Network Records

Network Records was a Rave music label based in Birmingham, England during the late 80’s and early to mid 90’s. It was owned by Neil Rushton and Dave Barker (14). In 1996 they signed a deal with Avex to release tracks. Neil Macey was employed with the label as head of club promotion and to assist with A&R. Andy Stanley (aka DJ Stan the Devil Tune Man) did van sales for the label. They also employed John McCready and Mark Mortimer for press relations/PR. Judy Nanton also worked with promotions.

The label started as “Bleep” offshoot of Kool Kat, and went on to play a massive role in the development of early Hardcore and British techno. Latterly it concentrated on bringing Garage music to Britain & developing UK House artists. Along the way it hosted artists such as True Faith, Juan Atkins / Model 500, Derrick May / Mayday, Cyclone, Rhythm On The Loose, MK, Neal Howard, Kevin Saunderson, Funky Green Dogs From Outer Space, Nexus 21, Altern8, as well as collaborating with the Underground Resistance, KMS, NuGroove and Serious Grooves labels among others. They also promoted the Bio Rhythms club night in Walsall.

At first the label was distributed by Pinnacle (3), but Network bought themselves out of the contract in 1992. In August 1993 Sony bought 49% of the shares of the company and offered them a wider distribution. Officially the company was now called Best Beat Dance Limited (yet only internally). They launched Six6 for street level house releases.
They also started distributing smaller labels. These ‘third party’-distributed labels included Bosting Records, other, Journeys By DJ, Good Boy Records, Strictly 4 Groovers, Gem Records, Planet Four Communications, Hott Records, U.F.G, Silver City Records and First Choice. Other labels under the Network umbrella included Vinyl Addiction (underground house), Stafford (South), Stafford (North) (a more hardcore sister label), EU4EA Recordings (for trance releases), Hidden Agenda (2) and The One After D.

There was also a 4CD Network label compilation (released on the Passion label) entitled 138066, and more recently a 5CD retrospective on the Endulge label entitled 1123735.

Network is closely associated with the following labels:

The One After D
Dansa Records
as well as the listed sub-labels.
UK releases on
Serious Grooves,
Smack Music UK,
KMS (UK) &
Vicious Muzik Records
were also released through Network.