Graeme Regan, the executive who co-founded influential Aussie/U.K. independent Hot Records 23 years ago, has resigned with immediate effect.
Sydney-based Regan tells Billboard.biz, “I’ll be clearing my head over the coming months and will make some decisions regarding my future in the New Year. I’ll very much be involved in the local music biz.”
Hot was set up in 1982 at the back of the Didgeridoo record store in Sydney. Didgeridoo was owned by English expatriate Martin Jennings. Regan, who moved from New Zealand, began wholesaling in the store.
Starting life as an Australian distributor to such British indies as Rough Trade, Factory and Mute, Hot locally released albums from Celibate Rifles, Laughing Clowns, the Lighthouse Keepers, Wet Taxis, the Benders, Gondwanaland, Warumpi Band and Coloured Stone.
Hot started the first Australian Independent Charts and scored U.K. indie and mainstream chart success with the Triffids and Ed Kuepper. In 1984, it set up an office in England under Jennings and initiated its own distribution system in the United Kingdom and Europe.
In recent years, Hot licensed the late singer Eva Cassidy from U.S. label Blix Street.
