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Out Of OfficeYou find me this Saturday morning in a state of QUIET PANIC, for LO! we're off on holiday in about 45 minutes!
Packing so far is within more than acceptable parameters, TFL says the tubes and Overground are running OK, and there's no strikes. I've got a PLAN for the day's travel with all our connections (we're taking a train, a tube, a train, a plane, a bus and another bus) and this is about the EIGHTH time we've made this particular journey.
So you can well understand why I'm in such a PANIC - this is the bit in the movies where THE METEORITE STRIKES BEGIN!
We're going, as usual, to Puerto Pollensa in Majorca for the week, where we shall a) drink Cava b) read books c) REPEAT TO FADE. When I get back we'll have a brand new video for The Battle Of Peterborough, a DELIGHTFUL press release, more gigs and all KINDS of other stuff, but in the meantime look after yourselves and I'll see you in a week!
Unless, of course, THE METEORITES STRIKE.
posted 12/5/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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Totally Acoustic
I rolled up at The King & Queen last night to discover Mr Gavin Osborn outside, RARING to continue our gruelling tour - third date in with only a fortnight's break!
We went in and had some DELICIOUS beer, a bit of an old chat, got the chairs sorted out, and were soon joined by various lovely people, including The Beer In My Pint Glass. We were not, however, joined yet by Mr Francis Albert Machine, our TOUR BUDDY and other act for the evening. I'd read online earlier that trains into London from the Midlands were taking an extra 70 minutes, and that added to the fact that I couldn't get through to him on his phone led me to PANIC and ring MRS Frankie Machine... just as Frankie came over the horizon, thus easing MY worries but inadvertently handing some over. Sorry Mrs Machine!
The room slowly filled and soon it was time for me to hit the stage and do THIS:
Totally Acoustic
Programming Is A Poetry For Our Time
Strangely Attractive
The Stores Of Not To Be
Leave My Brother Alone
I Come From The Fens
Hey Hey 16K
It was the most fun I've had at one of these for AGES - I did the "never podcasted" songs at the start and once i knew those were fine the rest of the set was a JOY! I had a lovely time, with a LOT of chat. SMASHING!
Next up was the ever-marvellous Frankie Machine, who did possibly even MORE chat than I did - which is always EXCELLENT. I do like the way he can go from these subtle, emotional songs into SUPREMELY DRY remarks and/or MILD LEWDITY and then back again. He finished with the song I mentioned last time about his lad, now called "Never The Breaker" and it was the perfect combination of both the above APSECTS. It was BRILL!
Then the GIG section of the evening finished off with Gavin, doing THREE brand new songs, all of which were FANTASTIC. I particularly enjoyed "I've Got Merch", which he'd been talking about as just an IDEA on the train to Bristol on the tour, and now had as a fully formed HIT, with Audience Participation and EVERYTHING. He also finished with my current favourite, "Sweet Bedford", which always makes me WELL UP.
You don't, by the way, have to take my word for how ACE it all was - the PODCAST is available RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW!
After we'd finished we went down for the main part of the evening, and another SONGWRITER SUMMIT as we were joined by Ms Jenny Lockyer and Mr Pete Green, amongst others. OH what a FAB time we had - chat! LARFS! Incisive Comments! THORTS! GAGS! We gradually thinned out as various of us DRAGGED ourselves away from the THRONG and by the time myself and Messrs Green and Machine headed out the chairs were on the tables and the lights were going off.
One of the best Totally Acoustics EVER I reckon, and a lovely lovely evening!
posted 11/5/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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The Great Escape
I was out of the house at the UNGODLY HOUR of 7:50AM (a!m!) today to head to Brighton, where I was due to take part on a panel called "DIY Artists - Getting Started" at The Great Escape Convention.
I felt quite EXCITED about being part of such an AUGUST INSTITUTION. I was only asked last week because somebody else had dropped out, but still, even as a Super-Sub it's very nice to be thought of. I was, however, very NERVOUS - i was acutely aware that this is a Proper Industry Conference, which people had PAID to come to, and that i would have to BEHAVE and be GROWN-UP about it all. On the other hand I didn't really want to turn up and be The Boring Guy On The End - I used to RUN conferences a decade or so ago in Leicester, and I have seen FAR too many of Those Guys to ever want to BE them.
It was all very similar to those conferences - registration was a scene of PANIC, and everyone seemed to be turning up at the last moment, and though there was a PLETHORA of A4 signs stuck up over all and every surface, delegates were still wandering around confused. It brought back a LOT of memories, of getting up at EVEN LESS GODLY hours in hotels in other countries to try and sort out other people's badges for them.
Once I was all sorted out I saw Mr Chris T-T, said hello, then nipped over the road to The Old Courtroom where my session was due to happen. It was the first of the day and so, AS TRADITION DICTATES, it started ten minutes late... and then FLEW by. Mr Chris Cooke was hosting and asked me a bunch of questions first, which i THINK i answered all right, but may have GONE ON a bit. He'd sent me some questions beforehand and I'd spent the past few days THINKING about them, so had a wide and various range of POINTS to make, some of which hadn't necessarily been asked, but it seemed to go all right. As ever I tried to make points with GAGS, which didn't get MASSIVE LARFS but then it WAS still first thing in the morning. Everyone else on the panel was dead good too - I spent a LOT of time NODDING - and at the end I think I caused some disagreement in the audience when I said that only a TINY percentage of GEEKS give a toss about high quality audio. I think I was right tho - everyone else listens to SONGS, not recordings, on crappy little headphones or driving at speed through tinny car speakers.
The next session was about "Getting Noticed", again for DIY Musicians. Everyone kept saying "DIY Musician" as if it's officially A THING now, which made me very happy. When i first started on what must now be called THE DIY ROUTE it was just called "Unsigned", which was a rubbish description for a MODEL that was all about independence from The Bad Old Ways. It's only over the past couple of years that "DIY" has become the accepted lingo, and I'm very glad of it.
Anyway, the "Getting Noticed" panel featured all round hero Chris T-T - he, like me, was the only actual DIY Musician on the panel (the other speakers on both panels were very good, but it did seem odd only to have one actual PRACTITIONER on a panel with three service providers) and, like me, talked a lot MORE than anyone else. This was fine with me as he had much WISDOM to impart. The most interesting bit, I thought, was when he said that if you're starting out you should be PATIENT, and WAIT until you're Actually Any Good before doing your first gigs.
Initially this got my BACK UP. "What?" i thought. "Surely you should get STRAIGHT OUT THERE and LEARN YOUR CRAFT! That's what I did and... oh... hang on..." for LO! i started doing gigs on my own as soon as I could nearly play TWO CHORDS, and did lots of gigs where I was TERRIBLE. This MAY be why large sections of the East Midlands still think i am LIKE that - I played so much that way that it DID leave a lasting impression of DREADFULNESS, and maybe it would have been better to BE better first.
It was certainly food for thought, though I didn't have much time for MULLING. I had a quick chat with a couple of very nice people (and gave away more BUSINESS CARDS than ever before i.e. TWO!) then had to ZOOM OFF for my train. As with the Horizons event on Saturday, I really wished I could have stayed - there were lots of fascinating discussions going on and TONS of interesting people, but I the LIFESTYLE of the DIY ARTIST (hem hem) does seem to be one of constant dashing around. I had to get back to work for the afternoon, and tonight it's Totally Acoustic. The rock and roll treadmill, it NEVER STOPS!
posted 10/5/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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Nuts In May
Having already played a gig before NOON on Saturday it was time to head up to The Lake District, ready for Sunday's gig at The Nuts In May Festival. I thus RENDEZVOUSED with THE TIGERMOBILE at Leicester station and myself, Tiger and Cat hit the ROAD, FLYING up the country towards our first destination: Cockermouth Travelodge.
Staying in Cockermouth was EXCELLENT, mostly because saying "Cockermouth" is INHERENTLY HILARIOUS. We checked into our rooms, finding them to be SUPER SPACIOUS. It looked like there was meant to be a LOT more furniture in them which hadn't arrived yet, but otherwise all was well, so we ordered ourselves a TAXI and headed off to the festival site.
Nuts In May is, I guess, a BOUTIQUE festival, with about 1,000 paying customers, on a compact and bijou site where the two main stages are only about a 2 minute walk away from each other. There were happy people, kids, teenagers, foodstuffs and a lot of folk music, and happily not much MUD. The only mud ANYWHERE, in fact, was at the Cup Of Wonder Stage i.e. the huge MARQUEE where we'd be playing next day. I think the whole SITE would have been muddy earlier in the week when it was put up, but everywhere else had dried out by the time we arrived.
