Blog Archive: October 2022

Someone Else's Turn
Today I'm UNLEASHING another video for a song off of The Unearthly Beauty Of MJ Hibbett, this time for Someone Else's Turn. Here it is!



The song's about how it's FINE when places that used to mean a lot to YOU as a Young Person change or disappear, because it means that people who are Young Persons NOW can have their own places, just like we did. With this in mind I decided to go and visit a bunch of my old HAUNTS (as partly documented a few weeks ago) and see what they were like now, keeping it to London venues because a) it would be an awful lot easier and b) if I'd done it in other cities there would be none left at all to look at. I ended up doing the filming in three batches and, as you'll see, the very last bit was done at the album launch a couple of weeks back.

I found the experience of making it STRANGELY MOVING, and I hope that that comes across in the finished PIECE. I'm pretty determined now to keep going and do a video for EVERY song, so watch out for more of these to come over the rest of this year!

posted 31/10/2022 by MJ Hibbett
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The Fesshole Book Launch
I had a RIGHT glamorous night out in London's Fashionable London Town last night, as I headed into the swinging funland for the launch of Rob Manuel's book The Very Best Of Fesshole.

The INSANE GLAMOUR started just after I got off the fancy Elizabeth Line train at the Dean Street exit into Soho, and wandered down to The Newsagent That Sells Weird Magazines That Nobody Else Does, hoping that they would have a copy of Electronic Sound. To my delight they DID, and to my even GREATER delight it include a review of my new album by the ever wonderful Mr Bob Fischer. I bought a copy and then pretty much TRIPPED OVER a flipping FILM CREW who were doing something or other in the doorway. It was all VERY SOHO darlings.

I then popped into Gosh to get the first issue of "Miracleman: The Silver Age", and had a chat with Drew The Manager who I haven't seen for AGES. I was VERY excited to FINALLY be getting this comic that had taken several DECADES to arrive, and can confirm that it is DEAD GOOD. This Neil Gaiman chap will go far!

Then it was a quick stroll over to Bloomsbury to The College Arms, where the book launch was scheduled to commence. It was starting at 7pm, so my cunning plan was to get there AT 7pm, as people NEVER get to these things on time so it's nice to be the person who DOES, and then lurk quietly in a corner for a bit not knowing anyone before going home. That is NOT how it went, however! When I arrived the function room was FULL, and it was weirdly full of LOADS of people I actually knew, often from various and different parts of my life. I hung around with Mr Dave Green for a big chunk of the evening, as he is VERY good at this sort of thing, introducing people to each other and being a party HOST, so I got to meet several lovely people, many of whom turned out to be people I actually ALSO knew from ONLINE. It was very much like a REUNION of everybody who was on the internet a MILLION years ago, back when it was good!

This feeling was helped along by the fact that Rob was wandering around dressed as a BISHOP, ready for when he delivered a SERMON from atop the stairs. All right, technically it wasn't a sermon - it was him doing a BIT about the things he'd learned from doing Fesshole, and it was VERY AMUSING INDEED - but looking at some of the pictures taken it looks very much LIKE a sermon. Or possibly an INTERNET ILLUMINATI meeting.

After that there was PROSECCO, FREE BOOKS FOR ALL (it is a LOVELY looking book, I highly recommend it!) and more chat before it was time for me to stagger out into the night, my head full of WARM THORTS towards all of the excellent people I'd seen, and my bag full of BOOK. It was GRATE!

posted 28/10/2022 by MJ Hibbett
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Surprising Ramsgate
On Saturday I headed down towards KENT to play at a birthday party. It was all happening at the Ramsgate Music Hall which is an EXCELLENT venue with really nice staff too. For instance, the birthday party was a SURPRISE and my appearance was an EXTRA SECRET, so the venue had arrange for my soundcheck to happen before anyone else got there. It all felt slightly GLAMOROUS, and I felt we should have had CODENAMES or something!

