Blog Archive: January 2006

Where Are The 12 Issue Binders?
Issue 12 of our newsletter, The Last Working Day Of The Month has just gone out, PACKED with FACT, and there was a noticeably LOWER number of Out Of Office AutoReplies flying back, so far just the one. Usually there's a lot more than that, and there was a TON at Christmas - it's almost as if nobody goes on holiday in January!

Anyway, if you've not signed up yet please feel free to do so. In the meantime, GIRD THYSELVES, oh gentle readers, there are GRAPHS on the way!

posted 31/1/2006 by MJ Hibbett
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First Gig Of The Year
We gathered on Friday night in the ROCK CAPITAL OF BRITAIN: Sheffield! We were without Mr Frankie Machine (he's in New York, lucky blighter) but otherwise it was a full compliment of Validators who drank, argued about the tracklisting for the album, soundchecked, then... er... went for a meal in an Italian Restaurant. We are SO ROck and Roll.

We got back to find a whole lot of people had arrived - many of them there on purpose, to see US! I have a very nice time INDEED for the rest of the evening wandering around talking to all the various groups of people who'd made the effort to come out, some of whom had come from DISTANT PLACES even. When we played it was thus to an actual real-life CROWD of people, many of whom even knew the WORDS, and this is what we played:

Quality Of Life Enhancement Device

Hey Hey 16K

Leave My Brother Alone

Billy Jones Is Dead

Better Things To Do

The Fight For History

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Easily Impressed

Live debut for the full band version of "Leave My Brother Alone"! It all went rather well I must say, and afterwards we cavorted around chatting to people and drinking the really rather nice BEER they sell in The Grapes. It was a GOOD first gig of the year!

posted 30/1/2006 by MJ Hibbett
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Book Update
I had a meeting with my Editor on Thursday night... well, I went to the pub with him and at certain points we talked about The Book, but mostly we had a bit of a RANT about diverse subjects, and a MOST pleasant time was had. In between all that the BOOK NEWS is Quite Good - he says people seem to LIKE it and be KEEN, although he won't get word from anyone who Has A Say until a week on Tuesday, and that the main problem seems to be that I'm not actually famous. That IS sort of the point of the book, but we agreed that we would try and DO something about it, so what I've got to do this weekend is come up with an Exciting Paragraph and some BULLET POINTS detailing what the whole thing's about and what's IN it.

It's all a bit strange really, one more step on the COMPRESSION of it all - I started out with a huge pile of diaries, webpages etc which i shrank down to a TAUT 60 pages about My Life In Rock, which i used to shrink it further into chapters, and now I'm taking all THAT and making into aforesaid paragraph and bullet points. I fully expect, by the end of the month, to be expressing my life style in a single GESTURE of FACIAL EXPRESSION - hopefully it will be a GRIN!

posted 29/1/2006 by MJ Hibbett
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Acceptance/Rejection
I got an email yesterday from the SXSW Festival, who i applied to AGANE this year, letting me know that we'd been REJECTED again. BOO HOO! Last year I applied with the full Vladimators line-up then WORRIED so much about how we'd get there that i was actually quite relieved not to go... until it was broadcast on the radio all the time while i was happening and i became INSANELY JEALOUS. THIS time, however, I applied just on my lonesome, in my new capacity as WORLD TRAVELLER, so was just plain old disappointed to not get IN. I was then a bit PEEVED to get several emails from SXSW within HOURS saying "Hey, why not just come as an attendee? Here's a cheap rate!" It felt rather like they were RUBBING IT IN.

Also no word as yet on The Book, which i think Doesn't Look Good... BUT to make up for all this there's been a SLEW of new gigs added in the GIGS page, so like George Galloway (although, hopefully in NO OTHER WAY) i am Back on The Road tomorrow and onwards into April. I realised this morning that it's my First Gig Of The Year and that I haven't hardly played my guitar AT ALL for the past couple of weeks. ULP! PRACTICE tonight, i think!

posted 26/1/2006 by MJ Hibbett
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The Literary Life
The book's finished! Well, the STRUCTURE of the book's finished anyway, there's still the small matter of writing it to get over with, but surely this was the most difficult part? I spent most of Sunday TOILING over it, trying to fit my LIFE into a narrative structure, and by the end i was thinking of EVERYTHING in that way. "Ah! And, as we finished tea, we knew that we had come to the end of an important meal. Who knew what lay ahead. CHAPTER 48: One Last Cup Of Tea."

