British Pop Music

BOOMMOON

Go Birch

Audio of Boom Moon era songs

Scrap Book: Words and Music Go Birch – Vocalist: Neil | Bass: Ian Rushbury

Big Moon: Words: Go Birch. Music: Go Birch & Phil Middleton – Vocalist: Neil | Bass, good guitar & backing vocals: Ian Rushbury

Working (In The Coal Mine): Words and Music Go Birch – Bass, good guitar bits & backing vocals: Ian Rushbury

Where’s The Logic In That?: Words: Go Birch. Music: Go Birch & Ian Rushbury – Vocalist: Neil | Bass, good guitar bits & Striped Tie: Ian Rushbury

The Inevitable Split: Words and Music Go Birch – Vocalist: Neil | Bass & guitar: Ian Rushbury

This Is The Story: Words: Go Birch. Music: Go Birch & Ian Rushbury – Vocalist: Neil | Bass & guitar: Ian Rushbury

Updated, Boom Moon version of Working (In The Coal Mine)

Video made cutting up original footage from the Big Moon at The Marksman in West Bromwich performance

Hi, Go Birch here with a bit of history on the original Big Moon band. I wrote a set of lyrics in 1986 and hot-footed it to Phil Middleton’s flat above Andy Cash Records in Erdington, Birmingham, armed with a bottle of wine and a few melodies in my head.

Phil was a local hero of the music scene and had had a record deal with DJM as The Hobbs, a tongue in cheek punk band (although DJM didn’t know that) who wrote awesome ditties such as “Pass the Spanner Diana”. That evening Phil put chords to the lyrics of Long Road, Dum Dum, Big Moon, What R U Doing 2Nite and Why, O Why.

Thanks to the magic of cassette to computer recording this session (and others) survives and can be heard on this site.

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A week later we went electric, I’d purchased a tiny Casio 2 octave keyboard with built in drum machine (which I still own), also you can hear me pick up a bass for the first time ever on Dum Dum. We were joined that night by James Binning and on subsequent week after that we were joined by different drummers until Adam Fisher committed to the role and we named ourselves Big Moon.

The early set consisted of songs by Jim, Phil and myself, giving us a very strange mix of Phil’s balladeering, Go pop and Jim rock – (which is rock music but not as you, or anyone else, knows it). In that first rehearsal with Jim you can hear a version of Homeland, which went on to become a Druidspear classic.