Once that was done Al the soundman recommended a curry house as being "really good". He was not wrong, in fact Flavours Of Kumar turned out to be BLOODY BRILLIANT. I thus staggered back to my hotel FULL of delicious food, and then an hour or so later wobbled back towards the venue still full, where Al escorted me surreptiously into the GREEN ROOM under the stage. I felt like a SPY!

The party was going on upstairs, so the ORCHESTRATER of the surprise was able to sneak down to say hello and BRIEF me on the plan. He then went off to gather people and bring them down to the GIG ROOM, where they were promised SPEECHES.

I stood downstairs listening to this all going on, FILLED with TREPIDATION. I'd been worrying about this gig for WEEKS - I have done birthday parties before, also WEDDINGS, and they are always a bit tricky. On the one hand, you have a ready made audience who sort of have to watch you, as you're there on the request of their HOSTS, but then I know from my own experience of being on the other side that they'd usually prefer to be having a good old chat with their pals. Also, what with me being me, it's a pretty good bet that nobody will have ever heard of you and not necessarily be interested in finding out!

All of these thoughts and more were going through my head as I was introduced and EMERGED from beneath the stage to do THIS:

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

Clubbing In The Week

Bad Back

I Think I Did OK

My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once

The Aeroplane Over The Sea

It Only Works Because You're here

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Boom Shake The Room

As you can see, I very much went for songs that had JOKES in and that were UPBEAT - 100% BANGERS, you might say, it is not for me to comment - with the addition of The Aeroplane Over The Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel as a REQUEST. I've never really listened to Neutral Milk Hotel before and found I rather liked them, although it was a bit unnerving to realise that quite a LOT of other bands I'd seen over the years had clearly been listening to them a GREAT deal!!

Happily this plan WORKED, helped enormously by the fact that the audience were LOVELY. The fact that most people didn't have a clue who I was worked in my favour, as that meant they hadn't heard any of my GRATE JOKES before, and also as stated they were DELIGHTFUL so completely WENT with it all. I was rather nervous to start with but as it went along I realised that it was all going to be FINE and by the end I was having a LOVELY time!

I say "most people" hadn't heard my stuff before because, apart from the hosts, there were a couple of poeple who very much HAD i.e. Penny and Matt, previously of SHEFFIELD. Penny has put me on at about 3 MILLION gigs, notably several of her own big BIRTHDAY parties, but i hadn't seen them for ages so it was lovely to lurk about and have a chat. I also ended up having a chat with loads of OTHER people, who were all dead nice, which meant that I was there until QUITE LATE and the fact that I staggered back home again was nothing to do with the curry this time!

It was, all in all, a fantastic evening, although the morning that followed all that curry and beer was distincly less so!

posted 24/10/2022 by MJ Hibbett
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Brighton ROCKED
I must, surely, have used that title for a blog about a Brighton gig before, haven't I? Either way, I use it here advisedly as I did a(nother) gig in Brighton on Wednesday night, and it did indeed ROCK!

I was playing at a new night set up by Mr James Walsh, who had the cunning idea of mixing together COMEDY and MUSIC acts, and when I arrived at the venue I found James sampling some of the ALL VEGAN food that was on offer. I did the same not long after and it was BLOODY DELICIOUS I must say. The venue, The Pipeline was a PUNK pub (their Forthcoming Gigs list was FULL of GRATE Modern Punk Band Names) and ALL VEGAN, and also has a FULL BACKLINE available upstairs for bands, which means it went right to the TOP of my just created list of Places The Validators Could Play If We Ever Do That Sort Of Thing Again. It also had some GRATE alcohol free beer, which meant I could re-engage with my wily new Gig Drinking Scheme i.e. proper booze when I arrived, non-alcoholic until just before show-time, then a pint onstage and as much actual booze as I can throw down my throat before hometime. It seems to work!

The actual gig was split up into two HALVES, beginning with two COMEDIANS, Mr Simon Topping and Mrs Annabel Edmonds, both of whom were v good - it was proper COMEDY STUFF and to my surprise it totally worked in a MUSIC GIG environment i.e. without the CHAIRS Of Comedy! We then had a swift break, during which I went and hugged The Artist Formerly Known As Chris T-T who had delightfully turned up, and then it was back for part two. This kicked off with James himself - he had told me that this was his first ever actual proper gig playing songs, and INTENSELY ANNOYINGLY it was really really good. You're supposed to be RUBBISH for at LEAST the first decade of doing this sort of thing, but he was GRATE with some LOVELY singing and ace songs, including a cover of "A Box To Hide In" by Chris, which was ACE.

