Off The Record

Because the original post was getting a bit large, I have now split the original Festival Records gallery into two parts, this part contains all the subsidiary labels and smaller labels distributed by the company

 This first  was for Interfusion.  The first label was used in the 1960′s and into the early 1970s, while the second was used from around 1979 untl at least 1986.

(Update: 20/4/2010) Nexr is the Calendar records label (not to be confused with the record label that Don Kirshner was involved with)

Update (29/5/2010) The next label in the gallery is for Leedon Records, a record label founded by promoter Lee Gordon.

Now, here is the Ampar label (W&G distributed Ampar’s cataloge back in the 50′s, but Festival took it over later on):

next is the record label owned by Kevin and Colin Jacobsen (Col Joye).  the label is ATA.  the first label is the first label used throughout the 1960′s

 Next, is the label as it appeared in the 1970′s

ATA is still in operation today, but under a different distributor, as Festival is no longer with us (except as a label of Warner Music)

the next label is for small company Spin Productions.

The next label is from the late 1980′s, and it’s for Regular Records

There will be more to come as I continue my search.

NEW: 29/6/2010.  The following label is for John Williamson’s own label Emusic.

BTW, if anyone is asking if I’ll be including Mushroom Records in the gallery soon, the answer is yes, but will be on it’s own seperate post.

I have all of Mushroom’s labels except for their very first one.  If you can supply this to me, it would be greatly appreciated.

If you can supply the label, it can be sent to offrecord at brucelaing dot com.

Today, I’m posting the second label gallery for this month, and it’s Festival records label gallery (this post will be updated regularly as I find new labels)

I have LP’s and singles of Festival until about 1985 (when the company changed it’s logo. I don’t know if they released records with their new logo after 1985 and by late December 1991 when they ceased vinyl manufacture)

(update 21/6/2010): It seems that Festival did release recordings in their own label from the mid 80′s onwards.  I recently bought two singles from the latter 80′s through Time Warp records.  I am awaiting delivery of these records, and should receive them by the end of this week, and if the labels are different, I’ll include them here.

the first label is one of the earliest labels they used for the company (I have one record from the early years (1952), but I didn’t have time to include prior to me going on holidays, but I’ll locate the label and post it here, with any variants and additional labels I find)

Update: 13/4/2010:  I finally found the (second) earliest Festival label, and it appears below.

I have now found a generic Festival label from around 1954 (for Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock”)

the next two labels comes from the 1960′s. the first is a Stereo Festival release in blue and silver (with American Decca logo), and a single from the later 60′s.

I have also seen this label in another colour combo (light blue and silver for an EP. this appears below.)

Just added today (5/7/2010) I have a Festival (New Zealand) pressing.  It’s the same as the label above, but instead has a “Made in New Zealand” notice under the black part of the Festival logo:

NEW: 23/5/2010 There was another variant of the Festival label with the one Festival logo (as the designs are the same, I am posting a red and silver variant (it also appears in the normal yellow and black design)) :

in the 1970′s Festival modified it’s logo and the following design appeared.

I have also seen this label in yellow and orange (this was used at one point for 45′s. I don’t know if it’s a one shot or was used for a short time. If anyone knows, send me an e-mail or post a comment below.  The image appears here:

Incidentally the characters naned on the blue label are more puppet characters than real people. this recording is the puppet cast of childrens show “Shirl’s Neighbourhood” singing the show’s theme

Below is an (extended) version of the show’s theme featuring cast members of other Seven Network shows including “Cop Shop”, and an appearance by 1960′s childrens host “Happy” Hammond (He’s the one in the one in the checkered jacket and hat. the only cast member not on this video clip is the show’s host, the late Graeme “Shirl the Curl” Strachan)

Earlier this year, I was going to add the label’s numbering system. but it seems a website named Global Dog has beaten me to it. The following link shows Festival’s numbering system up until 1980 (but the numbering remained the same up until the late 80′s)

When the Vinyl Vault opens in September (see the later post for details), I will take over where Global Dog left off, starting the series from K 8000 onwards.

In part two.  I’ll post the subsidiary labels and the smaller labels that Festival distributed over the years.