It started, as most of the best things in life tend to, with a gig. In 2001 Club Fandango crept onto the London music scene on a Tuesday night in Camden’s Dublin Castle and carefully unfurled its glossy new backdrop. Four years down the line that Tuesday is a heaving maelstrom of top sexy indierock behaviour with Keane, Bloc Party, 22-20s, Death Cab For Cutie, Kaiser Chiefs, Go! Team and Arctic Monkeys all filling the venue at various points.
The backdrop is looking a bit worse for wear after over 200 shows. But then again aren’t we all? So what comes next? A record company, of course.
Pointy Records and Fierce Panda (your hosts for Club Fandango) are launching Label Fandango as a Singles Club in its purest sense, purveying thrillingly limited edition releases in black & white sleeves with the aim of breaking even and having a bit of fun with smashing new talent along the way. Pointy Records is the refuge for cosmic star chasers such as The Clientele and Flotation Toy Warning. The fierce panda recording company is the indie escape hatch for sonic terrorists such as Art Brut, Apartment, Agent Blue and other bands beginning with ‘A’. Together they are Label Fandango.
And together they have been gawping at the excesses of the corporate machine. Indie Boomtime it may be but what does that mean? £100k marketing spends for ‘80s soundalikes, hysterical TV advertising campaigns for half-baked debut albums and total catastrophe if the latest over-hyped Libertines wannabes’ second single fails to crack the top 20, that’s what. What are we doing, people? Is this really fun??
