British Days: Fat Records

In London I worked for Fat Records, a breakbeat label in London; and my time there was spent doing online marketing, clerical work and listening to a lot of breakbeat music. It was not the most exciting job and it mostly consisted of making as many friends for Fat Records on their myspace.com web-site. Since I didn't have a lot of things to do at Fat Records I got to observe what running a record label was really like.

Far from being situated in a neat, clean place the office of Fat Records was housed in a slightly dilapidated warehouse-like building in south London. Like many such buildings it had a peculiar smell, which I can best describe as being like many of the odors that would emanate from a woodshop class. Also, a visit to the restroom was enough to make you realize the building was far from music-biz glamor. The toilets in the men's room were a disgusting sight--as if they had been neglected to be cleaned or replaced. When a man walked into the restroom when I was in there one time he looked at the toilet and invoke the son of God's name in shock.

The office of Fat Records was basically a make shift room. Upon entering the room you could see various record label paraphenelia: DJ magazine covers covered the walls, a CD and turn table for playing music and four computers which were organized close together. But no matter how much personality the room had it always retained its warehouse-like origins, and a grayness and stillness seemed to mix with the personality of the room. It was as if somebody had given temporary life to an otherwise bland room, and that the blandness of the room was an inescapable part of it. No matter how much personality was given to the room it would always retain an element of blandness.

My three co-workers, Rory, Clair and Paul, were always working hard. As I sat at my computer trying to make as many friends for them for their myspace.com web-site they'd be typing away, recieving calls and making calls and the only time they seemed like they got a reprieve is when they went to lunch. Life at a record label seemed frantic; they'd always be calling someone to bug them to do something for them and somebody would always be calling them to bug them to do something for them, and this seemed like it was standard protocol for the industry as a whole. And I suspect I know why it is. If they didn't do things like that then somebody would be more likely to forget something and in the music business things need to get done as quick as possible. Also, Paul who owned the label was self-employed--the record label was his label and Rory and Clair were his employees--so there was a lot of encentive to do things like this. They didn't make a lot of money. They all made their money from club nights, and they'd usually be able to split even, which was just enough to make a living doing what they loved doing. So they couldn't afford to waste money and opportunities, which meant if they wanted to do what they loved as a living then they were going to have to keep up with the frantic pace of the business.

The way Fat Records was started is an interesting story in itself and worthy of its own blog entry. The label grew out of Paul's parties. When he was a teenager he'd throw parties when his mum wasn't around, and one day he decided to make money from it, and this practice turned into his record label. His first record label was called Certificate 16, which was another breakbeat label and still has a web-site, but that record label went out of business. Paul says it was because he didn't use common business sense, such as spending too much on art work.

The biggest thing I learned from working at Fat Records is the music business is a business; and like any business the bottom-line was to make money. Clair told me some people were in the business for precisely that reason. The only reason why they were in the music business was because they could make a livlihood from it, and that was the only reason they had any interest in it. But Rory, Paul and Clair were in the business because they loved doing what they did. Rory and Paul were DJs themselves, and they'd often have to leave for days to DJ somewhere in the world, which was a constant reminder why they were in the business in the first place.