Indie Top 20 Life, Remembered

Hello. Yes, I know - the last time I updated this blog was over three years ago now, and that was after promising to write some kind of concluding entry wrapping everything up and making sense of the series as a whole.

This, I admit, did not happen. My original idea was to write an entry summing up where the series had taken us and where it could potentially have gone next in an imaginary world where another LP was squeezed out. A few attempted drafts at this went nowhere and I finally realised it was a bit of a stupid idea I couldn't see through to conclusion in any kind of satisfying way. And what do grown-up people do when they have stupid ideas? Walk away from them and pretend they never happened.

Still though, a week ago now I had a huge and pleasant surprise when I received an email from Chet Selwood who, along with his sister Bee, owned Beechwood Records and also managed the tracklisting for the series up to Volume Eleven. The contents of the email were so generous and informative that I asked him if he would mind me reproducing them here, and he agreed. 

What he has written reveals a lot not just about the series itself, but also how business was done in the independent sector throughout the eighties, then eventually the nineties when most of the groups were no longer on true "indies" as such, but divisions of Virgin (Hut), BMG (Dedicated) or other majors. It also smooths over some of the assumptions I made when I first started this blog. I hope you find it illuminating. It definitely acts as a neat conclusion to this site. 

"Our father Clive had had a good, varied career in music, but in about 1985 he was taken ill and hospitalised with a stress related illness.

Upon release from hospital and out of work he thought it was about time he and John Peel (who he had managed since forever) started to put together the Peel Sessions EPs – something they had discussed on and off for years.

Peel was not allowed to be involved financially due to his BBC deal so Clive asked him to suggest the best artists and Clive set about the task of launching Strange Fruit (Peel suggested the title after the Billie Holiday song).

 The first release was New Order and it was so successful that it sold as much in the first week as he hoped the label as a whole would sell in a year. This gave him a bit of a problem as he only really wanted it to be a little cottage business to look after him as he got older. The task of releasing all those sessions was massive so he asked me and Bee to help out.

Bee was working for an advertising agency in Richmond and I was a rep for a drinks company. We were both in our late twenties but thought "What the hell" and “jacked our jobs in” to help out.

He paid us a pittance but we dived in. We were nervous as we’d seen the carnage that the music business can do to your health with Clive but it was the eighties and there was a madness in the air, I guess.

The Peel Sessions started rolling out in earnest and we started to get complaints from the big Indie labels that we were “taking up all the space” in the Indie Charts! An Indie pedigree was the holy grail at that time and it was almost impossible to gain respect.

 

This prompted Clive to have an idea…..why not release an Indie version of "Now That’s What I Call Music" based on the Indie chart.

He wanted it to be cassette only and retail for under a fiver so “the kids” could get to hear and buy these singles they were reading about and seeing in the chart.

There was a bit of a bunfight between Rough Trade and Pinnacle over the distribution of Strange Fruit at the beginning, with Pinnacle winning out… so he thought it would be a good move to put it through the Cartel (a distribution network at the time consisting of lots of local shops around the country who joined together to form a national distribution chain, Rough Trade covering London).

He called it simply “Indie Top 20” and we used Ian, the same designer from the Peel Sessions sleeves, to come up with the sleeve. Bee and I had to track down and send out letters to each label and we offered £500 advance per track.

The first to say yes was Tony Wilson at Factory and then shortly after Mute gave us the OK for Erasure so we were off and running.

It was a blast. We had to phone up the labels and try to get them to agree to go on. Not an easy task as compilations were still relatively new back then (apart from the old Top of the Pops crap compilations) and we had to explain the concept. Not easy for a drinks salesman and advertising exec!

We also had to go and pick up the master tapes from each label…. that was the best bit… getting to meet all the dudes… some of whom became great friends... others were really difficult as you can imagine.

The cassette came out and did OK but Clive had seriously messed up the numbers and it lost loads of money.

He wanted to ditch it… but Bee came to the rescue. She had seen the NME C86 and thought that Melody Maker would be up for doing something similar - it was her marketing skills coming to the rescue.

Bee and I went to see Alan Jones, the editor and she sold the concept to them. We said they could redesign the sleeve and sell the cassette “off the page” branded as Melody Maker. We would handle all the postage and everything… all they had to do was design the sleeve in the style of their newspaper and advertise it and they’d get a cut of the sales.

