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 Friday 19th September, 2002 Hello you lot, I know, I know, I'm sorry. I left it too long again - 6th July to 19th September is more than a week. My original intention was to do a weekly letter, but hey, I failed. I got fed up with the software on this site, which isn't as user-friendly as my previous software, and I still haven't learned how to post pictures, so here comes another text-only letter. We've been to South East Asia during a large chunk of the time since I last wrote. My account of that adventure is available on diary of the Planets' tour to South East Asia - at the Planets' website, so I haven't been entirely lazy. After the Asia tour which was a great thrill, and which the band themselves loved - and during which we made a lot of friends - life has been just as busy and unrelenting. The band did very well supporting Deep Purple on tour in Germany (see the Planets' German website for report) - and have tonight finished the UK leg of Deep Purple's tour -the last gig being in Ipswich. We recorded the Birmingham NEC gig, which looks great. I've been editing a video for CONTRADANZA, the new single, but we snuck a look at the NEC footage when we were editing, and it really is good. Audiences have loved the band - very encouraging. Yippee and Hoorah! Their new single (Contradanza and A One Minute Silence (Double "A" side) is out next week - 23rd September. If you go out and buy a copy (which I thoroughly recommend) - you will be buying our silence (Ho ho). We have now settled the matter of my artless plagiarism of John Cage's silence, by his publishers caving in and us winning! Why didn't I think of that before! We could have saved a lot of time and buggering about, although I must say, the struggle was one of the most amusing disputes I've ever , er, disputed. I'm sure John Cage had a dry sense of humour, and would have loved the spectacle of The Planets being all over the press protesting that their (my) silence was original silence and not a quotation from his silence. After quick flits to Cologne and then Hamburg to see the band play, I was once again in Germany last week (Berlin) for a meeting with the EMI USA lot, who enthused me about how wonderful it will be when the Planets go to the States in March. EMI (Angel) records are hot at the moment, their President, Bruce Lundvall having broken Norah Jones to the tune of 3 million albums worldwide. I remember Bruce telling me last year in Rome - when we were both at the EMI conference., and sitting next to each other on the coach on the trip out to see the nightspots of Rome - that he had signed one of Ravi Shankar's daughters. Norah Jones was her name, and a year later she's a Worldwide success. Ain't life lovely. Good for Bruce. I first met him years ago when the Wombles were on Columbia Records and Bruce was VP of A&R for CBS Columbia in the seventies. Now he runs Angel, Blue Note and Manhatten Records. So having got back from the Far East last month, I've made seperate trips to Cologne and back, Hamburg and back, Berlin and back, Manchester and back, and - oh yes, Last week I was in Scotland, where I caught the band playing in Glasgow, and also managed to fit in a couple of French Horn auditions for a new band I'm forming. If you know a hunky-looking (boy) or sexy/pretty(girl) horn player who wants to be in my new "psychedelic" rock band, let me know - but QUICKLY - I'm moving very fast on this one! This week the band and I did the Gloria Hunniford TV show. Gloria is always great - a lovely interviewer who mixes just the right balance of friendliness and professionalism. It was scary to see them running some videotape of me in my Halo neck brace from when I had the broken neck last year - but sort of good to realise how far I've come since those uncomfortable days! The other show we did was The Afternoon Show (an afternoon version of what used to be Lunchtime Live, from Granada in Manchester). Always a joy to do - it's a show with a real heart, run by real people. So often you get TV types treating you as if you're lucky to be there, but this lot really look after us, and do a good creative job with lighting and camera direction. I stayed at the Malmaison Hotel, where the bed was so hard I complained about it, despite my mild-mannered nature! I didn't sleep a bloody wink, and then my stereo jumped into life at 6.50 just as I was dropping off. The girl at the desk had one of those loud "company policy" voices and told me the bed was fine, but knocked 15 quid off anyway. The worst thing about that hotel is the poncey French voice tape in the lift that tells you you're on the "troisieme etage" even though the hotel is in England. Yuck. Or should I say, "Zut, alors!". The bar is good though, and stays up late for the fashionable Manchester lot to coagulate for a drink after recording their latest hit or embalming their latest sheep. Now I'm tired and it's late, so I'll pretend there's no more to say and that this is the natural end to the newsletter. I'll try to master the picture-uploading features on this site by next time I write (that should give me plenty of time!). Thanks for tuning in. Stay cool and boogie down, swing low, etc... Peace and Love, Mike Saturday 6th July, 2002 Dear Batt-Browsers, That little trick I pulled on you - of leaving my newsletter far too long and then suddenly doing one -( to make you appreciate it more when it eventually happens) - seems to have worked. I've had lots of people (well, a few). (well, three) - literally begging (well, asking) me to write a new newsletter, so here it comes - and it's already a whole paragraph nearer to being finished! Hoorah! This week has been fun, silence-wise. That is to say, the story broke of avant-garde composer John Cage's publishers claiming that my track "One Minute's Silence" on the Planets album - infringes the copyright of his silent composition called "4.33", Ha haaa! Great stuff, and I'd cheerfully go to jail over it for contempt of court if they win. Three big radio stations in the States and Canada have interviewed me about it this week, including NPR's nationally syndicated radio show "All Things Considered" and another big syndicated show "Online Tonight". It all started when I got a letter from the MCPS (UK's collection organisation for royalties) - saying they were awarding the royalties from my track to John Cage's estate - after making a judgement that my silence was a quotation or sample from HIS silence!.