LoCo



Borderline, this one, but defensible.  LoCo was a DIY label run by singer and musician Joe Giltrap, who moved from Ireland to London in the '70s.  In partnership with Malcolm Rogers, as 'Irish Mist', he recorded an album for Warner Bros, but in the wake of the Birmingham bombings Warner cancelled plans for its release; it came out as a self-financed issue on SRT, in 1975 ('Rosin The Bow', SRT/CUSTOM-012).  He then put out a couple of cassette tapes with other musicians, 'As Zozimus Says' (1977) and 'Follow Me Up To Carlow' (1978), the first as Zozimus, the second as Joe Giltrap and Zozimus.  In 1979 came the record that earned him a place on this site: it was a self-financed EP featuring 'Nancy Spain', 'The Cocky Farmer', 'The Zozimus Reel / High Reel' and 'Bunclody', and it was again made through custom recording firm SRT.  There's no record company name on the labels, which are standard SRT ones of the time, but the sleeve gives the company's name as LoCo Records; in addition 'S' of the prefix of the catalogue number, S/79/CUS-457, appears to have been generally used by SRT for records that were made for other companies - usually it was 'SRTS'.  Finally, Irish Mist made a couple more records through SRT in the early '80s: a single, 'Dark Island' b/w 'Where There's Life' (SRTS/81/CUS-1243; 1981) and an album, 'Second Time Around' (SRTX/82/CUS-1515; 1982); those again was credited to LoCo Records on the sleeves, but they actually had 'LOCO RECORDS' on the labels as well, albeit in small print.  All things considered, I reckon that's enough evidence of company identity for me to include LoCo here.  Joe continued to record, solo and in various combinations, into the 2000s, but apparently for other people's labels rather than LoCo.




Copyright 2017 Robert Lyons.