London Records

But sometimes there are ironies and paradoxes.

So in terms of the Redskins, the band that I've written about in this book, they knew that there would be difficulties signing to London Records, which is owned by Decca.

But they also knew that they had a unique selling point, which was the kind of left-wing revolutionary socialist lyrics.

And they knew that the record label was didn't necessarily agree, well they knew that they knew that the record label didn't agree with those politics at all but they knew that if the record label itself knew that if it tried to water down those lyrics it would undermine the selling ability of the Redskins records so there was some kind of compromise there if the Redskins had developed beyond having just one album and seven singles and existed beyond late 86, early 87 that Compromise would have been tested a lot more, and I don't know what the outcome would have been, but for the time that they existed, they managed to actually navigate those tensions quite well.

In the spring of 1997, the score was the focus of one of Sir George Solti's final recordings with the CSO.

Made for London Records, it features the Chicago Symphony Chorus under the direction of Dwayne Wolfe.

This is the Symphony of Psalms by Stravinsky.

[orchestral music]

So we started the fanzine.

and then after a while we started doing parties but this is like acid house era and they were really popular you know we did some very iconic parties and uh pete tong was like oh why don't you have a label you know come into london records yeah and we fund the label And Simon was supposed to be running the label.

This is my memory.

But he wanted to be a singer and he went off on tour with a band called Airstream.

There wasn't many.

So...

That kind of outrun its steam, and then we still had the office, which was still being funded by the London Records, the FFR Boys' Own deal.

So we, oh, let's do a little navel, and at that time, I was really into Junior Gaultier, because I like Gaultier, you know, clothes, but the Junior Gaultier label was much kind of cheaper and more affordable.

And because KCPX was a mass appeal, broad-based, top 40, we ended up playing it quite a bit.

But all of this brings back the story of there was a London Records promotion guy.

This was back in the day when record labels had their own individual promotion guys.

A guy by the name of Joe Triscari.

He managed Maxi Priest.

If you speak to Pete Tong, who set up London Records, you speak to Trevor Nelson, speak to Danny D, Keith Harris, Paulette Long, all of these guys reference this DJ and manager from Birmingham.

And I find that fascinating.

And so Erskine was 10 years older than me.

So massive.

And when they gave this album to London Records, they were horrified that this is the album they made.

They ended up chopping it up into all these individual tracks.

And the band was so horrified by it that they pretty much broke up over that.

Bill Ham, who was the manager of the Moving Sidewalks, became ZZ Top's manager and would remain their manager through, like, the next 20 years up until, like, the '90s, I believe.

But he gets them signed to London Records in 1971, where they put out their first album, ZZ Top's First Album.

Creative name.

Yeah.

Yeah

... because I think London Records, or it would've been Decca Records, wanted him to do another Satisfaction in 1965, because that was the biggest song at that point.

And he's like, "I can't just play, do another I Can't Get No Satisfaction.

You know what's gonna happen? It's not gonna sell well, Satisfaction.

Well, it was released off the go.

Records and London records.

Where were you in 1997? Probably starting fourth grade.

Yeah, just hanging out with my friends.