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Olivier Group: Super Admins Posts: 1868 Joined: Nov. 1999 Posted: July 20 2003, 17:07 Robert Silverstein has published a long interesting interview with Mike on mwe3.com. Some parts are also available on the June issue of 20th Century Guitar magazine, with Mike on the cover. Back to top

oldfield_fan Group: Members Posts: 198 Joined: May 2001 Posted: July 20 2003, 17:47 Interesting interview I must say. Enjoyed it a lot!! =) And I think his future plans sounds VERY interesting - "Tubular Bells kind of album, progressive kind of composition" or "experimental music with quarter tones"! I was hoping for something like this =) Best wishes / Johan Back to top

maria Group: Members Posts: 928 Joined: July 2002 Posted: July 20 2003, 18:38 yes, it's interesting indeed and the presentation mwe.com has made of it, on blue and with the small pics makes it really nice to read. there's a lot of care and respect on that interview. about his future plans, i agree there are good news and i hope we'll have soon some more about the whole tube world, maybe with some more music (the demo's a bit lame in that sense...) i'm glad that he seems to be calm (or in the way to...) and satisfied with his work, since it's something like along the years he's become part of my family -------------- ...morning and evening i'm flying, i'm dreaming... Back to top

Korgscrew Group: Super Admins Posts: 3511 Joined: Dec. 1999 Posted: July 20 2003, 19:34 Experimental music with quarter tones...if you thought Music From The Balcony was hard on the ears, wait until you hear what's possible with quarter tones... Back to top

Tati The Sentinel Group: Members Posts: 3360 Joined: Feb. 2002 Posted: July 20 2003, 20:56 Rob did a great job on that interview,he knew how to interview Mike without asking the same old questions we´re used to see in other interviews.Nice to hear about things I´ve never imagined to hear - like Mike´s opinion about The Shadow´s version of Moonligh Shadow. -------------- "But it's always the outsider, the black sheep, that becomes the blockbuster." - Mike Oldfield, 2014 "I remember feeling that I'd been judged unfairly and that I was going to prove them wrong." - Peter Davison, 2011 Back to top

TinkerBell Group: Members Posts: 25 Joined: June 2002 Posted: July 20 2003, 21:02 What a great, genuine sounding interview with Mike!  Its good to hear him seem more at ease with the world (go read the interview, if you haven't already).  He even mentions Branson without cursing!  I really liked this quote from Mike: Quote You know what my biggest wish is? That alot more individuals come along and say, make music that’s really different rather than sort of trying to follow the crowd and be hip and cool. To really stand up and want to stand out as making something different but, using musical talent rather than relying on technology and image, looks, hairdos, makeup and all this kind of stuff..hopefully. The most individual music that happens now...there’s a lot of people working in the dance scene. I know they use lots of little music from other people and then they add bits on their own but I think we need lots more individuals saying, ‘I’m going to do what the hell I like, I don’t care if anybody likes it or not because this is the music I want to make.’ That kind of attitude would be great. If Mike were ever to read this, I'd want to say: Just do it.  Dont worry too much about the record execs and their short-term aims.  Don't even listen too much to your fans - they love what you do, as long as it has integrity.  If what you do doesn't even please yourself, then no-one else will care very much anyway.  Who else is going to make your music? And if you don't want to do music any more, then don't waste your time forcing it to happen.  Take that good long break you promised yourself and return refreshed. Work that lacks integrity and emotional spark isn't worth a great deal in the long run. Trust your artistic instinct. Do something you enjoy and the quality simply shines through. Back to top

Tati The Sentinel Group: Members Posts: 3360 Joined: Feb. 2002 Posted: July 20 2003, 21:40 Adding my pennies on the last message,what I really wish for Mike is to see him doing the things the way he wants to do,to satisfy himself,without caring about if anybody likes it or not. It´s not easy to do the things we really wanna do,because of the pression we have from anybody from outside.But when we reach that goal,things flows like a river,freely... It´s something I try to do in my life when I can.And I´m sure Mike is going to do a lot of stuff based on that quote from the interview.And that´s what I expect from him on his next project. -------------- "But it's always the outsider, the black sheep, that becomes the blockbuster." - Mike Oldfield, 2014 "I remember feeling that I'd been judged unfairly and that I was going to prove them wrong." - Peter Davison, 2011 Back to top

Thomas Höögh Group: Members Posts: 171 Joined: Mar. 2001 Posted: July 21 2003, 07:10 Quote Experimental music with quarter tones Can some one explain whats so special about quarter tones. Haven't read the interview yet. Will do that after work this afternoon. -------------- Crazy, terrible, wonderful, perfect!!!! I just love Tubular Bells ||| Back to top

Korgscrew Group: Super Admins Posts: 3511 Joined: Dec. 1999 Posted: July 21 2003, 12:46 Quarter tones are those in-between the notes on standard western instruments. The smallest division on a piano is a semitone - the difference between say, C and D, being a tone and C sharp being a semitone away from each. The quarter tones there would be C half sharp and D half flat - a normal piano can't play those, but any instrument capable of bending notes (like on a guitar) can. Fretless instruments are even better suited to playing quarter tones, hence the fact that the arabic ancestor of the guitar, the Oud, is without frets (arabic music being one of the traditions from around the world which uses microtonal intervals). Some inetsruments are built with frets for playing quarter tones - the Algerian Mandol springs to mind (though they don't always have the quarter frets), as well as instruments built by various musical experimenters in the west. Microtones can be a brilliant thing, but can also sound rather painful - it's all down to how they're used... Back to top

TOBY Group: Members Posts: 1562 Joined: May 2002 Posted: July 21 2003, 17:12 Good interview, I thought the bit about him rolling a sliff live on stage in Berlin most amusing. He does sound positive about his next album which is good to hear though it no doubt will be a couple of years away, but like a good Guinness, good things come to those who wait (hopefully). Sometimes you do wonder with Mike, asking the interviewer if he knows whether or not his own album will be released in the USA? You'd think he'd know this sort of thing himself. He also seems strangely pleased with how WEA handle things for him?????????? The bit about the TV footage of TB being performed in 1973 sounds pretty interesting, pitty nothing (so far) has come of it. ps If Mike's next album is going to sound like Music from the Balcony then I say BRING IT ON. Back to top

Blue Dolphin Group: Members Posts: 1232 Joined: Nov. 1999 Posted: July 23 2003, 09:24 Indeed it's interesting to experiment with quarter notes. Reminds me a bit of the experimenting things Mike did on Amarok. I hope it's going to be a sort of album like that (yes, MFTB is great). But I'd like to see the whole concert of the original Tubular Bells 1973 (Queen Elizabeth Hall) to be released on the DVD, y'know? Like the Led Zeppelin DVD that came out a month ago. But I guess it's probably going to be like a bit of image captures from it, and that's it. *sigh* -------------- -The mark of a good musician is to play one note and mean it- Mike Oldfield - 1980 Back to top

Korgscrew Group: Super Admins Posts: 3511 Joined: Dec. 1999 Posted: July 23 2003, 15:32 Yes, sadly it seems that plans to include anything from the Queen Elizabeth Hall concert on the DVD have been scrapped - it'll contain only excerpts from the Tubular Bells II and III concerts. I trust that Mike will use his usual musical sensibilty (and not the one which brought us silly synth basses and guitar-saxophones ) to coax something beautiful from his experimentation. Back to top

Jerome C Group: Members Posts: 138 Joined: Mar. 2002 Posted: July 25 2003, 09:10 Hi, yes, very interesting indeed, though the interviewer was "a too obvious fan". I mean, it's cool and thanks to that it brings us unusual questions (and answers) as you said. But sometimes the situation (the question and the moment after the question) is a little bit ridiculous, and Mike himself has to say "hmmm thank you" (a little bit surprised and confused). And it's nutty the number of times Mike says "hummmmmm" ! And I fully agree with his "right to rest" and the "do what u want and what you feel dude" concept, he earned it already ! -------------- Jerome C (long time out of here, but always having MO in mind somewhere) Back to top

gurru Unregistered Posted: July 25 2003, 15:08 Why should I want Mike to do the music he wants to? I want him to do the music I LIKE. I do not owe him nothing (as I agree that he does not owe me anything either). Ok mike, go ahead, use quarter, semi, micro or the tones you feel like, add computerized and sequenced electronic music, samples, samplers, dance rythms etc etc, and I will not buy your record. I'm fed up, that's not what I like. So, he is saying that the new techs are helping him recording in the sense that he can play 10 guitar takes and choose among the best parts in each one and paste them together. PATHETIC. He is telling us he is not able anymore to play a single guitar phrase with no errors. Sad as hell. But why should I be surprised? His guitar skill has gone down to the hell with time. Just listen to the out-takes from the making of TBII. He is not a guitar player anymore. Well, I'm sorry, but reading such stupidities from mike makes me sick, I should be used to, though, I've been reading non senses from him for 20 years now. BR gurru Back to top