We were soon joined by the entire CLAN PATTISON and LO! there was BEER and YAKKING and EATING and discussion of the Festival Programme, which featured a little write-up of us, accompanied by a photograph... of Frankie Machine! We later saw Mr D Proud, who'd booked us to play, and he was mystified by how it had happend! Before long it was KERSHAW O'CLOCK! The great man Mr N Kershaw HIMSELF was playing, and we'd all been excitedly wondering what he'd play - well, I say "wondering", certain members of Team Percussion had got SO excited that they'd been online googling setlists.
He was EXCELLENT - ALL the hits were played, including "The One And Only" which, of course, he wrote, and even the NEW stuff sounded good. It was a GRATE set, made even more delightful by the sight of so many hard core anarchists in "Destroy Capitalism" t-shirts getting GIDDY when he played "The Riddle".
More beer was taken and then we decided to call it a night, as it was COLD, and we ended up back at the Travelodge for 11pm. SENSIBLE!
Next morning, after a hearty breakfast, we headed into Cockermouth ITSELF, where we looked at the RIVER (mercifully NOT flooded) and then had a wander round the Wordsworth House. It was Quite Good - personally I prefer these sort of places to have more of the actually WRITING by the author, like they do at the Samuel Johnson Houses, or indeed the Dickens Museum, but this was National Trust so I guess they're more interested in the house. It was GOOD tho, and we then strolled down the street for a PUB LUNCH with The Pattisons.
WHAT AM I SAYING?!? That isn't what happened AT ALL, ignore ALL THE ABOVE. What actually happened, ON TOUR, is that we stayed up all night then rode on motorbikes into Carlisle to visit a CRACK DEN. That's definitely it.
Reports were coming in from The Frankie Machine Camper Van Machine that their battery had run out, but by the time we got back on site all was well and we were QUORATE. Beer, chat, ALL THAT, and soon it was time to soundcheck.
Ooh, it is nice to play on a big proper stage - there was plenty of ROOM, everything sounded GRATE (Tim ESEPCIALLY was BORN to play STADIUM GIGS!) and we even got to have our own monitor mixes, it sounded FAB. The other stage was running late, so they asked us to hold back a while, so it was just after 6pm when we went on stage and did THIS:
Billy Jones Is Dead
Hey Hey 16K
Theme From Dinosaur Planet
Don't, Darren, Don't
A Little Bit
Please Don't Eat Us
Being Happy Doesn't Make You Stupid
The Lesson Of The Smiths
Easily Impressed
Playing on a big stage is GRATE... but it doesn't half make your audience look small! We had about 30 people in, which would have been FINE in normal circumstances, but did leave rather HUGE spaces in the rest of the tent!! A few people wandered in during the course of the set, and a few more wandered out - we didn't really fit with the more folky sound of the festival, I guess, and the sun WAS out and the main stage WAS, i think, restarting quite soon, so there were all kinds of reasons not to be packed out (i personally think the photograph of Frankie Machine was to blame!), and anyway, we had a LOVELY time. The sound was AMAZING and, much to our own surprise, we seem to have become a TIGHT ROCKING BAND in our old age!
It was HUGE fun to be all together and sounding so good, and I was rather proud of our MATURITY in the face of tiny crowds. Not so long ago it would have got us down, but the people who WERE there were ACE, and we gave them a RIGHT PROPER SHOW. I did, I must admit, miss out the usual "Introducing The Band" and "THE TIGER'S ROAR" bits, and didn't do as MUCH chat between songs (our 9 song set was thus about 15 minutes shorter than our 9 song set at Firebug last month!!) but other than that we WENT for it with full GUSTO. It was GRATE!
And then afterwards I was amazed to find a QUEUE had formed of people wanting to buy CDs! Best of all, at the front of the queue, was a young lad who wanted us ALL to sign his copy for him - it was wonderful! I also met a man later in the day who VERY STERNLY wished to tell me that he REALLY enjoyed it and thought it was EXCELLENT. I got the distinct impression he'd been talking to some people who disagreed!
With our job done we relaxed and enjoyed the rest of the day - I had a chat to Mr Sean McGhee of R2 magazine who, hilariously, had lost track of time and kept saying "I'm really looking forward to seeing you", and we watched an EXCELLENT covers band doing "Enjoy Yourself" and some proper Irish folk songs. We even smiled benignly when the band AFTER us PACKED OUT the tent doing a cover version of "Motorcyle Emptiness!"
It was a beautiful day out, and it ended with the whole lot of us sitting around outside the Pattisons' tent eating biscuits, drinking beer, and talking a load of old nonsense. We ALWAYS say it but, really, the actual GIG part of these expeditions is such a tiny tiny part of the whole thing, it almost gets in the way of the sitting around talking to each other.
Next time, however, I hope we manage to do it somewhere a bit warmer, as it was BLOODY FREEZING. Hugs were had and soon we were back in the warmth of the Travelodge at the SUPREMELY SENSIBLE time of 10.30pm. It was good to get some kip - the next day I ended up travelling for nearly EIGHT HOURS to get home.
It had been a fantastic weekend though, with two very different but equally lovely gigs, and it's always brilliant to see The Validators. I wish we got to do MORE festivals really, they're ACE!
posted 9/5/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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Horizons At The BFI
I was up SUPER EARLY on Saturday morning, so that I could ZOOM across town to the BFI where I was due to appear at Horizons: The Sinclair ZX Spectrum At 30 as part of the Sci-Fi London festival.
I arrived super early because I knew that the South Bank (where the BFI is) is NOTORIOUSLY difficult to navigate, and this wasn't helped by the fact that I had foolishly printed out the BFI's own Simplified Map. Aaah! The Simplified Map! Has there ever been a WORSE idea? "Hey, fellow design guys! This boring ordinary map is too complex, with all its street names and representation of actual geography. Let's simplify it so it LOOKS nice!" "But boss! Won't that make it impossible to use?" "GET THEE AWAY, young Novice Design Guy! Maps are meant to LOOK NICE, who cares if they actually work as MAPS?!?"
Eventually i found the BFI Southbank - UNDERNEATH a bridge, not on a street running parallel to it as the Simplified Map had beautifully described it - and after some wandering about with a fellow lost soul (who I was following because he looked like he knew where he was going... but he turned out to be trying to follow ME) we found our way to the Blue Room, a very pleasant 100-ish capacity room. I was quite relieved to find out it WASN'T a cavernous space, as it made doing my soundcheck much easier i.e. I didn't NEED any amplification, so didn't have to do one.
More people arrived, including someone running a STALL selling old ZX Spectrum tapes, which everyone gathered round to DROOL over. There were also copies of the original ZX Spectrum User Guide, my BRANE went ZANG with MEMORIES!
While we waited to start people kept coming over saying "AHA! You must be MJ Hibbett!" For AGES i thought "Gosh, I must be WELL famous" before I realised that a) I was the only person there carrying a guitar and b) I was wearing a Hey Hey 16K t-shirt. That would probably explain it.
This actually worked out pretty well as lots of nice people came over to ME for a CHAT, which was lovely. There were a couple of people there with a Posh Camera filming the event, and they came over to say hello too - they were making a documentary about the effects of the ZX Spectrum, and asked if I'd mind them using "Hey Hey 16K" over the end-titles. I told them I didn't mind that ONE LITTLE BIT, and excitedly exchanged BUSINESS CARDS!
Soon it was SHOW TIME and, after a brief intro, I took to the stage and played Hey Hey 16K. I'd been really worried about it beforehand, as I nearly ALWAYS get it wrong, but this time I not only got it RIGHT but also played it at a reasonable TEMPO too. It turns out that playing songs at 11:30am when you HAVEN'T drunk loads of beer makes it MUCH easier to remember the words!
I then delivered a couple of REMARKS about how GRATE the legacy of the Spectrum is (my idea to go "AHAHA! The Commodore 64 is RUBBISH!" was vetoed by the same part of my BRANE that remembers lyrics before noon) and then I did Programming Is A Poetry For Our Time, which seemed to ALSO work pretty well, then GOT OFF.
I had time to hang around for a LITTLE bit afterwards, but I soon realised that that would mean shuffling around getting my gear together and noisily leaving during someone else's TALK, so thought it best just to get GONE. It was a shame as the rest of the day looked BRILLIANT, and I wish i could have stayed, but I had another appointment to keep, so dashed off to St Pancras, and thence to Leicester, where the rest of the weekend was waiting for me.
posted 8/5/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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Ron Mueck And Posh Pubs
Living in London is often ANNOYING, but it's also MEGA-BRILL, as it's FULL of exciting things to see and do every single day. So much so that it feels RUDE not to go and do some of them occasionally.
