BBC4 tonight:Do it Yourself: The Story of Rough Trade
- Thread starter Gingerman
- Start date
danny la rouge
Ninja swords for all disabled people
Cheers for the heads up.
redsnapper
Vintage Urban
Ahh my bro worked for RT circa 1988. I must tell him about this. I watched the first prog last night, very interesting and some great footage 
redsnapper
Vintage Urban
He worked in the warehouse iirc, I kept an eye out for him but couldn't see him. They name checked Tony as well who ran Red Rhino Records in York where we're from. Red Rhino distributed RT stuff. Our kid worked there as well for a bit.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
I missed the first 40 minutes of this. What I saw brought back so many memories. The Delta 5, The Raincoats, Young Marble Giants, Cabaret Voltaire...
Gingerman
Is a great bunch of lads.....
The lead singer from Mazzy Star was rather nice to look at,was'nt she?Reminded me of a young Natasha Kinski
http://www.mazzystar.nu/web/hope-sandoval.html
http://www.mazzystar.nu/web/hope-sandoval.html
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
She's a real cutie.
oryx
Sitting on the bok of the day
There used to be some good record & indie shops in York......remember Priestley's?
I think Red Rhino's still going - haven't been in there for a fair few years, though.
The Rough Trade programme was great - the old footage of London in the early 80s and the music clips made me soooooo nostalgic.
I believe it's repeated tonight, again on BBC4 - well worth a watch.
audiotech
wav, aiff, mp3, ogg, flac
On iplayer
Delta 5 (definately a Gang of Four similarity in the song played) and The Raincoats I got to see at the time.
A James gig I had been given tickets for I also gave away. I didn't fancy sitting down.
Sandie Shaw with The Smiths.
Hope Sandoval, the singer in Mazzy Star, is gorgeous.
I didn't know that The Smiths had turned down a deal with EMI and that they pissed of Mark E Smith of The Fall (no relation
), because of Rough Trade putting all it's resources into the one band.
Ivor Cutler.
The song 'Take the Skinheads Bowling' by 'Camper Van Beethoven' is a treat.
Pulp - 'music for the Netto generation'.
Pete Doherty of The Libertines looks fucked as usual.
Delta 5 (definately a Gang of Four similarity in the song played) and The Raincoats I got to see at the time.
A James gig I had been given tickets for I also gave away. I didn't fancy sitting down.
Sandie Shaw with The Smiths.
Hope Sandoval, the singer in Mazzy Star, is gorgeous.
I didn't know that The Smiths had turned down a deal with EMI and that they pissed of Mark E Smith of The Fall (no relation
), because of Rough Trade putting all it's resources into the one band.Ivor Cutler.
The song 'Take the Skinheads Bowling' by 'Camper Van Beethoven' is a treat.
Pulp - 'music for the Netto generation'.
Pete Doherty of The Libertines looks fucked as usual.
redsnapper
Vintage Urban
There used to be some good record & indie shops in York......remember Priestley's?
I think Red Rhino's still going - haven't been in there for a fair few years, though.
Yeah Priestley's was a great vintage clothes shop but in the last few years of it's life it got really expensive and the guy who ran it got so up his own arse about the business that he lost most of the customers who'd helped build it up and Priestley's went out of business.
Red Rhino's been closed for years mate although for a few years it was trading under the name 'Depthcharge' which was on different premises to where RR had been previously.
danny la rouge
Ninja swords for all disabled people
She's done some great solo work since. Give her a listen.
Oh, and on the story as a whole, I guess the old saying was right: never trust a hippy.
I've got Bavarian Fruit Bread by Hope Sandoval and The Warm Intentions. It's sublime.
Yeah me too. I think On The Low is my favourite track on that.
(-I've only just this minute realised that it's a Rough Trade release, which kind of puts a spanner in my lack of enthusiasm for what's been released on the resurrected version of the label.
)Random thoughts...
Re-listening to Bavarian Fruit Bread now, Hope Sandoval could probably just sing a shopping list and still make it sound alluring...
Of the Rough Trade programmes, I enjoyed the clips of The Raincoats, Delta 5, Weekend, Robert Wyatt, Microdisney, Camper Van Beethoven, Pulp too.
In the actual documentary, good to see Scritti then and now (-and although I bought Songs To Remember when it came out, I'd never realised until now quite what an apparently seismic moment it was for Rough Trade at the time).
I was pleasantly surprised to see that Mayo Thompson was (1) so involved in Rough Trade (-I thought he'd only produced a couple of LPs for them), and (2) that he wasn't/isn't quite the Roky-like sixties acid casualty of Red Krayola that I'd always assumed he'd be; he came across now as being sharp as a needle.
Too much on emphasis on The Smiths as sole saviours of indie; no doubting they seemed to have been the saviours of Rough Trade's finances at the time, but by that point it's not like there weren't other strong indie labels and bands around back then too.
Geoff Travis clearly squirmed whenever difficult questions were asked about apparently bad decisions he'd made, and although he held his hands up to some mistakes, I felt he got off a bit lightly: "-Oh... -I don't remember anything about that..." -That's either refreshingly honest, or a bit of a cop out; I can't decide.
