Sunday 21st March, 2002

Hi, Everyone,

Well, all is definitely not well in Quail City today. Barry the Quail has flown the bloody coop. He has escaped. I know you'll all join me in wishing him luck in his fight for survival in the wild Surrey countryside. Of course if we catch him he'll get 10 days in the slammer. Somebody left open the door to his big chicken wire compound and so now Barry's Gone. (Must write the song while I'm still feeling emotional). Sounds like a Carole King style of song, maybe with lyrics by Paul Anka. "Barry's Gone". Poor little bastard didn't stand a chance. I can just see him now, cowering in some thicket wondering why there's nobody out there offering him a bowl of Acme Quail Food.

Anyway, cheer up because we're still number one in the classical charts with "Classical Graffiti" by the Planets, and up to number 31 (from 46) in the main pop album chart. Haha! Still some way to go before we can relax, but there seems to be a genuine demand for the album, despite a lack of major promotional moments. Sales are just being driven by advertising, and the fact that people seem to like the record. We've had some good promo things, such as OK! magazine, Sunday Express, BBC Children In Need TV show, and lots of regional TV and press, but we are still awaiting the big TV that will kick the album higher in the charts. Still, a jump of 10 places is very encouraging, and sales are healthy. Classic FM are supporting the band well, after "CD of the Week" - and they are helping to publicise the forthcoming tour. Having been well received as support to Deep Purple on tour recently, the band undertake their first headlining tour in May. See the newsletter page on The Planets' own site for details.

Loads more Planets things happening. Best to keep in touch with their site - but in a nutshell, this year will see the album out in Europe (May/June) and Far East (September) - with EMI USA definitely going to release, but we're not quite sure when. We're all looking forward to the band playing the Monaco Grand Prix ball on Sunday 26th May in the Casino in Monte Carlo. Another upcoming highlight is more dates with Deep Purple both in the UK and Germany, later in the year. The German dates are in September, I think.

Two weeks ago I recorded (as a guest on ) the show "Jammin'" for Radio Two, It goes out on Thursday evening (repeated on Saturday lunchtime) in a few weeks' time. It's like "Whose Line is It Anyway" but with musicians. You sit there with your instrument and play your answers in as witty a way as possible. It was fun to do, - of course only on transmission will we discover whether it was even remotely funny or amusing! The presenter is Roland Revron, - who does it brilliantly- reading loudly from a script while playing the drums immaculately as part of the band that we all play in. I played piano.

Sorry I can't put pictures in my newsletter today - I haven't learned the new edit software for the site, - which my ISP hosts dumped on me without even asking! Hope to master it one day. In the meantime, be nice to each other, and don't let your quails escape.

Peace and Love,


Mike



Tuesday, 19th February, 2002


Dear World,


The Planets' album was released yesterday and made a good initial showing in terms of sales. They are out on the road with Deep Purple, supporting them on their UK tour and are going down brilliantly with the Purple fans. They play Hammersmith this Friday and Saturday. Should be good. Flick to their site via the scrolling banner at the top of this page to see more about them, and to hear downloadable MP3's of samples of their album.

Meanwhile, back at Batt Control, - Barry the Quail has now been banished to the garden, because it's warm enough now. God, how I miss him. That irregular, almost violent cluck he used to come out with all evening while I was down the corridor, arranging my latest masterpiece, varnishing the Renoir or knitting a rug. That shy but surly look he'd give me when I went to check on him, as if to say "All's well in Quail City". I suppose I could go out into the garden to make sure he's OK, but somehow I can't be arsed.

My Mum has just come out of hospital after an emergency operation for an aortic aneurism, - but she's recovering well. It's like a bubble in your main blood vessel coming from the heart. They replace about 5 inches of it!

Anyway, she's back as a normal Little Old Lady now. Not that she ever was normal. She's a bit, you know...whacky, my Mum. Talks a lot and makes Womble costumes. 77 years old and has got the constitution of a steam train. In her last house she built a gold mine under the stairs with real rails that took a little trolley into the dark, to amuse visiting grandchildren. The gold wasn't real. Just like Disneyland, it was.

I was with the band in Bournemouth last night, taking notes on their performance and standing next to Murray, Deep Purple's extremely capable and affable sound engineer, - who is also mixing our sound, -and Louie the Lights, their lighting designer, who is also illuminating the Planets. Very good it was. The Purple fans don't know what to make of them at first, but they soon warm to them, and are whistling and clapping after a couple of tunes. People used to tell me they thought that the Planets were an odd choice to support Purple, - but I always thought that Purple fans would like them. Rock fans tend to be interested in good musicianship. I think if the band were just grinding about and miming to a track, they'd have no chance; this band exist on their ability to blow you away, live.