Yesterday I also got back the SAMPLE CHAPTER i did, from Stuart The Editor. He'd moved a lot of things around so it was a) SCARY but b) dead good, and reading it on the tube home i actually thought it was Quite Good, and LARFED a bit. Mind you, I always laugh at my own stories, so that may not be the SUREST GUIDE, but it did feel nice to HAVE it in my hands, DONE. It felt like a milestone, the end of a chapter...

Sorry. Now the big thing is tomorrow, when it goes to Stuart The Editor's BOSSES, to see if they think it's worth carrying on with. Obviously i REALLY HOPE they DO, but i guess we shall have to wait and see. Or, to put it another way:

TO BE CONTINUED...

posted 24/1/2006 by MJ Hibbett
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Now With Added Pictures
I've finally got round to sticking a whole lot of fresh PICTURES up in the gallery. In the MISCELLANEOUS SECTION (which i really should update a bit more often) there's me and Stuart Murdoch, as well as a Swedish Gamers Magazine article; there's a new member of the Hey Hey 16K KARATE TEAM on the KARATE page, and at long last we have exclusive pics of the MJ Hibbett & The Validators tribute band MJ TRIBBETT on their very own page. Go look!

posted 22/1/2006 by MJ Hibbett
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A Day Of Celebrity
Crikey blimey, it was a LONG day of ACTION PACKED ADVENTURE and CELEBRITRY yesterday, also DENTISTRY. I started off by having my South American Dentist (hmm... i really should get round to watching The Boys From Brazil) RAMMING SHARP METAL STICKS into my delicate gums. It hurt A LOT, but afterwards I felt quite euphoric - she didn't give me any DRUGS or anything, just the sheer relief from her NOT prodding metal rods into my living flesh made me feel quite CHIPPER.

On the way into work i popped into my local comics shop and saw the day's FIRST celebrity: Mr Paul Gambaccini. Cool! More was to come later on in the day, however, when I went to meet my cousin IAN from The Americas, who is over here for the week. We were waiting in his hotel lobby for his colleagues so we could go out when who should i see at the desk but STUART MURDOCH from out of Belle & Sebastian! Cor! I was just mentioning this to Ian when i remembered: "Hang on!" i thought, "This is Ian, one of the most ENTHUSIASTIC and GO-GETTING people i have ever met - if i tell him who that is then THINGS will occur" so i STOPPED. I promised to tell him what had gone on outside in a bit. Outside in a bit i told him, and explained who they were and how I'd seen them LOADS of times including my BEST! EVER! GIG! at QMU in Glasgow so, of course, he DRAGGED me back in and said "Hey there! Belle & Sebastian! How ya doing!"

Mr Murdoch was very nice indeed, and there are now two photographs of him, one with Ian EMBRACING him and grinning, one of me looking a bit embarrassed and edging away... anyway, that DONE we FLED (well, i did) and went for a HIKE around London during which Ian tried to JUMP a QUEUE by leaning over and giving MONEY to the guy behind the till. Everyone else in the queue BRIDLED and I had to explain to him that this was tantamount to FLAG BURNING where he comes from, but, you know, WORSE. He was PERPLEXED, and i felt ODDLY PATRIOTIC about the whole thing. Queues, they WORK! and they are FAIR! and they are BRITISH, DAMMIT!

After a couple of hours LOOKING at things (and me getting more and more patriotic: BIG BEN! The MOTHER of PARLIAMENTS! Be IMPRESSED!) we decided to go and see a PLAY, and we saw Night Of The Iguana, starring Woody Harrelson Off The Telly and Jenny Seagrove. It was Quite Good, but it took me AGES to get over the fact that we were watching some people, over there, SHOUTING. It's like when you watch Eastenders for the first time in about a year (i.e. the Christmas Episode usually) and think "But this is cobblers - it's some bad actors, shouting at each other. It takes a WHILE to get back into the FORMAT i guess.

