BARN
Barn was owned by
producer / manager Chas Chandler, who started out as bass player with
the Animals. It was involved in management, publishing and record production for several years
before it progressed to being a label, which
it did in 1976. 'Music Week' of the 15th of May of that year
reported that the company had signed a long-term distribution deal with Polydor; when its singles started
appearing they were numbered in a 2014-100 numerical series. Its next
mention came in the issue of the 3rd of September
1977, when it was announced that Mike Hayes, formerly label manager at
Elektra (q.v.) had been appointed managing director. There seems to have been a
slight hiatus at the start of 1979; then 'MW' of the
14th of April said that Barn had split with Polydor. The issue of the 5th of
May revealed that a sales / distribution agreement had been signed with
Pinnacle, and that the label was to be relaunched 'after a period of inactivity'. With the
move to Pinnacle, catalogue numbers changed to the BARN-000s; pressing of the few singles that
I have seen in the vinyl has
been by Pye or Lyntone. Despite the move, Barn's
days were numbered. Less than a year later came the news that Chandler
was launching a new label, 'Six Of The Best', which would concentrate on six-track
12" EPs; according to 'MW' (1st of March 1980) all the Barn artists were being transferred to it.
In the event 'Six Of The Best' seems not to
have lasted very long, and by the middle of the year it
had been replaced by a revamped Cheapskate label
(q.v.).
Polydor-era Barn labels were injection moulded, and
came in two different designs: the first, with its large name and
logo (1), was replaced on 2014-106 and subseqent issues by a rather less
flamboyant one (2). Pinnacle-era labels were paper (3), and the singles came in
a company sleeve (4). Barn boasted several artists who had
known chart success. Slade (managed by Chandler) were first and foremost of them; they actually had
a couple of minor hits on the label ('Gypsy Roadhog', 2014-105; and 'My
Baby Left Me', 2014-114), but by that time, 1977, their glory
days were more or less over. Medicine Head put out a couple of singles and
an album ('Two Man Band') on Barn, and Chandler's reunited Original Animals also
appeared on it, as did Punk band the Depressions / D.Ps,
but despite the potential there were no other hits.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.