American, though there was some product from this side of the Atlantic on the British label. Beserkey was founded by Matthew King Kaufman in Berkley, California, in 1975. His stated aim was 'To have fun and make interesting records'. The label's off-the-wall approach was perfectly exemplified in Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers, whose 'Egyptian Reggae' was a hit worldwide. Sadly, other hits failed to follow, and money problems led to Beserkley issuing only a handful of records between 1980-83, though it made a brief comeback in 1988. In Britain, Beserkley records were licensed to other companies originally. Earth Quake's version of 'Friday On My Mind' came out on the Cloud One (q.v.) label in November 1975 (HIT-4), and then in the following year the company signed a licensing deal with United Artists. Singles appearing under this deal were Earth Quake's 'Tall Order For A Short Guy' (UP-35787; 2/75) and Jonathan Richman's 'Road Runner' (UP-36006; 8/75). Both had a small Beserkley logo on the standard United Artists label. Beserkley made its debut as an actual label in the summer of 1977. British distribution was by Selecta initially, with Decca doing the pressing; according to 'Music Master' Island was responsible for marketing the first three singles. Those Decca-era singles which didn't have picture covers often came in a plain yellow 'company sleeve' which lacked any kind of label identification (3). The label moved to Polydor under a licensing agreement in September 1978, at which point Phonodisc took over manufacture and injection moulded labels were introduced (2). It moved on to Epic in the early '80s. Catalogue numbers, which were in a BZZ-0 series, were unaffected by the first move. The discography below only covers the 1970s; the gaps in it seem to have been unused numbers.