By the time it was finished it was LATE, so i sped home. It was a LONG day, of much EVENT!

posted 20/1/2006 by MJ Hibbett
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Cor, myspace, eh?
It's quite good, this myspace thing, isn't it? Yes, i KNOW it is pretty much The Internet Made Easy, but HEY! What is The Wrongness with that then? I've just had a lunchtime FLIT from page to page and found that there's LOADS of people what i know out there ON it. Oddly, they does seem to be one MARKED similarlity between most of them i.e. they are the YOUNGER people i know, but still! Hey! Me and Johnny Domino, WE'RE both on it. I like to think of us a a bunch of comedy uncles lurking by the bar in the church hall disco, a-RUMINATING.

I didn't mention yesterday, but on MY Myspace I've put up half of the Milk & Baubles EP, as it's so very SOLD OUT now. It's the first time I've listened to it in AGES, and it actually sounds QUite Good, i think. See what you reckon anyway. Personally I am looking for a copy of Shed Anthems to listen to, as I haven't listened to THAT for yonks either and I've just got to the bit in the MEMOIRS PLAN where we released it, and it all sounds TERRIBLY exciting!

posted 19/1/2006 by MJ Hibbett
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Hello, Can I Be In The Future Please?
http://www.myspace.com/mjhibbett

Currently featuring about half of the now SOLD OUT "Milk & Baubles". Who are all these people wanting to be my FRIENDS?

posted 18/1/2006 by MJ Hibbett
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Still Busy
Phew, sorry about the lack of updates lately, all has been BUSY! Mind you, i think the FUTURE ME will be thankful for the breather, for LO! one of the many things i am busy doing is going through the old webpage STUFF to find out What Happened When in preparation for THE MEMOIR. It was Speedy Moving going through the 90's as i was IN the PUB and OFF the interweb, so didn't leave much documentation. Even up to 2002 it was fine, then around 2003 i gots me onto BLOGGER, so there's TONS of daily FACT to wade through. I've just got to October 2004, so nearly done, and the NICE thing is remembering that, actually, I've done quite a LOT of groovy stuff. Thing is, because I've already DONE The Curse Of Voon and because me and the other band members TALK of it occasionally that part of my life is pretty MYTHOLOGISED, and I always drag around a niggling thought that maybe KRAZY ANTICS haven't happened much since then.

This is not the case, and it's been LOVELY going through later bits, especially the last few years, and realising that i actually had MUCH MORE FUN in recent times. A lot of it happened when i was out on my OWN tho, so there haven't been other people around to SHARE it with, and also i guess i was a bit too busy doing OTHER things to think about them too much. So, as I say, i am THOROUGHLY enjoying going through it again, ESPECIALLY out Scottish Tour, MAN! We ROCKED!

posted 18/1/2006 by MJ Hibbett
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Holiday Snaps
Cor, I tell you what, it has just been a BUSY WEEKEND. I've written reports, I've researched HISTORY, I've re-drafted MEMOIRS and I've put my HOLIDAY SNAPS online. If you're particularly interested you can now see these over in The Gallery, it's a lengthy series of pics of me and The Magenetism Of My Poles LARKING AROUND at various points of the globe, and it makes me feel WARM all over just thinking about the FUN what we had. I've also done the pictures in a slightly different way this time from how The Gallery usually looks, and I think I'll do them all this way in future - see how you like it!

I also FINALLY finished writing the first chapter of THE MEMOIRS, and sent it off to THE EDITOR to see what he thinks of it. I'd finished writing it a month or so ago, but since then it's been RE-DRAFTED many many times, generally taking OUT the irrelevant and/or boring stuff and trying to make it more CLEAR and, where possible, funny. There is now a new joke at the end involving TIM which I am quite pleased about, and I'm thinking about using the words to "Breaks In The Journey" as some sort of introduction to the whole thing. That might, however, be a bit wanky. We'll have to see.

