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

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.