The Last Working Day Of The Month: Issue 12

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(MJ Hibbett & The Validators FACT, January 31st 2006 )

Hello all, and welcome to the TWELFTH issue of our NEW YEAR newsletter. Let's make it HAPPEN shall we?

GIGS TO COME

This month I shall be playing the following places:

Wednesday February 8th - Push, London (with The Fighting Cocks and Leevil)
Friday February 17th - Matilda, Sheffield (No sweat Benefit with Ad-Lib, DJ Eskimo and more)
Saturday February 18th - The Marlborough Theatre, Brighton (with The Lovely Brothers)
Friday February 24th - Bar Firefly, Leicester (with 7 Seconds Of Love)

These are all solo gigs, apart from the one in Leicester which will feature a full Validators line-up. More details, links to the venues, and last minute changes are available as ever from the gigs page at http://www.mjhibbett.com/gigs.htm .

GIGS WE'VE DONE

Only one gig this month, in Sheffield, the ROCK CAPITAL of England. We had a fantastic time with lots and lots of lovely people from all over the country turning up - I was really rather MOVED by it all! The gig bit was Quite Good too, and we played "Leave My Brother Alone" for the first time ever as a band. We were supposed to play in Norwich too, but that got cancelled, as all the other bands dropped out. Was it something we said?

RECORDS

We've pretty much decided that our next release is going to be an EP, followed by the full album a couple of months later, as we've got enough stuff to fill both. Titles are once again up in the air, as are tracklistings, but we're pretty sure that the EP will feature "Better Things To Do", "Leave My Brother Alone" (band version) and "Never Going Back To Aldi's", along with three or four other tracks to be decided on via a complex system of Arguing By Email and Arguing In Pubs. As mentioned last time we regrouped in Derby earlier on in the month to re-record "Better Things To Do", and while we were there we did the new version of "Leave My Brother Alone" for the EP, as well as finally recording "Dino At The Sands" for the album. Mr Tom McClure is heading over to Mr Frankie Machine's home studio next month sometime to do a few overdubs, and we're hopeful to have a working version of everything complete by the end of February.

We've hoped for things like that before though, so don't hold your breath.

The EP will probably also feature a few tracks that I recorded nearly a year ago now for the American Cassette album, which seems to have disappeared off the ROCK RADAR, most likely including "Sod It, Let's Get Pissed". Talking of which, another song from that proposed album, "Zipcodes", is now available to download from the Tasty Fanzine 2005 online compilation at http://www.tastyfanzine.org.uk/compilations2005.htm .

Finally, I'm very happy to announce that the Milk & Baubles EP, which was released just over four years ago, has finally sold out. We're not likely to re-release it any time soon, but if you'd like to hear some of the tracks on it then read down to the Other Things section for news on how to do so.

RADIO

A few weeks ago I was out in the badlands of ESSEX at Creative Studios recording a session for the Phoenix FM's show "Brentwood's Only Alternative". I recorded new versions of "The Back Of The Sofa", "Breaks In The Journey", "The Symbol Of Our Nation" (featuring Steve and Paul from the show on backing vocals), and "Dino At The Sands". It was a whole lot of good times! The programme goes out every Monday at 1pm, and if you don't live nearby you can always listen live via their webpage at http://www.phoenixfm.com. My session's going to be broadcast on Monday 13th February, and there'll probably be a compilation of tracks available around then too.

OTHER THINGS

The big news for fans of THE FUTURE this month is that I've finally buckled and got us a page on Myspace... and become hopelessly addicted to it. Myspace is GRATE isn't it? It's like the Interweb but... well, a bit easier, smaller and friendlier. Our page is at http://www.myspace.com/mjhibbett, and at the moment it's featuring four songs from the Milk & Baubles EP: "Easily Impressed", "The Merchant Ivory Punks", "Graffiti On The Cenotaph" and "Praise The Traffic Warden". The latter three are all now Unavailable To Buy, and pretty soon that version of "Easily Impressed" will be too, as there's only a couple of copies of This Is Not A Library album left in the shop!

Meanwhile the writing of MY ROCK MEMOIRS continues apace. I spent most of the festive period TOILING over the first chapter before sending it to Stuart The Editor who did a re-structuring of it, so that - goodness me! - it now reads like a proper book! I was quite excited about it I must admit, and met with him last week to discuss what we do next. We should know fairly soon whether it's definitely going ahead or not - more news on that next time, with any luck!

And that's it for now - thanks very much for listening, and don't forget to check out the webpage for updates on all the above. See you next month!


Cheers,

Mark

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