Cube Records
| Cube Records | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1972 |
| Founder | David Platz |
| Genre |
Rock Pop |
| Country of origin | England |
Cube Records was launched on 26 May 1972 by independent music publisher David Platz, and was based at his UK offices for Essex Music.
Platz had entered the arena of record production in the early 1960s, and having had a string of hits by licensing records to major labels (most Essex artists were released on EMI's Regal Zonophone), decided to start his own independent record label in 1970. With Malcolm Jones as label manager he formed Fly Records and tapped a rich vein of hits, with the Move, singles from T Rex and John Kongos ("He's Gonna Step On You"), as well as hit albums, the most important being Electric Warrior, T Rex’s breakthrough number 1 album.
But by mid 1972 Marc Bolan had left Fly Records to set up his own label imprint and Essex/Fly producer Tony Visconti had also left with Bolan, setting up his own Good Earth Productions. With new staff brought into the label, Platz decided to promote a new roster of artists and re-launch with a new label named Cube Records.
The headline of the press release issued by Malcolm Jones in May 1972 to communicate this development boldly stated "Essex puts Fly into Cube". A fact literally translated by the label's logo, which consisted of a fly within a wire-frame cube. According to the press release, Fly Records had been limited to operating in the UK, but Cube Records would be an international operation. In effect, Cube simply continued using Fly's catalogue numbering prefix, but with only one Fly artist, guitar virtuoso John Williams, remaining on the new label.
Cube's first singles came from Rod Thomas, whose rather insipid MOR/pop "Timothy Jones" failed to make any impact on the charts, and folk music stalwart Harvey Andrews, whose poignant single "In The Darkness"/"Soldier" (BUG 20) was subject to an 'unofficial' ban by the BBC. At the height of the political explosion in Northern Ireland, Harvey's "Soldier" was a gritty and moving account of the experience of a working class kid who joins the army out of lack of job prospects in his own country, and without sufficient training or preparation is thrown in the eye of the storm on the streets of Northern Ireland only to face a life and death situation which will prove fatal for him. It is a powerful statement, and with a change of location, can be just as moving in today’s troubled parts of the world.
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Wikipedia