Geoff Travis | |
|---|---|
 Travis in 2016 | |
| Born | 2 February 1952 Stoke Newington, London England |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Record company/record shop manager |
| Years active | Mid-1970s–present |
| Known for | Head of Rough Trade Records |
Geoff Travis (born 2 February 1952) is the founder of both Rough Trade Records and the Rough Trade chain of record shops. [1] A former drama teacher [2] and owner of a punk record shop, [3] Travis founded the Rough Trade label in 1976. [4]
Travis was born on 2 February 1952 in Stoke Newington, London, and was raised in Finchley. [5] He is Jewish, his ancestors emigrated from Romania and Ukraine. [6] Travis studied English at Churchill College, Cambridge. [7] He worked as a drama teacher before opening the original Rough Trade record shop in Kensington Park Road, Notting Hill, London on 23 February 1976, setting up the record label two years later. [8] [9] He claimed that he chose the location because it was close to Powis Square, where Performance , one of his favourite films, was made. [10] Travis was also instrumental in the foundation of the independent distribution network The Cartel. [9] While Rough Trade was a key independent label, Travis also co-ran labels with major record companies, including Blanco y Negro in 1983 (with WEA) and Trade2 (with Island Records). [9]
Rough Trade was home to The Smiths, but by 1986, after three years on the label, the band were in dispute over finances. The song "Frankly, Mr. Shankly" from The Queen is Dead was reportedly a jibe at Travis. [11] The label was wound up in 1994 after briefly being revived in partnership with One Little Indian, but revived by Travis in 2001 with breakthrough acts The Strokes and The Libertines. [9] [12]
Writer Douglas Wolk credited Travis as virtually defining "the British post-punk sound", [13] and XFM viewed his impact on independent music as greater than anyone else's in the country. [14]
Geoff Travis has a son called Jamie, who is one half of the post-rave pop duo Babeheaven with singer Nancy Andersen. [15]
Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in the early to mid-1980s. Although the term was originally used to describe rock music released through independent record labels, by the 1990s it became more widely associated with the music such bands produced.
The Raincoats are a British experimental post-punk band. Ana da Silva and Gina Birch formed the group in 1977 while they were students at Hornsey College of Art in London.
The Smiths is the debut studio album by English rock band the Smiths, released on 20 February 1984 by Rough Trade Records. After the original production by Troy Tate was felt to be inadequate, John Porter re-recorded the album in London, Manchester and Stockport during breaks in the band's UK tour during September 1983.
Rough Trade Records is an independent record label based in London, England. It was formed in 1976 by Geoff Travis who had opened a record store off Ladbroke Grove. It is currently run by co-managing directors Travis and Jeannette Lee and is affiliated to Beggars Group.
Cornershop are an English indie rock band formed in Leicester, in 1991. The group are best known for their single "Brimful of Asha" from their third album When I Was Born for the 7th Time, whose remixed version topped the UK singles chart in 1998. They were formed by Tjinder Singh, his brother Avtar Singh, David Chambers (drums), and Ben Ayres, the first three having previously been members of General Havoc, who released one single in 1991. The band name originated from a stereotype referring to British Asians often owning corner shops. Their music is a fusion of Indian music, indie rock, alternative and electronic dance music.
Nightingales are a British post-punk/alternative rock band, formed in 1979 in Birmingham, England, by four members of Birmingham's punk group The Prefects. They had been part of The Clash's 'White Riot Tour', recorded a couple of Peel Sessions, released a 45 on Rough Trade and, years after splitting up, had a retrospective CD released by US indie label Acute Records.
Independent music is a broad style of music characterized by creative freedoms, low-budgets, and a do-it-yourself approach to music creation, which originated from the liberties afforded by independent record labels. Indie music describes a number of related styles, but generally describes guitar-oriented music straying away from mainstream conventions. There are a number of subgenres of independent music which combine its characteristics with other genres, such as indie pop, indie rock, indie folk, and indie electronic.
Slates is an EP by the Fall, released on 27 April 1981 by Rough Trade Records. It was one of singer Mark E. Smith's favourite Fall releases, and he claimed it was aimed at "people who didn't buy records".
Mayo Thompson is an American musician and visual artist best known as the leader of the experimental rock band Red Krayola.
Post-punk revival is a genre or movement of indie rock that emerged in the early 2000s as musicians started to play a stripped down and back-to-basics version of guitar rock inspired by the original sounds and aesthetics of post-punk, new wave and garage rock. It is closely associated with new wave revival and garage rock revival.
"This Charming Man" is a song by the English rock band the Smiths, written by guitarist Johnny Marr and singer Morrissey. Released as the group's second single in October 1983 on the independent record label Rough Trade, it is defined by Marr's jangle pop guitar riff and Morrissey's characteristically morose lyrics, which revolve around the recurrent Smiths themes of sexual ambiguity and lust. A different version, from the John Peel Show on BBC Radio 1, was included on the compilation album Hatful of Hollow in 1984.
Rough Trade is a retail chain of record shops in the United Kingdom and the United States with headquarters in London.
The UK Independent Singles Chart and UK Independent Albums Chart are charts of the best-selling independent singles and albums, respectively, in the United Kingdom. Originally published in January 1980, and widely known as the indie chart, the relevance of the chart dwindled in the 1990s as major-label ownership blurred the boundary between independent and major labels.
Jeannette Lee is a British music record executive, music manager, filmmaker and former musician. A retail worker at the Acme Attractions store that, along with the SEX boutique run by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, was instrumental in spawning punk in the UK, she went on to become a member of post-punk band Public Image Ltd (PiL). Lee is currently co-owner of the independent record label Rough Trade Records.
The Cartel was a co-operative record distribution organisation in the United Kingdom, set up by a number of small independent record labels to handle their distribution to record shops. Pooling their resources in this way allowed them to compete with the larger distribution operations of the major record labels, and also to gain access to the larger shop chains.
Post-Britpop is an alternative rock subgenre and is the period in the late 1990s and early 2000s, following Britpop, when the media were identifying a "new generation" or "second wave" of guitar bands influenced by acts like Oasis and Blur, but with less overt British concerns in their lyrics and making more use of American rock and indie influences, as well as experimental music. Bands in the post-Britpop era that had been established acts, but gained greater prominence after the decline of Britpop, such as Radiohead and the Verve, and new acts such as Keane, Snow Patrol, Stereophonics, Feeder, and particularly Travis and Coldplay, achieved much wider international success than most of the Britpop groups that had preceded them, and were some of the most commercially successful acts of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
New Hormones was a Manchester independent record label founded by Richard Boon and Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley. It was the first independent punk rock label in the UK.
An independent record label is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented by trade associations in their country or region, which in turn are represented by the international trade body, the Worldwide Independent Network (WIN).
The Official Record Store Chart is a weekly music chart based on physical sales of albums in almost 100 independent record stores in the United Kingdom, such as Rough Trade, Rounder Records, Jumbo and Sound It Out. It is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), and each week's number one is first announced on Friday evenings on the OCC's official website.
Tugboat Records was a small independent record label based in London, England, which was affiliated with Rough Trade Records. It was founded in May 1998 by Geoff Travis, who had previously founded Rough Trade Records itself. The first release on Tugboat Records was "Joan of Arc", a 7" single by Low. The label's manager was Glen Johnson of Piano Magic. Among the most influential albums originally released by Tugboat was Any Other City (2001), the only studio album by Scottish indie rock band Life Without Buildings.
Geoff Travis originally studied English at Churchill and supplied many of the records that started the College's weekly ent, Pav in the early 1970s.
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