Happy Birthday Duffnote

14 years old today, Richard Earnshaw's Duffnote Records has been one of the most consistent labels since its inception. Back in 2003, the dance music scene was in a state of flux as it adjusted to the slow down in vinyl through the use of CDJ players moving towards digital downloads and virtual DJ software. At that point, Duffnote was distributed by Soulfuric whose own label had played host to Earnshaw's first two solo singles, "People Are People" and "Joyride". As the market moved further towards the digital platform and vinyl took a back seat, each of the labels, Duffnote included, moved away from the distribution model to operate independently. It was not by accident that this coincided with the launch of Traxsource, itself the brainchild of Brian Tappert & Marc Pomeroy at Soulfuric. The years since have seen the Duffnote family expand to include One51 Recordings and Guess Records under the umbrella of Kinetic Music Group. The output from each of the labels has its own unique signature and to those who know and love the labels, there is a clear sense of identity and belonging to each of the releases they bring to market. I've been trying to cast my mind back to a couple of the conversations I had with Richard back in the early days of the label but one of those was at Ministry after several beers so my memory is understandably hazy. Anyway, until I recall a little more of the detail, I'll finish off by congratulating Richard for 14 years of success and by picking out a few of my personal favourites from the now sizeable Duffnote back catalogue.