Monday, 17th December 2007

Hi Guys,

Just doing a quick blogette before Christmas. Am currently on the way to join Katie who is performing tonight at a carol service in London in aid of Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy. We got the great news yesterday that she has made it (in association with her posthumus duet partner, the great Eva Cassidy) to NUMBER 1 in the UK singles charts, a week before Christmas! This is a huge thrill for us, because Katie tends to be perceived as more of an albums artist although she has had a top 10 and a top 5 single in the UK before now, so something of a false impression. In fact, the whole single-v-albums dynamic is so ridiculous these days that there really isn' t much distinction any more between being an albums or a singles artist. If people download single tracks off albums, they are automatically ‘singles' ! I do however think that it would be a pity if the ‘form' of an album were to disappear completely. I think the running order of an album is very important, and we always spend a lot of time trying to get it right.

Sometimes you even make an album that has such a beginning, a middle and an end that you can only really get the best out of it by hearing it from top to bottom.

I am getting excited about my micro-tour of Germany which will take place in January starting with a concert on the 12th January at Freiheiz Hall, Munich. This is the only ‘commercially available' concert on the tour, because the concerts taking place on the 14th – 18th are all to radio stations and I believe they are looking after the ticketing. The dates are on this website if you are interested for any reason! These concerts may lead to more of a proper tour later in the year and could include other countries. At the moment, my new album of old songs (!) which I have re-recorded, and titled ‘A Songwriter' s Tale' is released in Germany on January 25th and throughout the rest of Europe in March.

I had a great surprise early this month to see that the guys at the office had organised a Music Week magazine tribute to my ' 40 years in the business' . I think I am the only artist ever to graduate straight from kindergarten into the music business. It was a real surprise and a lovely thing for them to do, and contained tributes from many of my colleagues and artists I have worked with over the years.

I hope you have all had a good year. Next year for us, not only do we have the kick-off of Katie' s big world tour, but also the introduction of two new artists in addition to the release on Dramatico of an exciting Nigerian artist called Asa. Her single ‘Fire On The Mountain' is released in February and is already getting lots of interest. In the meantime, we are all still battling away at the BPI and IFPI, trying to keep the music business alive and to encourage governments and the public to recognise the fact that recording artists at all levels of success, deserve a fair deal and a way of making a reasonable living.

Thanks for being supportive throughout the year, to me, Katie and all of our co-workers, and in particularly for putting the Eva/Katie single at number 1 - even though it will probably be blown away by the ‘X Factor' factor next week, although nothing is sure in this world.

Hope you have a good festive season and a great new year.

All the best,

Mike

Sunday, 21st October 2007

Hello again.

Writing this on a sunny Sunday morning looking out across Central Park in New York. It' s a while since we were here, and whenever I' m looking out over the park from my apartment window it always reminds me of that great song by Gallagher and Lyle (often wrongly attributed to Simon and Garfunkel) ' a Heart In New York' sung by Garfunkel as a solo track.

'New York, to your tall skyline I come
Flying in from London to your door.
New York, Looking down on Central Park
Where they say you should not wander after dark.
New York, like a scene from all those movies, But you' re real enough to me
But there' s a heart A heart that lives in New York'

