Guardian was owned by Terry Cavaghan; its products were recorded in his home studio in the oddly-named village of Pity Me, in County Durham. An EP by the Moat Brothers Country Band appears to have been Guardian's first record, going by their catalogue numbers; it featured 'Ramblin' Man' and three other tracks, and was numbered GRMB-1. It is reported to have come out in 1976, but GRB A-2, 'Fools Paradise' by Burlesque, came out in 1978, which casts some doubt on that dating - a two-year gap is possible but unlikely. Again, the Moat Brothers made other records through Guardian later on; they put out an EP on the Wudwink label (q.v.) in 1977, and it seems unlikely that they would have switched from Guardian in 1976 to Wudwink in 1977 and then back to Guardian. Starting with Wudwink then moving to Guardian seems a more likely sequence, and would suggest a date of 1978 for their first Guardian EP. Likewise, an EP by Cirkus offering 'Melissa' and two other tracks is also said by several sources to have come out in 1976, but none that I have seen gives any evidence for that dating, and its catalogue number, GRC A-4, suggests that early 1979 is more likely. According to one source, local bands Burlesque and The Piranha Brothers were active at the time of the Cirkus EP; both of them recorded at Guardian in 1978-79, which again makes a date of early 1979 for that EP seem reasonable. To add to the confusion, the records numbered 43, 44 and 48 have 'Guardian Music 78' on them, whereas several lower numbers have 'Guardian Music 79'.
Guardian continued to make records until around 1984, and it covered a broad spectrum of music from Country to Heavy Metal. The nature of its releases suggests that it may have acted either as a custom recording concern or as an independent, issuing records by locally popular bands from the North East. Its label design remained basically the same throughout, but the size of the logo and the size, font and position of the label name varied - the name can be found either under the spindle hole (1) or to the left of it (2). The colour scheme varied as well; in addition to the examples shown above the label can be found in black-on-white and black-on-yellow. During the 1970s prefixes consisted of 'GR' plus the artist's initial, sometimes with an additional 'A' or a 'B'; the numbering seems to have been shared by singles, EPs and LPs alike during that time. The few Guardian records from the '70s that I have managed to trace are listed below; there are many gaps in the listing, which need to be accounted-for. Presumably the records were pressed in small quantities, or they would be seen more often. Rock records on Guardian appear to be becoming sought-after. Thanks to Neil Thompson for much of the above information.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.