We must begin this post with a long overdue obituary:

Valentine Records (2001 - 2006)

At 23:59:59 on the 31.12.06 Valentine Records ceased to be. A legacy website remains here. Receiving such plaudits as being referred to “…the new Factory…“* the ethos of the label was simple - promote music that we liked.

The label announced it’s arrival in 2001 with a gig entitled Trash at the now defunct Club Underground. It featured performances from Extinguish Her and Five Years Later, an irony not entirely lost on the label’s management as they sat drinking in the new year and the end of an era. Following this event the label began a residency at Temple of Convenience as a chance to meet once a month, have a chat and play some tunes on a really big sound system. This ethos remained as the residency outgrew temple and moved through various venues before arriving in Retro Bar as the infamous To Amy With Love.

Aside from the regular residency, Valentine was involved with a number of one off events and was responsible for major crowd pulling events at no less than three In The City festivals and a host of other one-off events.

The label leaves 20 albums and 12 free Downloads. The last two albums released are free to download from the website.

*Apparently this was a reference to the amount of free alcohol the Valentine management drank at Anthony H. Wilson’s expense at an In The City meet-and-greet.

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Eight months on from this end I receive word through the grapevine that the former management are generally bored with life after Valentine and a new project was in the offing and so it was that I found myself in The Bay Horse on Sunday night to herald a new beginning; the birth of The Rebellious Jukebox. The new project will retain many features of the old label with one important difference. We will no longer be producing hard copies of albums, preferring to distribute materials via the web while still having a regular night to go down the pub, chat and play some music we like on a really big sound system.

The first organised night will be Sun 4th November (time tbc) at The Bay Horse and all are more than welcome to come along.