Various - The Record Shop: 30 Years of Rough Trade Shops (V2)
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
Everyone knows that story about how Kurt Cobain was too scared to buy a record in Rough Trade so he got Courtney to do it instead. I love that for a few reasons. One, Kurt was obviously such a drugged up paranoid idiot of a genius, and that's worth a giggle. Two, I've bought records there! True, I've wet myself every time, and this only either means I'm less drugged up than a man now dead because of how drugged up he was or I'm as cool as Courtney Love (which ain't that cool), but I can still take some solace in it. Somehow.
Still, nobody's denying that Rough Trade shops are worth celebrating, and this is a great way of doing it. In honour of their being around for three decades, we get two CDs worth of choice cuts from the shop's history, as chosen by the great and the good of the indie community. And most of it is fantastic. Paul Smith from Maximo Park starts by making a 'look at me, I'm very cool' choice with The Modern Lovers' 'Pablo Picasso', a song so superb that the next time I look at Paul Smith I will indeed think he's actually quite cool. It's the kind of record you'll only need to read the back of to deduce that it'll be a good one, although I'm still unsure as to who's going to buy it. Little particularly rare material is featured by the actual people who pick the songs (apart from Joe Strummer's beautiful 'Island Hopping' - thanks to his wife Luce Mellor for including this not only because the record it's from, 'Earthquake Weather', is rare as hell, but because I miss that man so, so much). The things on it are all for sale in Rough Trade, and probably quite reasonably priced they are too, bless you guys. But regardless, it is a good record. I think I'll get some Swell Maps.
I think its use will be the same for other people as it is for me - i.e. I've been meaning to check out The Mekons, the track Ana Da Silva's chosen sounds great, and so I'll spend some money on them. Maybe AT Rough Trade. Ooh, sneaky. Like the shop, it's alarmingly eclectic (you get what sounds like Afghan restaurant music in Don Letts' choice, Holger Czukay's 'Persian Love') and a little imposing at times - like it's telling you that you should listen to this because it's cool to like it, and if you don't like it, you certainly aren't cool. But again, like the shops, there's a heart behind it, and I genuinely believe that not only those who made these tracks but those who chose them and those who sold them love them very much. Be grateful so many of them are here as an introduction to a world of fabulous music. I think that's its real purpose, rather than to reminisce about Rough Trade.
Whilst there are many gems (I will for example want to listen to Erol Alkan's choice, Lard's 'The Power of Lard', over and over again), and all of these songs would be deemed 'cool', a handful aren't actually that great. But there's a rationale behind their inclusion too - their purpose here is to allow you to say you've heard something by The Soft Boys, and then go 'meh'. Not liking a band as cool as The Soft Boys, now you've investigated them yourself, somehow makes you very cool. Praise people like Luella Bartley and Spazom then, whose choices (The Pixies' 'Where Is My Mind?' and LCD Soundsystem's 'Losing My Edge' which close CDs one and two respectively) are obvious but utterly brilliant songs. Why the need for any more façade?
Elsewhere, Stereolab are enchanting if off their faces, Karen Dolton enters my consciousness for the better with some lovely folk grumbling, Bobby Gillespie proves he really does like country music (honest) by treating us to a bit of a Carter Family classic and Bjork's choice of Matmos proves far less interesting than when Richard Russel chooses her incredible 'Where Is The Line?' to act as the penultimate track. Stewart Lee lives up to his claim that the only band he likes who anyone else has ever heard of is R.E.M. by adding The Blue Orchids to the mix, whilst Geoff Travis himself gets funky with some Afrika Bambaataa. Now, this is funk. God I hate the Scissor Sisters.
Sorry, Mark Moore, but Kleenex just aren't very good. Adam and the Ants are though, so well done Youth, whoever you are, for including them. Thurston Moore seems to be making a point that he doesn't just like noise these days and Skinned Teen's 'Pillowcase Kisser' is about as lo-fi girly punk as he's ever been associated with (really, it makes Be Your Own Pet sound like Pink Floyd). The following Bikini Kill blow them out of the water however.
I've learnt a lot from this. You will too. And you know what shop to go to when you want to investigate further.
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