Thus on Thursday, having been and placed my vote on the way to work (now waiting for them to pick the WINNING vote - though I'm not sure what the prize is?) I went AFTER work to Saville Row, to visit the Hauser Wirth Gallery for their Ron Mueck exhibition. I'd been to see his last exhibition,tipped off to its ACENESS by my brother Thomas, and so when I saw that THIS one was happening I alerted the self-same sibling, and we met in the gallery.
It was GRATE. I'd read a couple of reviews online and seen some pictures, and had assumed that the four sculptures shown were highlights... but actually they were the WHOLE THING, so it only took ten minutes, at a slow pace, to see them all! They're basically super-realistic sculptures, painted to look entirely lifelike, but at odd sizes, and they are LOVELY. The woman with sticks was my favourite, I think, but they were all (well, maybe not the giant chicken) CUDDLE-ABLE. I strode round with a big silly GRIN on my fave, LOVING them... though I must say by the time I got to the last one the THEME had become a bit over-powering. "YES!" i thought, loudly. "IT's JESUS! I GET IT!"
Finding ourselves finishing much earlier than expected we retired to a nearby pub - I'd had a look on Fancyapint before coming out and found one called The Windmill which turned out to be SURPRISINGLY nice. That bit of London is full of a) tourists b) MEGA-POSHOES so PUBS are a bit rum, but this one was delightful, with a HUGE range of Beers on. I drank OTTER all night - we ended up staying for ... er... more than a couple, as DISCUSSIONS RAGED on subjects various - but there were about NINE choices!
It was also hilariously full of the MEGA-POSH, most of whom didn't seem to understand how pubs worked. Some of them looked displeased to constantly be asked to move, not having realised that standing IN FRONT OF THE STAIRS LEADING TO THE TOILET might NOT be the best of plans, while others appeared to be using a BAR for the first time. The bar area looked constantly PACKED, three deep, but it kept turning out that they were ALL going TOGETHER, EN MASSE, as if they thought you had to be age-identified individually. It was quite sweet really.
It was all part of a marvellous bit of London-Useage - something which continues tomorrow morning when I ZOOM over to the BFI to play the Horizons: 30 Years Of The ZX Spectrum event. It looks like being a FANTASTIC week of events - all of which I shall miss as i THEN zoom off to a train, in order to catch the TIGERMOBILE from Leicester to Cumbria, where we're playing the Nuts In May Festival.
It's a busy weekend ahead, I shall report back if I manage to get home in one piece!
posted 4/5/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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Bands And Stand-Ups And Competitions
A few months ago there was a HUGE FUSS in the world of stand-up comedy when a Stand-Up Comedy Competition was seen to be CHARGING people to enter. Those of us from the world of ROCK threw up our hands in MOCK ASTONISHMENT. "What? Charging people to enter a competition? That would NEVER happen here!"
For LO! For us a Battle Of The Bands Competition (which is the direct equivalent of all these stand-up comedy talent shows) is ALWAYS a complete rip-off. You pay a fee, drag all your friends down to a local pub on an otherwise quiet Monday night, and whoever gets the most friends in WINS their round. This is repeated EVERY Monday night until the Grand Final, when the band with the haridest followers gets a prestigious three hour session in the local studio and everyone else goes home. The only lasting legacy of ANY of these is that any bands still going at the end of it all learns a valuable lesson: NEVER give money or time to ANYBODY who asks how many people you expect to bring along to the gig.
Over in stand-up though it does appear to be different. Comedy bookers actually GO to these sort of shows, so appearing in them (at least, appearing in the finals) CAN to lead to other bookings. Comedians not only ADMIT to winning competitions but put their awards on their CVs, PROUDLY - any band who did that would surely be a LAUGHING STOCK - and the competitions themselves are regarded as a VALID, WHOLESOME part of a young comedian's career.
The situation seems to be even MORE different in the world of WRITING, where I have also been dabbling of late. Here there are competitions GALORE, with prizes AND publication at the end of it, and special SCHEMES set up SPECIFICALLY to FIND new writers. Even more than that, whenever I've sent SCRIPTS out to Producers and Script Editors I've ALWAYS had responses - not from everyone I've sent them to, but from SOME of them. In all the years I sent demo tapes out I never EVER got a reply, and I certainly didn't get the constructive criticism and MANNERS I've had from Script Rejection Letters.
But WHY should this be? Whenever I've spoken to people about it the first answer is usually "Because there's MONEY in music" but it's actually COMPLETELY THE OPPOSITE. Musicians are FOREVER getting stiffed for CA$H - we OFTEN don't get paid for gigs, or just get petrol money, are stuff is forever being used without permission, and hardly ANYBODY makes a living doing it. The old MYTHS about making your fortune with a song are OLD OLD STORIES perpetuated only by people who think they can make money out of young bands willing to sign away their lives on the promise of a Rolls Royce in a swimming pool.
But you only have to turn the telly on to see how many opportunities there are for writers, and especially COMEDY writers. There are hundreds of TV shows on all day every day on hundreds of commerical TV channels needing THOUSANDS of writers to keep them going, and there's also films, radio, commericals, magazines, even comics - a MASS of outlets desperate for anyone who can string a few words together, CRYING OUT for even a HINT of humour. It's a world where you CAN and DO get paid for writing things - you'd think that all the SCAM ARTISTS would gravitate there, rather than piddling around in local pubs on a Monday night.
Or maybe that's why it actually DOES work. Maybe it's the fact that there IS money to be had that means there's a huge structure of Producers, Script Editors, Agents, Talent Scouts, Festivals and so on - there's a Financial POINT behind it that means it NEEDS to work, unlike here in the silly old music "business" where decades of crooks and charlatans have occasionally got lucky, while in the meantime millions of other people have just got on with MAKING music for the fun of it.
So I think what I'm saying is this: OI! THE ARTS! Stop funding grants and outreach for poets and novelists, and go out and buy some ALBUMS instead. We need it, they don't!
posted 3/5/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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Campaign Relaunch Ahoy
The Dinosaur Planet CAMPAIGN may have appeared to have quietened down a little of late, but like minds immeasurably superior to our own (although, to be honest, not very much like that) the CAMPAIGN TEAM (me) is drawing up PLANS - plans which took a big leap forward today when a hundred of THESE arrived:
They're the PROMO SINGLES for The Battle Of Peterborough, which we'll be releasing as a FREE DOWNLOAD on May 28th, along with a REALLY REALLY EXCITING VIDEO. I've just put the finishing touches to this and, as promised, it does indeed feature some QUITE ASTOUNDING special effects. I'm hoping to put the video up a week or so before the "single" itself goes live, partly to Maximise Promotional Awareness, but MOSTLY because I'm so excited about it I can't really WAIT much longer!
The CDs, by the way, are just for sending out to radio stations and a few print media outlets - I haven't done this with any of the previous free downloads so I thought I'd see if this made any difference to airplay - so i WON'T be making them available for sale. If they DO work, however, and I end up doing a couple more, then i might do some BOX SETS of them later in the year.
For LO! there is more - MUCH more - to come, with at least TWO more videos in the works, a batch of Validators Gigs to play, a mini-revival of the STAGE SHOW in the Autumn and maybe some EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH too. As well as being an all round top notch PERFORMER, Ms J Lockyer also runs STORYTIME at weekends at The Green Dragon in Croydon. As part of the half-term excitement in June she's running two days (Friday 8th and Saturday 9th June) based on Dinosaur Planet, with stories, arts activities, workshops, music - THE LOT. It's all TERRIBLY exciting, and it's making me think about making some resource packs available to Schools,Youth Groups, Libraries - that sort of thing. Does anyone have any THORTS/IDEAS about the logistics/common sense of this? I've got scripts, songbooks, and copies of the artwork that I can give away for free, LOADS of CDs, copies of all of our videos and all manner of stuff like that, and I'd very much like to hear from people in the KNOW about whether that might actually WORK. I recorded Dinosaur Planet with the idea of it being HEARD, especially by KIDS, without really worrying about BOUNDLESS RICHES, and I think this might be a nice way of going about it.
I've also just had my CRB check through!
