Blog Archive: October 2026

To Nottingham!
On Wednesday afternoon I set off to distant NOTTINGHAM, where Chris and I were due to play a gig at The Grove. COR, I tell you what, Nottingham has certainly changed since the last time I was there, as they appear to have knocked half of it down, planted some trees, and also installed an entire art gallery. As someone who lived in Leicester for many years I am, of course, unable to admit that anything about Nottingham was nice, but if pushed I would say that it was all right!

I checked into the IBIS and then wandered over towards the venue, where I found Chris also wandering around, and together we found The Grove and also Cam, it's owner. It's a really nice place, sort of like a cross between JT Soar round the corner and the old 12 Bar Club in London - a small room with lovely sound, but also with a MEZZANINE which is where the Green Room was. I do like a Mezzanine!

We had a delightful soundcheck and then asked if there might possibly be somewhere to get some food nearby, hopefully with a vegan option. "Oh yes," said Cam, "the King Billy pub around the corner has an entire plant-based cafe on the top floor. HERE IS THEIR CARD!" We thus popped round to Carolina's Texmex to have a MASSIVE pile of DELICIOUS grub, and also some really nice beer, whilst we engaged in our traditional BAND MEETING. This was a really good one, and we ended up with plans for THE SPRING pretty much sorted out, alongside aching bellies from all the grub. All band meetings should be like this!

That done we headed back to the venue to see several lovely familiar faces, not least Mr A Hale who was putting the whole thing on. He had CURATED the evening with acts deemed to be SUITABLE to accompany us, like some kind of ROCK SOMMELLIER, and a very good job he had done too. I was already familiar with Vom Vorton, who I have played with MANY times and who this time performed a whole set of HALLOWEEN-based songs, including some that he MASSIVELY LIED about, claiming they were from an album released 21 years ago. STOP IT TOM! However I was not familiar at all with our other act, Sarah Farrell who was GRATE. She did songs full of heart and humour and also amazing singing and guitar playing, and delivered the lot in a sort of deadpan way that was ENTHRALLING to watch. I thought she was really really good!

Then it was our turn to go on, and we did THIS:

Wrong About Everything

Say It With Words

Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine

When You Hear A Bird

The Perfect Love Song

7 Hearts

In The North Stand

It Only Works Because You're here

Timewasters

(pic nabbed from Vom Vorton's instagram)

Earlier on I'd put forward a proposal that this time we should NOT start unannounced with Say It With Words as we have done recently but instead say hello and give some explanation of what we were about. My thinking was that people needed to be aware that there was going to be some emotion and some humour in the songs, but then Sarah and Tom had pretty much already covered this so there wasn't really any need.

Chris was playing a Felted Piano, which has a THIRD pedal allowing you to drop a felt barrier in front of the keys to make them sound EVEN LOVELIER, and he used this appropriately throughout the set. I, meanwhile, was experimenting with MICROPHONE TECHNIQUE - so far I have always taken the microphone off its stand and wandered about, but this time I left it where it was to see how that went. I think it went pretty good!

Once the show was all done we had chats various and then headed round to the old home of Nottingham Indie, The Bunkers Hill Inn, where I had my first pint of BASS in many a year. It was lovely, and a delightful way to end a delightful evening. Touring is FUN!

posted 22/10/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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When You Hear A Bird - OUT NOW!
Today I am delighted beyond words to announce that the DEBUT SINGLE from Hibbett & Christopher is out NOW wherever you get your digital music, and ESPECIALLY directly from us via Bandcamp HERE:



The songs that Chris and I have been working on for Hibbett & Christopher are a mixture of new and old ones, and When You Hear A Bird is very much in the NEW category, with Chris taking my basic idea and making it into a thing of GRATE BEAUTY. We're going to be playing it on our forthcoming TOUR, which we are calling 'Hello, we exist' because that is basically what we're trying to say with it!



You can find out more about ALL of the forthcoming Hibbett & Christopher gigs over on the webpage. where there are also links to our new social media sites, if you fancy following us. We're kicking off the tour on Wednesday in Nottingham then we're off to Bath, Brighton and London, with more to come next year in Sheffield and Leicester. It would be LOVELY to see you if you're around, the shows so far have been, I think, PRETTY FLIPPING GOOD and we are planning to keep them that way!

posted 18/10/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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Pints Of Knowledge (slight return)
On Wednesday evening I headed once more to distant South London - WANDSWORTH to be precise, where I was due to do a talk about Superhero Storytelling at The Alma for Pints Of Knowledge. I had written myself out a PLAN to get as far as the station, thinking I'd work out the way to the pub once I got there, but it turned out the pub was directly opposite the entrance anyway. It was an OMEN of an evening of ease and delight yet to come.

