Rough Trade Book

Rough Trade: Labels Unlimited tells the engrossing story of one of England’s most groundbreaking record labels. It is 30 years since the Rough Trade Shop first opened its doors in Notting Hill, London. Disco and soft-rock ruled the airwaves, The Clash had just signed to CBS and Geoff Travis set up the company with some friends as a communistic, DIY alternative to the increasingly stale mainstream. Over the ensuing years the Rough Trade Shop, Rough Trade Records and Rough Trade Distribution profoundly altered the landscape of modern music. Rough Trade looks back on three fascinating decades of innovation, noise and change, taking in ups and downs, twists and turns and some of the best music ever committed to vinyl. The label released many of the most important records of the late 1970s and 80s by artists including: The Smiths, Scritti Politti, Mazzy Star, The Go-Betweens, Aztec Camera, Robert Wyatt, The Fall, Arthur Russell and Linton Kwesi Johnson. Rough Trade profiles these artists and much more, as both the history of Rough Trade, and by proxy the story of British independent music over the last 30 years are engagingly chronicled. Visually stunning, Rough Trade is filled with archive images, interviews and previously unseen photographs and artefacts.