In summary then: watch the skies my friends, there is a DINOSAUR PLANET looming once more upon the horizon!
posted 2/5/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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Many Mighty Meetings
I was off work yesterday with the POORLIES (I am being very brave about it and have STRUGGLED IN today) but before that I attended a wide and fascinating range of EVENTS.
On Thursday The Members Of My Movement and I went to St Bride's Church on Fleet Street to see a DISCUSSION about a) Capitalism b) Occupy c) Other. It was simultaneously FASCINATING and ANNOYING - fascinating because there were loads of people with really REALLY interesting things to say and viewpoints I had never really experienced, but annoying because there were people with nothing to say who wanted to say it A LOT in ways I have heard many times. This latter section reminded me very much of Student Union Meetings at Leicester Poly, 1989, when the Social Worker Party would merrily take over all and every discussion by going "But look! LOOK AT US! LOOK!"
This, as ever, got my GRUMP up, but they were roundly outnumbered by people like the Crusty Lad (hem hem, my stereotyping) who talked about the need to be open-ended in their aims (i.e. he said it much better than me!) or the Veteran Feminist who talked about capitalism co-opting feminism, or the market trader who spoke about shareholders taking on big companies, or indeed the PANEL of Naomi Colvin, Giles Fraser and Robert Phillips from Edelman. It was like going to see Billy Bragg in a funny old way, in that i came away ENERGISED and MILDY AGGRIEVED - ENERGISED with a BRANE full of old ideas challenged and new ideas inserted, but mildly aggrieved about Unneccessary Poetry instead of An Excess Of Woody Guthrie. GOOD TIMES!
The next day I went on a COURSE to learn about Taxation For The Self-Employed (booked MONTHS ago when I thought that I would, by now, BE self-employed). I learnt a LITTLE bit about the subject, including getting some answers to questions I'd been WHITTLING about for a while, but mostly I learnt about the interests, practices and incomprehension of MATHS of several reflexology students who were doing this day course as part of their diploma. You know THAT GUY who says "ha!" at every "joke" in a presentation, or "Yes!" at every statement, or basically reacts volubly to EVERY SINGLE THING EVER? Often with Lenghty And Irrelevant Anecdotes? He was there, and so were many of his friends.
My FINAL meeting of the weekend was MUCH more fun, being a reconnoitre with my old pal Mr S Carter to go and see "THE AVENGERS". I went in thinking "I bet I'm going to enjoy this" and BY GOLLY I DID. The first half was PRETTY RUDDY GOOD but the second half... CRIKEY! It was pretty much everything i love about a) comics b) exciting films c) Mr J Whedon all jumbled up together and labelled "WARNING: ALMOST TOO MUCH FUN". I think the only problem I had with it was that I kept thinking it was all an end-scene. "Ah!" I would think. "Here is Samuel L Jackson. I can put my coat on and go home now". Also I kept thinking things like "Yeah! It would be SO COOL to see a FITE between THOR and IRON MAN, especially if they got the proper actors in" as if my MIND could not HANDLE the FACT that THIS WAS ACTUALLY HAPPENING!!!
It was MEGA-BRILL - and who could have guessed that ALL the best bits would be THE HULK eh? Not me, that's for sure. It topped off a trio of BRANE CHALLENGING events in the best possible way. It's not wonder my body needed some time to recover!
posted 1/5/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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The Stores Of Not To Be
As subscribers to the newsletter will by now know, today sees the release of a brand new SINGLE by me - The Stores Of Not To Be.
It's been released by those marvellous young people at House VS Home as part of their monthly singles club, and comes complete with another brand new recording, this time of Only A Robot (from out of off of Moon Horse. It also has a rather SMASHING cover, THUS:
Good eh? It's all available RIGHT NOW at a "name your own price" kind of price. I must say I'm quite PROUD of how it turned out, hope you enjoy it!
posted 30/4/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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Museums Show Off
I don't know how it's happened, but I seem to have become ADDICTED to doing gigs at The Camden Head - I seem to be have been there more than any nearly other venue over the past couple of years, and I was back there again last night to meet Mr S Hewitt before our performance at Museums Showoff.
The idea of the evening is to get people who work in (or, I think AROUND) Museums to come and talk about aspects of their WORK - it's a Slightly More Specific spin-off of Science Show Off, and this was their first, or PILOT, show. We'd got on board because, like, Museums have Dinosaurs in them?
After dropping off our gear and saying "We won't need the PA thanks" we hopped over the road to The Maharani where we were soon joined by The Spice In My Balti for a DELICIOUS curry. MAN but that place is good - maybe THAT is why i am so drawn to the Camden Head? I don't think ANYWHERE else has SUCH a nice curry house directly opposite!
We got back to the venue just after things had started, to find the room PACKED OUT. As it was the first show I'd thought it might, at best, be half full, but I forgot: this is the world of COMEDY, where gigs GET FULL! Pretty much ALWAYS!
The format of the evening was that each person got nine minutes to talk about their topic, and of course Academics being Academics nearly everyone got OVER-EXCITED and had to RUSH their last few slides - when I used to run conferences many years ago this ALWAYS happened and it's rather CHARMING to see it still goes on in a NEW GENERATION. I used to think it was bad planning but now I realise it's because these people LOVE what they do and are THRILLED to have the opportunity to tell everyone else about it, it's LOVELY.
There were all sorts of FASCINATING things talked about, with an audience who HUNG on every word. I can think of no more impressive demonstration of how KEEN everyone was than the following: towards the end of a GRATE talk about a Collection of TATOOED, PRESERVED, HUMAN SKIN the presenter showed a recently discovered picture of the original "owner" of the skin. He was totally in the NUDE and you could see his PENIS. VERY CLEARLY. And did anyone LARF? Did anyone POINT or mention it AT ALL? My friends, they did not. I was EXCESSIVELY impressed!
Someone, however, had to bring down the tone and this was OUR job as we went on at the very end of the evening and did THIS:
Theme From Dinosaur Planet (overture)
The Theory Of A Dinosaur Planet
A Little Bit
Literature Search
Dinosaurs Talk Like Pirates
After everyone else had been so LEARNED and PROPER I thought we might struggle a bit, but BY GOLLY it went REALLY well! We were both a) quite surprised b) very pleased! I guess we should have expected playing A Little Bit for a crowd made up almost ENTIRELY of people who work in research MIGHT go down quite well, but the whole thing seemed to work out well. I did most of the talking, Steve did most of the singing, and the FACT that we'd actually THORT about it beforehand and worked out the setlist didn't half help. Of the many shows we've done of Dinosaur Planet (and, indeed, Moon Horse) excerpts, this was far and away the BEST. HOORAH!
Afterwards we sat around for a bit and had a chat to even MORE interesting people, including a group of paleontolgists who were very polite about me saying "Like Ross from Friends?", and then headed out into the night, full of the joys of RESEARCH. A bloody lovely evening!
posted 26/4/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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Green Man
At last, after months of me DESPERATELY fighting the need to SHOW OFF LIKE MAD, it can finally be revealed: me and Steve are doing Dinosaur Planet at The Green Man Festival!
We were actually ASKED if we'd be interested in doing this LAST year, but it clashed with our shows at The Fringe and we couldn't work out a way to do BOTH. THIS year, however, with NO Fringe planned, we were well up for doing it and were very VERY pleased to be asked again. This is the main reason for the abbreviated version we were practicing the other day, and also the THRUST behind the performance at The Camden Fringe.
It's all VERY exciting, bit least since I've discovered PALS like Mr G Osborn and Mr B Moor will also be playing, and I'm RIGHT looking forward to seeing Jonathan Richman. INDEED, myself and The Hills In My Valley got SO excited about it that we're actually staying on for a week AFTER the festival's finished - we're having an ever so grown-up holiday in THE BRECON BEACONS, staying in a cottage and going for walks (to the pub).
I should say at this point that it IS just me and Steve - I'm not sure why it says that The Vlads are playing, but hopefully we can make that come TRUE another year. It's a real honour to be asked to play at such an PRESTIGIOUS festival, and rest assured we're going to be spending the next four months learning our lines in preparation!
posted 25/4/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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An Afternoon Of Dinosaurs
I was up to my neck in DINOSAURS for most of this weekend. Myself and Mr S Hewitt are performing a selection of songs from Dinosaur Planet at Museums Showoff tomorrow and as it's been a while since we performed any of those songs we thought it might be a GOOD IDEA to get together for a practice.
