The third Ice of the 1970s was a very short-lived label from the Anchor stable. According to 'Music Week' magazine of the 22nd of October 1977, which reported the label's launch, it was intended for selected product picked up by the company's publishing arm, Anchor Music. The article said that Ice was not being run in tandem with Anchor, and that decisions on what was to be released were to be made by the managing director of Anchor Music, Charlie Crane; Kevin Kitchen's 'Silver Dream (Parts 1 and 2)' (ICE-1) was the only release planned for the first few months. That single came out in November 1977, and was pressed and distributed by CBS, as was the case with other labels under Anchor's wing at the time. Sadly, however, it turned out to be Ice's last single as well as its first. In its issue of the 26th of that month 'MW' carried the news of a legal dispute between Anchor, Eddie Grant and Indigo Studios of Manchester over which of them had rights to the name Ice - all three had released records on 'Ice' labels. The court had apparently judged that both Anchor's and Grant's companies could use the name, which wasn't particularly helpful; Anchor's Ian Ralfini was quoted as saying that he wished that the judgement had been a definite one, even if it had been in favour of Grant - "They have a company, we just want a logo... We will have to consider changing the name eventually but we have done all the promotion for the first single". Finally 'MW' of the 28th of January 1978 stated that Anchor had scrapped its Ice label because of the confusion over the name. The article stated that the principle behind Ice still existed, and that it was possible that a replacement for it would be considered. The replacement seems not to have happened.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.