Last week, Katie consolidated her position and edged up to number two in the European charts with third album 'Pictures', having entered the UK chart at number 2 behind Bruce Springsteen (no shame to be number two to the boss) and achieving a good handful of number one and top five positions around the world. Katie was quoted in the Sunday Telegraph as saying this was the last album she and I would do together – and just to put the record straight, it is, in terms of my writing songs and producing. We always planned a gradual withdrawal by the fourth album. Trouble is, we were having such a ball doing album three that now if I' m going to pull out it has to be sudden! So from album four onwards, I' m going to 'executive produce', manage her and run the record label side of things as I do now. I need to move on, and I think it' s healthy for Katie to do so too. I had a forty year start on her and I' ve got lots that I still want to do. She has her whole life ahead of her and the world at her feet. Having said that, I' m not of that paranoid disposition that seems to prevail these days, that an artist can' t be regarded as a true artist unless he or she writes all or most of her own material. Look at Elvis, Ella Fitzgerald, Dusty Springfield. The Beatles and the Stones early albums are nearly all covers of chuck Berry, Carl Perkins and American black artists. Eva Cassidy didn' t write (much). Jeff Buckley' s two most revered tracks are 'Lilac Wine' and 'Hallelulah' neither of which he wrote. Elton John has never written a song on his own – just melodies for them, however brilliant, and it doesn' t make him a lesser writer. Dionne Warwick was Burt Bacharach and Hal David' s interpreter for years, and that' s how I see that part of my relationship with Katie. In her case, she is also a good songwriter as well as a fantastic singer, and she' s started to explore working with other people – for example, Andrea McEwan, who has co-written two of the songs on 'Pictures' and whom we have also signed as a solo artist. I' ll 'never say never' when it comes to writing with or for Katie, but it does seem a sensible way of freshening things up.

We got a bit of flack from some critic in The Times about my lyric for the song 'Mary Pickford'. In giving us a one star review for the album, he spent two thirds of his space saying what a crap rhyme 'He wore a moustache, musta had much cash' is. (Actually it' s a near-perfect rhyme - so long as the accent on 'moustache' falls on the first syllable) but it' s funny how at least four or five reviewers have winced at that lyric. Can' t they see it' s meant to be a bit cheeky? It' s totally tongue in cheek. If that guy wanted to find fault with my lyric I could have shown him several genuinely vulnerable, attackable bits, like 'Davy Griffith worked as an extra…until they let him be a director'. 'Extra' does not rhyme with 'director' but I let it go because I liked the meaning and it sort of felt right - but the guy at The Times missed it. I' m a stickler when it comes to rhymes. I would only very reluctantly rhyme a singular with a plural, for example, or let an 'imperfect rhyme' through. Anyone interested in lyric writing should buy Jimmy Webb' s book ('Tunesmith: Inside The Art of Songwriting'). It' s a great read for an aspiring writer or even an established one. In fact, all established writers are still aspiring! Those who stop aspiring drop away and dry up.

Talking of signing artists, Dramatico has been quite busy on the A&R front. We are soon to release Nigerian girl singer Asa' s 'Fire On The Mountain' a great single to herald the release of her brilliant album (see Dramatico site for more details). There' s also another new signing imminently to be announced.

I had an operation a week or so ago. I injured my arm conducting, would you believe! It was years ago, about twelve years ago, conducting a recording of Gustav Host' s 'The Planets Suite' with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. I got a bit too excited and did something to my rotator cuff muscle. Years later it kept recurring, so the shoulder expert said he' d go in and do keyhole surgery to decompress the bit where the muscle passes through the ball and socket joint in the right shoulder. So I' m in post-operative state now, but all seems OK. If you write most of the time and only conduct occasionally your body isn' t as tuned up for it as when you conduct all day every day. So full-time classical conductors are usually in better shape for it, although they don' t usually have the fun or fulfillment of writing the music. In my case it can take a month to write and orchestrate enough music for one day' s session, so you have to be careful to keep in shape for the big day or days of the sessions, particularly with big orchestral stuff.

We' re off back to England today. Just learned that Hamilton missed out on becoming the first formula one driver to win the World championship in his rookie year - real bad luck for him, particularly in China in the penultimate grand prix where he had tyre trouble. Number two just isn' t quite the same – unless it' s to Bruce Springsteen on your third album!

I' ll try to write sooner next time.

All the best

Mike

Sunday, 15th July 2007

Hi All,
 
Rainy weekend in Farnham after coming back from watching Katie kick off her ‘Summer Festivals' tourette by playing to ten thousand at North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland. By contrast, while Katie and band have moved on to a similar gig, this time outdoors in Bonn (where I hear all went well), I was at the Guilfest festival in Guildford, Surrey, earlier today (Sunday) checking out an act.
 
We have now finished Katie's new (third) album, worked out the running order, nearly decided on the album cover and booklet, but are still agonising over which of two front-runner singles to put out. We've posted a new video blog from her, accessible from Dramatico site or her own site, giving a little insight into the recording of the album. I'll be off to join her and the band again in Berlin at the beginning of next week.
 