I've also continued writing up my TIMELINE of events, and have just reached the start of 2002. I think it would be a GRATE idea if everybody could do one of these, it would certainly help stop a lot of arguments. The aforementioned Tim has FINALLY conceded that i was RIGHT about the fact that Voon DIDN'T support Prolapse and Huggy Bear at The Charlotte (in fact we stood at the back sulking about it), but has shocked me to my very core by proving that we played with them TWICE, not the ONCE which I thought.

Really, I'm not surprised that historians get into FITES. I'm having enough trouble working out what i did twelve years ago, and i was THERE!

posted 16/1/2006 by MJ Hibbett
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In Other News
Just a quick mention for the FACT that we have MORE GIGS on the gig list, with one just added in Cambridge on March 11th with the LOVELY Colonel Bastard. We're also playing Sheffield, Leicester, Surrey and THAT LONDON soon, so a) do pop along if you're free and b) let us know if you'd like us to come round your way!

Meanwhile: TELLY. I haven't watched the last episode of LOST yet (it's on tape for the weekend - DON'T! TELL! ME!), but i DID watch "Life On Mars" the other night, which i thought was BLOODY GRATE. I'll not do the "ooh, leather jacketed time traveller" GAG, but it DID get me almost as excited as Dr Who, ESPECIALLY the bit where they JUMPED over the table. It was DEAD GOOD. I also watched "Hyperdrive" the other night, which surprised me by being REALLY FUNNY, and also sort of LOVELY and NICE. Nearly every comedy thing that comes on telly at the moment leaves me feeling a bit dirty, like you're watching somebody getting humiliated and not doing anything about it, but this was all PROPER COMEDY, like Father Ted, and was ACE.

TV Reviewing: PIECE OF PISS.

posted 13/1/2006 by MJ Hibbett
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An Icon Of Britishness
Sorry about the lack of updates lately, i have been DEAD BUSY. It seems like everybody who has ever mentioned wanting me to DO something has gone into work on the first Monday of the year and said sternly to themselves "RIGHT! Let's HASSLE HIBBETT!" for LO! there has been a lot of it about.

The good thing about all of this is that some of it will mean i get PAID a bit of extra money... this is GOOD because I'm going to need it to PAY for some of the GRATE NEW IDEAS we (i.e. generally TIM) have been having, such as putting a SINGLE out 6-8 weeks before the album, and indeed having a PRESS PLUGGER to get us into the press. I am very much ABANDONING our first idea of trying to get somebody else to release the album now - it seems a bit daft in this age of iTunes and The Arctic Monkeys to try and do things the old fashioned way, especially after, you know, us being PIONEERS of the old internet marketing thing. No, come back, we ARE - "Hey Hey 16K" was the first internet single, and i shall GLARE at anybody who says it wasn't! So yes, My CURRENT THORT is to put the album out ourselves again (tho maybe with proper distribution this time), and have a look at getting our stuff on iTunes and all that. I don't suppose anybody reading this has a CLUE how to do that do they? I got a nanopod for Christmas but haven't got round to using it yet, so am A Bit Behind...

Another thing I've been a bit busy with has been getting stuff together for a big meeting at work - the project I work on has fieldworkers all over the country, and this week they all came down to London for their annual meeting. THUS i was going to be in a room with about 35 DEDICATED WOMEN who would NOT be fobbed off if i had made any mistakes, and so we had to be PREPARED.

As well as that, the evening was our CHRISTMAS DO, held back so that they could all come, and there was a FREE BAR. I was thus able to show my colleague BRIAN, who is over here from America, a particular PROUD piece of British Iconography that he had not had a chance to see and does not usually feature in the Tourist Trips: Drunken Northern Women, Goading Younger More Drunken Men Into Breakdancing For Them. Aaah, it made me so PROUD to be British. "See, Brian!" i said, "Here is BRITISH WOMANHOOD in all its glory!" and LO! he was AWED. We joined in with them, and although the young man was too addled to get on the floor and bust some moves, we felt that the ritual had been carried out adequately. Shortly after this the BEER MONEY ran out so i decided to start dropping full glasses of wine on the floor, but we need not investigate that too deeply.

