On Saturday, Soho's infamous Berwick Street Market had something a little tastier to the normal apples and pears of the daily fruit and veg stalls ............. in the form of sweets and sounds being sold as part of "Independent Label Market". For the first time the country's small enterprises rallied together to celebrate their passion by trading wares direct to their keen customers. A myriad of music buffs from Moshi Moshi to Merok dug deep into their limited edition archives for special offers to be snapped up on Saturday - such as House Anxiety's last copy of The Big Pink’s debut single. Here is Jaimie Hodgson of House Anxiety snapped by Victoria Hesketh (a.k.a Little Boots) who had lovingly baked these little cupcakes and Oreo brownies specially for the stand. Thanks to Victoria for sharing her photos from the day - here we can also see Kate who runs the sister label Roundtable Records and Joe from Angular Records who helped organise the whole event.
In addition to the vegetable market, fabric shop and sex shop heritage of Berwick Street, it was also a major destination for independent record shops in the 90's. I remember Saturday's spent "up west" with my sister, visiting "Mr. CD" to purchase the latest releases. Disappointingly the number of shops has dwindled with dawn of digital downloads, so the aim of the event was to bring back a bit of the original old-school excitement in to the local trading community. With the support from Westminster Council to provide the space and opportunity for 17 of Europe's leading independent labels to host the event, hopefully it will become a regular feature. With the likes of Steve Mackey and Jarvis Cocker manning the decks on the Rough Trade soundsystem and punters for the punnets of tunes including Bernard Butler and Steve Lamacq - I'm sure the success will prompt a follow up next year!
Thanks to Victoria for her photos from the day.
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