| In the
confusion of 1977 when safety pins became jewellery, gossip
became news and the rock press was given a kind of spasm inducing
mouth to mouth, the independent label was born. With the
birth of punk the music world went dayglo and the large
conglomerates like EMI etc with their bloated budgets, moguls,
and megastars were forced to make room, at least for a while,
for these independent labels. Though purists might reckon that
the reggae obscurists, Island and eventually Virgin were the
first independents it wasn't till the birth of Stiff, Chiswick
and eventually Rough Trade and its many bastard sons that the
independent labels first panted its howling breaths. |
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| The
scene
soon produced its heroes and the bigger companies snapped them
up. EMI, A&M and Virgin had the Pistols, CBS had the Clash,
UA had The Stranglers, Buzzcocks and 999 and Polydor had The Jam and the
Banshees. The Damned as usual were left behind in their rush.
Note that The Buzzcocks (New Hormones) and 999 (Labritain) had
previously released a single on their own labels. |
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It was
Jake Riviera's Stiff who captured the initial independent spirit
taking the route of mixing older acts with the new boys. So you
had releases by Nick Lowe, the Pink Fairies along with the Damned, Adverts, Motorhead,
Richard Hell and Elvis Costello. It was in
fact Elvis Costello who was the start of the labels boom that
continued with such acts as Madness and Ian Dury the latter their
first number 1.The first punk single, The Damned's New Rose,
was on Stiff. Out of Stiffs shabby storefront offices poured out
a continual onslaught of puns graphics and gimmicks. and the
slogan "If it ain't Stiff it aint worth a fuck"
cleaned up in one of the pictures for the granny to wear. |
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At the
same time Ted Carroll's Chiswick in Kentish Town London was using
the same formula on his own label mixing the rockabilly of Whirlwind and Vince Taylor with punkier acts like Skrewdriver,
Motorhead ( them Again !!) Radio Stars, The Rings, Radiators From
Space and Johnny Moped. Eventually even The Damned would move to
them upon reforming and give Chiswick chart success with Love
Song.
These two
labels were able to make some headway but lacking the publicity
budgets and distribution they could only do so much . No wonder
the Pistols held out for the biggest deal. They wanted the
biggest audience for their music.
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| With Stiff
and suchlike taking the initiative, it wasn't long before the
labels began to increase. Small Wonder and Rough Trade (Still
there in Portobello today !!) began to grab some of the scruffy
elements of the new wave. Rough Trade had started distributing
the smaller labels through the back of their shop as had Small
Wonder, both were operating mail order services and both were
inundated with potential Pistols, left field weirdos and
commercial comrades all bursting to introduce their talents to
plastic. Rough Trade had kicked off with the Iggy influenced
guitar barrage of the drum machine powered French outfit Metal Urbain. They followed it with discs from Stiff Little Fingers,
Subway Sect, Angelic Upstarts and Spizz Oil. Small Wonder
introduced us to Puncture, The Zeros, Menace, Leyton Buzzards and
Demon Preacher. |
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| Almost
immediately though, the first signs of confusion about independent
availability began. It was hard enough to track down some of the labels,
difficult to read about some of the releases and sometimes it was
impossible to obtain some of the more limited pressings. I used to buy a
lot mail order. If I hadn't heard the band just the name would give me a
clue. Or picture covers. God I love the picture covers. Again if I
didn't know what I was buying in a shop the cover would give me a clue. |
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