dear

A couple of photos of some very, very dear musical heroes - namely Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne. The incomparable Mr. Wood......

What a cool pic of Jeff?

Two guys who, after all these years, still retain acres of artistic integrity. Pity the same can't be said for their erstwhile colleague from The Move/ELO, drummer Bev Bevan.

Bevan, who's never ever had an original thought in his entire life, had the audacity to reform a watered-down ELO back in 1991, minus the much more astute Jeff Lynne, and ran the operation pretty much as a tribute band until 2000. When, thankfully, Lynne bought Bevan out of his share of the ELO name (they each had a 50% stake in the band) and quickly put together the vastly underrated "Zoom" - a fine addition to any ELO collection.

Not content in pissing off one music legend, Bev does it again by naming his solo band "Bev Bevan's Move" thereby incurring the wrath of Move mainman, Roy Wood. In an attempt to add some credibility to the ensemble, Bevan brought in original Move guitarist Trevor Burton, and then named the band "The Move featuring Bev Bevan and Trevor Burton." Both Bevan and Burton claimed that the recently deceased Move vocalist, Carl Wayne, was willing to join the band too. Shame he wasn't there to back up their story.

Roy Wood went a bit bonkers about this whole sorry situation, but in doing so has brought himself very much in line with his old friend Jeff Lynne. Now there's talk of the two of them collaborating again, which is wonderful news.

I suppose, in Bev's defence, that if you're still fit and capable of doing whatever it is you love doing (playing drums in a rock band) you should do it. But I feel it's a little sad when what little musical influence he brought to both The Move and ELO, he should use his twilight years trading on.