Things have changed a lot

A song that I co-wrote in 1972 has just re-surfaced on a new CD by an old friend of mine, Drew Millin. The song. 'Things Have Changed A Lot', was one of a bunch of tunes we wrote when sharing a bungalow in sunny Torquay. I was a film student on holiday for the summer and Drew was selling advertising space on the local paper The Herald Express. But secretly, we both wanted to be rock stars - although as our band, The BOI, was a weird fusion of Crosby Stills and Nash and Frank Zappa, this was unlikely. We were either years ahead of our time - or rubbish.

As the band's producer (alias Yorick Zimmerman) I sent demo tapes off to every record label, including the Beatles' Apple and John Peel's Dandelion Records, and each of them in turn rejected us.

Above is the letter sent by legendary producer George Martin politely saying no. We were not, as we thought, the next Beatles.

Now one of the "pleasantly formed" songs, as George Martin described them, is on Drew's CD 'Don't Rush Me'.

Read all about it here - and buy a copy!
http://www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk/news/Balladeer-art-form-taking-time/article-2703444-detail/article.html

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.