Blog Archive: May 2024

Exciting Lights At The Social
Last week we went to see a gig - an actual gig - at The Social. It was J Bernardt, and we were there with our pal and Recommender Of The Gig Mr J Tomlinson. I had been doing my REVISION over the past few weeks, as J Bernardt wasn't someone I was familiar with at all beforehand, and so the gig itself was dead good. That is my review of the gig!

There were all sorts of interesting things AROUND the gig which I would like to expand upon though, notably the fact that although J Bernadrt is not a big name in THIS country he IS in his native Belgium, where he's in the band Balthazar. THUS the fact that he was playing in a venue as small as The Social (a venue so small that even *I* have played there a couple of times!) was Quite Exciting to London's entire BELGIAN community who had turned up to see him. It was a bit like when I went to see The Beths a year ago and the room was PACKED with New Zealanders who had all apparently come to see "The Biths"!

It was SO very packed that we couldn't actually get into the gig room and ended up watching from the BAR at the far end, looking over the soundman's shoulder. THAT reminded me of when The Charlotte used to sell out gigs and there wouldn't be room for everybody to get in because they'd based their official capacity on the gig room AND the pub attached. However, it was all FINE this time because, it turned out, we could see AND hear where we were AND we were really handy for the bar. Also it gave us the chance to appreciate an exciting innovation in LIGHTING, as The Social has special coloured lights ON THE WALLS which spread all the way back to us. I have only ever seen this sort of thing in ADVERTS so it was dead exciting to be part of a gig where the walls THEMSELVES flashed and changed colour with the music. It was ACE!

As I say, the music was dead good too and it was - AS EVER - really good to have done the revision and know the tunes, which are now happily bouncing round my BRANE. It was a fab evening all round, especially with all the technical wizardry, and was topped off by the realisation that we were only five minutes away from The King & Queen, so headed their for some in-depth post-gig analysis. HOORAH!

posted 28/5/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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All Them Trimmings
Being a modern young hepster about town I listen to these interesting new things called "podcasts". You might not have heard of them, they are basically like radio programmes but you get them from off of the internet and they're done by people you either know, or possibly people who other people you know do. They are quite the thing and I for one predict that they will get quite popular.

One of my VERY FAVOURITE podcasts is This Are Johnny Domino, in which Steve and Giles from AAS stalwarts Johnny Domino listen to some of their old recordings and BICKER about them. It is dead good, especially if you are someone who was in a band in the 90s who did lots of titting around on a four-track, as it is VERY MUCH concerned with the daftness of it all. It's also quite good if you grew up with AN ANNOYING BROTHER who is only a few years different in age and INSISTS on being wrong about things in an unending yet AMUSING way.

They have also been developing ENGAGEMENT OPPORTUNITIES for their listeners, including inviting people to send in their OWN four-track masterpieces for inclusion in "The Eternal Halls of The Four Track Gods" and, more recently, inviting us to record our own songs based on a set of lyrics that they found many years ago in a "How To Be In A Band" book. I was INTRIGUED by this idea and so did one of my own and sent it in, and in THIS week's episode - called All The Trimmings - Part 2 because that is the title of the song and it's the second episode featuring people's contributions - they PLAYED it.

I was Quite Excited to hear what they thought because, as I say, it is one of my VERY FAVOURITE podcasts (matched only by I Am The Eggpod really), but also Slightly Afeared. In the past, when that nice Mr S Lamacq was going to play one of our records, he would sometimes email to let me know in advance, and I would ALWAYS think a) "HOORAY" b) "Oh no, what if he plays it on ROUNDTABLE and lots of ROCK STARS say it's not very good?"

It was the same feeling HERE, and this was only increased when the bit with my song in began with a DISAGREEMENT about whether they should even have been playing it at all. "Oh no," I thought, "clearly one of them HATES it, or they BOTH hate it and one thinks it should have been left out!" However, on further listening it turns out that the disagreement was whether my song should have been allowed to JUMP THE QUEUE and be played before some others that had come in earlier. The central argument for doing this, it appeared, was that Steve thought it would be good because I have, and I quote, "lots of followers" who would be commanded to listen to it, and Giles thought this was SELLING OUT.

This news pleased me NO END. I mean, obviously I had sent it to them because I thought THEY had loads of followers who would listen, feel compelled to seek out my other stuff, and I would finally be able to sell the last 100 unsold copies of Say It With Words, but still, it was nice that they THOUGHT such things! It was also lovely when they went into a discussion about the Venn diagram of people who like THEIR stuff and MINE, coming to the conclusion that this contained ONE person i.e. Mr Frankie Machine. I would disagree, not least because I would put MYSELF in that category, but then I got distracted from such thoughts because Steve started talking about going to Indietracks and seeing people asking to have their photograph taken with me (THIS HAPPENED!) (MORE THAN ONCE!) and I remembered how much FUN that all was.