Well…they went for it which was a massive shot in the arm…and a few weeks later they put up full page adverts in the paper!

For us this was unbelievable as we had free advertising… and they had a great cassette which people were ordering. We had to find a company to handle the fulfillment of the orders and they came rolling in! We had secured a stay of execution.

After this we wanted to do a volume 2 but Clive wouldn’t finance it as he had still not got his money back. I was a bit more business minded and said I thought we could get a Volume 2 out without paying £500 a track. The labels would go for it as they wanted to keep in with Melody Maker and the extra exposure by being on the albums would be good for them.

Clive agreed on this basis so we set off… still doing the Peel Session stuff as well, by the way.

 We had a mixed reaction to the no advance suggestion but promised to pay them a royalty. Some of the bigger labels wouldn’t play the game but the smaller ones were all up for it.

We managed to get 20 tracks and decided to try and get it out on vinyl - the rationale being that the MM could have the cassette version and we could do it on vinyl without the MM. MM were well behind it and full page ads were duly placed… and the vinyl managed to get distributed nationwide.

Putting the tracklisting together at this time was not really an A&R decision…. it was governed literally by what was in the charts and seeing who we could get. Bee and I would then sit down and do a running order-not an easy task with the diversity of music on offer. Again, this project was disappointing but it managed to recoup some of the losses from the first one so we were in better shape.

It was then the Clive said he didn’t want to do a Volume 3 and Bee and I had to have a rethink.

We had jacked our jobs in and things with the old man were very strained. We hadn’t fallen out or anything, but our paths were headed in different directions. He very much wanted to remain a cottage industry run from an office in his back garden but Bee and I had bigger ideas… I guess it was just different stages we were in life.

I remember going for a bacon sarnie in a transport café with her one lunchtime when we said… OK…if he doesn’t want to do it… we’ll do it ourselves.

To Clive’s credit he supported us and wasn’t going to make it difficult for us. I remember he went on holiday with Shurl (his wife) and Bee and I lumped a filing cabinet into the back of my car and we set up in the garage of my house with one phone line and a fax machine. He wasn’t best pleased to see the filing cabinet gone when they returned!

You are correct referring to Band of Joy. I don’t know why he used that name - I think it was just convenience rather than a snub to Robert Plant… but who knows?

We had to come up with a name… and it hit us while in a Petrol Station off Chiswick roundabout…yep… you guessed it correct… Bee and Chet Selwood… Beechwood.

We went on a Council business course to try and learn about things like VAT and jumped straight in at the end of 1987. We went to see Mike and Lloyd at Revolver in Bristol, who distributed the first 2 releases through the Cartel and told them our plans. They also could see the potential and were open to funding it.

Lloyd posted us an advance cheque for £10,000. It was just before Xmas 1987 and he put a note in with the cheque saying “Beats another Boots voucher”…. we stuck this on the wall where it stayed for years. So we were really up and running now and agreed to still work freelance for Clive helping him clear the Sessions not only for Peel but also Janice Long and quite a few others.

We threw ourselves at Volume 3 and decided to go for Double Vinyl and Cassette but keep it all under one design to try to avoid confusion. The labels had to be persuaded again… obviously concerned over who this new label was…but were comfortable it was still the same people.

We got most of the tracks we were after and managed to get Mute again along with bigger labels like One Little Indian and Rhythm King so we were on a roll.

The project worked better than we thought. MM had loads of people buying the cassette off the page and the shops seemed to be supporting the release.

We managed to repay the advance from Revolver and Bee even managed to get us some good reviews in the press. Not an easy task when you’ve got Melody Maker plastered all over the sleeve.

You are correct in that it was just the two of us, with a phone and fax and lots of paper trying to pull all this together with no experience. We weren’t teenagers but probably just as naïve. It was a happy time and we were quick learners. I think we also started to really love the music and started to make connections with some of the labels and artists. I have loads of memories of seeing people around that time.

Mute was always a corporate fiefdom. You had to wait in their reception and listen to the receptionist going “hello Mute can you hold” nonstop as calls flooded in.

We were regular visitors to Jimmy Cauty’s big house with his American police car out the front… as well as countless other homebased cool labels.

I remember Clint from the Inspirals got a train down from Manchester to my house in Walton on Thames to deliver their master tape himself. Priceless.

