A Birmingham-based DIY label, based at 196, Wake Green Road, Moseley. DNS seems to have issued a handful of records, all of them in 1979. The 7" ones were mostly four-track EPs, which mainly offered covers of popular songs; typical custom pressing fare, in fact. Numbering was slightly peculiar: for most of the issues the DNS prefix was followed by a number which seems to consist of the month of recording (or of issue) plus the last two digits of the year plus the actual number of the record. Thus the Tini McKenna EP shown above is DNS-47901, while a Tony Fellini EP from later in the year is numbered DNS-117907. An EP by Pete Boddis, however, was numbered DNS-6879; the '79' is presumably still the year but the other numerals need explaining. DNS-87903, 'Played Out Angel' b/w 'The Artist' by Leargo, appeared on the Motor City Rhythm label (q.v.), which operated out of the same address, so it looks as though the two labels had a close connection.
The DNS releases that I have managed to trace are listed below; the gaps suggest that there should be a few others out there. The producer of the first EP and the album was Norman Stagles, from whose initials the 'NS' in 'DNS' may perhaps have been derived; on the other hand the Pete Boddis EP was mixed by D. Snead, who may have provided the 'N' and the 'S'. Unless either of them reads this, DNS's origins are likely to remain obscure. The label came in two forms: the first two records had a large logo (1), which had shrunk and migrated to the top (3) by the time that the fifth came out. The Toni McKenna EP can be found with a number of different coloured labels, as can be seen from the first two scans - there were also grey ones. Judging by the pressing marks, manufacture appears to have been done by Linguaphone.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.