A school friend works at Soundscan – an insider in the top-40 machine. He sent me good news about the album today – My new album is at #13,283 on the Internet chart! He finished his missive with this note: ?You are listed one position above Dudley Moore. We put the nationalities together.?

Hey – I?m the same nationality as John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Couldn?t I have been lumped together with them?

I?m surrounded by puffy envelopes, mailing lists and yellow spined CD?s: my new album is out and I?m trying to let the world know.

This is the second time I?ve done this and I?m finding it?s a time of mixed emotions. I?m intensely proud of all the CD represents but overwhelmingly self-conscious about promoting it because somehow I have to stand up behind it and be counted. Back in the dim and distant days of the release of the first record I ever played on I took one of the discs and framed it as if it was a gold record complete with its own plaque. The plaque read: ?This miserable piece of black plastic represents the dreams of a lifetime.?

Times have changed, I?ve played on a bunch of stuff now, been on TV with my guitar and seen my songs in the top forty but the insecurity hasn?t gone away. I know my production skills don?t keep Moby awake at night and Noel G isn?t threatened by my song-writing abilities and I don?t care – this has always been my dream – to make records on whatever level I could.

The new album has already registered its first sales with Soundscan and is listed as the 37,120th top seller on the www.amazon.com sales chart (right up there with Blodwyn Pig’s “Getting To This”). I?m ecstatic: my first album is much further down the charts – their 246,401st most requested title (almost as good as Hardin & York)! I?ve still got a way to go before John, Paul and the lads need to get worried but things are definitely improving.

Buy my album – details on the main page.

I think Serena Altschul is totally hot, and Kurt Loder seems like a very decent, if rather serious, guy but I have a Q for the folk who present MTV News…

What happened to the black, asian, hispanic, orange, purple and spotted people? Have I been looking the wrong way or is there ever anyone hosting MTV News who is not completely lilywhite?

Did Rosa ride the bus in vain? Just thought I?d ask…

So everybody?s been telling me that Britney blew a gasket at Rock In Rio and swore at a soundcheck and that it?s the hottest thing on Napster and blah, blah, blah…

So, web dweeb that I am, I can?t find the damn thing on Napster but eventually track it down on a another site…and what is this? One ?retarded? and two cuss words!

That?s a Teen Tantrum? A Top 40 Tirade? A Superstar Shitfit?

Guys – give a girl a break here. We could go on about the jet-lag, the short soundcheck she probably had, the nerves about doing a huge show, the taking the stuff out of context etc. but these people are human. Remember the last time someone cut in line in front of you, remember the last car that nearly ran you off the road, remember the last time they forgot to Supersize you at the Micky D?s drive through? Remember the effing and blinding that went on there? Pretty glad no-one was recording that aren?t cha?

If you?re Britney or Mandy or Jessica or Justin or Ricky or whoever no amount of luxury limos, first class plane seats, luxury hotel rooms can make up for fatigue, back stage food and endless changes of plan. They have a life like anyone else, albeit a gold-plated one, and are going to act like human beings. You are one too remember?

Under the circumstances I thought Britney was sounding quite relaxed!

I can?t believe that my diary is turning into an obituary column…Kevin Farley rang me last night to tell me that Michael Cuccione had passed away…

If you never met Michael you couldn?t even begin to know what a life force this guy was. From the moment he walked into that casting session in Vancouver I was blown away by him. I wanted to be him: 15, handsome as heck, girls going nuts for him and everything the world had to offer in front of him…he could sing too. We were looking for someone just like this for our movie to play the part of a terminally ill kid who was Bob Buss?s final master-stroke. Then came the kicker…Coreen the casting director said to Michael ?Perhaps you?d like to tell Nigel your own life story.? And, with a smile on his face like he was telling me about some holiday trip he?d taken, he told me about his fight against cancer (not once but twice), the book he?d written, the album he?d made and the half million dollars he?d raised for cancer research – he left out all the insignificant details such as meeting the Pope and hanging out with Pamela Anderson Lee!

Having seen him no-one else stood a chance in the casting session. He was Q.T. no question.

In the weeks that followed Alan, Evan, Noah, Alex, Kevin and I all became big fans of Michael. The surgeries and treatments that he?d received in his fight against cancer had left Michael with a fraction of his normal lung capacity. I suppose it was difficult for Michael to do the things we all took for granted, but he never asked for special attention, never presumed he deserved special treatment, never sought pity.

As the 2gether movie carried on through the rains and darkness of a Vancouver winter I came to realize that Michael was a much wiser man than I, his attitude was so positive. Rather condescendingly I insisted he read Nevil Shute?s ?On The Beach? as some preparation for his part. I felt that the way the characters pressed on with their lives, planting gardens for a spring they would never see, learning languages they would never get to speak, was a good indication of how Q.T. lived his life positively in the face of constant danger. Michael smiled and read the book. Only later did I realize what a fool I?d been. How could I suggest to one who had already been through so much that he had something to learn about suffering and positive thinking? It was I who needed to learn from him.

