Time for a blog - if only to get rid of that rather ancient blog I wrote months ago about Tom Watson being a bad choice for UK Music Chairman (which I still stand by, and the fat lady hasn’t sung yet). Let’s talk about something NICE, as my mum used to say. God, she was such a lovely, jolly life-force. I’ve said it before, but someone reminded me recently - her last recognisable words to me as she faded away in hospital were “aren’t we lucky!”. Yes, we bloody well are lucky.
I’ve been working, all the way through lockdown with a new, French artist about whom I can say NOTHING! But it is a fascinating project that I will be involved with even after the production is finished, (in the launching and marketing), and it will be manifested on several different levels, not just an album. That’s probably enough teasing! But it’s meant that I’ve been in my writing studio pretty much as I always was before lockdown, just without sessions and social things. Seven songs in the last five weeks, and I’m really pleased with them. Of course, not playing Bush Hall gig and my German tour and losing some big German TV shows was a disappointment. But I’m lucky to have a job I love. I mean it’s not exactly coal mining, is it! It’s meant that my album THE PENULTIMATE COLLECTION had to be “soft-launched” in the early summer (rather than leave it until the Autumn when all the bigger labels decided to put their bigger artists out. We decided to just make it available (which it is, on this site if you hit the “shop” square “picture button” on the front page, or order from Amazon etc) - and then service it properly to radio and do more on it as and when things get a bit easier. Although, who knows when that will be? Maybe it’ll just be a slow burn, catalogue album. I never expected it to be Number 1 in the charts! I’m very happy with it though because being a double album, it contains a cross-section of all the different styles I’ve been involved with rather than just being a “Greatest Hits” selection. We took great care mastering it and it really shows. It all sounds to me as if it were recorded in the same time zone, even though some of the tracks -including a three Womble tracks - go back 40 years or more, and some (two new tracks) were recorded this year!
My self-imposed quarantine (strict lockdown, shielding compliance) has encouraged me to get more technical with Logic and other parts of my job that previously I’ve left to others. I always write and orchestrate everything I do, - including having become quite expert on Finale scoring software since I began using it i 1989, but I’ve also usually had an engineer to help with programming. The fact that it’s more difficult to interface with musicians (although not impossible, with being able to send WAV files to each other) - has forced me to take a look at how I would make a record at home with no help. So I’ve dug more deeply into Logic Pro X and have acquired some snazzy libraries of samples. There’s a lot to learn, but I’m getting good at attaching samples to my old Snark scores (just for practise, really) and being quite surprised at how close to a real orchestra it sounds. My dream of recording a full, show-length version of THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK looks very doable. My favourite orchestral samples are the BERLIN collection. Their french horn section, I really can’t tell it from a real one. In fact it IS a real one!
I was persuade by my management company colleagues to start offering bespoke Womble drawings like the ones I did a couple of years ago. So today we've put the info out on this site (STORE)- and I'll do personalised Womble drawings. I hate having to charge for them, but I was told to man-up and get used to the idea of charging for things. We all need to make a living, me included. Even with live "lockdown transmissions" a couple of quite famous friends have told me that it's the done thing to charge something. Actually with gigs gone, I guess they are right. One said "You wouldn't give away a concert ticket would you, or everyone would go broke!" - and I guess it's a fair point. The notion that music is free is something that shouldn't totally be got used to. By doing stuff for free (except for special occasions) you are taking an opportunity from someone else- who maybe needs it even more than you - and so I'm getting the message.
Just finalising the paperwork with BMG to make 4 new tracks with Justin Hayward and the London Philharmonic - to add to and freshen up our album "Classic Blue" that we did a long time ago. Justin and I are old friends and our voices compliment each other really well. We shoulda been in a band together. Obviously he takes the lead vocals on this album because it's a Justin Hayward album, but I enjoyed doing the backups, and we may do a couple of duets within the new four tracks.
I'll leave it there for now, and hope to write a bit more regularly in future!
All the best
Mike
