Demon Distribution was set up in 1970 by Des Dolan and Pascall Mooney with the aim of importing popular Irish records, which it supplied to dealers either directly or via independent wholesalers - H.R Taylor, Record Enterprises, and, in Scotland, Clyde Factors. As well as acting as a importer / distributor it ran its own record label for a while, featuring artists who were mainly expatriate Irish people living in Britain. Catalogue numbers were in the DMN-500s and reached at least DMN-505; as yet I haven't managed to track down DMN-504. The launch of the label and its first batch of (three) singles is mentioned in 'Record Retailer' for the 22nd of August; the company's address was given as 30 Bardolph Road, London N7. 'RR' of the 5th of September reports that following consultations between Des Dolan and another of the firm's main directors, Mike Clerkin (head of the Irish label Release (q.v.), Demon's name had been changed to Shannon. The renamed firm flourished, and was arguably the biggest supplier of Irish records throughout the '70s; it went on to release records on the Shannon label (q.v.). Demon / Shannon also distributed the Art label (q.v.); according to 'RR' (22 Aug) Art and Demon had an agreement to support each other by passing along artists who didn't suit their own label but might suit the other - thus Art would recommend Irish artists to Demon, and Demon would recommend Pop artists to Art. The Demon label design remained basically unchanged through what seems to have been a fairly brief existence, though the permieter text altered slightly; it did however come in two colors, the black-on-white of the first single becoming silver-on-black by the time of the third. Pressing was by Pye. For further details see the Shannon page.
Copyright 2016 Robert Lyons.