Once inside I popped upstairs where I met Ben, one of the organisers, and Merlin, the barman. The last time I met a barman called Merlin was in the last century when that was the name of the bar manager at the legendary Magazine in Leicester, who famously (NB if you drank in there) did the accounts on an Oric-1 or Dragon 32, depending upon who you asked, so this was another good omen.

We had a quick chat about how it was going to work and then I went downstairs to get some tea. Last time I did one of these shows the journey there had been FRAUGHT with PANIC due to trains etc, so this time I had left PLENTY of leeway, giving me a good half hour to have an extremely delicious CAULIFLOWER CHATEUABRIAND. I've just looked up what "chateaubriand" means and I guess that means it was a big cauliflower cooked between lesser vegetables (broccoli?) but either way it was very nice.

Then I went back upstairs and met Isaac, who was going to be doing my introduction, got a drink from Merlin, and sat at the side to watch people coming in. CRIKEY but there were actually SEVERAL of them, with the room getting close to filling up!

These nights start with a question for the audience, which this time was "what are the iconic aspects of a superhero to you?" which got some VERY interesting answers, all of which I managed to come back to in my actual talk which, not to put too fine a point on it, seemed to go really well. Cor, it was a HUGE amount of fun - I felt a lot more comfortable doing it this time, probably because I didn't need to use a microphone so could waft from side to side to the stage using both hands to explain things and NOT panic about whether I could hold it correctly.

The talk itself was a massive re-write of the last one, taking out most of the Doctor Doom and Batman stuff (but not all of it) and digging into the three act structure, American Monomyth, Umberto Eco and his Oneiric Climate, and all that sort of thing. As it went along my BRANE got into it and I started thinking up NEW BITS, and then when we got into the Q&A section the huge range of EXCELLENT questions really got me thinking and opened up all sorts of new IDEAS too.

It was basically like the most fun academic presentation EVER, except that the questions after were all ACTUAL QUESTIONS that people wanted ACTUAL ANSWERS for. There were so many questions, in fact, that when the evening itself ended I spent another twenty minutes or so talking to people who had yet more things to ask, which was utterly and entirely lovely.

As I think I have remarked before, it is a wonderful idea to have evenings in the pub where people with curious minds can come out and FIND OUT ABOUT STUFF, especially as it means that the person who is telling them (e.g. me) gets to find out more themselves too. I would HIGHLY recommend getting to one of these events if you can, they are GRATE!

posted 15/10/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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PRS Statement Day
Yesterday was PRS Statement Day, that most wonderful of festive occasions that comes around for Performing Rights Society members anywhere from zero to four times a year, depending upon whether you have accrued enough songwriting royalties for them to look down kindly upon you and hand over some CA$H.

Happily for me, after about a year of NOT being visited by Santa PRS, I finally made enough for it to mean that I DID get paid this time, and received the princely sum of £30.71! It is, of course, not the money that counts - as I always say, if I was ever in this for the money then I would very quickly have done something else instead - but rather the big list you get that shows where your many micro-pennies have accrued.

And OH! what a delight the list was this time, as it was full of WEIRD and FUN stuff, notably the fact that Thank Goodness For Christmas is gradually making its way to being one of my top ten earning songs of all time! Obviously, that is a pretty low bar to clamber over, but still. It's done well over several statements now because it apparently made it onto the playlist for Air Alaska flights, and this time around I seem to have got some payments for UK Airlines playing it too! I'm not sure if this is one of those weird PRS things where they make guesses on where stuff gets played (e.g. if you have a song on BBC Radio you then sometimes get a payment for it getting played in GYMNASIA which, in the nicest possible way, is unlikely for most of my stuff) or whether it means that OTHER airlines have heard it and decided that yes, that IS the perfect song for airborne festivities.

Elsewhere there were various odd places for songs to be played, like Hey Hey 16K on the radio in Hong Kong, People Who Stand In The Door in Germany, Hey William in both China and Cyprus, and Work's All Right (if it's a proper job) in the US of A. I guess I can understand Hey Hey 16K being played somewhere (although did they have ZX Spectrums in Hong Kong?), but it is strange and also lovely when I see songs which SHALL WE SAY are not QUITE as well-known as others which are still getting airplay.

