Do it Yourself: The Story of Rough Trade Records

The Rough Trade story begins more than thirty years ago on 20th February 1976. Britain was in the grip of an IRA bombing campaign; a future prime minister was beginning to make her mark on middle England, where punk was yet to run amok; and a young Cambridge graduate called Geoff Travis opened a new shop at 202 Kensington Park Road, just off Ladbroke Grove in West London. Following a loan from his father, Geoff Travis decided to open a record store to sell off the huge volume of records he had collected during his travels across America. The Rough Trade shop sold obscure and challenging records by bands like American art-rockers Pere Ubu, offering an alternative to the middle-of-the-road rock music that dominated the music business. Its music policy ñ and its communal vibe - set it apart from conventional, commercial record shops.

But selling a few independent records over the counter was not going to change the world. Early independent labels had to hand over their distribution to the likes of EMI or CBS. But one man at Rough Trade challenged that monopoly. Richard Scott joined Rough Trade in 1977 and became the architect of a grand scheme that was nothing short of revolutionary: independent nationwide distribution. The shop could now offer experimental musicians the chance to sell records nationwide and so it was inevitable that Rough Trade became a record label in its own right. In 1978 the Rough Trade label was born. By the end of the year it had released a dozen singles by an eclectic mix of post-punk artists and become not just an alternative ideological force, but genuine competitors in the commercial music world.