Distributor(s) Festival Records Country of origin Australia Official website Waterfront Records | Genre Various Location Sydney Founded 1982 | |
Founders Steven Stavrakis, Chris Dunn Artists Hard‑Ons, Ratcat, Tumbleweed, The Proton Energy Pi, John Butler Albums Welcome Stranger, Smell the Magic, Between the Eyes, Hot for Your Love - Baby Profiles | ||
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.
Contents
History
Waterfront records was started in 1982 by Steven Stavrakis who at the time was an employee of another independent label Phantom Records. The first release for Waterfront was the Careless Talk Costs Lives EP by JFK & The Cuban Crisis that was originally submitted to, but rejected by, the Phantom label. Stavrakis heard the recordings and when Phantom passed on it he decided to release it himself. Stavrakis was later joined by 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. 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. Stocking local and imported records by cult artists the shop also and occasionally held live performances. After the store closed down in March 2000, Waterfront was reincarnated in February 2003, in the form of online retail store.