There was a time when I wanted to say that the best thing about making 2gether was meeting Michael. I never wrote those words for fear of them being trite and overly sentimental but I believe that meeting Michael was a gift. All of us who spent time with him will be effected by his passing. All of us will stop for a minute and realize the denial in which we all exist in believing that we are indestructible. Michael?s attitude was ?my life is fantastic – what is there to complain about?? And life is fantastic.

I?m glad that we picked Michael, I?m so happy he got to meet Britney and his other idols, I?m glad he got to do what he wanted to do so badly – to sing and act and to spread his message. Though Michael was not so fortunate Q.T. will live forever.

Kirsty MacColl has been killed by a bloke in a motorboat in Mexico.

Well that’s f***in” bizarre,” is probably what Kirsty would have said followed by a laugh. Andy and I used to work with Kirsty at Stiff. Her first single was “They Don’t Know” (which later became a hit for Tracey Ullman) and Andy created this huge questionnaire of deviously obscure pop trivia as part of his press campaign for her. Kirsty was still working in the telephone sales department at Exchange & Mart in Croydon (I think) and I remember her giving me a pair of white overalls with a Rolls Royce logo on the front.

One summer evening we went to some boring industry dinner together and Kirsty was my date. She made everyone at the table laugh and wrote “you bring out the roadie in me!” on the invite and gave it to me at the end of the evening. I still have it in my scrapbook. Then she had a hit with “Chipshop” and we all wondered if it was about Glen who she was living with at the time. She was one of the funniest, sharpest most acerbic women I’ve ever met and I loved “You Still Believe In Me? and the second single she put out after “They Don’t Know.”

We need to preserve people like Kirsty not go around bashing them with motorboats.

So I’m taking my lunch and I’m reading this weeks Rolling Stone (the one about the Rolling Stone / MTV 100 greatest pop songs) and I come across Dave Grohl’s personal Top 5 and right there in between the Beatles and The Pixies is Tears For Fears? “Head Over Heels.” His comment was “The video’s the best: The bizarre-looking New Wave guy has a crush on the librarian, and it pans out.”

Wow! The whole Head Over Heels shoot was a big trial for me, so much was going on and I was always a bit disappointed by the result but I guess Dave liked it.

The video was shot in Toronto but the truth is we shouldn’t have been there at all. TFF had been having hits in Europe for ages but they meant virtually nothing in the US apart from California. I’d already shot the “Shout” and “Everybody Want To Rule The World” videos and was supposed to shoot a live concert with them at the Hammersmith Odeon when Roland pulled the gig at the last moment with a throat infection. They were in the middle of a massive tour and the only way to pick up the shoot was to fly with them to Toronto and shoot some gigs they had planned at the Massey Hall. Then some genius said “Why don’t you shoot the video for Head Over Heels” at the same time!

The idea, as always, was Roland’s and I was very skeptical about pulling it off – his feelings about everything were so strong and vivid and mine were always so polite and English. He had vision, I had excuses. At this time I was not only directing but producing too. To complicate matters I was also the record company client and while we were in Canada I had someone shooting Dexy’s Midnight Runners for me in New York and Dominic Senna and Greg Gold (later to become my partners at Propaganda) shooting Vitamin Z for me in Istanbul. By the time I’d found a chimp (Zippy came from across the border and was the most expensive element in the video), argued with Roland about who the girl should be (Roland won), I realized that we were shooting the video during the day and shooting the live concert (my first ever multi-camera shoot) at night. I even found time to fit in a cameo: I’m one of the three string players. The other two are the wonderful Sean Ryerson (my co-producer) and Steve Surjick (the art director who later went on to direct Wayne’s World 2). Then the phone rang and the guys found out Everybody Wants To Rule The World had gone to number one in the States. A rush for all of us.

One evening the stress was so much I slipped away and sat on the fire escape behind the Massey Hall to chill out. I felt as if my head was going to split in two, I couldn’t deal with anything. That’s when the Much Music Video crew found me and I did my first ever on-camera interview. They used some of it in the 2gether Opening Montage back in February and did I look shagged out or what?

I was not happy with the footage when we got home and hated the four-leaf clover animation but despite it all Dave Grohl loved the video. So now I’m wondering what him and Kurt and Chris were doing at the point that the video was first getting played.

So I’m going to return the favour. What’s my Top 5 (like anyone gives a turd)?

1. Overnight Sensation – The Raspberries
2. All Right Now – Free
3. Twist And Shout – The Beatles
4. Don’t Dream It’s Over – Crowded House
5. Learn To Fly – Foo Fighters

I’ve just read an article in Rolling Stone about Almost Famous. For those of you not familiar with the film (shame on you – do a penance right now) it’s a recreation of Cameron Crowe’s teenage years as a young journalist on the road with the Allmans and Zeppelin. In the article Crowe mentioned that his mother, who takes quite a beating in the flick, had fully supported him during the arduous writing process and late one night faxed him this thought: “Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.” What great advice! I have treatments to write this weekend and will use that as my motto.

