Simon Scardanelli

Formed in 1987 by Simon & Shark, Big Bam Boo got their record deal by storming into record company offices armed with their acoustic guitars, a beat box and great vocal harmonies 

Signed to MCA, the first album - produced by Richard Manwaring (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Runrig, Fischer-Z), - was released in early 1989 - though a single Fell Off A Mountain had been released late '88. The single Shooting From My Heart reaching number 17 in the US AOR chart & Top 20 in Canada. Big Bam Boo appeared on UK and European TV throughout much of 89, and won critical aclaim from the Music Press. UK singles made the low 40’s. 

Due to "management & label scheduling difficulties" the second Big Bam Boo album was not started until 1991, by which time relationships with the label had soured somewhat. Upon completion of the album the band were dropped by MCA. This untitled and un-released second album was produced by Alan Shacklock and the band, recorded by Justin Niebank at Electric Lady in New York City, Bobby Brown's Bosstown Studio in Atlanta (where TLC were working on their debut) and mixed at Soundtracks NYC. Featuring John Regan on Bass & Tony Beard on drums. Re-mastered by Simon Scardanelli and now available from iTunes, Amazon etc.

Big Bam Boo shot three official videos to accompany the singles released from the debut album Fun, Faith & FairPlay.

The first, Fell Off A Mountain, directed by Tim Broad, was shot in Alexandria, Tennessee.

Shooting From My Heart was directed by Nigel Dick, and shot at Chatham Naval Dockyard museum, Kent, UK.

Meiert Avis shot If You Could See Me Now in the California desert - additional hand painting of the 16mm film stock was added. This was the second single in the USA which sadly, MCA lost faith in almost before it was released, and pulled after only a few days of promotion. There's a story about why Fell Off A Mountain was not released as the second single in the US (Shooting From My Heart being the first in the US - where Mountain had been the debut single in the UK) - despite Shark & Simon having carried out face to face market research with radio programmers across the USA on their radio promo tour for Shooting From My Heart - with something like a 95% majority favouring Mountain as a follow up. MCA in Los Angeles thought they knew better and ignored this feedback, releasing If You Could See Me Now to its subsequent failure....if only eh?! Nowadays the streams tell us that we were right - Fell Off A Mountain consistently performs just below Shooting From My Heart in the USA, which had reached #17 on the AOR charts and achieved a massive amount of radio exposure. Apparently MCA thought Fell Off A Mountain too quirky for the US market...