This we very much DID - we have a 9 minute slot, so worked up a 7 minute SETLIST, finishing with a DANCE ROUTINE, which ought to do the trick. After that we moved on to a performance of a revised version of the entire SHOW. We're reviving the whole thing for a couple of gigs in August, one of which will be at a Festival That I'm Not Allowed To Tell You About Yet, and the other will be a WARM UP for said extravaganza at The Camden Head on August 13, as part of the Camden Fringe.
The main lesson I learnt from doing the two-man version of Dinosaur Planet was that BORING BITS aren't much fun for everyone. I distinctly remember how getting to certain points of the show and thinking, every time, "Oh well, we're putting the Robot Heads on soon, it'll pick up again then." When I wrote Moon Horse I tried my best to eliminate ALL boring bits, and almost succeed - anyone who's seen may remember the whole "rhyming section" which never worked as I'd hoped, but otherwise I think it managed at least not to SAG at any point.
With this in mind (and especially considering we'll be doing it an an ACTUAL FESTIVAL where people might be sat a fair way away) I PRUNED the story, cutting out some characters (Sgt Phil, Professor Probersite) ENTIRELY and generally trimming back some of the less, shall we say, EXCITING parts. It seemed to work pretty well - we both expressed dismay at various removals, but largely agreed on the changes, and made a recording of the whole thing so that we can learn it up over the next few months. There's not much time for practicing between the end of THE OLYMPICS (which, as you may know, Steve is basically the STAR of) so it seemed like a good idea.
Not satisfied with all THAT we then spent a GLEEFUL fifteen minutes MANIPULATING LIZARDS. I'm making a video for The Battle Of Peterborough (due for release in about 5 weeks, I will MOST LIKELY be mentioning it a few times between now and then!) which uses ASTONISHING SPECIAL EFFECTS, and some of these require two pairs of hands to make work. Thus we sat in front of my computer WAVING DINOSAURS around in front of the camera. It's very difficult NOT to make Dinosaur noises when doing this sort of thing... so we didn't try, and had a very lovely time going "GRAAAGH! NGGG! RARGLE! GRRRR!!" and EMOTING via plastic.
Then we went to THE PUB for a couple of WELL EARNED pints. It had been an afternoon FULL of Dinosaurs, and we were WORN!
posted 24/4/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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What It Did Get Me Today
Today is (INCREDIBLY) the 30th Birthday of the ZX Spectrum and, rather wonderfully, my entire twitter feed is ALIGHT with people singing it's praises.
And so they should - as I've mentioned elsewhere the Spectrum had a MASSIVE effect on my entire generation. It's hard to believe now, but when I was a young teenager me and all my friends would spend huge chunks of our spare time CODING for FUN. We'd swap program listings between us, which we'd TYPE into the machine by HAND, and by doing so we learnt how to program a quirky version of BASIC.
Obviously we ALSO swapped tapes of GAMES between us - A LOT - but even that had unforseen Education Benefits. Playing games (A LOT) led you to understand how they were made, and therefore how programming was done too. Working out that the pieces of the AMULET in SABRE WULF appeared in one of four groups of locations, for instance, led to an understanding of ARRAYS, and wondering how they made the MAPS of Lords Of Midnight led to all manner of investigations into DATABASES.
And to think, all those times I told my Mum that playing on my computer was EDUCATIONAL, I was actually RIGHT!
Of course this BUBBLE didn't last, and new pre-programmed games machines came along which not only didn't REQUIRE coding knowledge, but didn't even ALLOW it. I was stunned when I did my computing MSc a decade ago to find that, though people of MY generation had an in-built understanding of how computers ACTUALLY WORKED, people younger than us had no idea AT ALL. We'd WHIZZ through Javascript like it was second nature, but to them it was a whole new THING.
As well as all that, of course, it had a MAJOR impact on my life when I went and wrote Hey Hey 16K, first in 1999 when we made it The World's First Ever Internet Single (all other contenders: SHUT UP) and then in 2004 when Mr Rob Manuel turned into into one of the first ever viral videos. We had over two million hits for his flash animation in the first FORTNIGHT of released - pretty incredible when you consider that there was no YouTube, and most people didn't even have the internet at home - and it's continued to be a MAJOR part of my gigging life ever since.
So, today, let us all SALUTE the mighty little machine that changed the lives of my generation and - if you want to get PRACTICAL about it - made this country a MAJOR PLAYER in the FUTURE, with a ready made nation of PROGRAMMERS who could take on THE WORLD. Thank you Sir Clive, thank you very much indeed!
posted 23/4/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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The Final Night Of The Tour - Birmingham
On the second (FINAL) day of the tour I woke up to a TEXT from Mr Chris T-T, who'd been also playing in Bristol the previous night. We arranged a MEET UP and so I found myself at 11:30am struggling up an ENORMOUS HILL to the Boston Tea Party cafe for a SUMMIT ... on a SUMMIT!
I was soon joined by Chris and Ms Laura Kidd, who is TOURING with him, and a little while later by Gavin, and OH WHAT A TALK we all had. It was BRILLIANT - you know when you're yacking away and someone says "OOh, we should go really" but it's all SO INTERESTING you just keep on going until, 15 minutes later someone says it again but... well, you get the idea. SHOP was very heartily TALKED, some DELICIOUS BREAKFASTS and coffee were consumed, and new FRIENDSHIPS were ablossom. It was GRATE - meeting and chatting to COLLEAUGUES like this is usually one of the BEST BITS of ANY gig, so it was fab to get an extra bonus bit in!
We finally said our farewells and me and Gav went DOWNHILL to the railway station, for a most pleasant trip to Birmingham which FLEW by in a WHIRL of FURTHER CHAT. Goodness me but Mr Osborn has had an Interesting Career, I never knew the half of it! He never knew the half of what I was banging on about either, but LUCKILY FOR HIM i TOLD him!
We were booked into The Britannia Hotel, which Mr Frankie Machine had described as "Adequate and Cheap". Reviews online had been APPALLING but we found it to be, well, ADEQUATE. It was the kind of vast lump of CONCRETE that Birmingham City Centre used to be famous for, and had clearly seen MUCH better days, but apart from having the THINNEST WALLS I've ever experienced in a hotel it was FINE.
Mind you, when Frankie arrived he found himself in reception with a man shouting "THIS IS THE WORST HOTEL EVER!!!" so maybe I was just too full of the joys of THE ROAD to judge correctly? While he (Frankie, not the angry man) went to get checked in the rest of the party retired to Harvey's Bar, where Happy Hour mean LUDICROUSLY cheap drinks - which is probably why it attracted several NE'ER DO WELLS who were almost immediately CHUCKED OUT. It was EXCITING!
Frankie came downstairs, further TALES were exchanged (including an EXCELLENT one Gav had heard the night before from Mr Graeme Garden about Larry Adler - it was SHOWBIZ!) and we hopped into a taxi and out to The Station pub in Kings Heath.
They sold Butcombe Bitter on tap. Three grown men thus spent the rest of the evening saying "Mmm, i love the taste of Butcombe" AGANE AND AGANE. Life On The Road!
Mr R Kirkham, PROMOTER, arrived shortly after us with a DELICIOUS pile of GRUB, we set the room out, and a CROWD gradually arrived. It was a proper crowd too, it was ACE!
Ray had been worried about people talking, so asked me to, basically, COMPERE, so I could tell people NOT to. As it happened nearly everyone was FINE - the only exception being the pals of the BAR STAFF, who didn't seem to realise we could here them. I never understand this - it's happened a few times when doing Totally Acoustic stuff, everyone else is mega polite, but the bar staff (who've SURELY worked during gigs before) YAK AWAY.
It was fine really tho - it only happened a couple of times, and during my set I did STERN LOOKS and QUIETNESS and it stopped, it just felt a bit ODD!
ANYWAY the evening kicked off with Mr David Leach, who did a GRATE set on his ukelele. He was brilliant, even tho he almost LOST the audience by doing a song about how he used to think TWENTY TWO was old. You could HEAR a whole section of the room GROAN, and following it up with "I'm 26 now tho" didn't really help! He was ACE tho, and we did a CD swap later, leading me to have a KNITTED CD case!
Frankie went second and held the room in the palm of his hand, with them all craning forward to get every drop of his beautiful songs. "Black Eyes" and "How Grate Thou Art" stood out, as did closing with a song about HIS BOY which... well, you'll have to hear it, it's the sort of song only HE could write, being beautiful, sentimental, and ASTOUNDINGLY BLUNT all at once!