Towards the end, it seemed to me that the documentary mistook the more recent resurrection of Rough Trade as some kind of totemic phoenix of the independent spirit, as opposed to being more specifically a personal resurrection for Geoff Travis. And I don't know if it's quite the vindication that it was presented as; isn't he now just working firmly within the mainstream system he'd originally sought to overthrow, pushing a much smaller but far safer roster of acts?
I'm probably being a bit too harsh. I did really enjoy watching it all.
The first third of the documentary really made me want to form a band or a label. The middle third made me have second thoughts, and the final third made me want to stop watching (-I can't stand The Strokes, The Libertines, Anthony, and Duffy...). But fair play to the Rough Trade of old; up to a point, they really showed everybody else that it could be done, and exactly how to do it. For that they were fucking great.
And now that Factory and Rough Trade have been embraced and documented by BBC4, I expect it'll be Creation next... (-Although Mute/Blast First/etc would probably be just as worthy a subject?...)
Re-listening to Bavarian Fruit Bread now, Hope Sandoval could probably just sing a shopping list and still make it sound alluring...
Of the Rough Trade programmes, I enjoyed the clips of The Raincoats, Delta 5, Weekend, Robert Wyatt, Microdisney, Camper Van Beethoven, Pulp too.
In the actual documentary, good to see Scritti then and now (-and although I bought Songs To Remember when it came out, I'd never realised until now quite what an apparently seismic moment it was for Rough Trade at the time).
I was pleasantly surprised to see that Mayo Thompson was (1) so involved in Rough Trade (-I thought he'd only produced a couple of LPs for them), and (2) that he wasn't/isn't quite the Roky-like sixties acid casualty of Red Krayola that I'd always assumed he'd be; he came across now as being sharp as a needle.
Too much on emphasis on The Smiths as sole saviours of indie; no doubting they seemed to have been the saviours of Rough Trade's finances at the time, but by that point it's not like there weren't other strong indie labels and bands around back then too.
Geoff Travis clearly squirmed whenever difficult questions were asked about apparently bad decisions he'd made, and although he held his hands up to some mistakes, I felt he got off a bit lightly: "-Oh... -I don't remember anything about that..." -That's either refreshingly honest, or a bit of a cop out; I can't decide.
Towards the end, it seemed to me that the documentary mistook the more recent resurrection of Rough Trade as some kind of totemic phoenix of the independent spirit, as opposed to being more specifically a personal resurrection for Geoff Travis. And I don't know if it's quite the vindication that it was presented as; isn't he now just working firmly within the mainstream system he'd originally sought to overthrow, pushing a much smaller but far safer roster of acts?
I'm probably being a bit too harsh. I did really enjoy watching it all.
The first third of the documentary really made me want to form a band or a label. The middle third made me have second thoughts, and the final third made me want to stop watching (-I can't stand The Strokes, The Libertines, Anthony, and Duffy...). But fair play to the Rough Trade of old; up to a point, they really showed everybody else that it could be done, and exactly how to do it. For that they were fucking great.
And now that Factory and Rough Trade have been embraced and documented by BBC4, I expect it'll be Creation next... (-Although Mute/Blast First/etc would probably be just as worthy a subject?...)
er wrong...but yer bro will tell you what's right.
what you witnessed was not Priestley's but what Priestley's, the site, became...what went out of business on the site of Priestley's was in NO WAY part of what Priestley's was...in this context.
I worked for/with Red Rhino/RT/Priestley's and most of the bands so far mentioned...at the time...which was nice.
danny la rouge
Ninja swords for all disabled people
Fantastic Sunday listening, isn't it?
oryx
Sitting on the bok of the day
er wrong...but yer bro will tell you what's right.
what you witnessed was not Priestley's but what Priestley's, the site, became...what went out of business on the site of Priestley's was in NO WAY part of what Priestley's was...in this context.
I worked for/with Red Rhino/RT/Priestley's and most of the bands so far mentioned...at the time...which was nice.
Wasn't the name Priestley's that of an old butcher's shop, which was retained as it had the name in lovely tiling below the windows?
I think it's still there but is now an optician.
In its incarnation as a vintage clothes shop I bought a couple of lovely Fifties dresses and probably a few other odds & ends - this was about 1983.
I think it used to sell fanzines, badges etc. as well as clothes IIRC.
York is a bit of a clone town now in terms of shops.
Yes, this ^^^^
Fantastic Sunday listening, isn't it?
And this ^^^
ATOMIC SUPLEX
Member Since: 1985 Post Count: 3
Ah good it was repeated.
Great show. Difficult to find somewhere to take a piss though.
Great show. Difficult to find somewhere to take a piss though.
In its incarnation as a vintage clothes shop I bought a couple of lovely Fifties dresses and probably a few other odds & ends - this was about 1983.
and before that it was Priestley's T(ee)-shirts...which has a(n) RT context.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
If it's not it will be soon, i'll keep eyes open.