Cooking Vinyl was just a house…so was Fire and Chapter 22…

It was about this time that the Indie scene started to fragment as dance came along like a wrecking ball.

We tried to get ahead of the game with regular trips to Rough Trade Distribution in Collier St to find out what tunes were coming out so that the series could be more current and on one of these trips we were tipped off about S Express. We licensed it for Vol 4 and were really excited.

 Vol 4 was ready to roll and we went to MM and they dropped the bombshell… they were not going to support anything to do with dance music! We had already licensed the album…and in some cases paid advance money so we were snookered.

 We came up with the idea of splitting the album into 2 parts. In hindsight and indeed at the time it was a mad thing… but we had no choice. MM designed the sleeve for their version and we designed the sleeve for the dance version….. which we subtitled house.

I remember taking a photo of I think it was Collier St on the front and the last house in England down in Cornwall on the back for the sleeve… for some odd reason... all very baffling now looking back. The MM relationship was getting past its sell-by date now and this was to be the last tie-up.

We were all set for the album to be released when we got the second bombshell. Martin Heath from Rhythm King phoned and said we had no right to release S Express and was screaming F***ing blue murder and everything down the phone like a loony. He was promising World War 3 if we did anything at all. The fact we had a signed contract was no deterrent.

We had a long chat with our distributor and we agreed the best course would be to simply delay the release a few weeks even though we had booked all the advertising. We could not pull it completely because all the stock had been manufactured and that would have sent us out of business.

We subsequently found out that Martin had signed an exclusive deal with Telstar or Universal for the exclusive on the track for loads of money and our little contract could have scuppered it all! The plan worked and although quietly crapping ourselves we put the album out and heard nothing further.

Around this time Bee and I started to dabble in other areas of music…it was so vibrant at the time.

We did a Skacid (Ska and Acid) album which was great fun and worked well... and also a couple of new Ska albums. Ska was having a little resurgence and we had some great times getting involved.

With all of these minor catastrophes it was no surprise that the Indie Top 20 albums suffered and lost their way a little. Another major rethink was needed.

CDs were all very new and exciting back then and hardly any of the labels were releasing on CD as it was so expensive and a different world. So we decided to make Vol 5 available as a CD as well as vinyl and cassette and this could give it an edge.

We were shown around a CD plant near Wales and had to wear full PPE kit (lol) to look around the factory. They showed us our discs being made and it was thrilling and really groundbreaking.

I won’t discuss track selection other than to say we were dictated by the charts and also who would licence to us. Some of the big labels like 4AD and Creation just would not entertain us which was really frustrating.

 Volume 5 was a roaring success and opened the door to Beechwood’s next phase. We advertised for someone to come in and help out as we were drowning a little with too much to do.

Tim Millington answered the advert fresh from Uni in Manchester and joined us, but also a whirlwind came into the office on the back of that advert and that whirlwind was Ian Dewhirst. He had seen our Indie albums and a couple of our dance releases and was looking for a home for his Mastercuts idea.

He had punted it round all the usual suspects but nobody was into it. I had been a bit of a soulboy in my mid 20s and got his concept straight away. Mastercuts is another story...

We continued with Indie Top 20…Vol 6 was a little disappointing but Vol 7 was a breakthough as we managed to get 4AD for the first time.

CD88 was like a Best of… but was our CD version of the NME C86 only on CD as most of the tracks were not available on CD.

By the time Vol 10 came along the series was really doing well and also we had Mastercuts riding high too so we were in really good shape. Around this time Clive sold Strange Fruit to Pinnacle and took the step back that he had wanted to do for some time.

We decided to go for a TV advertised Best of Indie Top 20 and indeed it was actually Craig Charles on the voiceover….”Don’t be a twat all your life…get the Indie Top 20!”

The shops ordered vast quantities and it was a high risk play. We had only done one TV album which Ian championed (a "Best of Al Green") and I guess we wanted to get up to the level of Telstar.

 Rough Trade went bust the week before the stock was due to be delivered to the shops and it was like a tsunami hitting us. We somehow managed to get through it and the album came out, with the help of Jazz Summers from Big Life who stepped in at the time to help out with Woolworths. Without him it would have been curtains, God Bless him.