(I'm really not making this up). David Lister of the Independent wrote the following front page story: BIG NOISES AT ODDS OVER THE SOUND OF SILENCE By David Lister Media and Culture Editor, The Independent 21 June 2002 'The Sound of Silence' may have prompted engaging harmonies from Simon and Garfunkel - but a more literal appreciation of the absence of noise has prompted one of the more curious copyright disputes of modern times. Mike Batt, the man behind the Wombles and Vanessa Mae, has put a silent 60-second track on the album of his latest classical chart-topping prot?g?s, the Planets. This has enraged representatives of the avant-garde, experimentalist composer John Cage, who died in 1992. The silence on his group's album clearly sounds uncannily like 4'33", the silence composed by Cage in his prime. Batt said last night: "I've received a letter on behalf of John Cage's music publishers. I was in hysterics when I read their letter. "As my mother said when I told her, 'which part of the silence are they claiming you nicked?'. They say they are claiming copyright on a piece of mine called 'One Minute's Silence' on the Planets' album, which I credit Batt/Cage just for a laugh. But my silence is original silence, not a quotation from his silence."
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Just when you're sitting there, eating your cornflakes at the beginning of a potentially ordinary day, something like this happens to brighten up your life, don't you find? Life is just a bowl of flipping cherries, to quote the well-known 5/4 song. Another thing we've done this week is shoot a video with the PLanets for their next single "Contradanza" which comes out on September 16th so start saving up, and ALL go out exactly on that same day and buy it. Don't tell them I sent you, just act natural. That way it gets higher in the charts, so get your Auntie, the fishmonger and the school bus driver to also go and get one. The video was shot from a helicopter - and is a succession of shots of the Planets standing in fields, sitting on the roof of a house, dancing about and generally being the Planets. While I've got Dan, Dan the Editing Man staying here at Batt Control - and one of the bedrooms has become an off-line edit suite for the video - I am also cutting together a showreel of my work as a film composer in order to switch the emphasis of my work from what really is fairly full-on records-orientated work - to more film score projects. So if you are a film director, HIRE me, it will bring you seven years good luck and if you don't you will almost certainly fall down a deep hole full of sulphuric acid one day soon on the way home from work. What's more, if you are Stephen Spielberg I'll do you a very good deal for quantity. That is to say if you hire me to score six movies I'll only charge you for five. We're off to Japan, Taiwan, and other Far East countries on July 28th, with the Planets. Then after that we are back here briefly before a quick trip to do a show at the casino in Monte Carlo, then on tour with Deep Purple again in September - dates in Germany and UK. Then a headline tour of the UK. All the info is on the Planets' own site (www.theplanets.org.uk) - you can access it by clicking on the banner on this site. Another thing I did this week was go over to the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford to audition people for a new project I'm putting together (which is a secret - but don't worry, you'll be the first to know). The place is amazing. They have a drum tuition classroom with about 20 sets of Roland V drums, all set out like a classroom, plus a Marshall room all decorated with the sawn-off fronts of Marshall stacks, attached to the wall instead of wallpaper. This room also has about twenty music stands laid out like a classroom, so presumably the class all sit there playing Led Zeppelin riffs in unison! I suppose the school report you get reads something like "Stanley contributes keenly in class but could try harder with his bottleneck extemporising. A bright and cheerful child, although seems a little too polite ever to play rock 'n' roll at further education level". Kidding aside, they produce some very good people and seem very well equipped and motivated. Sorry that wasn't one of my sillier newsletters and that there wasn't a recipe this time. Go and buy some fish and chips. Hope your nose stays wet. Love and sandwiches, Mike PS. Note added after e mail enquiries received re the above. I didn't credit "John Cage" on my silence. I just credited "Batt/Cage" the Cage being CLINT CAGE, no relation to John, but a pseudonym for myself (properly registered with the collection societies). I explained all this to the record company at the time. Somebody else presumed it was Little Johnny Cage and added the detail voluntarily and wrongly, after it left me! Monday, 6th May, 2002 Hello again,. Of course, Barry The Quail never came back. In fact I'm going to stop relying on him for newsletter openings. He was always good for a laugh, but I think we can all move on - grow up a bit, can't we? We've now got two rabbits instead - dutch midgets, they are. Of course they aren't quite the same - and in many ways they are of course completely different - but let me tell you, if your quails escape you can't do better than a couple of black dutch midgets. Trust me. Quite coincidentally, we were in Holland, last week. This visit was with the Planets for an appearance on the Queen's Day Lottery Show - and a couple of other TV's. A fun trip lasting two days, and the show was great. Everyone in Holland goes all orange-coloured and it's a public holiday, to celebrate the Queen's birthday. We performed "Rodrigo" - a mix which incorporated the tempo and energy of the dance mix, but the instrumentation and musicality of the album mix, which the dance mix lacks. It seemed to get those orange-coloured people dancing in the aisles, anyway. Excellent TV direction made our (opening) spot a really good experience. Joe Cocker was on the same bill. I bought Steve, our engineer some wooden clogs, as it was his birthday while we were away. I'm sure he'll like them...