One year of tears – Happy Birthday to Records Records Records

This week, London label Records Records Records celebrates its first birthday. Having been responsible for releases from Wet Paint and Big Deal, and with a single from erstwhile Bloc Party man Matt Tong in the works, the label has been remarkably productive over its short life. And yet they still seem a bit miserable.

We spoke to Records Records Records’ Babak Ganjei (he of Wet Paint) to find out about the realities of running a label of love – and to understand exactly why he won’t stand topless in a Jesus pose. Check below for details of their free birthday party, this Friday.

Go back twelve months. Can you remember who was the hot band of the time? Was everyone going crazy for the Drums, or was it the Virgins? Or was it that everyone was listening to witchhouse? I don’t know. I’m 32 now – I don’t know if it’s good for me to really become passionate about witchhouse anyways. It seemed to involve standing around with your arms out in a Jesus pose and being topless. I can’t be topless anymore, not even with myself, and I definitely can’t combine that with having my arms opened wide for as mentioned, I’m 32 and when you’re 32 you need a drink and when you’re 32 and you drink you can’t pretend it never happened. It just sits in the tank until the day you choose to run marathons. Oh, I bought the Girls album. I liked that. Are they still a band?

I’ve already veered wildly off the point. People think I’m always really negative but actions speak louder than words and this is an article about starting a label in this day and age. So yeah, you can scrap negative with the word… stupid. No come on, I just can’t help myself with that stuff. In September I joined my friends who had earlier in the summer started their own label – ‘Records Records Records records’. Not to be confused with Josh Homme’s ‘Records Records records’, which is a bit catchier and easier to say.

We are one year old this month and still surviving in our madcap, shambolic way. It began when Olli recorded some songs with his friend, and old Olli n Clive bandmate William, and together they had made an album under the moniker Round Ron Virgin. They had a revolutionary selling style. They gave the album away for free and also charged for it. They sold one copy which, if there was any justice in the world, would have been the same fate that would have hit Radiohead’s In Rainbows. Not because it’s a bad album or because Radiohead are a bad band, but why should they find a way of succeeding in the art of giving things away?

My reasoning initially for joining the label was because Olli convinced me he would put out my comic book Hilarious Consequences. I had resisted for a while, not because I didn’t trust him but because I didn’t want him to waste his money. When I realised I couldn’t find someone I didn’t like to waste their money I decided I’d at least play my part. We did OK with the book – made a load of cash on the launch night. Then I got burgled and all the money was gone. This was the first harsh lesson learnt in the music business. Don’t keep all your earnings in cash in a little grey box on the top of a bookshelf. You may think, “What an idiot, he just said where he keeps his money.” Well I don’t do that anymore do I? I keep it in my shoes now instead. When you see me strutting up and down Kingsland Road in some platform boots, you will know we are thriving.

I put together a compilation of songs in the back of the book as a soundtrack. This was primarily an excuse to get some bands I thought deserved some attention that tiny bit that it would maybe bring. It’s mainly a compilation of friends or bands we’ve been playing with over the years who generally have kept on making wonderful music despite the greater difficulties in getting the recognition it deserves. It included music from Round Ron Virgin, Singing Adams, Big Deal, my band Wet Paint, my old friend Matt Tong, Dignan Porch, and Wonderswan. Putting it together made me realise why I wanted to get involved with running a label, and that was to get this music heard.

It’s difficult to sustain a band these days. Everyone’s in a band and so everyone has a record or an image to sell, and if you’re lucky you might be the ones taken on the crest of a wave. But it seems to be a fleeting success as the next hot act is right behind waiting to shift those all important first week sales. My band Wet Paint has been fortunate to have missed all these waves which is just as well, as none of us can surf and two can barely swim. But this means we have slowly gone about making our records and learning what we do without the disappointment of knowing your relevance is fading away. I look forward to turning fifty having a terrible attitude and playing first on to the next Brother. Or are they called Viva Brother now? Is that how it works? Do we need to change our name with each single release until one breaks? Has everybody lost faith in growing and building a career slowly? It’s as if the big labels lose all faith in their artists within those first weeks of introducing them. They drop their promises and budgets as soon as they realise the NME cover wasn’t enough to convince the masses. They add Viva to their name and hope no one can remember what happened before. It’s all a bit depressing and shows a complete lack of confidence in the business and a complete lack of faith in the art. I mean yeah, everyone knows you can’t sell a CD these days but if you’re gonna make one then do it in style. Nobody wants to buy a record from a band they feel is gonna disappear without a trace.

OK, there was no reason to mention my band Wet Paint other than to make sure you know I know what I’m talking about because I’m travelling up and down the country playing to a variety of upholstered chairs and barstools and have been doing so for years. I’m not bitter, or even negative. People always thinkIi’m being negative but actions speak louder than words. I read a Stephen Malkmus interview once which struck a chord because within his noncommittal banter he said they had chosen to be “lifers” with the rock n roll lifestyle. This is in some way what I think we are trying to do: hold onto an ideology that may be outdated. We press records and CDs and take them to record shops because we like record shops and don’t really want that interaction to be made redundant. We pick artists who will hopefully develop and make more and more interesting music – be it with us or with a more established label. We’ve lasted a year and we’ve done it without any clue how we would ever personally see any profit in it. It’s a stressful labour of love. It’s not like the Seventies anymore, when there was only one band (I think they were called Genesis), and you could only buy their music on vinyl. And if you didn’t buy it you would have to sit in silence, stroking your corduroy wallpaper. They didn’t have Viva Brother to contend with.

Records Records Records are celebrating their first birthday with a party at the Shacklewell Arms on Friday, with Wet Paint, Underground Railroad and Wonderswan all playing live. They have also put together a Spotify playlist, which you can listen to by clicking here.