The label of Bullseye Studios, of Spennymoor, Co. Durham. Several Bullseye records credit Lloyd Smith as engineer, so it seems a reasonable bet that the studio was his. Judging from its catalogue Bullseye appears to have been a custom recording operation - one of those concerns which has records made on demand for Club or Cabaret artists or for anyone else who is willing to pay for the service - rather than a proper record company. Most of its products were albums, but it managed a reasonable number of EPs and rather fewer singles. Singles were generally numbered in an BSP-000 series, EPs in a BEP-000 one. The earliest Bullseye record I have seen listed, 'Sing Your Song Country Boy' b/w 'Tifkiriet Taghna T-tnejn' by Enzo Gusman '(BSP-001) had 1976 on the 'B' side label; the 'A' side was intended to be the Maltese entry for the Eurovision Song Contest in that year but the country withdrew. It seems likely that the single was intended primarily for sale in Malta, but why Enzo Gusman would get a small studio in the North East with no previous experience in making records to make it for him needs explaining. Unfortunately no more of the company's records had a year on them for some time; that information started being added in 1980, which is a bit late for our purposes.
Bullseye records came in one basic design, but it featured two different logos. Early records have labels with the logo in a fancy font (1); these were used on the first two albums, one of which, 'Take It' by Freddie Pascoe (BLP-001) has '1977' in the sleeve notes. That logo was replaced by a boxed one (2), possibly in 1978. An EP by Wild Silk (BEP-002) can be found with both types of label, presumably as a result of re-pressings: it featured a version of a song that was a hit for Raffaella Carra in the Spring of 1978, 'Do It Do It Again', which gives us an earliest possible release date, so the fancy font must have lasted at least until that time. Bullseye's products have proven difficult to track down, as is usual for custom recordings, but the company appears to have still been making records in 1985. The 'discography' below only covers the 1970s. I assume that the missing BSP-002 and BEP-004 are out there somewhere, so if anyone knows what either of them are I'd be pleased to hear it.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.