Chiswick Records celebrate 50 years

Chiswick Records 1975-1982 – Seven Years at 45 RPM, triple album

The label which unleashed Motorhead and The Damned on an unsuspecting public

Ace records has relaunched its back catalogue from its early days as Chiswick Records, to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

Chiswick Records 1975-1982 – Seven Years at 45 RPM has been released as a triple album, with tracks from the band they first recorded, pub rockers The Count Bishops, and better-known bands they talent spotted on the way up, such as Motorhead, Johnny Moped and The Damned.

Retired owner / founder Roger Armstrong told The Chiswick Calendar they wanted to make a splash and have been celebrating all summer with a series of gigs and parties.

They have a lot to celebrate. Chiswick Records was regarded in the 1970s as ‘a mould-breaking British independent label’, writes Kieron Tyler in theartsdesk.com.

‘Chiswick excelled by picking up oddities which could click. Being on board with things which weren’t obvious contenders was a recurrent theme’.

L-R Trevor Churchill, Ted Carrol and Roger Armstrong – the trimvirate who were Chiswick Records, pictured the day before they sold up

Building a catalogue of American artists

They lost the name ‘Chiswick’ when they were signed by EMI and became Ace records.

They built up a huge catalogue of well-known American musicians whose music they released, including BB King, Booker T & the MGs, Chet Baker, Fats Domino, Ike Turner, Joan Baez and Jerry Lee Lewis (and I’m not even half way through the alphabet on their catalogue, picking out only the most famous names), as well as British bands who went on to become well-known in the UK, whose music they recorded and produced.

“We grew up buying records from London American Records, owned by Decca”, Roger told me. The London label was very important”.

London was not the only company to issue American recordings during the 50s, but it was the only label dedicated solely to doing so.

It seems hard to imagine now, but American RnB and Rock & Roll was hard to come by in the UK. Chiswick Records was started by two friends who wanted to reissue American music and record bands playing similar music locally.

Rock On– the shop that opened in 1975, the same time that the label started

Chiswick Records started from a market stall

Ted Carroll started with a market stall in Goldborne Rd around Ladbroke Grove, selling black and silver London 45s, red and white Top Rank singles and the red and yellow Sue classics. The former bank teller and bus driver also managed an up-and-coming Irish rock band called Thin Lizzy.

He then opened a record shop in Camden, which soon became “party central”.

Roger Armstrong moved over from Ireland in 1973 and started helping Ted out on the stall, taking over a second stall in Soho when Ted opened his shop Rock On in 1975.

They decided they wanted to open a record label like London records, but why exactly they settled on the name ‘Chiswick Records’ is now lost in the mists of time. Neither of them had particularly strong links with Chiswick, though Roger had lived here when he first moved to England.

They wanted to be like London, only they couldn’t compete in size, so they picked the name of a suburb.

Joe Strummer outside the second Rock On in Soho’s China Town

Taking a punt on pub bands who paid off

While Ted looked after reissuing American songs, Roger produced the local bands, starting with The Count Bishops in 1975.

Trevor Churchill then joined them, a former EMI management trainee who had worked for Bell, the Rolling Stones’  record label, Tamla Motown and Polydor and had sold some of his vast record collection to Ted, which is how they met.

‘A reader of Billboard since his teens, winner of the fiendishly difficult Record Mirror blues and soul quiz and a record man down to his fingertips, Trevor brought a steady hand and an air of astute professionalism to the fledgling company’ (Ace Records history).

He acquired the rights to the company’s first reissue, Brand New Cadillac by English rocker Vince Taylor, which was their first big seller, in the early days of pub rock.

They signed the 101’ers, whose single featured Joe Strummer before he left for the Clash and, in 1977, they added Motorhead to the label.

‘Other releases came from the Radiators from Space, Radio Stars, Riff Raff (featuring a young Billy Bragg), Johnny & The Self Abusers (featuring an equally young Jim Kerr) and Drug Addix (featuring the late and much-lamented Kirsty MacColl).

‘The wonderfully menacing Link Wray featured in one of Chiswick’s first reissue albums and possible chart success beckoned with the signing of Rocky Sharpe & The Replays. There were also hits in both the UK and abroad for Sniff’n’The Tears (who made #15 in the US) and The Damned’.

‘When Chiswick picked up The Dammed in 1979’, writes Kieron Tyler, ‘it was a reformed/reconfigured version of the band which had broken through with punk in 1976. No one else was interested in them. Yet there they were, demonstrating an afterlife by charting and playing Top Of The Pops with their debut Chiswick single Love Song.’

The Ace Records centre of operations for many years was this building in Harlesden by the Grand Union Canal

“I’m delighted that vinyl’s made a comeback” – Roger Armstrong

“We were doing quite well”, said Roger, in something of an understatement. When they signed with EMI, “they said ‘we don’t want all your old stuff'”, he added, “so we had to find a new name”.

They ended up with a portfolio of labels – Ace for Blues, RnB and Rock & Roll, Kent for Northern Soul and BGP for Acid Jazz / Funk. The founders ran the company until four years ago, when they sold their catalogue and gave the label to the staff.

“It was time to move on”, Roger told me. Ted now lives in Lincolnshire where he has come full circle and opened another record store.

“I’m delighted that vinyl’s made a comeback”, said Roger. Chiswick Records 1975-1982 – Seven Years at 45 RPM is available, or course on vinyl, from Ace Records for £35.

Buy the triple album from acerecords.co.uk

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar