But is it art?

Just been doing some house-keeping on all the files on my PC and came across a bunck of artwork I've done over the years. So I thought I'd share them with the world. Generous or what?

I've always been heavily influenced by one of my all-time favourite artists Quentin Blake - and it definitely shows in this quick sketch.

Another quick sketch - this one of how I remembered writing songs with Drew Millin when I lived down in Torquay (Drew's the good-looking one on the right). I'm sure this is how we came up with 'Things Have Changed A Lot' and 'Cruising to California', two of our best songs.

This is a cover illustration I did for a children's book I wrote and illustrated back in the '90s. It was about a family moving to a new home (as you may have guessed from the removal van). Looking at it now I can see I based the guy on the right on my late Uncle Bill - right down to his flat cap and scarf.. I'm thinking of revising this book, re-writing it and self-publishing it via the internet.

A sketch for a children's book I started ages ago. In later versions the Banjo Man is a much darker, sinister figure - and nowhere near as cheerful as this. I must dig out this story and do some more work on it!

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.