I once saw on the fridge door of a friend of mine a list of ten things that the most successful people in Hollywood all had in common. One of them was a mentor. I remember being concerned because I felt that I didn’t have one – “Bang goes your Hollywood career,” I thought. It was ages before I discovered that I had indeed spent five years working for the man who was my mentor and had never even noticed.

This reminded me, rather elliptically, of the time I used to be the publicist for Desmond Dekker the first man ever to have a reggae hit outside the Caribbean with “Israelites”. We were promoting his brilliantly titled “Black And Dekker” album and to my anger and dismay no journalist in Britain was interested in interviewing the man who was to reggae what Robert Johnson was to the Blues. Surely this icon deserved some respect? “Bollocks!” I said and decided to interview The Man myself.

He told me the sad tale of how he’d become a success in his native Jamaica, had travelled the world but had earned very little from his world-wide smash. His tale was the kind of story we’re all too familiar with now every time we watch “Behind The Music” but no restorative third act loomed around the corner for Des.

Then he let slip a small detail that fascinated me. As his records sold and sold in his native island, and the label had pocketed all the dough, Des had continued to work at the local factory. When the English cricket team came to visit he would clock-in at work and then sneak out taking a young lad from work with him, also a cricket fan, to watch the game. They would spend many a happy afternoon lying in the sun on the corrugated roof of the stadium watching the cricket for free and then sneak back to work before they clocked-out at the end of the day.

The young boy played guitar and was happy to have the successful Des as his mentor. One day Des took the kid and his guitar down to the studio and persauded his producer to cut one of the teenager’s songs. It wasn’t a hit but under Des’s tutelage the kid persevered and eventually gave up his job in the factory to pursue singing and guitar playing full time.

Like I said not one British music paper would take the time to chat with Des. But when I’d finished my interview with him I typed it up and included it with every copy of “Black & Dekker’ that I sent out for review. Subsequently three papers printed the interview verbatim putting a staff writer’s name at the top of the piece instead of my own. Countless others used pieces of the interview in stories they later did on Des’s album.

Why? The young lad Des helped out was Bob Marley.

Sometime in December ’77 I drove a green VW Golf, license number WLD 76S, up to a small house on a back street in West London, climbed out and knocked on the door. A pasty face peered at me through a crack in the door and mumbled that I should wait in the car.

Some time later I heard footsteps on the path, looked over my shoulder and saw two frail figures dressed from head to toe in black, both with skin whiter than ghosts and wearing purple eye-liner, sliding into the back of the car. I passed my gaze from the girl to the unmistakable visage of her boyfriend: Dave Vanian, lead singer of The Damned. “I thought they were sending a limo,” he hissed, obviously very disappointed by the size of the car and the get-up of the driver who was sporting a dodgy moustache and wearing flared (FLARED!) jeans. As the poster child of Stiff Records premiere Punk outfit – the first Punk band ever to release an album (DAMNED, DAMNED, DAMNED) – I think Dave expected a bit more razzamataz. He was a guest of honour at the NME Christmas Party and he and his girl were going to arrive outside the IPC building in a Volkswagen driven by the office messenger boy. Frankly I was a bit shocked – I’d expected the front man for one of the three big Punk acts (Clash, Pistols, Damned) to be the kind of person to eschew such Dinosaur Rock Group trappings as a limo. Surely there was a sub-section in the Punk Manifesto which stated that if you were going to arrive at a party you’d go by tube along with the proles? This was not to be the first time that I would be disappointed or confused when I first came face to face with one of my musical heroes.

Of course the other members of the Damned were cut from less confusing bolts of musical cloth. I remember Brian James as a nice bloke with a neat haircut and an awesome leather jacket that I coveted; Rat Scabies was a laugh and a bit of a scalliwag and Captain Sensible was the guy who yelled obscenities down the phone at me everytime I called into the office from the road. He loved the fact that my last name was DICK and would scream it at the top of his voice over and over usually prefaced by YOU and F***ING before slamming the phone down.

A couple of years after these incidents twins were born somewhere on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. They were christened Joel and Benji and in time they dreamt that they too would be in a Punk band whose name would be Good Charlotte. Joel re-christened himself Sickboy and Benji called himself Kid Vicious.

And so I find myself in a school refectory in Missisauga, Ontario with Benji, Joel and the other guys from Good Charlotte: Aaron, Paul and Billy (Sickie B., St.Paul and Lil’ Billy) having lunch while I’m making a video for them. And during our conversation Benji remembers that I’ve “worked with” the Damned (perhaps “been abused by” is too extreme a term) and he mentions that he thinks this is really cool. And I’m suddenly very grateful for that miserable drive across London on that wet winter afternoon in the 70’s with the whining Punkster in the back seat of Alan’s car: it’s given me something in common with the guys and I feel more relaxed in their company. Perhaps in time I will find myself in a situation 23 years from now with some kids who have yet to be born and they too will think that I’m cool because I had lunch with Benji, Joel, Aaron, Paul and Billy in this school in Toronto.

For Good Charlotte’s sake and mine I hope this dream comes true.