Lots going on in the political world of music. We had the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) Annual General Meeting a week or two ago. We had David Cameron as our key speaker, and he pledged to support the extension of copyright term in sound recordings from 50 to 70 years. Just what we wanted to hear. I know politicians often say what they know you want to hear, but I believed him! He also talked about social responsibility and the music business needing to be part of the rebuilding of the ‘broken society' that is crumbling a bit, morally. Wow! ‘Morally' sounds really pompous when you say it, but it is a point. Being ‘bad' is seen as cool (not entirely the music business' s fault, but we do rather worship the naughty guys who do seem ‘cooler' ).  I don't just mean gun-culture and drug-culture lyrics in some urban music (look at the film business and TV, they are just as bad) ­ but I see the point about it being cool to get pissed or high. Is Charlotte Church more credible for swearing and being slutty on TV? Yes, I¹m afraid she is, although not in my book. Is Katie Melua ‘uncool' for being reasonably innocent and normal and doing charity work? To some people, yes.

Someone told me the other day, and I' ve heard/read it before ­ that an essential element to rock 'n' roll is rebellion. What is rebellious about everyone in a generation copying how everyone else in that generation dresses and behaves? What is rebellious about playing loud guitars (great) and doing drugs and stuff (not so great), just like all your mates? That is just as conformist as joining the army. In fact it IS joining an army of sorts, uniform included. I' m not being prudish - I'm just saying that John Lennon wearing a suit and singing a brilliant cover version of ‘Twist And Shout' WAS rock ‘n' roll but wasn't rebellion. Neither was sitting in a bag and telling everyone to live in peace very useful, when he lived in a free society and had plenty of money and 90% of the other people in the World didn' t.
 
Meanwhile, back at the BPI - Cameron didn' t talk about censorship, or ‘banning' anything - as misreported in Music Week magazine. Censorship is a rocky road, and Cameron doesn' t/didn' t advocate it. But as the father of four kids - I remember being embarrassed to walk into newsagents and the tits and arse magazines being fully visible along the bottom row of the shop for my four-year-old daughter to see. It' s all to do with having a sense of proportion. We do worship excess and decadence, don't we? Hey, Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition! While I' m in high moral tone, I'm going to brag about having not had a drink for three weeks and two days! That' s huge for me, ­ I always used to drink too much wine every night, and vodka sometimes (excess and decadence!). Had to prove to myself I could live without it.
 
Anyway, I gave a little speech at the BPI AGM (as I am Deputy Chairman). I called everyone in the business a bastard but they seemed to like it. Insulting people seems to make them laugh. Must try it more often.
 
Currently working with a new artist we are signing at Dramatico. No clues - but I think it's going to be fun. More when we get further down the line. You'll be the thirst to hear. Oops! Freudian slip.
 
Better stop now, in case I start confessing to anything else. Take care.

Stop smoking. Be nice. Shut up. Recycle your trash. Do as you¹re told. Oh, and lose some weight while you¹re at it.
 
Love
 
Mike



Friday, 8th June 2007

Right, here we go. More news from Batt Battlements.
 
Katie's new album sounding good after a trip to Dublin to put strings on 6 tracks. (Did brass in UK 2 weeks ago).  Great players, a nice experience, which we always have when we go to Ireland. Traveling party was Steve Sale, my engineer, Rosanna, my PA, Katie (needs no introduction), me (hopefully the same), Michelle (make-up artist), Quinn (cameraman) and Rob (sound for camera) We need all that entourage because we are doing some footage to put out as an EPK (Electronic Press Kit) ­ or we'll use the footage for some other purpose, possibly a DVD.
 
Writing this during a mixing session. I've just mixed a track and Steve is making it sound good after I mixed it, by mixing it better! It's a song by Prince, which may or may not make it onto to the album. Love the song.

