TRUTH IN ADVERTISING. THE FULL STORY ON WWW.BANDBOSTON.COM
There have been extensive promotions for a band called Ernie and the Automatics fueled by the heir to the Boch car dealer fortune, Ernie Boch Jr., claiming a 25 year reunion of former
original members of BOSTON.
Oddly, the two musicians referred to in the ad campaign have appeared together repeatedly over many years, so the 25 year reunion claim is a bit strange. While they did indeed play live with BOSTON about thirty years ago, the claim that they were "original members" is questionable.
There were only two performers signed to make the debut album in the original Epic Records agreements, Brad and myself. Possibly because we wrote all the music for the album, recorded the six demo songs that landed the deal, produced them in my basement, and funded all of it from my Polaroid salary.
Between the two of us, Brad and I went on to physically record nearly 90% of the actual studio tracks for the BOSTON
album. On most of the songs, once the drum track was laid down, all the instruments and vocals you hear were recorded by just the two of us, painstakingly overdubbing each part to create the recorded "band" that so many have become familiar with.
The only other person who helped make those demos for the resulting album was drummer Jim Masdea. Masdea, forced out by the management Brad and I had signed with in 1975, was in fact the drummer for every demo I sent to record companies back in the 70's. The same manager who vetoed Masdea was also responsible for the back cover of the debut album, with the famous pic of five musicians, which by some coincidence, also omitted Masdea's performance credit from the initial pressing run.
These ads almost seem to imply that including two musicians from our 70's tours on an unrelated CD somehow make it a BOSTON reunion. After this much time, is it really necessary to resort to something like this to get attention?
On the subject of misleading promotions, a few months ago Wikipedia reported some outlandish claims purportedly made by Barry Goudreau based on a fancifully twisted version of Mother's Milk as the origin of BOSTON, and cited Goudreau's website. While I apologize for dwelling on ancient history, this has gained some traction in the music press and finally warrants a response. Elements of the story have also persisted on other Wiki pages.
This would be true except for a few minor details: Mother's Milk was never led by Goudreau, he wasn't a student at BU when Mother's Milk existed, I didn't meet Goudreau in Mother's Milk, there was never a newspaper ad for a keyboard or guitar player for Mother's Milk, I didn't join Mother's Milk, Mother's Milk did not practice in my home studio, it did not evolve into the band BOSTON, it was not signed to Epic Records, and most of the songs on the eventual demo that Epic liked had never been shopped to a record label before, because most of them hadn't been written yet. Other than that, totally accurate.
The Wikipedia blurb went on to say "According to Goudreau's story, he was the founder of the band Boston— and he, Delp and Scholz were more or less equal contributors to the band's emergence."
Realistically, since Barry Goudreau wrote no music for the BOSTON albums or demos, played on only two cuts of the entire debut album, did not play at all on the six demos leading to the Epic Records contract, did not contribute financially to recording the demos, and was not even mentioned in the contracts for the original Epic Records deal, these claims would seem to be a bit of a stretch. (For more on this check the BOSTON Remaster and Greatest Hits Remaster CD booklets.) Of the many musicians who have toured with BOSTON, Goudreau's run as a member of the band was the shortest.