What is the story behind this page ?

Back in 1975 I heard a song on the radio that sounded so very good. I liked the guitar riff and the great voice - for me it simply was a very good rock song. This song was "Money Honey"from a band called Bay City Rollers. I bought that record and I saw on the label that two guys, namly Eric Faulkner and Stuart Wood, had written that song.

This was also the time when Rollermania hit germany. I learned about the other songs of the band and about the phenomena "Bay City Rollers".

Well that's how it started, but was I one of those "biggest" fans of the Rollers - maybe, maybe not. During that time I also liked english bands like Mud, Hello, Sweet, ...

1976 I saw the Bay City Rollers in concert for the first time. It was in the "Grugahalle" in Essen. At that time I was 14 years old and now it was pretty clear that the Rollers were my favourite band. Believe it or not, I even convinced someone to tailor me a rollers gear - only very few photos exist from that time (thank god).

During the next years I bought all their records including the older ones, I collected clippings from various german music/teenie magazines(BRAVO, POP, Rocky, Popcorn, ...) and I attended a second concert during their 'It's A Game' tour.

I followed the way of The Rollers till 1981, but after their album Ricochet I lost sight of the band and their members...


Seven years later in 1988 the first ever Bay City Rollers CD was released. Not in england, not in the USA, not in japan, but in germany - it was "Starke Zeiten". At the same time a guy called Les McKeown made homestorys about seventies bands for a german TV show called "Formel Eins" - at least that is what the rumours said...
Leslie got in contact with Dieter Bohlen, a very successful german producer and songwriter, and finaly he released a single called "She's A Lady" in germany. They produced a video that was shown for the first time on march 26th in 1988 as part of the chart show "Formel Eins" together with a homestory("Oldies today") about the Bay City Rollers. So that was initialy what brought the fever back. The good thing was, that I still had everything that I collected during my first seven Rollers years(75 till 81) !

At that time I learned about another big BCR fan in germany who's name was Peter Stern. Actualy it was him who called me on the phone and told me about the missing years. You can imagine that this telephone call lasted several hours ;-) I also don't need to mention who surprised and excited I was to hear about Les' solo albums after "All washed up", the reunion concert in 1992, the live album from 1983, the "Breakout" tour and album from 1985, Woddy's projects with Karu/Passengers, Eric Faulkner's Bands EFCO/New Rollers and so on.

At this place I like to thank Peter for that call and for some great years we had talking about the Rollers and traveling to concerst! He also send me a present a couple of days after our initial call - the "Breakout" album - unbelievable. 


It took me several years to get my collection up to date and in late 1995 I had me registered as a beta tester for America Online in germany. At that time I first thought about launching a Bay City Rollers site - for the very few Rollers fans left out there, spread over the whole world. But when looking in the internet I realized that I was not the first who had this idea ;-( There was a guy called Stevie who had a BCR page already running. Anyway, I thought I could provide additional info's, so I first uploaded my page on january 31st in 1996. A couple of weeks later Peter followed with what is now known as the "Absolute Bay City Rollers" website.
(Stevie retired a couple of month after Peter's and my page hit the surface)


So why do I do this ? Just take a look at the guestbook and you know. All the people that tell me that this pages bought back great memories, that they browsed several hours through the pages, the newsstand, the history, the discography, ...

I personaly got in contact with alot of wonderful people all over the world, either in person or via email.

And last but not least I met or got in contact with some of my childhood heroes...

The first time I met Les was in Duisburg in 1992. I met him several times afterwards, but one moment I will never forget. It was when I went to a "Les McKeown's 70's Bay City Rollers" later that same year. We arrived early and I tried a backdoor to get into the venue. And then the unbelievable happend - someone called my name: "Hi Gerd" - it was Leslie Richard McKeown. Could you imagine how I felt ? The Seventies Superstar, front man of The Bay City Rollers knows my name. Well this is only one episode and I know now that Les is only a human being like anyone else.

At that time I also met Ian Mitchell who was in Les' band during that time period. We don't spoke much, but a couple of years later I met him again when I was on a business trip in Los Angeles. He and his wife Wendy invited me to a great dinner and we had wonderful time together.

I met Pat McGlynn when he performed a one off concert together with Les' band in 1996 in Solingen. We spoke backstage and a few days later he had send me some material to put it on the webpage. We also spoke on the phone and later I had the chance to speak to his girlfriend Janine Andrews - both very nice persons.

In 1997 I made a special on my page on "The early years". This special was mainly about the time when Nobby Clark was the lead singer of the band. I later got the rare chance to speak to him on the phone for almost an hour.

Since then, there were several Rollers related People that contacted me, because they had found my page on the internet. This includes Harry Maslin(producer of It's A Game) and George Spencer(Drummer on the 85 album Breakout).

So is it worth it running and maintaining the page - definitely YES !


Is this page recognized ?

Looking at my counter I can see that far more than 2000 people are looking at the page each month. This is an enormous growth, when looking back at the first stats from 1991 when only a few people found my page.

This page was also mentioned in the RollerManiak Newsletter, the Saginaw News and was featured on a two page article in the Scottish Saturday Times on November 7th 1998.


I'm writing this lines on october 16th 2004. Some people who visited my page regularly might have noticed that I haven't updated this page since fall 2000. What can I say, the Rollers are not that important at all ...
I lost my father on the 9th of january 2000. He died of cancer and during the last weeks of his life I got a very close contact to him and we talked for hours and hours. He made me rethink about my life. I now know that people/friends are much more important to me than a scottish pop band from the seventies. Don't get me wrong - I still wouldn't want to miss the old times, but they are gone and I now can much more understand why Eric, Woody, Alan, Leslie & Derek wouldn't want to reunite, but live their individual lives ....

So why am I writing this? It's simply because I wanted to leave AOL. On the other hand I wouldn't want all the stuff I put together simply to disappear. So I have registered a new URL, which is www.bcr1.de - as far as I know the "shortest BCR url" ;-) I have transfered all the articles and information over to this place and might be doing some updates from time to time.

I haven't done much about the layout, but if you still like the page please leave me a note.

Thanks for all the great years ...

Gerd
Paderborn/Germany
October 2004