Today I am unleashing a brand new VIDEO upon the world! It is for the song Only A Robot from my forthcoming album Oadby Wonky Knobby and you can see it HERE:
As the bit at the end says, the images were taken from a Golden Age comic strip called "Hugh Hazzard & His Iron Man" by Wayne Reid which appeared in the early 1940s in "Smash Comic" (and so is public domain!). I read several issues of the comic to find the right panels, and it was REALLY interesting reading strips from the transition period from pulp heroes to superheroes, with all sorts of very solid men with alliterative names using Science (or sometimes Weird Science) items to Fight Crime. I was surprised by how GOOD some of it looked - lots of really old comics I've read look like they were drawn by a 14 year-old in a hurry (and some of them were) but these look Actually Pretty Cool, and the stories do at least make sense, mostly.
Fittingly the song comes from a SHOW that did at least make sense, mostly - Moon Horse VS The Mars Men Of Jupiter. Other shows that Steve and I did got a bit complicated (yes I'm looking at you, Total Hero Team) but I always remember this one being FAIRLY straightforward, and also a LOT of fun to do. Tiddy The Tin Man emerged as the EMOTIONAL CENTRE of the whole thing, and this was his big BALLAD which always felt GRATE to sing, even though audiences seemed to get distracted by something going on behind me during the instrumental section.
As I say, the song turned out to be a lot more EMOTIONAL than expected, and putting the video together felt even MORE so. My GRATE hope is that, come the inevitable RISE OF THE MACHINES our future robot overlords will see this video and think "Ah yes, Hibbett got it, let us spare him!" Here's hoping!
