Co-founded by Hot Chip's Joe Goddard, the quirky, character-driven imprint propelled the likes of Disclosure and TEED into the mainstream
When Hot Chip linchpin Joe Goddard started putting on shambolic club nights with his two mates in rat-infested warehouses around London, the last thing he expected was for them to spawn a record label. In the past few years, the Greco-Roman imprint and party collective he runs with Alexander Waldron and Dom Mentsh has accidentally become a place for quirky electronic pop, unusual club anthems and dance music's unlikely heroes; those who call themselves things like Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs and perform in elaborate dino-costumes, or who are too young to go clubbing but make old-school house and garage, like then-teenage brothers, Disclosure.
"We're always about characters and the twisted side of dance music," says Joe. "Some of the best moments in a club are when the DJ plays a weird pop record in the middle of a set. We like the records that stand out when you're on the dancefloor."
It's this ear for off-kilter fungasms that sets Greco-Roman apart from the swathes of other labels attempting to shape dance music's history. Their motto (and name of their new compilation), We Make Colourful Music Because We Dance In The Dark, speaks to clubbers who want dank back rooms and discerning house music instead of pill-boshing bass drops on their nights out. "But it's also about the production being really fucking good," says Dom. "And that's proven when our artists go on to greater things." They don't, however, believe in bragging rights. "The point is, we want them to come back and party with us. TEED is a massive artist and now signed to a major label, but he headlined our Glastonbury show this summer. That's what makes sense to us. Not 'We fucking broke this artist.'"
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For the Greco guys, all roads lead back to the rave. It's now nearly 10 years since Joe, Dom and Alex met while working at Island Records. The trio "bonded over dancehall in the copy room" and started putting on clandestine parties with an early warehouse-style spirit, their eye-catching flyers depicting the Greco crew as be-Spandexed wrestlers ready for DJ battle. "The parties were only secret because we were no good at promoting them," admits Alex. "In the early days, we just announced them three days before on MySpace. At our first party, we didn't even have anyone to do the door. [Electronic composer] Matthew Herbert turned up. He'd been on a two-week survival course and had this mad beard, but he asked if we wanted a hand. I thought, 'I can't ask Matthew Herbert to do the door', but we did really need someone. In the end, he fell asleep with the cash box open, so loads of people walked in for free." Dom laughs. "We're really good party-throwers but really bad events organisers."
It's a wonder they manage to put out any records at all. They couldn't spell Greco-Roman for ages, so they originally signed up to the bank with the wrong name. Joe once missed one of Hot Chip's main stage festival sets because he'd been out at a Greco all-nighter and slept through his alarm. Police shut down their pool party in someone's back garden in Texas. And they've only ever had two A&R meetings.
Luckily, Greco-Roman's expert music taste has always surged above the chaos. Their residents helped give them a peerless party pedigree: veteran crate-digger Ross Allen used to run club nights with Gilles Peterson, while Raf Rundell was a regular at Basement Jaxx's Rooty parties in Brixton (he's now also in the 2 Bears with Joe).
Greco-Roman, they insist, was never really meant to be a label. "It was a total 'Oh shit!' moment," says Dom. That moment came at their Christmas party in 2006. "I flippantly asked one of our live acts, David E Sugar, whether he could make us a dubplate that we could play on the night. He turned up with this track, Oi New York, This Is London! We dropped it at 4am and it kicked off. Alex turned to me and said, 'We've got to put this out'." Other signings came just as fortuitously: Disclosure were a chance Facebook discovery, and they started working with beguiling folk singer Valentina after she sang on Goddard's 2011 Greco-signed club smash, Gabriel.
These days, Greco-Roman has grown up, their compilation drawing a line under the past decade of escapades. "It was getting a bit goofy; promoters started to think that we were going to turn up to our DJ sets in leotards," says Alex. Their current roster is less wacky but no less original, with, for now anyway, more of a focus on singers, such as Valentina and the Micachu-produced Tirzah, and producers like young house beatsmith TGCS. In typically offbeat style, new signings Letthemusicplay are about to release a garage-poetry tune, Our Town, with vocals by spoken word artist Kate Tempest.
Even so, hard partying will always be at the heart of the Greco-Roman experience. "I can't interest my friends in going out anymore but I still love raving, unfortunately," says Joe. Dom concurs: "We're the weird guys who will always like dark spaces and listening to music on proper sound systems." Long may their Greco bromance continue.
Greco-Roman: We Make Colourful Music Because We Dance in the Dark is out now; Our Town by Letthemusicplay feat Kate Tempest is out on Sept 16
by Hot Chip, Kate Hutchinson via Music: Electronic music | theguardian.com
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