The 1000 Watt Club was set up in 1998 as a promotions company whose events catered for all genres of rock music. From this, the Big Rock Saturday - which takes place bi-monthly at The Met Theatre in Bury - has been cited as ‘the best gig in Manchester’, and is championed by John Robb right across to Manchester Music. The Big Rock Saturdays comprise of four to six bands playing rock, punk, old skool metal, nu-metal, emo, ska punk, stoner and hardcore. Due to the popularity of these nights and the quality of the bands (many of whom have no recording outlets) the 1000 Watt Recordings label was set up to act as an easily identifiable street brand - like the gigs, you know exactly what you’re going to get.

1000 Watt have since run successful nights in various other venues such as Manchester Roadhouse, Jilly’s Rockworld, The Witchwood, and with increasingly more profile artists at The Met Theatre, from Wishbone Ash and The Beat to Midge Ure and The Libertines to name but a few.

Initially 1000 Watt Recordings was set up as a flag of convenience as mentioned in the previous section. The bands that we showcased made music and the audience wanted to buy it and so we started off with small runs of Split EPS (two to four bands with a song each on a disc), then full-length compilation albums. We then went on to putting out CDs for the most successful of the bands. These were sold through our events, local record shops and by the bands themselves. To cut our costs and give the bands involved an added incentive, costs and profits were shared between the bands and the label accordingly. This proved to be surprisingly successful in both sales and building the brand name from a grass roots level.