Then it was ME and I did THIS:

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?

My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once

Bad Back

I Think I Did OK

It's Hard To Be Hopeful

The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B)

It Only Works Because You're here

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Boom Shake The Room

I had a LOVELY time! I re-arranged the SET as I went along, as I'd originally planned something much shorter and with more GAGS in, suitable, I thought, for A Comedy Crowd. However, as it went along I realised that this was actually just A Lovely Crowd and so I put some other stuff in, notably It's Hard To Be Hopeful (even though I had made a HYPOCRITE of myself by spending most of the journey there GLUED to my phone as all the political MADNESS continued!).

It was ACE, and then afterwards I went downstairs for more chat with Chris and James, and then a FRENZIED RUSH back up the hill where I JUST caught my train back. This got delayed so I only JUST got the last High Speed Javelin Train out of St Pancras, and arrived back in THE OLYMPICS somewhat out of breath but VERY happy with how it had gone. Gigs are GRATE!

posted 21/10/2022 by MJ Hibbett
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Dropping Agile
Today I have joined THE FUTURE, unleashing an EXCLUSIVE new TRACK which has officially DROPPED on an INFLUENCER SITE!

Or to put it another way, this morning I put the video for Agile on the b3ta board. It sounds more exciting the other way, but that's what it means!

The word "EXCLUSIVE" appears in the first sentence because, apparently, the way you DRIVE CUSTOMERS towards your CONTENT these days is to give influential websites the chance to EXCLUSIVELY show your track or whatever for the first day or so, as that means you send your fans to them and vica versa in a thrilling feat of social media SYNERGY. With the new album I have spent several weeks trying to sort this out for various videos, with little success - somebody did very kindly offer to do one for Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People? but, for very understandable reasons, couldn't in the end, and after that I had precisely NO success with anywhere else. In fact, none of the many other sites I contacted even replied to my emails, which is a) depressingly common b) RUDE, so in the end I thought "SOD IT!" and decided to do it myself. AND DID.

HOWEVER! The idea remained in my BRANE, and since the album was released last week I've noticed several people focusing on Agile as it is ABOUT something that many people know about, but has never (to my knowledge) been mentioned in song, possibly because it is a topic that is entirely unintelligible to anybody who has not encountered it in real life. "HA!" I thought to myself, "a topic which is unintelligible to outsiders but which many people DO think about? In a song of mine which is passed around on the internet? Why does that sound familiar?"

For LO! that is pretty much what Hey Hey 16K was - I don't like to mention it much, so you probably won't be aware, but that song had a video too, done by Mr Rob Manuel, which became one of the earliest VIRALS back in the days when Prime Ministers lasted longer than groceries. The success of this was mostly due to Rob's video and its appearance on his site b3ta, and I thought how much fun it would be to do something like that again.

"HANG ON A MINUTE!" my BRANE piped up. "Doesn't b3ta have a MESSAGE BOARD? Isn't that a place where you can PUT VIDEOS?" "Yes BRANE," I replied, "Why dou you... OH RIGHT, I see!"

I checked that my LOGIN to that estimable message board still worked, and then this morning I DROPPED (put) it there for the world to see, in the hope that the world DOES see it. I had some QUALMS about whether it was OK to do this, and wondered whether the hip young trendsetters who read b3ta would appreciate it before realising that a) that is kind of what the board is for and b) the hip young trendsetters of b3ta are mostly the same AGE as me and of the same DISPOSITION, and so are pretty much the IDEAL TARGET AUDIENCE for precisely this song! ALSO I do think it is a MESSAGE (i.e. "Agile is bollocks") that needs to be HEARD - as the song says, I do think that this attitude of swanking around saying buzzwords and then rushing important jobs to the minimum standard you can get away with HAS become far too common in modern society, not least in our political system, and it would be NICE if we could at least TRY and do things properly once in a while.