Prince is a huge Katie fan and has performed 'Nine Million Bicycles' several times on stage and uses it as his crowd-calming/exciting music before he goes on stage. He invited us to his 'secret' London gig last month at Koko in Camden. So we thought we'd return the compliment. I've had this Prince song kicking about in my head for years and Katie sings the crap out of it.
Not one of his better known ones. We also met him the next day when he invited us to a private charity gig he was doing. He seemed very nice.
 
We have had a really hard time getting any radio play on Carla Bruni - which I find a bit soul-destroying because her single sounds fantastic on radio. Philistines! (Except when they DO play my records!).
 
Pity about Putin being such a bloody old-school cold war git. I suppose it makes up for Bush being an Empire-building 'biggest dick-in-school' sort of guy. Pity anyway. Let¹s hope the good guys win, whoever they are, and that we are included.
 
Meanwhile, Steve Sale has gone home to get some sleep ­ how dare he! I don¹t pay him to sleep! I pay him to be a genius.
 
Very exciting news about the forthcoming continuous online TV station- DRAMATICO TV (HaHa! - yes, it will appear as a very high quality rolling-loop TV website soon and we have ambitions to expand it to SKY ad others one day). You need dreams.
 
Got a great card from someone the other day - it said 'Follow your dreams ­ except the one where you are being eaten by a giant spider'. Good one.
 
Gotta go now as a large vodka and tonic awaits. 'Scuse relative brevity. Will try to be more fulfilling next time.
 
BTW - love and prayers for Luke ­ you don't need to know why. Just do it, please. Thanks.
 
All the best
 
Mike

Monday, 9th April 2007

Time for another blogette. Just returned from a train trip to Paris on Easter weekend. I often go to Paris for work ­ (concerts with Katie, or meetings with our French distributor, Naïve) but it was fun to go as tourists. Went with my wife, Julianne, daughter Hayley and brother-in-law Jonathan. The whole point was to check out the Moulin Rouge on the Saturday night; I'd never been there. Neither had the two Parisian waiters on the train, actually. It's funny how you don't always visit tourist attractions in your own town. I've lived in London most of my life but never been inside the Tower Of London. Obviously I've driven past it hundreds of times, even done a concert in the grounds,  so it feels like an old friend, (if it's possible to think of a gruesome prison in that way) - but I've never been inside. Anyway, the Moulin Rouge was a mixture of great and terrible. The supposed Michelin star restaurant was a disaster, with everyone pushed into too small a space at the table, and a rude waiter who kept hurrying us and trying to take the menus away before we'd finished ordering! I'll always remember how forgettable the food was. We had "ringside" seats, so lots of nipples-in-your-face and the smell of the greasepaint, (not complaining) and there was plenty to applaud in terms of the general show and in particular, the acrobatic "interlude" acts that separated the dance sequences. Others who have seen the previous show some years ago say it used to be a real Can-Can fest with the big line of seriously good Can-Can girls. This show had can-can but not the big accent on it as in days of old. Frankly, I'm fine with that - I find the Can-Can a bit boring after the first twenty seconds or so, and it embarrasses me when they yelp!
 
Lately, we've been working on Katie's new album. We have recorded eight tracks so far. When we record, the band and Katie come over to my house and stay for two days, so it's a sociable atmosphere and we just record, eat, drink the odd bottle of wine, sleep, record again, go home, except I'm already home. We usually cut four titles with the rhythm section in a day.
They don't always all get included on the final album, but four a day is a good pace with plenty of time for chatting and discussion of the parts, the tempo, and what works and what doesn't. I think if you spend too long on recording a track it becomes laboured and loses its immediacy. We rarely do more than three or four takes of a track. Katie always does a guide vocal, which we've kept as the final vocal on several occasions ("Blues in The Night" and "Learnin' The Blues" being memorable examples of complete vocals, left unchanged from the rhythm section take). We're still working on writing more songs for another two-day session in a few weeks' time.
 