Planet Beverley Jones on stage in Nottingham

Classic FM had our album as CD of the week last week - at the same time as the Purple tour. Quite an achievement for them to be accepted into the inner sanctum of both genres simultaneously.

Gotta go. My boiled egg is ready and I can't stand them overdone.

Be nice to each other, Peace and Love,


Mike.





Saturday, 6th January,2002



Dear Interested Ones,


When Barry The Quail dies it will be a sad day in our house, I can tell you . (In fact I just did). Barry belongs to my daughter, and anyone called Barry shouldn't be offended to have a quail named after him - or her. My daughter just chose the least Quail-like name she could think of. Barry hasn't laid any eggs lately - because it's winter and apparently that's normal. It's also normal for bloke quails not to lay eggs so that's two reasons.

We just got back from ten days in Mauritius, which, considering we didn't have a summer holiday this year, was very welcome. I'd been too busy working with the Planets and breaking my neck. The neck is getting better by the day - for new readers, I broke my C2 vertebra in a car crash last August, but luckily there was no spinal cord damage (see previous newsletters).

The Planets are still my main focal point at the moment. We put their album release date back to February 18th rather than release it in the Christmas rush. It made sense for lots of reasons; firstly, the band were completely unknown a few months ago but are now beginning to raise eyebrows and get noticed. There have been some nice press TV and radio things in the pre-Christmas build-up, and the band is going out on tour with Deep Purple in February, so it seemed better to wait. Now we have arrived back for the New Year, everyone has new energy and is raring to go.

This weekend I am writing two more pieces for the band. Well, actually, I'm arranging two classical pieces, - Bach's Brandenburg Concerto number three, and Debussy's Claire de Lune. If they work out well we might slip them on the album just at the last minute. I'm doing a 'straight classical' version of each one, - specially for Classic FM radio station, - and a tougher, more rocky, album version. I had done a Christmas piece for Classic FM and it was played quite a bit over the Christmas period, and the band enjoyed playing it for the recording - so I think I'll just keep writing stuff and recording it; it keeps us all on our toes and will always come in useful. Soon we go into rehearsals for the Purple tour, and life is already getting very hectic on the promotional front.

Today is a foggy day, and the normal forty mile view from Batt Control is reduced to about eight feet. I can just see the bird feeder thingy, and that's about it. In fact I think I'll just run outside and take a snap of it for you.


The bird feeder in the fog

Time I got back to doing my arrangements so we have something to record this week! Have a good New Year, - and let's hope the Worldwide Happiness Level will go up a bit this year.

Stay cool, hang loose, boogie down etc,



Mike

Saturday,
1st December,2001

Dear World,

What a day to be updating the newsletter, - when George Harrison died yesterday.

Most of what we've done with The Planets is reported on their own site (click banner above) - so I want to dedicate some space to George today.

I last saw George at a party a year ago. It was Damon Hill's 40th, and I hadn't seen George for ages. I asked him if he was mad at me for some reason because he hadn't replied to a couple of letters I'd written him. He was astonished that I would think that, and said 'No, Man, I love you'. We stood about for a while, chatting, like you do at parties, and then I ran into him again a few times throughout the evening. I also asked him what he thought of my song 'Imagine Something Yesterday' which is an outrageous but respectful spoof of all three songs mentioned in the title. He said he had loved it and promised not to sue me for bastardising his song 'Something'. (It was a great party, - fancy dress. George and Olivia (his wife) were dressed in cool looking Mexican bandit outfits, - black, well cut, with rhinestones and wearing sombrero hats. Roy Wood and I had gone together, as Wombles, but took the heads off after a while and had been standing around with just the big furry bodies and our normal, if slightly overheated heads sticking out. Later we changed into civvies. At the end of the party, just as George and Olivia were leaving, he came across the room and gave me a big hug, repeating 'I love you, Man'. It was typical of him to make sure that I was comfortable that he had merely forgotten to answer my couple of notes. That was the last time I saw him or spoke to him.
At that time he thought his earlier cancer had been beaten, and he was looking good.

