Indie’s new adventure

Clive DAVIS notwithstanding, the record business isn’t big on second chances. True, discarded executives often find work at another label, and the names of defunct record companies are regularly dusted off and propped up for show. But these recycled stages are usually pale shadows of the glory that came before.

That makes the current vitality at London’s Rough Trade Records all the more remarkable. This was the label that set the pace for independent music from the late ‘70s through the 1980s, nurturing a hall of fame of artistically influential acts: Scritti Politti, the Fall, Stiff Little Fingers, Aztec Camera, the Slits, Young Marble Giants, Essential Logic, Virgin Prunes, Pere Ubu.

They weren’t household names, but they were distinctive and original and together exerted a profound impact on the alt-rock expansion to come.

There was also hard-core reggae and free jazz in the mix, and Rough Trade hit commercial pay dirt when it came up with a Manchester quartet that would dominate British rock in the late ‘80s -- the Smiths. (The label never aligned itself with a particular sound, as its British contemporaries 4AD and Mute did, nor did it sport a regional emphasis a la Seattle’s Sub Pop. But it had mystique to spare.

And it all came crashing down at the end of the ‘80s. Rough Trade began as a record shop in Notting Hill, and it went on to pioneer an ambitious record distribution cooperative. When that enterprise went belly up at the end of the ‘80s, the record company went with it, sold off to make good on its debts to its partner labels.

Guess what? In 2004, Rough Trade is again setting the pace for independent music, nurturing a new generation of distinctive, original acts, including the compellingly turbulent Libertines, the idiosyncratic Fiery Furnaces, the psychodramatic blues team the Kills, the ethereal Veils and the Bowie-esque British Sea Power, among others. It’s leading a charge of creative independents that also includes England’s Domino Records (Clinic, Franz Ferdinand) and the resurgent Sub Pop (the Postal Service, the Shins).

“Rough Trade really got beat down toward the end of its initial existence, and now it’s back and it’s like better and stronger than ever,� marvels Jonathan Poneman, Sub Pop’s president and a student of indie-label history. “The thing that is amazing is the return of Rough Trade and how they’ve managed to be both successful and relevant and progressive and basically the model of an independent record label in the early 21st century.�

For Geoff Travis, who founded the label in 1978 and revived it two years ago, early 21st century doesn’t seem all that different from late 1970s.

“There’s lots of good artists out there,� says Travis, who has also been involved as a manager with such artists as Pulp and Beth Orton. “It’s the same kind of excitement for us, the same feeling.... We like our artists to be teeming with ideas and stuff they want to do and have ambitions to do all kinds of crazy stuff. We see ourselves as just trying to support that, really.

“The Rough Trade philosophy is to try to make each project work according to its own logic,� adds Travis, who determines the label’s signings with his partner, Jeannette Lee, who joined the company in 1986. “It’s not all about being successful. We just signed Sufjan Stevens, which we’re very pleased about, and Oneida as well, a band from Brooklyn. It’s things we really love, but we’re not expecting to see them on ‘Top of the Pops’ any time soon.

“We’re just very happy to be working with them, and I do believe that if you have something that’s great then people are gonna be interested in wanting to own it.�

The story of Brighton-based British Sea Power’s signing illustrates the survival of Travis’ grass-roots methods.

“We were running a kind of monthly club night called Club Sea Power down in Brighton,� says the band’s singer, the single-named Yan. “He just kind of quietly turned up at our club without telling anybody.... I guess I first met him halfway through the set and I kind of jumped off the stage and ended up doing these kind of press-ups on his feet. He pretty much offered us a contract there and then. We were delighted.�

Travis, is just happy for the second chance. He tried to revive Rough Trade in the early ‘90s in partnership with the One Little Indian label, which bought the name and then kept it when Travis left the arrangement after a year.

Travis finally bought it back in 2001 and relaunched the label as a joint venture with New York-based Sanctuary Records Group. His first signing, the Strokes, got it off to an auspicious start.

It might not fit the image of the pure independent, but Travis is no stranger to deals with the devil -- he burnished his reputation by also running the Warner-linked independent label Blanco Y Negro, home of the Jesus and Mary Chain, for two decades, and his goal now is to emulate the Island Records of the early 1970s, when it had the likes of the Wailers and Roxy Music.

“We call the shots and do what we want to do,� Travis says of the joint venture. “In a sense we’re trusted to run our business. There’s no second-guessing.... I mean can you imagine, let’s say it was 1965 and I said I want to sign the Stooges, and I have to go play it to somebody else? It just wouldn’t work, would it? And that’s what happens so often in record companies nowadays. So to have the power to say, ‘Yeah, you’re great, I want to sign you,’ it’s a privilege in a way.