(?) Some fun in the press. Sir Thomas Allen, an operatic baritone singer of some eminence, went into print saying that classical crossover artists such as Bond and Vanessa-Mae shouldn't present themselves in a sexy way - or rather that record companies who rely on these artists are "dumbing down" classical music. This was like manna from Heaven to me - it's such a fantastic argument. I wrote an article for the Independent, putting the other side. I'll put the text onto the website some time soon - but let's just say that I find it fascinating and almost delightful that the "straight" classical fraternity look down their noses at crossover artists. I suppose it is to be expected. It must be infuriating for them. (Hee hee). Personally I do think Vanessa and Bond (both having initially been managed by the same manager) have both done themselves a slight injustice by being quite so "image-first" and overtly sexy - but then who would deny them the tricks used by other pop stars? In fact if sex appeal is used to sell everything from cars to food, it could be said that we NEED some classical artists to get out there and compete on the same terms! As long as the music is excellent - that is to say, played brilliantly - then I can 't see the problem. Certainly, the Planets are such good musicians that I am happy to defend the fact that they are all easy on the eye. It is insulting to them for people to presume that they might be inferior players because they are pretty - but you do get raised eyebrows at first. It's nice when they start playing, and people realise the quality of what they do. Sorry - that was all a bit too sensible, wasn't it? I'll try to be sillier in future. Here's another recipe for you - it's BATT'S TINY FRY-UP, and is good as a starter for dinner parties. The idea is to give each person a cute little fry-up, consistiong of a miniature beans on toast, fried egg, tomatoes and bacon. Firstly, select some fifties, cheap-sounding rock 'n' roll music with a pop undercurrent - the sort of thing you hear at the fair when you're on the waltzer - , like, say DEL SHANNON's greatest hits. Turn it up well loud. If you're cooking for, say, six people, get out six plates (you see, this cooking lark is all common sense) - and place them in a row on the kitchen table. If you haven't got a kitchen table, get one -they're great. For the toast, you need the slices to look like sliced toast, but small, so use those little Hovis loaves that look like a miniature loaf of bread. Slice them thinly -two slices per person - and toast under the grill. Don't put them in the toaster, you idiot! By now, the instrumental break in the middle of "Runaway" should be getting into full swing. Pour yourelf a Guinness.The eggs are quails' eggs -So if you don't keep quails, (which I don't - they keep running away - "Run, run, run, run, runaway...") get some from the supermarket or your local free range organic quail ranch. The egg frying bit is where -unless you've got ME to save you - you go terribly wrong. You have to fry the eggs while the guests are sitting down, waiting. Which means you do them last. But you can't break quail eggs like chicken eggs, they won't crack, because the membrane inside them is too strong. Haha! And - you can't do them one at a time, because it's too slow, and your guests will be playing cards waiting for you. So, get twelve dessert spoons and line them up in a row near the hotplate (this is serious, honestly) - and, using nail scissors, cut into, and round each egg, "cracking" them into each spoon, so you end up with an egg in each spoon, ready to go into the fat to fry when you are ready. All this is done before the guests arrive. Ring up five of your mates, because you'll need some guests. Let's say in my case that might be Sir Thomas Allen, Mel Bush, and three female traffic wardens. This will ensure vigorous conversation. Ring them up, tell them it's casual, but IMMEDIATE. For the bacon, get very streaky bacon, and spend absolutely ages cutting them into strips of miniature bacon - little works of art, you want. You can't get miniature baked beans (I wish to God you could - life would suddenly be so much more interesting) - so use just a few normal ones for each person. For the mini tomatoes, get cherry tomatoes, cut them in half and get them all lined up near the frying pan. While this is happenning, get your wife, husband, common law spouse or the bloke next door to cook a main course, because you'll need one of those and you haven't got time to cook it. Anything will do. When your guests are sitting down put the beans in a pan, the tomatoes and bacon under the grill, and the eggs into a little olive oil mixed with butter. When it's all ready, put the beans on one of the bits of toast, two eggs on the other, the bacon and tomatoes round the side, and CRIPES! OLE! you 'ave zee mini-fry-up. Hoorah! Serve it with tiny little cups of tea in those stupid little coffee cups that you got in the seventies but have never used because you hardly get any coffee in them. (They're in the attic). That's it for another week - although regulars will know it's usually longer. Peace and Love. Mike PS Illustration to follow when I learn to use this new-fangled web design software.
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