Even though we were all prepared for the worst, it was still a shock when he went. I'd been working in the studio with The Planets all day yesterday so didn't hear the bad news until dinner time when I was sitting down with my wife and the children. I just said 'Anything interesting in the news today'? - almost as a joke, because there's always something tragically interesting in the news these days. Julianne told me about George. I was very upset, (inwardly, as I didn't want to upset the kids). He and I were not close friends, but we did some work together in the early eighties, and I would run into him from time to time. He played a great solo -in the style of 'My Sweet Lord' - on my album 'THe Hunting Of The Snark' and we did some writing together, although nothing came of it. I remember he rang me up after having been to my place with Olivia for dinner, - and we were talking about getting something going with writing. I said, 'Well when d'you want us to write this masterpiece, then, George'?. He said 'It doesn't have to be a masterpiece, something crap would do to start with' - which was typical, dry George Harrison humour. But in fact that's what we wrote - something crap!

So we've lost a great artist (he was as good as the other two Beatle writers, just started later so didn't get into the writing partnership when it was formed) - but more than that, we've lost what George wanted to be above all other worldly ambitions - a great human being.

And now back to the normality of the newsletter, - which seems insignificant by comparison. As I say, for news of TV's and stuff we've done, go to The Planets' own newsletter on their site. However, the main bit of news is that we have postponed the release date of The Planets' debut album 'Classical Graffiti' until February 18th so as to coincide with the fact that they are touring with Deep Purple throughout February and a bit into March, plus some other considerations like we didn't want to get slaughtered in the Christmas rush - everybody and his dog has an album out this Christmas!

We held a photo session here at Batt Control, for a Planets Christmas card, on Wednesday. We put the girls in those little Christmassy red outfits with miniskirts and white fluffy trimming. Ruth and Salima weren't too keen at first but then they realised it was all tongue in cheek (sort of) and I think they are happy now. Certainly Beverley and Anna had no problem with it - and they all look fabulous to my chauvinistic eye!. The boys of course got to wear white tuxedo so the only danger is that they might look like members of the Boston Pops Orchestra!

A shot from the session - but not the one we're using for the card

I wrote a special Christmas piece last weekend - called 'Christmas Thingy' - a three minute medley of 'I Saw Three Ships' and 'In Dulce Jubilo' amongst others. I did it specially for Classic FM radio station, so it's written very classically. They can't play anything remotely rocky on Classic FM. We recorded it yesterday and are going to put a CD of it into every Christmas card this year! This (Saturday) morning we are adding some rockier guitars and drums to make a more poppy version of it as well. Ben is trying to get his fingers round a rather difficult guitar part as I write this. He's doing fine, though! - I think we'll soon have it. Here's a picture of Michael playing the glockenspiel yesterday, for the recording. In the background is a Christmas tree we used for a prop in the Christmas card picture session.

That's it for now. Take care and don't go chasing waterfalls. (Is that the right lyric? - How can you chase a waterfall? You'd catch them immediately, wouldn't you? I suppose the speed at which you would catch them would depend entirely on where you set out from and how fast you were going, because the waterfalls wouldn't be able to run away).

I think I'll go now before the men in white coats come to get me.

Love,

Mike

Sunday,11th November,2001

Dear World

Firstly, - I ought to let you know that I'm going to leave the few most recent newsletters on this page from now on - so you can spool down for them without going to PREVIOUS NEWSLETTERS in your insatiable lust for more Batt-relevant gossip and news.

Now to this week. Well, the biggest thing (LAST week, actually) was the removal of my halo traction brace at the Wellington Hospital. I now no longer look like either a Jedi knight or a bloke with a cucumber frame on his head (depending on which way your imagination leans), - but I do have some odd-looking holes in my head above the eyebrows. In fact I look like somebody who might have tried to have an eyebrow transplant that went wrong! Still, it all means that the doctors reckoned the three months' imprisonment in it had allowed the badly broken bone (my C2 vertebra) to heal enough. The X ray lady had a shock. She said she'd never seen an X ray like it where the patient had survived! I don't know whether that makes me feel better or worse! (You can still see the original break on the X ray, even though it is healing across by creating boney matter which is stitching itself across the gap).

That's enough medical stuff - except to say that I can now shower, bath, tie my own shoelaces, etc. Can't drive of course. (Can drive
off course). The nicest thing is that I don't have to carry it around with me (wearing it) all day and night, - it weighs a stone - so I have more energy for unessential things. I can cook, for example - and enjoy doing it, whereas when you've got the brace on you can't be bothered. And sleeping while lying down instead of sitting up is a great new experience!

