Hi Everybody.
It’s about time I got off my butt and wrote a blog so here goes (except it’s hard to type standing up so I’m back on my butt again). US Elections only days away. I wonder what I’ll feel looking back at this blog in a week’s time! If the orange ape gets back in, I’ll be, how shall we put it? - a trifle peeved. Actually that’s not a bad song title. I know you think I’m mad, but Katie thought I was mad with Nine Million Bicycles and look what happened there. “A Trifle Peeved” might make it to the charts and then you’ll all be laughing on the other side(s) of your faces. Which actually brings me to a point – CONGRATULATIONS to Katie (Melua) on her top ten entry last week with “Album Number Eight”. She’s waited a while for it but good on her for sticking at it. It’s also nice that she stuck with my team to a substantial extent – Tim Harries my number one/only bass player for many years both played on and co-wrote with her, - in fact he has become a bit of a mentor to her by the looks of things. Guitarist Luke Potashnick ditto, and even my long-term PR “A team”– Sue Harris at Republic Media and Chris Hession for radio plugging. Nice to see much of the team still aboard and helping her forward. My sincere best wishes from afar – and long may it continue. Makes me proud, even though I’m no longer involved.
I lost a dear friend last week, the great Herbert (Herbie) Kretzmer – lyricist (most famously) of Les Miserables. A delightful, erudite and witty man, Herbie was a co-member of SODS (Society Of Distinguished Songwriters) with me, and his death at 95 (albeit a good run by any standards) is none the less painful a loss. Herbie also wrote “Bangers and Mash” and “Oh Doctor, I’m In Trouble” for Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren plus many songs with Charles Aznavour, notably “Yesterday When I Was Young” and the moving and thoughtful “She”. Do check that lyric out if you don’t know it. It’s stunningly insightful and poetic.
Our mutual friend Sir Tim Rice was on a BBC programme – I think Radio 4 – talking about Herbie, and mentioned “Oh Doctor I’m In Trouble” as being one of Herbie’s finest. Which it is. But the (person at the) BBC said they couldn’t play it because it would be deemed non PC because of Sellers’ Indian accent. Hold on, - excuse me? You can do an American accent - even a comical redneck US accent , - Elton sings in one all the time (meow!!) – but you can’t do an Indian one, - or actually Jamaican etc if you are Caucasian. So you can imitate any accent (Irish, South African, Scottish, Welsh) as long as it’s a traditionally known as a caucasian one, is that it? If so, who’s being racist and anti-libertarian? Indian doctors used to talk like that, just as many older and first generation immigrants still do. The younger ones less so, obviously. But we surely must be allowed to cherish the heritage, (of the Indian immigrant community) as well as our own – and humour is all part of it. Can we all harden the fuck up just a touch? Anyway, goodbye, Herbie. Dear, charming, clever Herbie. Rest In Peace.
We’ve also lost Bobby Ball this week. This is become an Obits column! Sorry. I didn’t know Bobby that well but I used to bump into him here and there. I first met him and Tommy in Stringfellows club, would you believe? Before it became a table dancing club. It was just a nightclub hangout where the drinks were expensive but if you were well known you got in for free, and I seem to have qualified. I even remember sitting sharing a drink with Annie Lennox one night (actually I think we had a drink each) – so in those days it must have passed under the feminist limbo bar. Good name for a bar. Move on, or rather BACK to Bobby Ball. My apologies for tweeting an RIP about Tommy rather than Bobby, in haste. I DO know them from each other. Bobby was such a great guy – and just had “funny bones” as it’s called in the biz. He would have you in fits.
So what’s GOOD in the world? *Looks around the room, hopefully*. Oh I’m just about to paint a big Stag onto the back of a jacket as a present for someone. I know that doesn’t balance out against COVID 19 and four more years of Trump but it’s a step in the right direction. We’re having sausages for dinner so that’s another small thing to be thankful for! Sorry that last sentence ended in a preposition but how much do I really care? Not even a trifle peeved.
I’m still in the middle of my French project about which my lips are sealed. A long-term, high quality project. One day you’ll know! Keeps me very busy, which is again something for which to be thankful. (See what I did there?). Been drawing a few Wombles, which has been fun but time-consuming, so have stopped offering them through the webshop on my site. Watch this (or that) space though – I may do a Christmas one or something. I certainly want to do more “art”. – and I’m looking at the idea of a book of my doodles and poems, - obviously not pre-Christmas, but it could be a bit of fun. The Doodles Of Batt. I thought if I did one of a load of naked blokes I could call it Oodles of Nude Dude Doodles. But I won’t because (a) you might think I’m a pervert and (b) I want to be taken seriously as an artist!
Which reminds me – I did an online chat (with Dominic King https://www.facebook.com/DominicKingBBC
And I found myself telling the story of how I got the attention of CBS (now Sony) records back in 1975 when the Womble song came out. Their marketing director Clive Selwood wouldn’t even give me time for a meeting. So, realising that record companies related to “artists” rather than just a TV theme – I got my mum to make me a Womble costume, (the first one ever) and just walked into the Managing Director’s office, and they loved it. Photos taken, etc – and they started to take me seriously. Then (during the interview) I realised what I’d just said – I had to dress up as a Womble in order for CBS to TAKE ME SERIOUSLY!!!! (Arf, arf!).
Well I’ve run out of blog for this week. Do pass through the gift shop on your way out, you never know what you’ll find, what with Christmas coming up!
Stay cool, hang loose, boogie down and swing low.
Love from
Mike