The label of the Independent Recording Studio, of Gravesend. The studio was opened in 1964 by its manager and chief engineer John Oram, and it operated out of premises at 38 Harmer Street. It appears to have been a custom recording firm, and it was still making records as late as 1978. Its records seem to have been numbered in an IRS-0 series, which was shared by 7" records and LPs alike. Numbers reached at least IRS-97, which suggests that there are a lot of Independent Recording Studio discs out there, but it may well be that they started at IRS-80 or something like that, as they have proved extremely difficult to track down. So far I've managed to spot only four, all of them from 1977-78. IRS-91 was an album by Die Bayrische Oompah Kapelle, 'Ein Prosit', and IRS-096 was on the Warner label (q.v.), but fortunately IRSes 89 and 97 qualified the label for this site. The former was a single, 'Shelley's Winter Love' b/w 'Looks Familiar' by Just Lee. As can be seen from the scan (1), there was no date on the label. Fortunately the LYN-4378 matrix number tells us that the single was made through Lyntone, and comparison with other Lyntone records enables us to pin the date down to 1977. IRS-97, 'The Mouthorgan Boy' b/w 'She Cast Her Spell' by The Phil Bingham Sound, was more helpful in that it had '1978' on its labels (2, 3). Information about any other Independent Recording Studio products would be welcome.
Copyright 2018 Robert Lyons.