Big Moon...
Big Moon formed over a couple of song-writing sessions in July, 1986, with myself (Go Birch) and Phil Middleton, and then James joining us . A week later we had enlisted Adam Fisher on drums, named ourselves Big Moon after the first song title we rehearsed and away we went.
The music, initially was a fairly electic mix of my pop, Phil's ballards and Jim's more rocky numbers. A year down the line and our live set was primarily all Jim's songs.
Within that set, and on the music and videos included here, are numbers that went on to form part of the early Druidspear set list. So far we have Silver Sister and Starspawner (later Starborne). The Big Moon line up by then, was James, Adam Fisher on drums, Dave Stinson on bass and myself, Go Birch, on keyboards.
More music...
Below I have added a Big Moon studio recording of Silver Sister, produced by John Hawkins of This Island Earth, who also went on to produce Awake The Bloom for the Druidspear ...Slow album. Also included are some rehearsal audio of Jimmy's songs. These include three I don't think Druidspear ever played, which suprises me, as Swamp Thing is one of Jims' more tender love songs. (The other tracks being Albion Arise and 16 Dream). There is also a powerful version of Cohen's 'Dress Rag Rehearsal'. This version of Homeland is late Big Moon 'cos it features Andrew Done, and, I seem to remember, we split after only a couple of rehearsals with Andrew on board. (As you do). Go Birch 2011
(Standing) Adam Fisher, Go Birch, (Seated) Dave Stintson, Phil Middleton, James Binning.
I loved Big Moon. It was my first experience at playing in a band, and it was great. I loved hearing my lyrics come to life, a task I couldn't manage on my own due to my lack of musical ability. No change there then.
After Big Moon, I went away and learnt a little more about music, resurfacing to record an album and perform some gigs as Boommoon, which consisted of myself, Ian Rushbury and Mike Richards.
For those with an interest you can find the album at www.boommoon.co.uk.
I loved playing live and I hope you enjoy what I believe are the earliest band with surviving video recordings of James performing. The venue was The Marksman, West Bromwich, with the footage taken from gigs in July and a November of1987.
The entire footage of the July gig will appear here shortly.
Go Birch.
2011.