With all this work going on - including preparation for the release of Carla Bruni's album "No Promises" on the Dramatico label soon, (click on this link to go to Dramatico's site to read more about Carla's album) ­ it seems a funny time to be taking on extra work, but that's what I did recently by accepting the role of Deputy Chairman of the BPI (British Phonographic Industry). It's a hell of a lot more work, so I hope I can manage not to go mad trying to do too much. The Chairman of the BPI is Tony Wadsworth who runs EMI, and we have a new and very capable CEO (Geoff Taylor) so I'm sure my role will be supportive rather than dominant or central. Being a writer and artist I hope my indie-presence will help a little bit towards uniting some the differing voices in the industry. It is changing all the time. There seems to be some new aspect to the business of music each week, whether it's mergers, piracy, pricing, copyright term extension or new digital ways to buy music (good!) or steal it (bad!).
 
So that's life at Batt Battlements up-to-date at Easter Weekend 2007.
I am off now, to finish a lyric about Mary Pickford, who apparently used to eat roses when she was younger, thinking they would make her beautiful, and then went on to become one of the founders of United Artists, along with Douglas Fairbanks, DW Griffith and Charlie Chaplin.
 
All the best
 
Mike

Monday, 8th January 2007

January. Got to lose some weight. You can do that by dieting; if only you could get younger by dieting! Giving up booze, that'll help.

Been writing with Katie with a view to the next album. Funny how each album always seems to be the most important one. I suppose that's not unhealthy.
If we approached everything like that, I guess things would be better in many ways. "This is the most important meal I'll ever cook". "This is the most important letter I'll ever write". Maybe not. We'd all be nervous wrecks.

Also doing some nice preparatory work with a new girl singer songwriter I've signed. At the moment it's just a publishing deal but I've a feeling there's an artist ready to jump out from there. Meanwhile my son is working away on his own album but he doesn't need any help from his Dad. He's out there on his own. He did Music Tech at 'A' Level but they are so far behind in schools. I know so many kids who do or did Music Tech and, like my son, think it's a waste of time, that the teacher is usually ill-qualified to teach it and that the software they use is old-fashioned. I'm sure there must be some good ones, but you hear so many horror stories. It wasn't like that when I was a lad! You just left school and did your best. If you wanted to be an engineer or producer you nagged at studios until they gave you a job as a runner/tea boy and worked your way up. I suppose it's still like that, really. The arrogance of youth just seems to me (as a Fully Qualified Old Fart) more prevalent these days. We all know that each generation thinks they invented sex ­ but these days it seems that each generation thinks they invented pop music as well.

Saddam Hussein being executed ­ well yes,the manner of his execution was barbaric and uncalled for unless of course you were one of his victims that was gassed or thrown to the lions (literally) or tortured and imprisoned and then shot, or if you were one of the girls who were raped and then killed by his psychopathic son, with Dad's permission. While he was alive there was always the threat of a terrorist hostage incident to get him back. It's not as if he didn't commit the crimes, or that it might be mistaken identity. So civilisation took a step backwards for a few moments but I don't weep for Saddam Hussein. I often wonder how Idi Amin got away with being allowed to live safely in Saudi Arabia after he was ousted from power. He was at least as brutal as Hussein. You'd think someone would've had enough reason to hunt him down and keep his head in a fridge. "And I say to myself, What a wonderful World".

Been writing a bit more of my autobiography over Christmas. I've written about 40,000 words and I'm only up to the Wombles! Aged 24. I'll still be writing it when I'm 70 at this rate. I'll have to have a section where I "started writing my autobiography" and other chapters will have titles like "Chapter 16: Got to Chapter 16 of my autobiography". The problem is ­ what do you leave out? Do you put all the good bits of your main relationships in but leave out all the horrible bits because you'd hurt people by revealing them? That would be lying. But if you do put them in, why are you putting them in? For revenge? Self-explanation? To be journalistically accurate? In fact, why write memoirs at all if you can't write fully, for fear of hurting people. Life's a bitch. Maybe I'll write another song instead.

Seriously, if you do want to read a punchy biography ­ albeit ghost-written, read Sharon Osborne's. It's devastating. And even though she appears to be telling it like it was/is, you can bet your arse that even she's not even telling it all, to protect the guilty.

Gotta go. Might offend someone.

Love,

Mike