Mr Osborn came on third and won over THE LOT. As I said before, I can't understand why The Indie COmmunity hasn't taken him as one to their BOSOM, WRESTLING him from a world of Comedy Type Gigs and claiming him as OURS. He was, as ever, touching, funny, and DELIGHTFUL in equal measure. And then I went on and - HO! - spoilt the mood by doing THIS:
My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once
The Stores Of Not To Be
The Perfect Love Song
It Only Works Because You're here
IT Guy Addendum
Strangely Attractive
Theme From Dinosaur Planet
Hey Hey 16K
The Lesson Of The Smiths
Boom Shake The Room
I THOROUGHLY enjoyed it - after YEARS of SHOWS and ALBUMS it's lovely being FREE to do whatever I want to play, and I'm particularly happy about bringing IT Guy Addendum into the live set, doing Strangely Attractive all by myself (it works!) and getting an ACTUAL NEW SONG involved in the shape of The Stores Of Not To Be. It was FUN all round, for me at least, and the room seemed to quite like it too. GOOD TIMES!
There was more conversation and HUGS before it was time to go for the TOUR CURRY we'd promised ourselves. Ray took us to one nearby which turned out to be CLOSED, and so we HOPPED in a taxi and asked to be taken to FOOD. The driver recommended Dirwan Balti, which we'd been to YEARS before, so that's where we went. The food was FANTASTIC, but after a few minutes we realised that it was a Bring Your Own Beer place, and we were there LONG after the closure of all off-licences.
A strange MATURITY took hold (which, to be frank, was very little in evidence from our conversation at this point!) and we all realised this might not be such a bad idea, and so the evening - and, indeed, the TOUR - ended with us swapping stories over curry and glasses of WATER. We taxied back to the hotel full of a) food b) JOY, and said our farewells, ready for different journey times next day.
It was a BLOODY LOVELY couple of days, seeing LOTS of pals, talking LOTS of nonsense, and drinking a surprisingly UNLUDICROUS amount of BEER. Let's do it again some time chaps!
posted 20/4/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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The First Night Of The Tour - Bristol
On Monday lunchtime I headed out ON THE ROAD for a tour which had originally been planned as a week long JAUNT around the NATION... but which, due to some double bookings, some short notices, and some, well, lack of interest, had boiled down to just two dates. Still, they were on subsequent days and I was staying away from home both nights, so it still COUNTED!
The first night was at Mr Wolf's in Bristol, and I arrived at 7pm to find Mr G Osborn, my TOUR BUDDY, already there with some pals including his PIANIST, John. We sat down and IMMEDIATELY fell into LARKS and LARFS and I knew that this tour was going to be FUN - before setting off I had a slight worry that it might be a bit low key and pointless, but now i was actually ON TOUR I remembered that this sort of thing ALWAYS has a point - and that point, my friends, is ROCK!
There was usually an Acoustic Night on Mondays at the venue, and the organiser wanted us to, basically, play ALL NIGHT LONG from 8.30pm to 11pm, so I suggested that we do TWO sets each. This seemed more sensible than both of us trying to do HUGE sets - not only would it give US and the AUDIENCE a rest from our voices, it also meant that if people came and went there be more chance for them to see BOTH of us.
A whole bunch of people came - many of whom, it must be admitted, were there to see John The Pianist's Brother-In-Law, a lovely chap who'd just got back to Blighty after two years in THAILAND - we had some FREE NOODLES, and soon it was time to commence. Here's what I did:
I must say i REALLY REALLY enjoyed this set, it had a whole PILE of the "quieter" songs which people seemed to LISTEN to and enjoy. It was a bit unusual for me as it was on a proper stage so I couldn't actually SEE anybody, but it all seemed to go OK.The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B)
A Little Bit
Strangely Attractive
Programming Is A Poetry For Our Time
It Only Works Because You're here
IT Guy Addendum
The Perfect Love Song
The Stores Of Not To Be
Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine
Billy Jones Is Dead
Gav came on next and, as ever, was BRILLIANT. He's got a new album out called Come On Folks, Settle Down which features some of my FAVOURITE of his songs (like "Albert Went Out To See Rock Bands" and "Over Thirty") and loads of other LOVELY stuff, like "Such A Cheeky Rascal" and "You Were Invincible", all of which got AIRED. It can't understand why he's not better known - everyone! Go and listen to his records! They're ACE!
We had a brief break after Gav's first set, then I went on and did my SECOND batch, THUS:
My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once
Payday Is The Best Day
Theme From Dinosaur Planet
Don't, Darren, Don't
Hey Hey 16K
The Gay Train
Being Happy Doesn't Make You Stupid
The Lesson Of The Smiths
Boom Shake The Room
In theory this was my set of BANKERS, in that it's the LOUD ones and/or THE HITS, but I must admit I didn't really enjoy it as much. Doing the quieter stuff in the first half was much more fun, although i did THOROUGHLY enjoy saying to the soundman - who'd been playing VERY LOUD DUB REGGAE at every gap in proceedings "I bet you really liked that one, it's your sort of music isn't it?" after the middle bit of Theme From Dinosaur Planet. He did NOD, so he must have agreed!
There then followed another half and hour of MARVELLOUSNESS from Mr Osborn before it was time to pack up. The DUB REGGAE went straight back on... which pretty much cleared the room, tho there was time to say some goodbyes, not least to the PROMOTER, a lovely and VERY enthusiastic chap who bought all the CDs we had on us.
Gavin and I went outside, intent on finding a PUB for a quiet drink and a chat, but quickly realised that a) he was driving b) we'd be spending all day tomorrow chatting c) neither of us knew where a good pub might be, so went home instead. It was a Sensible Decision after a really rather beautiful evening - and it set a pattern that would be followed in the second, climactic, half of the tour next day!
posted 19/4/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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Podcast is GO!
You find me this sunny morning poised to TOUR, but before I head off onto THE ROAD I thought I might mention that the latest episode of the Totally Acoustic Podcast is online NOW.
As discussed last week this was a particularly delightful evening and it's led to a particularly delightful podcast, featuring Mr Benjamin Shaw and Mr Chris T-T (and also ME). Every time I edit one of these I think "COR, this is DEAD GOOD!" because... well, because it is, and not just because it means I can take out the songs I got wrong or the GAGS that were least HILARIOUS! What I like MOST about this one is that the three of us in it are all doing the Singer Songwriting Thing, but all doing it DIFFERENTLY, not just from the standard Keening Brit School Whining Haircut way but also from EACH OTHER. Like I said last week, if only The Melody maker was still around we could call it a MOVEMENT!
And there's yet MORE of The Movement to come this week, as I'm off tonight to play with another prime exponent of the art, Mr Gavin Osborn, in BRISTOL. We're on at Mr Wolf's tonight, and then tomorrow we head to Birmingham to team up with Mr David Leach and Mr Francis Albert Machine at The Station in Kings Heath. There will be SONGS, there will be REMARKS and, if The Gods Of Rock are smiling on us, there will be BEER. It'd be nice to have an audience too, so if you're about do pop along if you can!
posted 16/4/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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Totally Acoustic
As I STRODE towards The King & Queen last night for Totally Acoustic I noticed someone on the other side of the road, carrying a guitar. "I wonder if that's Mr Benjamin Shaw, who's playing tonight but who I've never actually met?" I thought, handily explaining to myself why I wasn't sure.
IT WAS. We went in and had a bit of an old chat while we waited for the upstairs to clear out (due to a PARTY) and were soon joined by The Guests At My Function and then Mr Chris TT. For the first time ever ALL the acts were present before I'd even gone upstairs to set the room out!
We got set up then had some FURTHER chat, during which Chris revealed that he'd been to a DINNER at Google and ended up talking to two people who were fans of ME. I was rather pleased, though I suspect it may be because I am one of their top customers. "Who's googling MJ Hibbett AGANE?" they doubtless ask. "Oh. It's MJ Hibbett. AGANE."
ANYWAY, people drifted in and it was soon time to start, so i did THIS:
Totally Acoustic
Don't, Darren, Don't
The Theory Of A Dinosaur Planet
My Theory Of A Dinosaur Planet
The Perfect Love Song
Payday Is The Best Day
It Only Works Because You're here
Billy Jones Is Dead
A slightly LONGER set than of late at these gigs, partly because I'd had an AUDIT of songs that I haven't yet put in a Totally Acoustic podcast, and had realised that i had some fairly EASY options. It's a GOOD THING that podcasting these shows FORCES me to do root through the back catalogue to make sure I'm not repeating my own songs, but it doesn't half make it difficult sometimes, and does tend to lead to me being a bit NERVOUS at the gigs. HOWEVER, as I'm only going to be doing a couple more of them this year I thought I could RELAX and use up some songs that I KNOW a bit better, like Payday Is The Best Day. I haven't actually played that one LIVE for a couple of years, but the FACT that I played it at pretty much every gig when I was first starting out seems to have LODGED it in my BRANE!
Next up was Ben who, as stated previously, I'd never actually seen LIVE. A while back someone emailed me with a couple of suggested for acts to play Totally Acoustic - I do occasionally get emails like this and USUALLY it's from people who've never actually BEEN and seem to think it's a FOLK CLUB, so I always listen to these suggestions with some TREPIDATION. I was thus SURPRISED to hear how GRATE Ben's stuff was, and was surprised a whole lot more during the set. I said this to him afterwards and don't think I made it clear - what I mean is that every song had a SURPRISING turn of phrase, or chord, or something that I just didn't expect. Most times I see a Singer Songwriter you can pretty much guess what the rhyme'll be or how it'll work out, but he had some FANTASTIC lyrics that LEAPT to totally unexpected, yet CORRECT, places. He was a BIT like Superman Revenge Squad, in that the songs were massively downbeat but KIND OF amusing/heartening/enjoyable without asking for sympathy or excusing their own emotions.
I'm trying to say it was GRATE, basically! Watching him though, ENTHRALLED as I was, I thought how brilliant it was to get to see such UNIQUE performers, like him or SRS or Jim'll's Brain or... well, any of the acts that we've had on at these gigs. I always feel there's a KINSHIP between the people we get on, though most of us are out there in our own SCENES doing this ALONE. If only The Melody Maker was still going, they could call us a MOVEMENT!
And talking of KINSHIP, we finished with someone who i QUITE FRANKLY look up to as a HERO of This Sort Of Thing, the incomparable Chris TT, who did a MAGNIFICENT set which, i later realised, didn't really have any of [what I think of as] his HITS in. There was a LOAD of songs from "Disobedience", his AA Milne Show, and a MAGIC version of "Love Is Not Rescue" but none of the big singalong "LET'S STORM THE RAMPARTS!" songs, yet the whole thing was bloody magical. He really is an INSPIRING FORCE in all of this, and if you get a chance to see him on the MEGA TOUR that he's starting off this weekend, I'd URGE you to get along!
It was all rather wonderful, and I wandered off home thinking how marvellous it is to be able to DO this sort of thing. There's only TWO more of these shows coming up this year, with Frankie Machine and Gavin Osborn at the next one on May 10th - do come along if you can, it'll be GRATE!
posted 13/4/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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Space Dinosaurs Backed Up By SCIENCE
Yesterday afternoon I got a DELIGHTFUL twit from Norman Records, THUS:
@mjhibbett have you seen this?!?!?! http://phys.org/news/2012-04-a...
ASTOUNDINGLY it turns out that an Actual Proper Scientist has suggested a way that Space Dinosaurs could be REAL, in terminology oddly similar to Dinosaur Planet!! As other people started to ALSO tell me about it a PLAN had formed in my BRANE: Let's Do A PRESS RELEASE!
THUS I say myself down to write one and have JUST sent it out to Leading Media Outlets. You can read the whole thing at www.dinosaurplanet.co.uk/proof/ (and if anyone would like to link to it or RE-TWIT it I would, as ever, be extraordinarily grateful), but the GIST of it is as follows:
MJ Hibbett's Theory Of A Dinosaur Planet Could Be True, Says Professor
A report in this month's Journal of the American Chemical Society suggests that the terrifying Space Dinosaurs from MJ Hibbett & The Validators' album 'Dinosaur Planet' could very easily be real.
In the paper 'Evidence for the Likely Origin of Homochirality in Amino Acids, Sugars, and Nucleosides on Prebiotic Earth' Professor Ronald Breslow theorises that Tyrannosaurus Rex and other dinosaurs may have evolved on other planets to become more intelligent than humans.
(Space Dinosaurs: artist's impression by John Allison)
Professor Breslow, of Columbia University, says: "Elsewhere in the universe there could be life forms (which) could well be advanced versions of dinosaurs, if mammals did not have the good fortune to have the dinosaurs wiped out by an asteroidal collision, as on Earth. We would be better off not meeting them."
Alarmingly this is almost exactly what does happen at the start of the rock opera 'Dinosaur Planet'. Space Dinosaurs (whose ancestors escaped the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction event 65 million years ago) return to Earth as "kill-crazed psychopathic fans of war and death" armed with high tech weapons of destruction, intent on wiping out humanity.
"I did do some research into the science of dinosaur extinction while writing the album and came up with some ideas about what could have happened to them", says lead singer MJ Hibbett, "I never expected to be proved right!"
The album, which has also been quoted in the magazine of the Smithsonian Institute, goes on to posit the theory that the Dinosaurs were kidnapped by Giant Robots who will follow their prey to Earth and destroy the planet. "I'd be quite happy to be wrong about that," says MJ.
(Dinosaur planet is available to purchase from all online stores, download sites, and from the band themselves at http://www.dinosaurplanet.co.uk)
EXCITING, isn't it? I'm going to email Professor Breslow and send him a copy of the album to make sure he doesn't MIND me taking his name ever so slightly in VAIN. I'm hoping he won't - I'm guessing that someone who suddenly mentions SPACE DINOSAURS in a paper about AMINO ACIDS has a sense of humour - and I'll be sure to thank him VERY much for backing up the idea!
In the meantime, all Validators are on STANDBY for the - surely - INEVITABLE STORM of MEDIA INTEREST!
posted 12/4/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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Easter Breaked
Well hello again, it seems to have been a WEEK since last I blogged, a gap which can only be explained by EASTER!
Aaah, Easter! That most special time of the year when people who work for Universities not only get Bank Holiday Friday and Monday but ALSO the Thursday and Tuesday TOO, making for an IMMENSE and FREE nearly-a-week when PROJECTS may be undertaken. I personally have undertaken MANY.
There has been RECORDING, for instance - I'm releasing an ONLINE SINGLE soon via House VS Home Records which needed finishing off, with two NEW recordings that I finally got done and sent off yesterday. I've recorded versions of The Stores Of Not To Be and Only A Robot, very much in the style of A Million Ukeleles i.e. at HOME, though I don't think there's any ACTUAL ukulele on either of them. I think this'll be released next month - more news as it happens!
Meanwhile there are VIDEO plans afoot. As well as two - SO FAR - Secret Projects which are otherwise ONGOING I'm also planning to do my OWN video for The Battle Of Peterborough. I'm planning to use a Revolutionary Animation Technique and so I needed to do some TEST SHOTS to make sure it would WORK before PLUNGING into production. Initial reports say they DO work, so stand by for an EXPLOSION of ACTION over the coming months!
I've also been down to CORNWALL to see some parents, during which The Seats In My Auditorium and I visited The Minack Theatre. Holy moly, what a place! As you may have noticed (from me GOING ON ABOUT IT) I'm doing an MA in Playwriting and Screenwriting later this year. Until visiting the Minack it had never really HIT me that I'd be doing PLAYS, but being around such an EXCITING place got me all of a quiver about it!
There's been all sorts of other activities and ADMIN ACTS going on - not least the booking of several new gigs - but I think you get the idea. Easter has been a time of PLANS and CREATION, and now I'm ready to step into a SPRING of ROCK!
posted 11/4/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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The Lost Property Office
The podcast of Mr Pete Baran's SOAS radio show "The Lost Property Office", which I recorded with him last week, is online now for LISTENING and/or DOWNLOADING.
Fans of that classic genre "Grown Men Being A Bit Silly" are in for a TREAT, as is anyone who enjoys sitting behind old ladies on a bus NATTERING about How Things Were. It's actually, I think, really rather JOLLY as we go on at each other at a fair old clip. You know those RADIO TALKS where it's all quite stilted, with nobody having much to say, and things move painfully slowly? This is NOT like that!
As you can probably tell if you listen, we had a LOT of fun recording it, and I had almost as much LISTENING - Pete is dead good at this, so even though I'd ALREADY answered the questions I wanted ME From Last Week to shut up so ME NOW could answer a bit better.
AMAZINGLY, it's been online for three hours and how many local radio stations do you think have rung to offer us THE BREAKFAST SHOW? None of them, that's who! SHOCKING! You'd think someone would at least have been in touch about DRIVETIME!
posted 4/4/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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Stand Up Tragedy
If another Universe that isn't far from here yesterday would have been my first day of unemployment/the start of my glittering freelance career. Luckily our HR Department informed us (an amazing TWENTY FOUR HOURS in advance!)that it wouldn't be and so instead I trotted along to the Leicester Square Theatre full of the joys of EMPLOYMENT, ready to do a short set at Stand Up Tragedy.