What I'm saying here is that it is a PROTEST SONG promoting a SOCIAL GOOD and so therefore everybody should share it! In fact, at time of typing this several HOURS have gone by since I DROPPED it on b3ta, so I think it's OK to start squeezing round the exclusivity of it all and post it right HERE, right NOW, THUS:



I always say something like "Please have a look and share it around" when I release a new video, but I mean it even more this time! I do understand that AGILE works in the areas it was designed for - the delivery of software systems - but SO MANY of us work in areas that it really really was NOT designed for - just to pluck an example from the air, the maintenance of ongoing computer systems in large educational establishments, say - where it has been CLINICALLY PROVEN to be a BAD THING that I think it would be marvellous if we could start the process of NOT using it anymore! Let's make some CHNAGE!

posted 20/10/2022 by MJ Hibbett
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The Launching Of The Album
I awoke on Thursday last week convinced I was POORLY. I had a high heart rate and strange gurglings in my stomach, was oddly dizzy and surrounded by a general fog of PANIC. It took me quite a while to realise that this was not The Lurgy, but THE NERVES!

For LO! it was the day of my ALBUM LAUNCH GIG and I was full of trepidation, not least because it was my first full-length solo gig since CHRISTMAS. I had been practicing all week (PROFESSIONLISM) but I'd not sung more than 7 or 8 songs in a row so didn't know if my VOICE would get all the way through or whether I'd actually remember all the words. I was organising the gig too, so had spent several days OSCILLATING between panicking about NOBODY coming and EVERYBODY coming so there wouldn't be room.

On the way there I kept saying "It's at The King & Queen, it will be FINE" and LO! it very much WAS. Myself and The Songs On My Set arrived in VERY good time and were soon joined by a whole COMPENDIUM of lovely people, parading in one by one like some wonderful carnival of People I Really Like.

I had sourced the ever marvellous Pete Green to be the other act, and they were EXCELLENT as usual, notably the POEMS which I really enjoyed. You can enjoy some of them YOURSELF with their new book what is AVAILABLE NOW - who knew Poems could be enjoyable? PETE, clearly!

Then it was ME and I did THIS:

The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B)

I Think I Did OK

Agile

It's Hard To Be Hopeful

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

Clubbing In The Week

Bad Back

Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?

Hey Hey 16K

It Only Works Because You're here

The Lesson Of The Smiths

We Did It Anyway

Boom Shake The Room

I REALLY enjoyed it! Miraculously, I hardly made any mistakes at all, and once I got USED to that unusual state of affairs I was able to entirely relax into the process. A major contributory factor to this is probably the FACT that I substituted ALCOHOL FREE beer for a couple of the pre-gig pints, which meant a) my BRANE was a bit more clear b) I didn't feel like I was missing out on PINTS and c) I wasn't BURPING all the way through like I used to when I employed COLA for this purpose.

The big surprise for me was how well Bad Back went down, which was not expected but very gratefully received. It was also a relief that people GOT Agile, as I realised while playing it that if you'd never experienced that particular methodology it would be completely meaningless! Most of all though I enjoyed being in that particular room again in that particular pub, being able to stand up and basically have an extended YACK with so many of my favourite people.

It was a bloody lovely night, gigs are GRATE!

posted 17/10/2022 by MJ Hibbett
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The Album Is OUT!
Greetings one and all on this most wondrous of days, for LO! at long last my new solo album The Unearthly Beauty Of MJ Hibbett is available to buy pretty much EVERYWHERE!



You can buy it digitally on Bandcamp, iTunes, or ANY of those sort of sites, and stream it on Spotify if that's how you roll. There's also the PHYSICAL version, which is a USB stick that you can buy directly from this very webpage!



