''It’s Bristol, 1987. The Clifton suspension bridge straddles the river Avon, swaying under the weight of cars, pedestrians and bicycles hurtling to-and-fro between the city and neighbouring north-Somerset. Standing at the foot of the bustling roadway in 2011, not a lot has changed – its waters remain unfettered and the rolling breeze makes the estuary silt dance on my tongue as a passer-by thrusts a ‘Great Day in Bristol’ pamphlet into my hand. A grainy old photograph in my pocketbook led me down the road to an old building; it appeared wearisome, decayed with age, but I had arrived. Once a hive of activity, the small basement flat now seems rather lifeless, yet with the summer sun burning through the clouds and a carefully-assembled compilation blaring from my battered Walkman, I was transported back in time.''Sarah’s manifesto was simple – to release one-hundred of the world’s greatest-ever pop records, eclipsing all other labels by ‘doing it properly’ then stop; simple. Co-founders Matt Haynes and Clare Wadd, both of whom had been involved with local fanzines – ‘Sha-La-La’ and ‘Kvatch’, respectively – had already issued flexi-discs for early Sarah stalwarts the Orchids and the Sea Urchins and as such, setting up a label of their own seemed the obvious thing to do. Speaking to Wadd today - kindly answering this writer’s questions in glorious detail – her adoration for the music is very much intact. The blessed naivety of the young couple is humbling: “We had no idea how the first single would go - it started as hobby and turned into a business, I was still at university and Matt was on the dole…we really just put a record out, then put another record out, and it grew from there”.
Musically-speaking, the catalogue’s gentle, understated sound – a combination of 12-string acoustic guitars, swirling chorused sounds and lilting vocals – made Sarah synonymous with ‘twee-pop’. [As a side note, there were those who bucked this trend: The Golden Dawn, for example, were full of loud fuzzy Scottish scruffiness - debut single 'My Secret World' practically bursts with teen angst and Salinger-esque escapism]. “I think the label name…made it easy to patronise us, most of the bands hated it…we were trying to make political and feminist points with the wrong kind of music”. Objectively, it is hard to completely write-off the views of the press - with bands such as Heavenly fuelling the jibes further with near-childlike lyrics in songs such as ‘Cool Guitar Boy’. Journalistic apathy only pushed their DIY ethic further; the cohesive feel to much of the catalogue – largely thanks to innovative, low-budget printing – along with free posters that gave Sarah a face, refused to go away. Wadd explained: “design constraints forced us to be more creative, and most of the bands weren’t Bristol-based which helped to spread the word”.
A pivotal figure in promoting many releases was the wry-humoured, uncompromisingly British John Peel. The much-missed radio mogul championed the label and granted generous airplay – “he [Peel] was incredibly good to us and played almost everything we played, if not everything” says Wadd. Given the belligerence of their approach – “we’d frequently write him [Peel] letters complaining about the rubbish he was playing” – he continued to champion the label in the face of journalistic adversity. Candidly, Wadd describes the labels rocky relationship with the music press: “we weren’t in London so they didn’t know us, so it wasn’t awkward to have a go at us because they weren’t going to see us at a gig the next day”.
By 1995, as Sarah approached its century, the hard work of both the bands and its founders was done. The jigsaws were completed, the last posters sent off, and the release of the ‘There and Back Again Lane’ [Sarah 100] retrospective LP drew the label to an abrupt close.
Whilst Clare – and indeed Matt – have happily answered my questions, reflecting on the past coherently in reams of pure-British whimsy, they are in agreement that calling it a day was the sound choice. Haynes argued that “I don’t think there is place for a label like Sarah, because it’s so much easier for bands to do it themselves”. “Agreed”, says Clare, “I’m at a good age to be at home with the cat…things should have their time and end, the level of attachment and the emotions wrapped up in them are so huge…we would have lost that excitement, that screwed up ‘whatever’ that makes it pop music”.
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