Strangest of all though was a (tiny) payment for Everybody Let's Get Together due to it being used in a Chilean version of 'Arrested Development' on Netflix! That can't be right, can it? I have a feeling this MAY be a mis-categorisation by PRS, in which case I will happily be deducted my 42p in earnings next time around, but still, it's a rather fabulous thought that that tiny song which I initially wrote decades ago as yet another failed attempt at an ADVERT commission could eventually find it's way into the background of a TV show on the other side of the world. Even if it didn't!

posted 15/10/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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Leicesterval Is Announced
Great joy rang around my world yesterday as the line-up for LEICESTERVAL 2027 was announced, and LO! Hibbett & Christopher are on it!



This gig was booked with Mr S Tyers MONTHS ago and ever since I have been desperate to a) add it to The Database Of ROCK and b) SHOW OFF about it, and so I was mightily pleased to find that this momentous day had finally come. I was ALSO delighted to see lots of PALS and FELLOW TRAVELLERS playing at various points over the weekend and ESPECIALLY to to see that Language Of Flowers are playing - I was disappointed I couldn't go and see their comeback gig a few weeks ago, but now I can see them in lovely Leicester. HOORAH!

SOCIALS etc being what they are in the modern climate means that Simon also supplied us with our own "tile", which is what they call it now for one of them SQUARES on Instagram that have, for many purposes, replaced the old-fashioned gig poster. Here it is:



You may be wandering why I have not already shared the above on The Socials MYSELF, and the answer is straightforward, if somewhat cloaked in mystery. For LO! I certainly AM going to be sharing this on socials, but probably not until next week and probably not (directly at least) on my USUAL socials. For LO! AGANE! a whole new SUITE of WEB STUFF is coming your way, along with ANOTHER exciting announcement which I have been DESPERATE to share with all and sundry for almost as long. Consider yourself... ENTHRALLED!!

posted 14/10/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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Back in Balham
On Wednesday evening I found myself crossing London to distant SOUTH London, heading to BALHAM and The Bedford where I was due to play my first gig in that vicinity for over a decade.

For LO! Hibbett and Christopher were due to perform at a Freedom of Expression show, a promotion by Mr T Eveleigh who I have done gigs for and with approx 1,000,000 times over the years. I bumped into Tim on the way in and then was astonished when he led me into the big MAIN room (i.e. not one of the smaller ones upstairs) which I'd not been in before but which was GORGEOUS. It was a bit like a theatre and a bit like a courtroom, with a wooden balcony all around the top and tables set out in The Cabaret Style - CLASSY, basically. It also had a PROPER Green Room down in the depths of the basement, created, I assume, because they have a LOT of comedy shows there and comedians seem to prefer to sit in small rooms on their own rather than go out into the actual PUB. They are weird.

Anyway, Chris and I did our soundcheck, which Rich the Soundman made sound ACE, and then went into the actual PUB where we met Jim, Tim, Mark and Neil i.e. a big bunch of Chris's PALS what had v kindly come to see us. After some chat I excused myself to go and see if I could find some TEA and, after being amazed at how much Balham has changed since the very first time I ever went there (on the day when the events of The Gay Train occurred), I was further DELIGHTED to find an ACTUAL CHIPPY. This portended of further good times to come!

Back at the venue things were just kicking off with Adrian Roye, who I'd seen previously at Tim's album launch, and who had (and HAS) a LOVELY singing voice. He was followed by Interiors who were dead good also, but kept REMINDING me of something. It was only when they mentioned that they'd been together for TWENTY YEARS that I realised that they not only had almost the same line-up as THE VALIDATORS but also the same looks on their faces of just being very happy to all be together!

Then it was our turn and, after the usual chat onstage with Tim, we did THIS:

Say It With Words

Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine

When You Hear A Bird

The Perfect Love Song

7 Hearts

In The North Stand

Timewasters

It Only Works Because You're here

It felt like a really really good set, possibly helped by the VENUE and the LIGHTS and the SOUND and the way it all felt like we were doing a Proper Thing. There was some discussion about Chris's new glasses, ACTUAL APPLAUSE for my Wooden Robin Solo (the first time I have EVER been applauded for a solo!) and, once again, way more laughs than I expected. You don't have to take my word for any of this though, as once again the gig is available to view HERE:



I must say I MOSTLY like this thing of being able to watch gigs on catch-up, the only slight issue for me is that it does rather spoil bits where my MEMORY says I was singing beautifully and the technology says differently, but otherwise it is rather handy!

