Waterfront Records

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Waterfront Records was an independent record label based in Sydney, that released recordings by some of Australia's most influential bands of the 1980s and 1990s.

[edit] History

Waterfront records was started in 1982 by Steve Stavrakis who at the time was an employee of another independent label Phantom Records. The first release for Waterfront was the "Careless Talk" EP by JFK & The Cuban Crisis that was originally submitted to Phantom. Starvakis heard the recordings and when Phantom passed on it he decided to release it himself. Steve was later joined by partner Chris Dunn who was instrumental in discovering a number of the acts that appeared on the Waterfront label.

Over the next 15 years Waterfront put out over 170 releases by bands that were popular on the Australian live music circuit at the time. Acts like Tumbleweed and Ratcat who would later have success on the mainstream charts released their first records on Waterfront. Waterfront also licensed some recordings from the Sub Pop label that saw them handling the Australian releases for artist like Nirvana, Henry Rollins, L7 and Tad.

The label later spawned a retail shop also called Waterfront that occupied various locations in the Sydney CBD over the years. Stocking local and imported records by cult artists the shop also and occasionally held live performances. It closed in the late 90s and later morphed into an on-line retailer that is still operating.