The label was based in Hove near Brighton on the English south coast
and released mostly records by local bands. It was run by Grant and
Terrie, the interesting thing here is that Terrie is Grant mother. It
started with a flexi by Jason Smart and Fabulous News back in late
1987, this was release under the label name "Poptones productions" but
for the next flexi, another split, this time by How Many Beans Make 5
and the Popguns they renamed the label to LaDiDa.
It was the next release which brought the label to my attention, the
famous Hoopla-tape, unlike most of compilation tapes of 1988 and the
following years the sound quality was very good and the selection of
bands was excellent: With Bob, Reserve and The Siddeleys there were
all three Sombrero bands, a bunch of great local bands: HMBM5, John
Cunningham who before was in the band "The Curtain Twitchers" with
Jane Fox of Marine Girls fame, Great Scott, Jason Smart (what happened
to his 12" Queen Of Bees?), The Daisycutters, Crocodile Ride. Then
some excellent bands as Riot Of Colour, Where Ether Fell and North Of
Cornwallis, whom all released far too few songs. It even introduced me
to Japanese popsters Lollipop Sonic, who later became Flippers Guitar
and Cornelius etc. Someone should re-release the Hoopla-tape on CD!
Grant told me about how he got into music:
"I remember one day in 1979, I was twelve and were listening to John
Peel for the first time. He played the Boomtown Rats, I thought, yeah
that's great. When I was 13 I met Gordon who later did the Playroom
Disc label and the Escape Club in Brighton. All the money the got for
lunch and the bus from his mom he spent on records, he has an amazing
record collection, not as good as John Peel's but he had to count in
tons as well. He was the only person I knew, who was into the same
music as I. Nobody else liked The Chameleons, Orange Juice or Josef K.
It was through Gordon that I became a fanatic, I recorded every Peel
Sessions and bought lots of records."
LaDiDa became bigger and instead on flexis and tapes they released 12"
and CDs mostly by the local bands already featured on the Hoopla tape.
With bands like Earwig the label moved into the Shoegazzing scene of the
early nineties. I hardly have any of their later releases. My
favourite remains the Hoopla tape while the Borobodur compilation was
quite good too. The HMBM5 and John Cunningham LPs as worth a listen as
well.
Grant had a small recording studio where he recorded most of his
artists himself as well as some other pop bands.
Peter Hahndorf for the Shalala mailing-list in November 1998