Suffice to say, BUSY NESS and BUSINESS have been the order of the week, with more to come. I'm getting quite excited now at the prospect of us Actually Releasing A Proper Album this year. Another thing that's keeping me busy is going through my ARCHIVES to try and work out what happened when, as BOOK RESEARCH, and I'm just now doing 1999-2000, when "Say It With WOrds" came out, and I was running into shops to LOOK at my record being there, and scanning through magazines to see if we'd get mentioned. It was a WHOLE LOT of FUN, and we're going to be doing it AGANE soon - HOORAH!

posted 13/1/2006 by MJ Hibbett
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A Very Busy Weekend
You find me WORN OUT after an extremely busy weekend - Friday feels like a REALLY long time ago. First off all I headed out to The Badlands Of Essex, specifically Creative Studios in West Horndon. This was where the nice chaps from Phoenix FM's Brentwood's Only Alternative were recording SESSIONS. It seemed a crazy plan to me, they were getting about 10 bands in throughout the day to do an hour long session each. I foresaw DOOM and TERROR as people in bands are not the MOST punctual and reliable in existence (NB TACT), but this was the third Saturday doing it and apparently all had gone really well and everyone had even been PLEASANT! I was amazed!

It was a dead nice place too, and I did my songs with GENTLE EASE, although the first song took me a while to get GOING on. This was "The Back Of The Sofa", which is one of the songs I am RE-LEARNING so's i can do a bit more varied set this year. I then did "Breaks In The Journey", "The Symbol Of Our Nation" (featuring Steve and Paul from the show on backing vocals), and then, as we had some time left, a version of "Dino At The Sands" with a multiple Hibbett chorus of La La-ING. I really enjoyed it, especially getting the chaps in to sing, and after a quick Recorded Chat I was off to the train station and home again. The station's back on air in a few weeks, when they'll playing the sessions, and there should be a CD featuring some of them out later in the year. GROOVY.

My next destination, after a brief stop off back home, was LEICESTER. Tom, Tim and I congregated in Stayfree to work out how we were going to play "Leave My Brother Alone" and "Dino At The Sands" when we recorded them, and also to practice "Better Things To Do". This we did with ELAN, getting STRAIGHT back into our normal working methods of Tim coming up with lots of good ideas, me saying they are daft, and then suggesting them myself a few minutes later. IT WORKS! We stuck an extra INSTRUMENTAL BREAK into "Leave My Brother Alone" and got "Dino At The Sands" sounding RATHER lovely. I was pleased.

We also debated, heatedly, some of the finer points of the TIMELINE i am putting together to help me write my book. If anybody can definitively say IF and WHEN Voon supported Prolapse in Leicester in the mid-1990's it would save us all a lot of grief, and would specifically mean Tim doesn't have to go into his loft. The DEBATE continued when we went to the PUB to celebrate the birthday of Dr Neil Brown, and indeed later on STILL when we went for a couple of Sneaky Extra Beers in what WAS The Vaults but is now a Groovy After Hours Place. It was a LARK!

I must have caught a BUG or something in there, because next morning I didn't feel very well at all. Strange, as i feel fine today. Anyway, I woke FAR TOO EARLY, and Tom and I headed off to DERBY and to The Hive, where we were booked in to record. Tim had got there at 10am to set up KIT, and before too long he, Mr F Machine, and I were ROCKING OUT. We recorded the three songs mentioned with some EASE, especially considering the fact that it was BLOODY FREEZING. There was only one small heater for the entire place, which was usually in the recording room to prevent instruments detuning, so we spent the whole day in our coats feeling CHILLY. We looked like Oasis.

The day went VERY WELL, and we SWUNG into action like the well-oiled ROCKING MACHINE that we are. Francis Albert picked up the new arrangements easily, and then I went in a did my acoustical guitars and vocals. Remembering previous experiences I did the singing SITTING DOWN. I know that this is HERESY for most Recording Artistes, but if i stand up to sing i get a bit carried away and start throwing my arms around and SHOUTING, whereas if I sit down it's all a lot calmer and, indeed, BETTER. This worked WELL and - HA! - i did THE LOT in one take, except for the very start of "Dino At The Sands", which Tim suggested sounded like i was Telling A Story To The Tots. As you will hear when it comes out, this begins with SOLO VOCAL (NB BRAVE), so i did it again to get it SORTED.

