A music-obsessed Cambridge graduate, Geoff Travis hitch-hiked across America in his mid-twenties, where he picked up “literally hundreds of records by the time I got to San Francisco,” then shipped them back to London. A fantasy was forming in his head: “Opening a shop where you could listen to records all day without anyone bothering you too much.”
A fantasy was forming in his head: “Opening a shop where you could listen to records all day without anyone bothering you too much.”
Acquiring more vinyl stock from a bankrupt Cambridge record store, Travis eventually settled on scuzzy low-rent Ladbroke Grove as a London location that offered sufficient passing trade thanks to its mix of bohemians and reggae-loving Rastafarians from the local West Indian population.
Opening in February 1976, Rough Trade became a magnet for the local community. Because Joe Strummer’s 101ers played nearby at the Elgin pub, and Mick Jones lived by the Westway flyover, Rough Trade made the connection with punk really early.
In many ways, Rough Trade provided a bridge between the new punk movement and its spurned precursor, the hippy counter-culture.
Related Posts
Stiff Records Memorably described by Pete Waterman as "a crepe soles and roll-ups operation" Stiff Records was set up by industry managers…
Factory Records Factory was founded in 1978 by Granada TV presenter Tony Wilson, band manager and unemployed actor Alan Erasmus, graphic designer…
Stock, Aitken & Waterman In the late 1980s the pop charts were awash with songs written and produced by Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and…
Almost Better Than The Real Thing From 1968 to 1982, studio-based musicians in the employ of Pickwick Records in Britain mimicked everyone from The Sex Pistols to Roxy…
Embassy Records Kids today want designer names, the genuine thing. But in the 1950s and 1960s when money was in short supply,…
Trouser Press The rock and roll magazine Trouser Press first appeared in 1974 in New York as a mimeographed fanzine by Ira…
Stax Founded in an old movie theatre in Memphis (originally as Satellite Records) by Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, Stax had…
Atlantic Records Atlantic Records has introduced the world to some of the most influential musicians this planet has ever produced; Jazz icons…
