Young & Lost Club Records

Type: small indie

Link: youngandlostclub.com - label/club website

Nadia (the one with flicky hair) and Sara (the one with curly hair) met age 11 at boarding school. Sara had already been there for a year when new girl Nadia arrived. One day at tea, Sara looked up across the dining table and saw the new girl covered in peanut butter, she realised just how crazy the new girl was, and they have been inseparable ever since.

Skip forward a few years, and still incarcerated at the boarding school in the countryside the girls decided to start a fanzine. The enigmatically titled Pyrrha Fanzine was born (Pyrrha was the name of a girl in a poem by Horace, so the education was not a complete waste).

Put together in proper cut-and-paste style, the seven issues were championed by the legendary John Kennedy and are now considered collectors' items. In pyjamas and their dressing gowns, the girls would creep across the grounds and sneak into the staff room in the dead of night to photocopy what became an essential part of the budding scene in London. (If you ever wondered why they stopped doing the fanzine, it's because they never bothered to look for another source of free photo-copying after leaving school.) The fanzine featured the up and coming bands of the time - for example Interpol, The Walkmen, Yeah Yeah Yeahs on their early trips to London. They were the very first people to write about Razorlight, Neils Children and Special Needs, while also counting Pete Doherty and the infamous Mr Octopuss as contributors.

Shortly before leaving school the first Error Campaign was staged. The maiden club night took place at the Notting Hill Arts Club, and featured the exceptional live talents of Special Needs and Neils Children. For two years following the Error Campaign featured the best of London's up-and-coming bands and djs in a variety of venues, always with a party atmosphere of drunken bonhomie. This March, the Error Campaign was laid to rest, with an epic six band bill that ended in a riot and a hefty damages invoice. A night not to be forgotten.

Along the way the girls learnt to dj, there have been many dj-related injuries, arguments (Nadia thinks Sara is too obscure, Sara won't let Nadia play The Proclaimers), and a trail of broken hearts (every boy loves a girl with a good record collection), as the girls have charmed nearly every dance floor in town.

Then last November, stricken with the idea of leaving her teenage years and turning twenty, Sara was sitting on the steps of university when she had an epiphany. "Nads, lets set up a record label" she said. Nadia thought about it for a second, looked at the students that surrounded them, realised uni was a lost cause, and replied "Yeah, that's a great idea". A few weeks later and the Young and Lost Club was founded. The girls were delighted when their favourite band Vincent Vincent and the Villains decided to make their masterpiece double A-side "Blue Boy"/"The Boy Who Killed Time" the debut release on Young and Lost Club Records.

This is the Pyrrha Girls / Young and Lost Club story so far, nearly a decade on from their initial meeting over afternoon tea. However I'm sure I don't have to tell you that the audacious adventures of those two little muppets, now record label impresarios,

Nadia and Sara, are far from over....

Max Wolf, Paris, April 2005.

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