To celebrate this mighty day I have UNLEASHED another video, for the album track Kenny's Brother Alan's Stag Do, which features much DANCING. Witness it here:



Whichever way you listen to it I hope you enjoy it - it has been a LONG old time coming, and I am bloody DELIGHTED that it's out there at last!

posted 14/10/2022 by MJ Hibbett
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Bandcamp Unleashed
As we creep stealthily towards Official Release Day for The Unearthly Beauty Of MJ Hibbett on Friday, moves have been afoot to make it available slightly earlier than that for certain interested parties. The USB memory stick version went on sale to newsletter subscribers last week, and today I've quietly put both the digital and physical versions on Bandcamp too.

The reasons for doing this a couple of days early are tactical, practical and strategical. Partly it's to say thanks to all the people who've bought my stuff on Bandcamp by giving them an EXCITING OPPORTUNITY to get in on the memory sticks, and partly it's to give me one less job to do on Friday morning, when the ROCK ADMIN is quite hefty. I would very much like to point out that these are the ONLY reasons for doing it this way, and any suggestions that I accidentally released it early while trying to work out how to add MERCH to Bandcamp are NONSENSICAL. As if I would do something like that! Again!

Either way, it's there RIGHT NOW so if you'd like to have a listen to the album, or indeed PURCHASE it in digital or physical format, this is your chance to do so before THE MAINSTREAM hears it on Friday! Hope you like it if you do!

posted 12/10/2022 by MJ Hibbett
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Evolver: 62
On Friday night I headed into London Town to The Bloomsbury Theatre, where I had tickets to see Beatles Scholar Mark Lewisohn do a talk called "Evolver:62". The idea was that he was presented 62 different ITEMS which told the story of The Beatles in 1962, which to some people may not SEEM the ideal way to spend a Friday evening but to me VERY MUCH WAS.

I was planning to meet Mr S Wilkinson for a PINT in the bar beforehand, but when I arrived it was closed so instead we went to a PUB, getting absolutely BLATTERED with rain on the way there. Inside they had the telly on showing The News, and on it I saw Mr Matt Tiller speaking about the Jack Leslie campaign what he has been one of the organisers of. It was VERY exciting and I fear I ALARMED some of the pub by shouting "IT'S MATT!" when he came on.

We returned to the Theatre to find that the bar a) open b) VERY busy. Happily I had been in this situation before, and knew that there was an UPSTAIRS bar which is usually, and was on this occasion, much less busy. This use of KNOWLEDGE felt GOOD!

The show began soon after and, as expected, it was GRATE. The wonderful thing about Mr Lewisohn is that he actually does PROPER RESEARCH, properly digging into things to find out what ACTUALLY happened via EVIDENCE rather than, as most other such writers do, just copying what other people have said in the past. This is particularly INVIGORATING with Beatles stuff as SO much of the previous literature is based on newspaper reports from the sixties which were ALWAYS WRONG about pretty much EVERYTHING. Huge tracts of the show was him saying "People have always said (FACT) for yeard, but actually (OPPOSITE THING) is true, and LOOK! here are multuple documents proving it!"

I don't want to give examples because that would spoil the DELIGHT of seeing the show and/or reading his books, but it was RIVETING. The whole audience was on the edge of their seats, although as time went by some of that might be due to everyone needing a WEE. The first half was on for ninety minutes, and looking around me I realised that I would not be the only one Gettig A Bit Desperate, for LO! it was a room containing approx 500 men over the age of 50. THUS when the first half ended Simon and I were up and OUT before the applause had finished, thus getting to the BAR and LOO (respectively) before enormous QUEUES began. Even by the time I had emerged from the loo there was a queue stretching down TWO flights of stairs and across another room, so I was relieved to be relieved.

The second half was just as EXCITING, and also quite MOVING. Part of the THRUST of the show was that the Beatles did not BECOME interesting people in 1969 when "Get Back" was filmed, but had ALWAYS been like that, and the case was WELL MADE. I don't really NEED more reasons to love The Beatles, but the show was full of examples of them just being ACE, which I liked a LOT.

When it was all over I was lurking around in the lobby when someone came over and said "Can I take your picture?" This was due to the fact that I was wearing my TEATLES t-shirt, and the person asking was one of the editors. I gleefully agreed, and just as she took the picture another chap came RUNNING over, whipped off his jumper, and revealed exactly the same t-shirt underneath. HOORAH!

