It reads:
The story of how independent label Rocket Recordings came to take over Islington’s Garage for a weekend birthday bash is an atypical one. Its 20-year history has corresponded with unprecedented shifts in the music industry. Largely, this continued state of flux has been fuelled by the digitisation of production, distribution, and consumption. Yet, rather than herald a new era of unfettered freedom, in many cases, this evolution has merely bolstered the inexplicable rise of blander than bland acts like Ed Sheeran and destabilised the platform for fringe and underground music.
Not that you know it from inside the Garage at Rocket’s weekender where an avalanche of mind-liquifying music by turns cascades and erupts from the stage. Quite how this psych/noise label has not merely survived, but flourished, in such uncertain times is curious, to say the least… as are the label’s beginnings. Rocket founder Chris Reeder maintains it all began at a Lillydamwhite/The Heads gig at The Louisiana in Bristol, Lillydamwhite’s Gareth is convinced it was at Bristol’s the Ropewalk. “Which is true I have no idea haha!” admits, Chris. What he is sure of is that it was started by himself and Simon Healey with the release of a Lillydamwhite/The Heads 7” split in March 1998...
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