A label from the Portsmouth area, active in the middle of the decade. To judge from the only two examples of its records that I've been able to trace, Southcoast seems to have been the product of a custom recording concern. Both of the records were made by Parrot Recording Services under Pete Begg and Colin Simpson, so it seems reasonable to assume that Southcoast - it is all one word - was Parrot's label and that Parrot was run by Begg and Simpson. The pair were musicians, and according to the Pompey Pop blogspot had played together in an Electric Folk band called Martingale. Catalogue numbers of Southcoast records were in an SC-100 series, which was used by both LPs and EPs - and presumably singles, if there were any. As can be seen from the scan, Dave Barratt's EP 'Better Than This' was numbered SC-130 and came out in 1976; an LP by comedian Alan White, 'The Ethel Crankshaw Roadshow', appeared in the previous year and was numbered SC-112. That leaves a lot of numbers unaccounted-for, but self-financed records generally came in small pressings and have a tendency to be google-proof, so perhaps it's not surprising. Any information which helps to fill in those huge gaps will be welcome. Thanks to Paul Vinyl of the excellent 45cat site for bringing Southcoast to my attention and for letting me use his scan here.
Copyright 2014 Robert Lyons.