Korgscrew Group: Super Admins Posts: 3511 Joined: Dec. 1999 Posted: July 25 2003, 17:57 I think the quote being discussed is actually a victim of the transcription. What I believe that Mike means is not that he wants people to tell him to do something different, but that he'd like to see other people doing something different. Mike may make mistakes when he's playing every now and then. That's not, in my view, much of a big deal - every player does, especially when trying something new. Mike's reasons for picking from multiple takes may not be, as you might imagine, because his playing is so riddled with errors as to be unlistenable, but rather that he's in quest of a particular feel which he believes only that method will offer him (whether he's right is a different matter). I don't think that his playing has the same kind of edge to it which it had during the at least early 80s, but I do believe that he is capable of more than his recent recordings may suggest. Back to top

BOOsTER Group: Musicians Posts: 1024 Joined: Jan. 2003 Posted: July 25 2003, 18:51 Quote (Guest @ July 25 2003, 21:08) Ok mike, go ahead, use quarter, semi, micro or the tones you feel like, add computerized and sequenced electronic music, samples, samplers, dance rythms etc etc, and I will not buy your record. I'm fed up, that's not what I like. heeeeey.... take a break lol :P I think that mike can add anything to his music and it still will kick ass well I did not too much like TL or new TBs but I agree with that Mike should do what he likes and wants to. So I just can imagine a trance album (no kidding) by Mike...he could make trance being that monumental thing like in underground clubs back in 90's well when trance was in it's beginning it was the best. and with all the love and monumental feelings Mike can give in his music...any genre from him would be welcome Mike ))) remember your good times on Ibiza please please please...go clubbing -------------- http://www.djbooster.net Back to top

EpesiK Unregistered Posted: July 25 2003, 19:22 Is there anything more tiring than all these armchair producers who do nothing but sit around all day whining about how much better everything was 'back then'? Back to top

TOBY Group: Members Posts: 1562 Joined: May 2002 Posted: July 26 2003, 08:39 Booster I agree competely that some of the underground trance around the early 90's was monumental and certainly far, far better than the cheesey trance of today. However I disagree that Mike should try his hand (again) at this genre of music. Just because Mike's an enormously talented composer and musician doesn't mean he has the ability to convincingly project his talent in musical genre's that are fairly alien to him. It does take a certain musical mind set to write very good dance music just as it takes a certain mind set to write an album like TB. Mike is far to much of traditional musician to be able to write good dance music, I have thought in the past (before TB3 came out) that Mike should try his hand at writing original and interesting dance music, you know do something different with the genre, his old mate Steve Hillage (a man of similar vintage to Mike) made the cross over to dance brilliantly and is now a bit of a revered god in dance circles. So why couldn't Mike do the same? Well because it takes more than popping an E and going nightclubbing in Ibiza a few times to know what good dance music is about. Also Mike's attitude was one of 'that's easy I could do that' which isn't a very healthy way to approach any artistic endevour I don't think, It's got to be from the heart and dance music aint in Mike's heart, that much is obvious. We know what Mike's good at, I'm sure Mike knows what Mike's good at (though you do get the impression there's a bit of confusion there sometimes, certainly in the last decade) so lets see some of it, I'm more than willing to wait a good few years for it to be good. Back to top

Chris-Llawen Unregistered Posted: July 26 2003, 09:41 for anyone who's interested, there's also an interview with the brilliant Adrian Belew on the same site as this interview with MO - Belew is asked about the work he did on Earth Moving, and praises Mike (or Michael, as Ade refers to him) on his abilities as a composer and arranger, but isn't too keen on his singing voice! also, i am rather disappointed in Michael confessing to not sitting down to practice guitar anymore.  Yes MO, you do still have your skill, but i'm sure even a virtuoso who does not practice anymore will find his/her muscles won't work as well - after all, when he does play guitar, the lines needed in his current work are very simple and wouldn't provide enough excercise. "...I don’t really play very much in my spare time. I don’t sit and practice. When I need to play because I’m making a track, I pick it up and just play it. It’s still there." But for how long? and he says he was never any good at collaborations: "MO: I gave up working with other people a long time ago. I was never any good at collaborations. I think the last collaboration I did was Pekka Pohjola. (laughter)" How can he say that?  This is total rubbish - one thing i have always blamed his becoming stale in recent years for is the fact that he doesn't collaborate with people.  Remember his work with David Bedford?  Superb.  They really unlocked the power of electric guitar played alongside orchestra, which is probably most difficult.  I'd say that was one of the most innovative things MO ever did - because it worked. Back to top

Chris-Llawen Unregistered Posted: July 26 2003, 12:40 actually, another fave guitarist of mine, Steve Hackett, mentions Mike in -his- interview on mwe3.com too - but only briefly.  It seems the same guy interviewed them. Back to top

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