Teatle bots omg pic.twitter.com/wM1rZpsWjZ

— Eleanor Gray (@missy_el) October 7, 2022

It was a delightful end to a DELIGHTTFUL evening. Now all we need is for Mr Lewisohn to get back to his typewriter and finish the next book please!

posted 10/10/2022 by MJ Hibbett
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On The Radio
Yesterday Mr Steve Lamacq played Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People? on his radio show, and it was VERY exciting. You can listen to it yourself via the BBC Sounds Thingy for the next month or so to see what I mean!

I knew it was going to be played on Thursday, but I did not know WHEN during the show, and this caused me some worry because Thursday is also the day when Steve does "Roundtable", when a bunch of people listen to new releases and JUDGE them. I don't really WANT to be judged, thank you very much, so was HUGELY relieved when it came on about ten minutes before that bit started. PHEW!

I was also BLOODY DELIGHTED by how GRATE it sounded, and especially by how PROPERLY LOUD it was. About 10 million years ago when I first started issuing recordings I was often perplexed by how our stuff sounded a bit WEEDY compared to other songs, and was thus intrigued when our producer of the time, Mr Kev Reverb, introduced me to the wonders of COMPRESSION. He had a MAGIC BOX (NB it was an actual BOX in those days) that you plugged into the mixing desk when the final masters were being made, and this somehow - MAGICALLY - made everything sound louder and more exciting. Ever since that day I have pursued COMPRESSION in all things, although I've never really understood how it works. However, I do know that if you do it WRONG everything sounds WEIRD, so for this album I spent quite a lot of time downloading different compression THINGS and trying them out to make everything sound as LOUD and EXCITING as I could. All of which is a very long way round to saying that I was pleased to discover my efforts had not been in vain!

It was especially nice to be on the radio again because it meant that people had HEARD the song, which is kind of the point of doing it in the first place. I was extremely CHUFFED that evening to read on Facebook and Twitter and elsewhere of various CHUMS who had heard it, and others who were off to listen having been alerted by my SHOWING OFF about it. Mr S Hewitt did A TWEET which showed that, apart from an outing for The Fair Play Trophy during the last World Cup, this was the first time I've had any airplay on 6Music for SIX YEARS. Obviously there's been some HOT POP PLAYS for Jane And John since then, but it's nice to have something under my own name again. As he said, it did feel very much like I was "back! Back! BACK! BAYBEE!!!"

The next step in The Hibbett Revival is to do some GIGS, for which I am very much PRACTICING. It has been a LONG time, but I am RIGHT looking forward to it!

posted 7/10/2022 by MJ Hibbett
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Shifting Units
I've spent quite a bit of the past 24 hours packing up USB memory stick ALBUMS and then taking them to EITHER the post box (for UK addresses) OR our local Post Office equivalent (other). It's been a LONG old time since I did a proper release like this, so it's also AGES since I last flexed my p&p muscles, and it's been LOVELY to get back into it again. Many of the EXCELLENT people who buy stuff off me have been doing so for YEARS, sometimes DECADES, so it's brilliant to see the same REGULARS popping up again in my inbox. I can even remember addresses for some people, so it's always fun to note who's moved house since the last album!

The only downside is that it has also forced me to confront how much POSTAGE prices have increased - crikey o'riley, I am pretty sure it wasn't A MILLION QUID to post a Large Letter last time I did it! Other than that it's trememndous fun, and I'm looking forward to inviting NEW people to join in when the album goes on general sale in just over a week.

In the meantime I am also hard at work with the MEDIA campaign. Last week I emailed, DMed and messaged about a THOUSAND people about the single, and this week I'm doing the similar for the album. As ever, I am quite enjoying it, although I can see why STING or whoever employs minionsto do it for them, as it does involve quite a lot of copying and pasting of press releases.

