Geoff Travis

...

the people I was working with at Rough Trade, you know, uh, Geoff Travis and, and then Jeannette Lee.

T- but, uh, I've got respect f- uh, all the sort of indie community, you know.

Uh, uh, um, I never worked, uh, with Daniel Miller, but, um-

I remember going for jobs w- uh, at record companies.

Uh, I remember, you know, interviewing with Joe Boyd from Hannibal and Geoff Travis from Rough Trade and not getting the jobs.

So I was always interested.

Uh, but I used to be, um, a political activist, and I, I s- my first thing was at one point I decided to start doing gigs, and I was really inspired by Rock Against Racism, and I decided to do all the gigs for the sort of, um, environmental movement, which at the time was the anti-nuclear movement and CND, and I s- I, you know, did hundreds and hundreds of o- organized, set up a whole organization that organized hundreds and hundreds of gigs up and down the country for those, uh, causes, and that was how I first got involved with managers and musicians and gigs and yeah.

I've been since trying to write less about food, but for Crisp Pop, the second last track, I, like, doubled down and just went for, I'm going to get really into, like, crisps right now.

So it has, like, the cheese and onion oasis, salt and vinegar blur, what was it? Prawn cocktail pulp and ready salted Travis.

I just had that and I was like, oh, I'm talking about food again.

But then I was like, oh, I might as well talk

And that was scary.

But because I was able to do that, it made writing a track like Elogia easier and it helped kind of plant it into the world of the next record, if you know what I mean.

With these sorts of moments, you know, I read something that Jeff Travis said for the three of you, Alan, that you were able to create such space for Dara.

And he said it was so nice that you all cared about what was going on.

It sold attitude.

In 1976, Geoff Travis opened that shop, and by 1978, the shelves had run thin of punk singles like the Buzzcocks' New Sensations.

So he wired up a distribution arm and called it Rough Trade Records.

Rough Trade didn't just sell records.

People who walked through its doors could find anything from the Ramones to the Sex Pistols.

Jeff Travis opened it in Ladbroke Grove on a rainy February in 76 and immediately began stocking the weirdest cuts from the underground scene.

The shop became an underground hub where fans exchanged demo tapes for coffee.

He saw a chance to turn a small record stall into a network, and that idea birthed Rough Trade Records, a cooperative label that handed out the same kind of DIY spirit to bands like the Smiths and later indie rockers.

And Rough Trade, they're based in London, this record label, and they had also around the same time had signed The Strokes.

And they had gotten so much success with The Strokes and then The Moldy Peaches that the head of Rough Trade, Jeff Travis, I guess maybe asked Adam and Kimya like, Are there other New York...

We've been having success with signing these New York City artists.

Who else should we check out in New York? And out of sheer generosity, they were like, oh, there's this guy, Jeffrey Lewis.

Yeah, they've probably got a bit of an idea.

And I've got a good relationship with, obviously, at Rough Trade Records, Geoff Travis.

He's just around the corner from the studio.

So I'm going to see him.

Right.

Uh, Jeff Travis personally signed him, uh, and looked after him as his A&R guy and manager almost, 'cause Jeff Travis loved Craig, and that was the first album I worked on as a, as a tape op.

And, and it was that, that was...

I mean, I still look back on that and think-

Like he signed Blondie and Talking Heads and the Ramones and all this kind of stuff.

And then we had Jeff Travis from Rough Trade was in the corner and Virgin were there.

Warner Brothers were there and Atlantic were there.

And I was kind of like, this isn't really what this was ever meant to be about.

So he kind of had a...

He definitely had like a toe in the kind of indie world.

And we'd just signed to Rough Trade and Jeff Travis was, I believe Jeff Travis was kind of looking, was like managing him for a while.

So he got us a good rate.