Release date creeps nearer for the Planets album. EMI printed us some autograph postcards. Here's one:

This Thursday (15th) the band will be at the London Planetarium, playing for the public as they wait to see the Planetarium show. So there's a chance to see them play if you missed the Festival Hall concert. We're doing a "press call" at 11.30 and the band will play in a special "Planets" room (to raise money for Children In Need - (BBC Telethon). Then, on Friday, the band will play the new single on the BBC "Children In Need" show - well, at 1am on Saturday morning actually. They'll also feature in a picture spread in OK! magazine on the same day (November 16th).

As I write this,-on Remembrance Day Sunday - when we in the UK remember our war dead - the Northern towns of Afghanistan have fallen to the Northern Alliance and they are marching on Kabul. I once wrote a song about "The Lion Of Kandahar" - - seen from the point of view of a Mujahideen fighter against the Russians. It was just a dramatic song - like a film soundtrack sort of song, seen from the eyes of a local fighter. It's amazing how the World can change so much in a short time. Now the lyric reads like a pat on the back for the Taliban.

This week I was excluded from a radio show because the producer said he didn't like my "political views"!!! I can't say which radio station it was until the facts are established, but it was a BBC show. Amazing, - the UK is supposed to be a free country. In any case I'm sure it must be because I wrote the theme for the Conservatives in the last election. I'm not even a big political thinker - I just knew that Conservatives would be more inclined to keep the identity of the UK and less inclined to reduce defence forces. I actually think Tony Blair's a good bloke, and have always said so. If anyone REALLY wants my political opinions I could write a book - and it would end up proposing a World government with World laws, complete religious and racial tolerance and no laws based solely on religious beliefs. Lawmakers would include all religions and races. There could never be any wars then. But it will never happen! (People's religions forbid it). I'll just dream on...

Sorry - got a bit carried away there!

Have a good week. (And if you are American, get on a plane and come over and support our tourist industry!) Don't be shy!

Love,

Mike

PREVIOUS NEWSLETTER FOLLOWS:

Monday,6th October,2001

Dear Everybody,

Just to change the subject for a moment, I thought you might like to see the nearly finished painting by Simon Williams, for my new Solo Album, "Bright Eyes At The Railway Hotel". ("New album" is a slight exaggeration, as some of you have had it in its initial assembly state for over a year, - but as it is always changing slightly and isn't released properly yet, it's still "new"). Simon also did my last album, "Arabesque" - on Epic. That was the one with me standing up in a rowing boat. This picture is a bit more secure-looking, although that wasn't a deliberate intention. Simon thought it would be nice to have me at the piano (in a manner of speaking) surrounded by real objects and things of importance to me and/or drawn from the lyrics of the songs. He's a fantastic painter... I first tracked him down by finding out who did the brilliant covers for EMI's THE CLASSICAL EXPERIENCE series, and t'was him.

There has still been quite a lot of Planetness around lately. One of our bedrooms is still an offline edit suite for the purposes of editing the video, and other footage for an EPK - (inaccurate music biz jargon for Eletronic Press Kit, which actually goes out on video so should be called a VPK) - and we've been tweaking the album cover art and doing nice, cool shots of the band for publicity use.

On 9th (This Tuesday) they play for a media audience in order to launch the album. They'll do five pieces. See also The Planets' Newsletter on their own site but don't forget to come back to my site afterwards, you little rascals.

We did the Generation Game TV show this week (yesterday) and it looked great. It's the first studio-based TV show the band have done (the other camera experiences being the Festival Hall TV special and the video) - so an interesting new experience. Also, it was the first "full mime" they've done - ie, not playing for real. It's a pity, but a lot of the top Light Entertainment shows won't LET you play live, - they just aren't set up for it, in this modern world where most people prefer to mime. Call me old fashioned...

So tonight it's a quiet night in with the current Mrs Batt, watching "An Audience With Kylie Minogue" on telly. Mrs B is a huge Kylie fan, and anyway the show was produced by a friend of ours so she got a FREE TICKET! Hey! Power. You really have to know the right people to get by these days.

Hope you're getting by OK, and not worrying too much about things you can't change.

All best wishes

Mike

PS:I've been reading Rolf Harris's autobiography this week "Can You Tell What It Is Yet?". It's well-written and honest. I'm finding a lot of his opinions and early traits similar to mine... for example, we're both strong in the visual arts, both played accordion for sing-songs in our early years, both told stories to kids, both very influenced by Danny Kaye - he thinks music educators waste the opportunity of educating young children about chord structure (I've always felt strongly about this) - in fact I think Rolf Harris must be my long lost older brother!