It’s that time of year again, when I write my WEEKLY blog. I know I actually write them a lot more often than yearly but less often than weekly. So I sort of overstated it for comic effec …oh never mind. Been a day of jobs. Painting a Christmas card for a couple of pals, oh no sorry – It’s a birthday card. Good job I remembered in time. They have very closely-timed birthdays, so ONE CARD is all they’re getting!
I’m getting on well with my SECRET French project. That’s about all I can say about that.
What else? Oh TRUMP. Last time I put up a blog it was 4 days to go til the elections and we didn’t KNOW. Now we know. He knows, everyone knows, but of course he’s laying down an artillery barrage of false accusations to ready himself to lead the outraged followers on a time-wasting attack on the next government. Personally I think each person in the vote-supervising system should sue him for false accusations of fraud, defamation of character, whatever. What a PRANNY! I thought he was/is an oaf in office but NOW? It beggars belief. The US system needs serious tweaking (a) to stop a lame duck president from staying in power while lame, (it’s called that because the President isn’t supposed to do stuff in that period, like ordering massive troop movements etc, but he IS DOING STUFF)- that’s too long, (the handover period) and even if not, the incoming President should assume the authority of President before the changeover period begins. (b) There should be a police/CIA whatever – process for removing him to prevent him spreading disinformation everywhere. He might be telling himself it’s true that there was massive voter fraud but this is incitement to violence. It’s dangerous and there should be a mechanism to get him out of there in a straight jacket . “Pranny” is a great word isn’t it! It used to be used in the early 70’s by everyone around Dick James Music, where I produced the Troggs, Vaughan Thomas and others, but also where Clive Franks was the young engineer in the studio – and guitarist Caleb Quaye - both of whom would become key players – not KEYS players – (do keep up!) in the Elton story, because Elton was around that studio at the DJM offices throughout that time. To hear the Troggs saying “You PRANNY!” to each in their Andover accents other was a delight. We all used it. It seems to have died out.
Meanwhile three blocks North, Marcel is drinking his favourite hot dog wine. (I know, it’s nonsense but all will become clear next year).
I am thinking about doing an album of covers because everyone keeps introducing me as a SONGWRITER. How very dare they? I’m an ARTISTE, darling. So I thought OK I’ll do a SINGING album AS A SINGER, with no self-written songs on it. That’ll shut them up. Bastards. Just casual, at home, - unless I get so “into it” that I end up lavish an orchestra or horns etc all over it. I rather fancy it being piano-based and a bit down-home.. We’ll see. I’ve started making a list. Ooh, I could do a Randy Newman song. *write that down*.
I had the honour of addressing a zoomtastic meeting of The Might Creatives last week – for their annual awards, - actually I should say “OUR” annual awards, because I recently became their first patron. The Mighty Creatives is an organisation that helps underprivileged young people by contact with the Arts (with a capital A). I don’t mean posh capital A, I just mean, music, painting, anything artistic. More about the Might Creatives here: https://themightycreatives.com/
Oh – I know, before I forget. I’ve very PRESTIGIOUSLY been invited to do a listening party for one of The Wombles albums, - “Superwombling”. What happens is everybody switches the album on (on Spotify or at home on vinyl or whatever, and I tweet through it, and people can tweet questions. Good eh? Well it’s on Twitter @LlSTENlNG_PARTY and is run by the lovely and bigly talented Tim Burgess (Charlatans) @Tim_Burgess - and as introduced to me by our mutual pal, @petepaphides. So get “Superwombling” ready to play. Hit GO at exactly 6pm UK time on CHRISTMAS EVE and we’ll all tweet each other as the album plays! Hooray. I might go and sit in the cupboard under the stairs while I do it to make it more secret and special.
Good to hear about a vaccine for the virus. I have hardly been out of the house since March. I know! I thought I was really brave and adventurous, going round the world on a boat and always risking, risking, risking, but this thing has confined me to the house. I think I’ve been out about 10 times, and one of those was to A&E when I banged my knee on a coffee table! . Why don’t I go for a walk? Can’t be arsed. I know that’s unforgiveable, but you get into a routine. Get up late. Work. Stay up late. Sleep. Get up late, etc. I’m sure 2021 will be more interesting. Can’t guarantee it I suppose. And there’s a difference between interesting and good! We can’t say 2020 wasn’t INTERESTING!
Working without an engineer has forced me to educate myself on the inner cabalistic mechanics of Logic – and I am now a fully equipped, sampled-up, ready to go media composer (not that I’ve stopped making records, far from it). Maybe I’ve been building up to this all my life. For the previous 20 years I had a Neve desk, vintage microphones, a pair of high provenance Fairchild compressors, latest Protools - and my house had great-sounding rooms, just naturally. Drummer to the stars -Ralph Salmins said my hallway was the best drum room he’d ever played in! We could get 30 string players in the living room. Now, new place, no big studio – just me and my Logic, my 96GB Mac Pro and my fuck-off 49 inch curved screen - and Covid says “thou must work without an engineer”. – so guess what? – with my Berlin Orchestra samples, my full Native Instruments with Abbey Road drums and Cyberpunk toolkit (!!!) - I’m better equipped here than I was back then! And I’m open for business so if you’re reading this, Mr Spielberg, - or may I call you Steve Baby…?
Love and that
Michael Batt
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