in the right place at the right time, it was perfectly poised, both geographically and philosophically, to catch the tsunami of punk that was about to sweep across Britain. The shop swiftly became a locus for the emergent scene, stocking music that the larger stores wouldn’t touch, either because it was deemed too confrontational for sensitive middle-management palates, or because they simply weren’t aware of its existence. Early clients included punk point-men Mick Jones (future Clash), Steve Jones (future Pistols) and notorious NME hack Nick Kent, and the shop became as much a drop-in centre for spittle-flecked drop-outs as a place to buy records.

It was a natural progression to the set-up of a sister record label and the rapid expansion of a national distribution network, both of which had at their core a desire to get fresh, challenging music to wherever an audience wanted to buy it. The influence of this genuinely independent ethos, a sharp “fuck you” to the major labels, and the bands it championed – bands like the Buzzcocks, Raincoats and Stiff Little Fingers – was enormous.

Travis and Pete Donne, co-owner of the shop, managed to maintain the momentum beyond the initial punk explosion and threw their weight behind seminal acts like Cabaret Voltaire, Scritti Politti, Joy Division and eventually, a small Manchester four-piece called The Smiths…

Fast-forward to 2001, past global expansion in Tokyo and Paris, global contraction in the US (the rapid growth of the business brought with it a loss of control over staffing, and brought the American operation to its knees) and of course, a quarter-century’s worth of countless essential releases. Travis & Co. are celebrating 25 contrary years in the game with a four-disc sampler of the highest points in Rough Trade history and needless to say, it’s all astonishing stuff. In these days where ‘independent’ has become the foreshortened, executive-neutered “indie”, it’s a timely box-shaped reminder of how far gritty determination and a genuine love for music can bring you.

25 Years Of Rough Trade Shops is out now on Mute Records