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Thursday 13 August 2009

Ukelele Days


The other week I was talking about taking up the ukelele. Not just in tribute to George Formby but because it's a small stringed instrument that even I might be able to manage to play. OK then, it was as a tribute to George Formby, I admit it.


Imagine my surprise when one turned up out of the blue yesterday with kazoo accompaniment - a wedding present from Dave the Jones.


Thanks, Dave. Pity it's not in tune but you can't have everything.

Friday 31 July 2009

Book Illustration


Just found a book I wrote and illustrated and thought I'd scan it in before it fell apart. Quite like it although the dog looks a bit strange - no good at drawing animals!

Wednesday 29 July 2009

Shoot 'im up!

I'm now working on the world's shortest computer game 'Hunt the Nazi'. You pick up a gun, open the door and there he is on the toilet. Bang! Game over.

A Body Among the Binbags


Finally finished my radio play and sent it off to the producer at BBC Radio Wales suggested to me by Gillian Clarke, Wales' national poet (no less).
My play was originally called 'Always the Mourner', then 'A Bunch of Daffs' and is now 'A Body Among the Binbags'. Third time lucky...

Monday 13 July 2009

Raider of the Lost Archive


Trawling through the vaults this weekend I found a load of stuff on dusty old cassettes – including an amazing number of Drew Millin recordings with songs even he’s probably forgotten about such as ‘Production Line’ the beautiful ‘So Hard to Find’ and the two of us singing a track called ‘Mother Earth’ based on Drew’s tune ‘Music Papers’.


Now converting these into mp3s and hope to post them here soon and make up a CD compilation. The quality varies but I can probably tweak the muddier ones using various sound editing programmes.


Also a track of myself with guitar and keyboard accompaniment singing a song called ‘Spanish Night’ – did I write this? Sub-Dylanesque lyrics so may have done – “In the soup kitchen, they speak, some in Latin, some in Greek, of that Spanish night we all threw in the towel.” Anyone recognise that?

Tuesday 7 July 2009

Turning vinyl and tape into MP3 digital


Finally got a decent music machine for easily converting vinyl and cassette tapes into digital mp3 files via a USB flash drive!The first one I ordered looked very nice but the tape player had no rewind - so everytime I found a track I wanted to use, in order to cue it from the beginning I couldn't just rewind, I had to take tape out, turn it round, fast forward a little, take tape out and re-insert and then play. Amazingly fiddly.


Now busy putting all sorts onto my PC - including some tracks by my old band, The BOI, that I had transferred from reel-to-reel onto cassette. Found some real gems including the beautiful 'So Hard to Find' by Drew. All I need now is a way of turning ancient reel-to-reel tapes into mp3 files.

Friday 3 July 2009

Double Dutch

I was amazed to come across some blogs by students in the Netherlands where they were writing about some books I wrote ages ago.

They were published by a company called Unicorn whose website is: http://www.unicornproductions.nl/index_bestanden/Page1816.htm
The blogs can be read on: http://www.scholieren.com/boekverslagen/8533

Talking about a futuristic book for teenagers what I wrote, entitled 'Zoomer and the Blizzard Weavers', one person has commented "Thit (sic) was a nice book, because it wasn’t very difficult to read. " Another wrote "I didn’t like this book much, because it looks like Science Fiction and I don’t like that. The story takes place in Manchester, and I think that the story takes place in the future, because there are no bands in this time who are not real."

Tuesday 9 June 2009

More BOI


Here's another photo of the BOI reunion concert - this one taken by Adrienne, who is Rog's wife. I like this photo because the microphone hides my face.

Adrienne also took some video of the event which I'm keen to see. I think we're performing 'I've Just Seen a Face' by the Beatles here. Amazing that we didn't do any of our own songs, really since we wrote over 300. Problem was, Rog was the only one who could remember the words - he even remembered songs that Drew wrote and had forgotten all about, such as 'Summer Days and Summer Nights'.

Rog's most famous composition, of course, was 'Monkey on a Bike' inspired by seeing just that - a monkey on a bike - in Winson Green when he was on his way round to visit one Saturday morning. It was a very avante garde number, as I recall, with a touch of Frank Zappa about it. I must start a BOI website and post some of these long forgotten classics.

Friday 5 June 2009

Things have changed a lot

Below is a video by ace musician Drew Millin singing a new arrangement of a song we wrote together back in 1972. 'Things Have Changed a Lot' was one of a crop of songs we created for an album entitled 'Asleep at the Wheel'. We recorded it in a beautiful bungalow we were sharing that overlooked Torquay. At the time, Drew was working for the local newspaper, the Herald Express, selling advertising space, and I was a film student spending the summer flogging soggy sarnies and pop to hungry grockles at the Spanish Cafe in sunny Goodrington.

When Drew posted this on YouTube he wrote, "We saw ourselves as the next Lennon and McCartney but we were more like Lenin and MacArthur." Not sure which of those was me! This remains one of my favourite songs that we wrote. Other gems from that period include 'A Way of Saying Goodbye' which featured backing vocals from two lovely nurses who just happened to be in the bungalow that day, and 'Cruising to California', our epic Crosby Stills & Nash-type song with harmonies provided by Terry Stephens, who was then manager of the Igloo Ice Cream Parlour and went on to become the Sandwich King of Torbay.

We recorded everything on two reel to reel tape recorders and used playback from one to overdub the tracks onto the other - so the quality was pretty rough compared to today's digital recording. I'm in the process of digitising the songs and trying to clean them up but it's an uphill struggle. Drew has a whole load more videos on YouTube - including some of his legendary live performances at the Hole in the Wall pub. All worth checking out.

Food for thought

I'm helping my lovely brand new wife to plan a typical Italian meal for my new in-laws this weekend. I hope they like spaghetti hoops.

Thursday 4 June 2009

The BOI back in action

My recent wedding reception saw a reunion of my old band The BOI. It’s been donkey’s years since the three founding members – Drew Millin, Roger Parker and myself - were all last together.

If I remember correctly, it was in Rog’s front room to record a number for a song-writing competition run by Watney’s brewery (maker of infamous Red Barrel). We came up with a number called ‘Get It Down You’ – about drinking beer, thinking this might give us an edge and help us to win. It didn’t work. We’re now planning another get-together later this month to see Drew deliver one of his legendary performances at the Hole in the Wall pub in Torquay.

Friday 29 May 2009

Weddings and Reunions

Finally waltzed up the aisle with Caroline and the whole day was perfect, with so many friends and family being there to make it very special.

Among the people who had travelled literally several yards to be there were members of my old band The BOI - and we thrilled the audience with our reunion concert. Great to know that after all these years, without a moment's rehearsal we can still sing a medley of songs and manage to get every lyric and the tune totally wrong.

It was particularly great to have my son, Dan, as best man. His speech - complete with pie charts and graphs detailing his underprivileged childhood - was one of the highlights of the day.












Wednesday 8 April 2009

Re-making 'Casablanca'

So I was at a loose end the other night and thinking of how I could do something useful to fill my time, when I decided to re-make 'Casablanca'. Here's the result: