Blog: The Cape Is Out There

On Tuesday morning I returned to the office carrying not just my laptop but also my guitar, a projector, projector screen, foot pedal and CAPE. For LO! This week I am doing a whole lot of Data and Doctor Doom!

The first instance of this was taking place just after lunchtime as part of "CSM Comicon", an event organised by Tessa Amorosi, PhD student and COLLEAGUE at UAL, which is basically two whole days of talks and workshops to do with COMICS. I was due to do my BIT in "the street", which is a massive hallway/corridor down the middle of Central St Martins, where apparently a "pop up area" had been created. Luckily Dr Ian Horton was doing a talk in the morning so I popped down to see him and CASE THE JOINT. It was a mildly cordoned off area with a huge MIRROR and TV screen for laptops to be plugged in, which was all fine except that there was no roof, so it was sometimes a bit difficult to hear. I NOTED this for later and then returned to my Actual Job for an hour.

It all felt a bit strange - I used to take my guitar into work all the time ten years or so ago when I worked at Birkbeck and was doing MILLIONS of gigs, but I think I've only ever done it two or three times since working at UAL. Also, I was basically going to be doing a GIG in the middle of the working day, with various pals from Comics and also Work watching!

Come the hour I went back downstairs, got everything sorted out, and did THIS:

Data and Doctor Doom (intro)

Batman But Done Better

My Unified Catalogue Of Transmedia Character Components

The Where, What, How And Whom Of Doctor Doom

Marvel Superheroes Secret Wars

Data and Doctor Doom (finale)

(NB please note that I have NOT put the lyrics up for any of these songs yet, because SPOILERS!)

It went, I think, pretty good. Here is a picture of me waving to Professor R Sabin to demonstrate this fact:

An elegant cape-wearing young man with a guitar around his neck, standing in front of a screen that says Data And Doctor Doom

An elegant cape-wearing young man with a guitar around his neck, standing in front of a screen that says Data And Doctor Doom

Beforehand I had been naturally TERRIFED of the whole thing - not only was I doing a bunch of entirely new songs that had never been heard by anyone before, I was also doing talking between then that was almost but not quite entirely different from the talking that I'd been practicing for the past month, with similar but also different slides in a totally different order to usual, all while singing, operating a foot pedal, keeping an eye on the audience, and trying to sing loud enough to be heard in what is basically a CATHEDRAL-sized open area.

Once I got going though it went really well - there were a LOT of mistakes, but the wonderful thing was that this didn't seem to matter at ALL, and I also got to muck around and say extra stuff as I went along. The singing loud enough was tricky, and it was hard to concentrate while in a massive hall full of CSM students coming and going while Talking COnfidently, but to my ENORMOUS relief it turned out that the songs WORKED and, indeed, had LARFS in them in most of the places I thought LARFS should go. Phew!

Once I was done I packed up and chatted to a few people, then headed back to my desk. This was the WEIRDEST thing of all. I've occasionally PLAYED gigs entirely soberly, but I have almost never then REMAINED in that state afterwards, and I've certainly never finished a gig and then gone pretty much straight into a meeting about Strategic Data Requirements. Now I understand WHY this is not usually done, because it felt VERY STRANGE INDEED. I had several GALLONS of ADRENALINE coursing through my body with nowhere to go, and so I had to keep NOT getting up and running round/shouting/making stupid remarks and instead concentrate very hard indeed on being a proper grown-up. To be honest, I do not intend to make a habit of this!

Having said that I WAS booked to do something very similar the following day, with another performance at a different part of UAL with a whole OTHER batch of songs, but this time at 10.20am in the morning. How did THAT go? Stayed tuned to find out!

posted 6/5/2025 by MJ Hibbett

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