Gig done I had a chat with Chris's friend Tim who had some THORTS and also NOTES about the performance which were HUGELY appreciated. "I am still processing it" he said, which is similar to what Guy Lloyd said last week during our interview. I also am still processing it - I spent DECADES working up my usual ACT but suddenly we're doing something DIFFERENT and I've not quite got my head around how it's meant to work, at least with what I'm doing. When I look out at, and also when I listen TO, the audience I'm aware that at the start they're often not quite sure what they're watching, so some of the laughter is a bit nervous. THUS it was great to be able to talk to somebody outside of us about this. Who knew that the creative process could be INTERESTING eh?

After that we said farewells to our visitors, and also to each other, and I went back in to sit with Mr W Pilkington and thoroughly enjoy Anna Tabbush Trio who sounded GORGEOUS. After that all that was left to do was to collect my gear, say some final cheerios and then head off into the night. What a lovely eveing it had been!

posted 8/10/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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Radio Blah Blah
Thursday afternoon found me zooming once more down to sunny BRIGHTON, where Hibbett and Christopher were due to appear LIVE on Radio Blah Blah - our first radio session!

I got to Brighton a bit earlier than necessary so popped to Dave's Comics. I have visited here several times on recent trips and always ended up spending a load of CA$H (as indeed I did this time) but had never before been two doors down to "Dave's BOOKS" which sold back issues and sale items. I didn't buy anything, but I did spend a long time looking through a pile of copies of Marvel UK's "Rampage" monthly from the early 1980s. MY WORD, the RUSH of memories just looking at those covers - I only ever bought one or two issues of this series, as I didn't often see it in the shops and usually couldn't afford it, but OH how I gazed in wonder at those black and white John Byrne X-Men stories!

Having done my bit for the local economy I wandered down to The Actors where I noticed they were having a "Dyke's Night" later that evening. This generated ANOTHER memory of the LAST time I had played in Brighton during a Lesbian Evening, where I had not gone down very well. It was only later, when we'd had a look in the theatre venue upstairs and Chris was telling me some of the venue's history that I realised that THIS WAS THE SAME PLACE, twenty and a bit years later!! LAWKS!

Before then we had a discussion of Chris's VERY NICE new glasses, a BAND MEETING during which many Important Matters were decided and then a SOUNDCHECK during which I tried out my Wooden Robin. No, this is NOT a medical complaint, but rather an amazing device what I bought that allows you to simulate the sound of a robin singing, which I used on When You Hear A Bird. You can see the general idea of how it works from this very serious French gentleman (a descendant of Obleix I think) below:



Following that we went downstairs to find Mr J Walsh and Mrs R Thorpe-Tracey and LO! larks and chat ensued until it was time for the evening itself to begin. The way the night worked was the a band played in the main theatre then they, and the whole audience, went down the corridor to the studio room for an interview. This was repeated for each act, except that the last band stayed on stage for their interview. It seemed a bit weird before it happened but actually worked really well - the whole thing was being broadcast LIVE on the radio, so moving around like this meant that it allowed the NEXT band to set up while the previous one was chatting in the other room.

We were on in the middle, so we watched the first band and then, when everyone else moved, I went and got my SUIT on (having to ask the non-interviewed members of the first act to avert their gaze while I de-trousered), Chris set his keyboard up, and we were very much ready to do the below when everyone came back:

Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine

When You Hear A Bird

In The North Stand

Now, normally I would say "it went really well" and you would simply have to take my word for it, but on this occasion you can judge for yourself, for LO! the whole evening is available to listen to online (we're about 50 minutes in), including the INTERVIEW in which Chris was customarily complimentary about ME and I customarily...er... went on about Doctor Doom a bit. It's actually really EXCITING to be able to share this recording as it's the first time I've been able to show off what we SOUND like doing these songs!



The weird thing, still, to me is that people were smiling and laughing at various intervals despite the fact that there is a PIANO on stage and I was wearing a SUIT. I genuinely thought this would mean people would watch in SOMBRE SILENCE so have been constantly amazed that the humour is STILL coming through just as much as the EMOTIONS.

After that there was more CHAT, BEER and generally feeling pretty darn good about the whole thing. It was a lovely evening all round, fantastically managed by Guy and all the Slack City team, and I could have very happily stayed longer and indeed PLAYED longer, but I left safe in the knowledge that there are MORE GIGS TO COME - come and see us if you can, it will be a DELIGHT!

posted 2/10/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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