Paul Smith is probably best known as the founder and manager of Blast First

Blast First

Blast First is a sub label of one-time independent record label, Mute Records, founded in approximately 1985. It was named after a phrase taken from the first number of the radical Vorticist journal Blast, published by Wyndham Lewis in 1914...

, the British alternative record label that released artists such as Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...

, the Butthole Surfers

Butthole Surfers

Butthole Surfers is an American alternative rock band formed by Gibby Haynes and Paul Leary in San Antonio, Texas in 1981. The band has had numerous personnel changes, but its core lineup of Haynes, Leary, and drummer King Coffey has been consistent since 1983. Teresa Nervosa served as second...

, Big Black

Big Black

Big Black was an American punk rock band from Evanston, Illinois, active from 1981 to 1987. Founded by singer and guitarist Steve Albini, the band's initial lineup also included guitarist Santiago Durango and bassist Jeff Pezzati, both of Naked Raygun...

 and Dinosaur Jr. in the UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. He continued to manage the artists and work in the music industry when Blast First was bought by Mute Records

Mute Records

Mute is an independent record label based in the UK. It was founded in 1978 by Daniel Miller and featured several prominent musical acts on its roster such as Goldfrapp, Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Erasure and Fad Gadget.-Beginnings:...

. Now he runs the very small label "Blast First Petite" on which he releases stuff that was refused by Mute's Blast First. So he now has an exclusive contract with Pan Sonic

Pan sonic

Pan Sonic was a Finnish experimental electronic music duo consisting of Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen.-Music:...

.
He is also known in subcultural circles as the man behind King Mob

King Mob

King Mob was a radical group endeavouring to contribute to worldwide proletarian social revolution, based in London during the 1970s.It was a cultural mutation of the Situationists and the anarchist group Motherfuckers. They sought to emphasize the cultural anarchy and disorder being ignored in...

/Disobey, and the occasional Club Disobey underground art events in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. In 2002 he produced a multimedia performance event at the Barbican

Barbican

A barbican, from medieval Latin barbecana, signifying the "outer fortification of a city or castle," with cognates in the Romance languages A barbican, from medieval Latin barbecana, signifying the "outer fortification of a city or castle," with cognates in the Romance languages A barbican, from...

 to mark the release of Iain Sinclair

Iain Sinclair

Iain Sinclair FRSL is a British writer and filmmaker. Much of his work is rooted in London, most recently within the influences of psychogeography.-Life and work:...

's book London Orbital. The event featured a diverse range of artists from the literary and music worlds including J.G. Ballard and Bill Drummond

Bill Drummond

William Ernest Drummond is a Scottish artist, musician, writer and record producer. He was the co-founder of late 1980s avant-garde pop group The KLF and its 1990s media-manipulating successor, the K Foundation, with which he burned a million pounds in 1994...

. http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,813739,00.html

Paul Smith also produced the final British tour of Ken Kesey

Ken Kesey

Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. "I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a...

, taking him on a bus tour around festivals in summer 1997. He is also known for a record label of spoken word performances by famous counter-culture authors from the beat generation

Beat generation

The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...

 to Iain Sinclair and Stewart Home

Stewart Home

Stewart Home is an English artist, filmmaker, writer, pamphleteer, art historian, and activist. He is best known for his novels such as the non-narrative 69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess , his re-imagining of the 1960s in Tainted Love , and earlier parodistic pulp fictions Pure Mania, Red...

.

External links

• Profiling the label that launched Sonic Youth (OneMusic, BBC, 2004)
• Blast First Petite