Happily this work has garnered some RESULTS with various delightful types either having played the single already or promising to do so soon- for instance, Mr S Lamacq will be playing it on his 6 Music show on Thursday, if you would care to join me in AVIDLY LISTENING - and I've even got a review in an ACTUAL MAGAZINE coming too. Mr B Fischer has written one for Electronic Sound magazine, which is VERY exciting!

In summary, it's all going pretty well so far, with a week to go before the album even comes out. The only cloud on the horizon is the very real possibility that I will soon run out of newsagents etc to PLUNDER for books of stamps - apologies in advance to anyone in the E20 postcode who can't find Large Letter stamps anywhere, that's me what has had them all!

posted 4/10/2022 by MJ Hibbett
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Happy Single Release Day To All Our Readers!
Finally, after MONTHS of planning and getting things ready, I can UNLEASH the first fruits of this summer's solo album LABOUR, fo LO! it is RELEASE DAY for the first single Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?



It's out RIGHT NOW on all of your streaming services, including Spotify, Apple music, Amazon and wherever else you can get these things (you used to be able to get it from TESCO, but I'm not sure if that still happens!). The only places you CAN'T buy it are from Actual Record Shops, as it's not an Actual Record, and BANDCAMP, because I'm saving that for when the album comes out next week!

It's also got a VIDEO, which I am DELIGHTED to share with you below:



I'm currently up to my EARS trying to promote this through the modern internet, sending out links and submitting to playlists etc etc. As ever, any help with reviews, retweets, or just talking about it loudly in public places would be VERY much appreciated - I'm really rather keen on this here single, and also the album it is taken from, so I would very much like people to hear it!

posted 3/10/2022 by MJ Hibbett
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Geneva
Last week myself and The Mountains In My Range went on a trip to GENEVA, and let me tell you this: Geneva was AMAZING.

The first amazing thing about it was how EASY everything was. For example, when you stay at a hotel or suchlike in Geneva you automatically get FREE PUBLIC TRANSPORT, which is given to you via a QR CODE that your hotel sends before you arrive. That means that when you DO arrive you can get straight onto a CLEARLY LABELLED train without worrying about tickets or getting DONE by the Ticket Police, and then six minutes later you're in Geneva Actual. It also means that you are free to whizz around town as much as you like, which in our case entirely involved using the MOUETTES. These are little FERRIES which zoom hither and zither across Lake Geneva at intensely PUNCTUAL intervals, and we went on them a LOT because they were ACE.

The second amazing thing was how BEAUTIFUL it was. We didn't realise this when we first arrived as, unbeknownst to us, we'd got there in the middle of Le Nuit Est Belle when they turn most of the lights off for the evening. The next day, however, we wandered off to the lake and were STUNNED by how completely GORGEOUS it was. It's ACTUAL LAKE GENEVA, there were MOUNTAINS and BOATS and a ring of ye olde buildings and all sorts going on - if anything it was even more beautiful than what my poetical description suggests! It was also full of BIRDS, notably swans, ducks, millions of sparrows and also CRESTED GREBE.

The MOST amazing thing though was how UTTERLY LOVELY everybody was. It was really quite overwhelming at times, everybody - EVERYBODY - we met seemed to be completely DELIGHTED to see us, and eager to help in any way. It was like being ROYALTY or a Top Celebrity or something, as everywhere we went we were greeted with SMILES and just general loveliness. At breakfast the staff were all at it, the people who drove the boats - basically WET BUS DRIVERS - were super pleasant, and people in shops were GORGEOUS. One day we went to Subway to get a sandwich and the bloke there appeared to be in a bit of a grump, but as soon as we spoke he revealed himself to be WONDERFUL. It's hard to explain how astonishing it all was really, but we liked it a LOT.

We spent most of our time there wandering about looking at things, sitting on boats, and being greeted with GENUINE PLEASANTNESS by all of the Genovese. It was all so lovely that when we landed at Heathrow on the way back we didn't really mind the fact that we all had to stay on the plane for an HOUR due to there not being enough staff for anybody to extend the JETTY so we could get off. THAT was the extent of the GRATE MOOD that Geneva had put us in, it was BRILLIANT!

posted 3/10/2022 by MJ Hibbett
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