My first Blakemason video featured "Matt Hughes" interview and JO. He was quite the lad. I still have the first video with Kai from 2007. Must have been a bit of fun to watch him film...I always enjoyed the showers at the end of his videos and him asking about the train schedule.. Cheers!
I think you have summed up the beauty and USP of early Blake Mason (and some other early studios) - it was fun, just some attractive lads who were not shy to display both their bodies and their personalities - ordinary lads you might have met at work or in the pub. In a way, they were and are a bit like soap actors - at one time they got on with the job and did it well - these days after a few months they are "off to L.A" - and are never heard of again.
I remember one with Luke Desmond (?) where he and another lad go on a camping holiday, unzip their sleeping bags, compare sizes, and jump in a lake to wash afterwards, and who can forget the series with the beautiful Paul Walker as a van driver - he is so natural you can really believe he is going to work on a construction site. Paul Walker gets special praise from me, because he is one of the few "cut" British models.
Also a bonus for me was fewer tattoos and shorter hair.
I think they ought to re-release the earlier material as "Classic Blake Mason"