NEXT Tom went in and he and I enjoyed our usual methodology of him trying something and then me shouting at him through the glass. "It sounds like you're not playing, but I want it to sound like you are, but we can't hear you" is pretty typical of the sort of NOTES i provided. With that complete Tim added his PERCUSSION (excellent Tambourine work, by the way), I did my ELECTRICAL GTR OVERDUBS (everyone was DEAD impressed, i could tell), and then Emma arrived for her vocals, with two small girls in tow, one of whom was A Bit Poorly, who soon went off again with Tim, once he had participated in the obligatory Male Voic Choir Overdub, this time happening on "Leave My Brother Alone". We sorted out what she'd be doing, and she DID it, with my favourite being her lines on "Dino At The Sands". By heck, when she sang "I found you dancing with the dancing girls" i wanted to CRY, and expected a rendition of "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" to erupt at any minute.

FINALLY we conquered one of my phobias and did a HANDCLAPS overdub on the end of "Leave My Brother Alone". I have avoided these ever since the time we had The Durham Ox Singers in at Memphis Studio and tried to get them to do handclaps along to one of the songs on "Say It With Words". It was APPALLING - they are beautiful people but MY WORD some of them have a dodgy sense of rythm, it sounded like a shoal of TROUT being dumped in a car park against their will. HOWEVER, i could HEAR handclaps were needed, so Tom and Frankie and I went in and did them, and did them GOOD.

With all this done we thanked young Robbie the Engineer (who's also in the very ACE Plans & Apologies) for his STIRLING work - he was an absolute PLEASURE to spend the day with - and headed back to Leicester, where i was once more KIPPING in order to have Engineering Works and Tube Strikes. Tom finished the rock and roll weekend in the only way possible - eating a Chinese Takeaway, drinking tea and watching Doctor Who. We are SO ROCK!

And now I'm back at work a bit pongy and WORN OUT, but RATHER pleased with how it all went. I am back on the ROAD OF ROCK once again, and i LIKE it!

posted 9/1/2006 by MJ Hibbett
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Strolling Back To Normality
A very happy, ORDINARY, Friday to one and all! I tell you what, after a couple of months of PLANNING, PLOTTING and ACTUALLY DOING Circumnavigation and Christmas, it feels really nice to be back in Life As Usual. Last night, right, i went to the pub just for the SAKE of it! It was ACE! Tonight I'm going home to MY HOUSE, where we'll have TEA! Fantastic!

It's reminding me how much i actually LIKE my life, it is a Pretty Good Thing that i have going on here, and it feels GROOVY to be back living it again. Mind you, next week will be my first Full Week At Work for about two months, so i may change my mind by next Friday!

Another part of Life Returning To Normal is GIG GETTING. I've emailed a couple of places to ask about gigs, and at the same time a couple of people have FACTed ME about playing, although it turns out that I can't really do either of them. Ooh, i hate saying "No" to gigs, it goes ILL with me as I always think it means no-one will ever ask me again. Still, plenty to be getting on with in the meantime - it's the big weekend of ROCK this weekend, for instance. I'm off to ESSEX tomorrow to record a session for Brentwood's Only Alternative, then it's band practice in Leicester in the evening, and RECORDING in Derby on Sunday.

All the FACT re. all the above will be here on Monday, tube strike willing, so have a good weekend everybody, and ENJOY the life you've got!

posted 6/1/2006 by MJ Hibbett
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A Christmas Farewell
This lunchtime I went to the post office and posted off the LAST copy of "Milk & Baubles", and amended the shop to take it OFF sale, some FOUR Christmases after it was first released as a Christmas Single. It never DID become the Christmas Hit we hoped for (i know! i was as surprised as anybody!), and many many copies "disappeared" via our old distributors, but still I am surprised to find it GONE from us, as it was never one that I really sold much at gigs. It's NOT going to be repressed either, so if you want a copy now you'll have to wait until Shed Anthems sells out (NB it'll be a while!), at which point i can re-release both EPs together. Or, you know, you could probably tape it off someone. Or off me.