You mentioned the episode with postering Telstar…. I have to put my hands up. We did it one Sunday evening after a full on lunchtime session in the pub! Bee, myself and an old mate John scaled their offices that night and plastered them with Indie Top 20 posters, particularly Sean’s office on the first floor! To their credit they were great about it and the next morning they said as long as they were removed pronto they’d let it go…. LOL

BTW… we also did Island’s offices near Hammersmith bridge that night as they had been copying us too! Had to remove them too!

Over the years later we had some great fun with Telstar and they were always good sports.

As the series progressed it plateaued and we gave control over to Tim, as you rightly state. At that time we were having massive success with Mastercuts and inevitably it became a bit lost.

Tim tried to kickstart it with name changes and new designers but it could never get to the next level and seemed to be just treading water.

The Indie scene was all at sea too with all the majors setting up dummy indie labels and it became too political deciding which tracks were proper Indie or not.

I think it came to a natural end.

I have rattled this off this morning as the memories have entered my brain… I hope you enjoy the read. 

It really was a magical time and I can’t see it being repeated. To have a recording back then in a studio was a massive achievement and all that has gone now with modern technology letting everyone produce music on their computer for free.

 I won't say I despair now but there is no music vibe that I can see…. I’ve been looking for years! Back then the label was a massive part of the process, all with their own characters, but now that doesn’t happen.

I now still release music as it’s in my blood. Currently I am releasing fitness music and it is going OK.

Sadly Clive passed away last summer and Bee was taken from us too early with Pancreatic cancer 6 years ago…. so sorely missed.

Thanks for prompting this beautiful trip… I wish you well and am so glad to think that something we did back then was relevant in some small way."

(In my reply, I mentioned to Chet that there seemed to be many moments where the label and Indie Top 20 series could have been upturned by external forces - including a lot of incidents I wasn't previously aware of).

"Yes, the label was always under siege and on the edge, but somehow we just had to make it work. We had committed to it, given up our nicely paid jobs and we were determined to make it work despite all the challenges.

Thinking back the series really stuttered to a halt as it was so difficult with the majors sticking their bands in.

Countless times towards the end we wanted to have bands on there that were in the Indie charts and when we phoned the labels it inevitably turned out that for anything ”Legal and Business” we had to go to Virgin, or Universal or Sony/BMG, who would just ask for too much money and put too many restrictions on it to make it feasible.

The whole Indie thing became unworkable and it transformed into a kind of “Indie Sound” for music….which remains really the case today.

One quick mention about the videos. They were pretty hit and miss as you say. EMI came to us and asked if they could do them through their video arm (PMI) and offered us a small advance and a royalty.

At that time you needed so much extra kit to put a video compilation together with all the weird video formats all needing expensive mastering and we were miles off being able to do that, so we said OK and let them have it.

We tried to make them similar to the albums but there were inevitable compromises with licensing and formats. PMI were good people and that was fun while it lasted… they didn’t want to renew and we weren’t really into doing it ourselves.

After reading your blog I revisited Delicious Monster, who we signed (to Beechwood sister label/ subsidiary Flute) along with Chimera and they still sound fantastic. Lord knows why they didn’t cross over.

We literally chucked everything at them.We got them managers, got them gigs, got them a PR company, bought them instruments, recorded them with a top producer in a top studio, paid them a small allowance and followed them everywhere. I even went to one of their gigs under the Westway on my stag night with all my mates!

The music business is brutal….. but everyone has tales like that."

Thanks to Chet for getting in touch and offering such a generous amount of information about the series and the business complexities behind it. It's been a fantastic window into a world which has obviously disappeared now. A series like "Indie Top 20" simply couldn't exist in the same form today - who, apart from label owners and bands, really watches the indie chart closely these days? - and anyone pining for luxury reissues or box sets is going to be disappointed when I state the obvious... nothing of that nature is in the pipeline.

As I didn't manage to say goodbye properly in November 2017 when I last posted an entry on here, I will do so now! Farewell, stay safe during these difficult times, and I hope you enjoyed reading the blog. It was an absolute pleasure to pull together and reminded me of some brilliant moments in my life. The "Indie Top 20" series started when I had recently become a teenager and had finished by the time I graduated from university, so I've always considered it to be the soundtrack to my formative years, filled to the brim with music I wanted to own but couldn't always afford to obtain any other way. The earliest albums in particular are like snapshots of a moment in time for me, and I hope I managed to spark some memories for others along the way.