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"4
A Sides"
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From
"Time Out", February 2-8, 1979...
Armed
with £500 borrowed from somebody's brother, Scritti
Politti decided to make a single using the four songs they'd
actually written and rehearsed. An 18 hour day in a small
Cambridge studio resulted in a master tape of four songs,
two of which were selected to be 'mastered', the next stage
in the process. But the budget meant a pressing of only
about 500, so to determine whether it was worth going ahead,
they legged it around several small record distributors
to see if they could get any takers.
They found one in Rough Trade, who operated from a record
shop off Portobello Road, had started to issue singles on
their own label and liked the cassette of the master tape.
That was a pivotal point in two ways: firstly it enabled
them to get financial support to have 2,500 copies pressed
on a 50/50 costs and profits basis and secondly it marked
the point at which their music was heard by strangers: 'It
came out of the speakers in the shop, the first time anyone
else had heard it; all these people were standing around.
It was a bit strange because all of a sudden your music
takes that leap into being public.'...
From
an interview with Green Gartside & Tom Morley in "Vinyl",
November 1981...
TOM: "After that we booked a small studio in Cambridge,
where we recorded for a day. That costed us 98 pounds...."
Tom, without much thinking, sums up all the money involved
to cover the costs of the successive stages of making a
record. Not that they bear any relevance here. For those
interested, they can be found on the sleeves of the first
three records Scritti made.
TOM: "We mentioned all the costs on the sleeves mainly
because we were surprised it was so cheap. We thought everyone
should know so they can make their own records.'
GREEN: "At that time it was extremely important to
us, the whole DIY idea. We were very involved in the whole
movement. The stimulus doing-it-yourself gave us was immense,
the possibility to create your own place and work from there.
It went very fast for us at that time. We made the single,
Rough Trade thought it was great and bought the whole thing.
People became interested and gave us opportunities to do
really interesting gigs.
~
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