ANYWAY, that's that done, which means a temporary change to the shop, with The Uberset stepping up to fill Milk & Baubles' place in The Back Catalogue Gift Pack. I say temporary because, with only a few copies of "This Is Not A Library" left, it won't be long before the GIFT option changes again. I'll probably take it off altogether for a while, at least until we get the new album finished.

And talking of which - WHOO! Mr F Machine has FACTED me some more mixes today, and it is sounding REAL GOOD. I am Quite Excited about it all over again. We're actually off to Derby on Sunday to record a couple more songs, so very slowly we are creeping towards COMPLETION. It feels like a LONG time since we were in Cornwall, but if my MEMOIR RESEARCHES have told me anything (apart from that there may have been things happening in the 1990s that I missed by being in the pub) it is that This Sort Of Thing Takes Time. It took three years to do "This Is Not A Library", compared to that we are like ROCK JACKALS ON SPEED!

posted 5/1/2006 by MJ Hibbett
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Gig Revisions
A very good morning to one and all, and I hope everybody's getting back into the SWING of things. I'm back at work after a LOVELY week and and a half off, during which i REVELLED rather in NOSTALGIA. This wasn't due to The Time Of Year or anything, it was WORK, for LO! i have been researching my ROCK HISTORY for The Book. The main thing I have worked out is that during the 1990's i was in the pub very nearly ALL THE TIME. I was going through my DIARY which ran up until mid 1992, which had ENORMOUS gaps in it where I'd gone to THE PUB, and then rifling through mounds of flyers, posters, magazines and old appointment diaries trying to work out where I was WHEN, and again, where i was was largely THE PUB, although a lot of the time i was at gigs. It's also interesting (NB: to me) to notice the GAPS, when I'm not sure what was happening. For instance, for most of the lifetime of VOON I kept tons of things, so can work out pretty much ALL the gigs I did, but then towards the end of that and into the time of The Council there's almost nothing. I seem to remember being Generally Fed Up around then, so I guess that's why. This was all of course in the days before there was an Interweb, otherwise I could have looked it all up, as it is I'm hoping that Tim's legendary GIGS SPREADSHEET will be able to shed some light on what occurred!

And talking of GIGS, i have a few REVISIONS for The Gigs Page. First of all the gig next week in Norwich is OFF - we were at last minute fill-in support as it was, then the main band dropped out, so it's not happening after all, though hopefully we'll be back there later in the year. Secondly i have had a COMPLAINT from The Boardwalk - our gig in Sheffield on the 27th of this month is NOT at The Boardwalk in any way shape or form, it's actually at The Grapes! Apparently some people have been CONTACTING them for tickets, which is rather exciting, which they cannot provide as it's not them. The phone number for tickets is now on the gigs page if anyone needs it. Sorry about that!

Finally, one more gig to add - in April I'm playing at The Harrison in London at the Songbird night, an acoustical type affairs that's just starting up, and looks quite fun. I'm VERY READY INDEED to get back on THE ROAD now, after a couple of months without doing much GIGGAGE, so if you're interested in me coming and playing in your HOOD, do let me know won't you?

posted 4/1/2006 by MJ Hibbett
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Welcome To The Future!
Well done everybody for making it to 2006 - so far it appears to be a bit rainy, but I hold out high hopes that it'll dry up later in the year. I've spend much of today reading through my old diaries doing some Background Research (also known as Desperately Trying To Remember What Happened) on MY LIFE. It turns out that, in my twenties, i drank LOADS OF BEER. Like, REALLY A LOT. It's making me really fancy a pint!

In other news, i am now a STUB! This link on Wikipedia is a STUB (or mini-article) about ME! ANd I didn't even put it there myself!! Exciting, isn't it?

posted 1/1/2006 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)
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