Rough Trade: 1970's

Rough Trade started on the 20th February 1976 during the IRA bombing campaign, by Geoff Travis. It started out as a record store on a high street. It was named after a canadian band and a graphic novel. They figured that they could change the world. Punk was the music trend that was popular with this company. It was punk's revolt against the mainstream music. However, they started with hippy music and later found reggae. They weren't trying to be powerful or upmarket as they hated the larger companies that consumed everything. Rough Trade's ethos at the time was that they provided diverse music and were into communism and marxism. Rough Trade used the technique of 'doing it yourself' to expand the independent music scene, for example explaining on records how to press your own record. This lead to Rough Trade's expansion because they began to press records for the independent music industry. The distribution department and record label received a success when they began to distribute records nationwide, and began a mail order scheme to other independent music stores that couldn't get hold of certain records.