Rough Trade

Rough Trade was a small shop at 202 Kensington Park Road, Notting Hill; known to be a rough street the shop was well suited here. It was owned by a young radical, Geoff Travis; who began trading in 1976. The shop specialised in punk rock music and had a do it yourself attitude, they wanted to "Challenge the monopoly" of mainstream record labels and revolt against it and prove that you don’t need have lots of money to make good music. Rough Trade then began to sell reggae music, showing they were a multicultural business, it soon became one of the leading outlets for the growing punk scene, and subsequently became a pilgrimage point for anyone buying or selling ‘DIY’ music, which was the new wave of music at the time. Rough Trade Records was born in 1978 by the help of the first release of the song, Paris Marquis by Metal Urbain which was soon to be followed by other do it yourself bands like, The Raincoats, Swell Maps, Cabaret Voltaire and Stiff Little Fingers.

The do it yourself attitude went further when Scritti Politti were distributing there EP they  made the album cover an instruction manual for other artists on how to make your own music this soon became popular and many other bands where doing the same. Rough trade also had their own fanzines which were sold in the shop, all showing how this was a ‘DIY’ business.