When Mr D Pickering booked me he told me that the idea was to do a cabaret night concentrating on the more TRAGIC side of things, and this caused me MUCH CONTEMPLATION. Most of my songs have happy endings and/or concentrate on the POSITIVE, what could I do that would fit? I'd pretty much worked out a set that dealt SORT OF with this, but also with my unwillingness to HAVE unhappy endings in songs, and had many intentions of talking about this during the set, but luckily for all concerned when I TIMED it (all acts had a strict limit of 10 minutes) it turned out that the world would have to do WITHOUT my Philosophical Musings, and I should just concentrate on the songs!
With several (over THREE!) practices behind me I rolled up at the venue, did my sound check, then popped round the corner for a pint and to finish reading the autobiography of Olive Postgate, which has been a) heart warming b) thought provoking c) a little bit SAD, before returning to the THEATRE to find Not Many People Arriving. Dave and co were a bit PERTURBED by this, but we were certainly in double figures by the time the gig started and it was a lovely, receptive, LISTENING audience.
The other acts dealt with the topic in various ways, including Bec Hill doing a sadness based but actually dead FUNNY comedy set, and a short story about a family going on holiday in SPACE (which was Proper Science Fiction done as a homespun monologue). It struck me on the way home that apart from me and Dave (who compered) EVERYONE performing was a woman and that, actually, nearly ALL the comedians I've done The Comedy Gigs with have been women. Also, nearly ALL the people who've BOOKED the aforesaid comedy gigs have been women too. And yet I keep reading articles saying the reason there are less women on TV panel shows is because there aren't that many female comedians. TV Producers! Come to my gigs, you'll see LOADS of them!
Anyway, at the end of the show it was time for ME to go on and do a set. Normally at this point I'd give you the setlist, but thanks to the wonders of Modern Technology I can show you the entire GIG, THUS:
I'd been NERVOUS and worried before the gig about how it would all work but I must say I really REALLY enjoyed it. After all the other comedy gigs I've done where I've felt out of place and/or slightly incompetent, this one felt just RIGHT. Maybe this is what I've been doing WRONG before - trying to be COMEDY, going AT the audience and demand they LARF at songs which, actually, don't have the required number of Funny Lines to qualify as Funny Songs, and thus being talked over by an audience used to musicians coming on and doing Quiet Stuff. This time I did some GENTLER songs that WERE sort of sad but DID have funny bits in, as well as, in some cases, having Vaguely Twiddly Bits that people always seem to like. The Perfect Love Song even has a GUITAR SOLO in!
I started off with that, which led nicely into Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine (which I'm REALLY enjoying playing again) and then finished off with It Only Works Because You're here for the first time in AGES, including the "Please don't cry for main site IT guy" CODA which i don't think is on the video.
It was, I must say, a little bit of a REVELATION to me, to suddenly see where I might have been going wrong. It was also nice to finish the whole thing at 8pm and so get home in time for tea!
On the way home to aforesaid TEA I thought how glad I was that this WASN'T the start of my unemployed/freelance career, but if it HAD been it would certainly have started out with some LESSONS and Things To Think About for the future. If/when I do another comedy-type gig on my own, I shall be doing it THIS way instead!
posted 3/4/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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Moon Horse - The Season Finale
The fourth and final episode of Moon Horse VS The Mars Men Of Jupiter is released today, featuring myself and Mr S Hewitt. "The Enemy Is Revealed" brings with it DANGER! REVELATIONS! CONCLUSIONS! and a very very exciting announcement.
As ever you can listen to it via Totally Acoustic feed (also on iTunes), get a direct mp3 download or simply listen to it right HERE:
Now that the story is finished you can also opt to download it as a single ALBUM (without all the recaps) directly from us at our bandcamp page. It's one of these modern Pay-What-You-Like downloads, so I think you can even get it for FREE if you like, but any CA$H would be much appreciated. The download also comes with a free VIDEO of the entirety of our show at the Camden Fringe last August. There's all sorts of differences between that and the recorded version (which is based on two shows in Leicester this February) and the addition of VISUALS means you can finally see what was going on during Only A Robot!
Me and Steve had a BLOODY GRATE time doing these shows and are really rather FOND of them, so we hope you enjoy listening. And do listen to the very end of this week's episode, there's THRILLING news of even more ADVENTURES to come!
posted 2/4/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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In Session
Yesterday lunchtime I SAUNTERED out of my office, across the big square outside Birkbeck College and into the offices of our neighbours at SOAS, where I met Mr P Baran to record an episode of his podcast, "The Lost Property Office".
It's a GRATE idea for a show - part of Pete's job is to run the Union's lost property office, so he gets GUESTS to come in and LOOK at the objects that have been lost and then talk about them, also things they THEMSELVES have lost. It's a lovely idea and GOOD GOLLY it generated a whole HECKLOAD of chat. It got to the point where I kept thinking of REMARKS but had to swiftly DISCARD them as Pete came up with a BETTER REMARK which made me think of RESPONSES and... well, if he really DOES need it to be half an hour long he's going to have to do a LOT of editing!
That said though, I'm sure he could probably do with only HALF of the OLD MAN TALK that went on. Oh dear me, get us on the subject of The Indie Toilet Circuit Of The 1990s and it was like a Les Dawson In Drag sketch. "Ooh yes, The Bath Moles, they're all gone now aren't they?" "Eee, you're right, we had proper venues in them days, and proper bands, not like this lot nowadays" and so on. And on. And on.
It was DELIGHTFUL FUN, and also HANDY, as I got over, did the session, bought an EXPENSIVE QUICHE from the Farmers' Market (yes, that's how FANCY it is here On Campus, every Thursday we have a Farmers' Market, eee, in my day we had chips and cheese and were thankful etc etc etc) and was back at my desk within the hour. Lovely!
The show should be online on Wednesday next week, and in the meantime I've got MORE radio action booked. This teatime it's the final playing of Neil Jenkin's show on Dandelion Radio, which features Dinosaur Planet rather heavily, and then at 10pm I'm in SESSION on The Garden Of Earthly Delights on CRMK doing acoustical versions of songs from said album. Good times!
posted 30/3/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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Savage Sword Of Sileby
Whilst PREPPING the Pay-What-You-Like version of MOON HORSE for its official release on bandcamp next week, I came across a horrible realisation: our lovely SQUARE layout was going to have to change to fit it in!
DESPAIR! DOOM! Eventually I consoled myself with the idea that I could just put some MORE material up there, to even it out - there's TONNES of songs on various Multimedia Extras which I could plonk onto Bandcamp which are otherwise sitting unlistened to on hard to get at sections of CDs, I could do THOSE!
I was gleefully pondering this when I noticed that Chris T-T has been doing pretty much THAT with HIS back catalogue, adding LOADS of old albums to his bandcamp pages, including extra tracks and whole new collections. "I could DO THAT too!" i thought... but paused. "Hang on Hibbett", I said to myself, "Haven't you already done that with TWO rarities collections already? Do you HAVE anything else to hoover up?!?"
I looked through my iPod and realised that BY GOLLY i totally DO! There's a HUGE PILE of COVER VERSIONS that we've recorded over the years, including LOADS that have never ever been released properly. One PARTICULAR example is the version of "I Was Dancing In The Lesbian Bar" which I recorded with Mr FA Machine for a Jonathan Richman album which never happened. I had a listen to it last night and enjoyed it SO MUCH that I thought I might as well stick it on soundcloud, THUS:
A guitar solo like THAT deserves an audience!
The tracklisting so far is a thing of BEAUTY, tho I wonder if anyone else has ever released a Covers Album featuring The Wurzels, Bon Jovi, Allo Darlin' AND Guns'n'Roses? TOGETHER AT LAST?
Obviously there's MORE to do with Dinosaur Planet before we can sort this out (including at least TWO more videos), but The Validators can spend the MONTHS ahead constructively BICKERING about the album title. Suggestions so far include "Evington" (i.e. like Avatar), "The Frozen Planet Of Hathern", "Cloud City of Birstall", "May The Fosse Be With You", "Secrets Of Frog Island"... you see where this is going. I think "Savage Sword Of Sileby" is my favourite (NB because I THORT OF IT), but it's still all to play for!
posted 29/3/2012 by MJ Hibbett
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An Artists Against Success PresentationMaintained by MJ Hibbett & The Validators