Primeline Music: Record Label Trip to London
Updated: 1 day ago
On October 30th with my Youth Music hat on i travelled to London with a group of ten young producers, vocalists and future music entrepreneurs who all attend a youth centre / studio i work at in Coventry. It was a pretty jam packed day with the main aim being to distribute CDs and 12" vinyls to some of the coolest little indie record stores mainly in Soho. The music had been produced and pressed as part of a project called Primeline Music, a youth run record label.
Record stores visited included Sister Ray, Sounds of the Universe (home of the Soul Jazz record label), Black Market, Phonica and the long running (and thriving!) Rough Trade. It's so good to see independent record stores that still sell a lot of vinyl, as across the country it is increasingly difficult to find such indies due in part to them not being able to compete with online sales and downloads (...yes, and illegal music sharing). Phonica, who also run several record labels out of the store, have a couple of computers for people to browse their online catalog if its not CD or vinyl they want - thats the way to do it: give people the choice! And i might add they also had a chilled leather seating area for those who can stand flicking through any more tunes!
All in all the young people sold thirty vinyls, ten or so CDs and even had some orders to send on more - what a result! This was a great job as it takes confidence to try and sell music in such well known stores with no previous experience. All of the guys that did the selling really buzzed about this and were ready to sell more and more right up to them running out of stock :) A valuable experience for all concerned, and an eye opener to many new and unfamiliar styles of music that were being played and sold in the stores. Rough Trade particularly had things in place to keep the underground / alternative music fan happy; from a full size stage at the far end of the store for guest shows, to a coffee shop inside the entrance and even little drum machines and synthesizers for people to jam on when the music listening posts are in use... i could go on, but i will safely say Rough Trade is the kind of place you could quite easily loose many of hours of your day.
After a successful afternoon of distributing music we grabbed some Japenese food near Spitalfield Market and headed to Faringdon for the last treat... A visit to the world renowned Fabric nightclub :-)) We were shown around in a quick tour of the main room along side an explanation of their awesome 'bodysonic' dancefloor and line array sound system. We witnessed a fraction of the earth-shaking power it was capable of when the last 12" vinyl copy we had left got a played out - a dub step track by Amec - needless to say it sounded heavy!! A great end to what was a very tiring and inspiring day for all concerned.