Anyway, apart from all that there is PLENTY more DELIGHT to be had from the show, which is an unofficial ARTISTS AGAINST SUCCESS special with tracks by them and also Frankie Machine too, and I would HIGHLY recommend - NAY, COMMAND - that you go and have a listen, whether or not you are one of my "loads of followers" or not! Like and subscribe!

posted 24/5/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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It's finally here!
Yesterday morning I was sat at my desk, DILGENTLY WORKING but also finding the time to occasionally look at the NEWS and SOCIALS. Early on I saw a tiny mention in a news blog that somebody had heard the KRAZY rumour that a general election was going to be called that day. This was treated as a source of HUMOUR, because of COURSE there wasn't going to be an election called today, that would be NUTS, but then as the morning went on more and more people started repeating it, everyone somewhat SURPRISED because the expectation has been that Sunak would wait as long as he possibly could in the hope that Something Would Turn Up to help him out. What we had all been doing wrong, of course, was thinking that he would behave in the way that someone with any sense would do, when the evidence of the past couple of years is that he is VERY BAD INDEED at Actual Politics, and so would be more likely to do something this DAFT. At least THIS time he's made a stupid decision that's likely to harm HIM rather than US tho - Thanks Rishi!

I got more and more excited about the prospect all day because I FLIPPING LOVE ELECTIONS. I like all the polls and the predictions and the general air of POSSIBLE MISHAP, and so I REALLY enjoyed Rishi Sunak's opening speech where he stood up and said "PLAN PLAN PLAN" while obviously having failed to plan for the fact that it was raining, and ALSO that someone might think "I'll turn up with a massive speaker and play 'Things Can Only Get Better' all the way through, that'll be funny." IT WAS.

I'm sure things will go wrong and my daydreams of seat calculations will turn out to be wildly incorrect, but for now I am just ENJOYING those daydreams. I've also booked the day off on July 5th so that I can STAY UP ALL NIGHT and hopefully catch a few Portillo Moments. The last time this happened (or at least something happened that I hope will be echoed this time) was obviously 1997, when myself and Mr S Wilkinson went round to Mr T Pattison's FLAT to watch the results. Tim lived above a KEBAB SHOP then, and when the Portillo Moment happened we were all jumping around and shouting so much that the men from the shop came running upstairs because they thought there was a FITE.

Sadly there will be no Kebab Shop Men for any of us this time, but I'm very much looking forward to communing with both of the above, and others, via modern technology. I've even started looking at flipping TWITTER again, so keen is my interest in All Of This. Best of all, when it starts to get BORING in a few weeks it'll be time for the EUROS to start, so we can enjoy entirely different DAYDREAMING and PLANNING. I am confidently looking forward to everything going precisely as I hope in both contests, and look forward to a glorious new dawn approaching where we don't have the Tories in charge and DO have Lovely Gareth Southgate looking on proudly as his team of Nice Young Men with the Euros.

NOTHING CAN GO WRONG!

posted 23/5/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Five Hundred Voices Say 'Cheese'
On my way into work yesterday morning I experience a HAPPENING that gladdened my heart for the rest of the day, so I thought I'd share it in order to spread some DELIGHT around.

I work just behind Kings Cross station, in Granary Square, which is very cool and fashionable, possibly even more so when I'm there. To get to Granary Square you cross over a canal, and the oppsite side as you cross has a row of big steps running down from the square to the water, all covered in plastic grass, which loads of people go and sit on in the summertime. There's usually a few people sat there in the morning as I walk towards it, but today there were HUNDREDS of people, who were SMALL. At first I thought it was just a school trip who had occupied the entire thing but as I got closer I noticed that each row had children of roughly the same size on it, with a TEACHER at either end, and that nearly everyone was looking across to the other side where there was a cameraman.

AHA! It was a SCHOOL PHOTOGRAPH being taken, most likely for an entire Primary School. We used to do these every three or four years at my Senior School, and it would involve the erection of a MASSIVE structure for people to stand on, and then one of those cameras that moved VERY SLOWLY along the line, enabling TYKES to run round the back and get in it twice (except at our school the STERNEST teachers were positioned at the end to stop this rebellious practice). It used to take FOREVER to set it all up, so it was clearly a GRATE idea for whatever school this was to take advantage of the pre-provided big steps, and I'm sure worth the hassle it must have taken to get FIVE HUNDRED TINIES along to the right place.

It was all very CHARMING and LOVELY, but then it got better because it was time to take the actual picture, which involved lots of adults saying "SHH!" and then small children saying "SHH!" and then everybody all saying "SHH!" to each other because they were all saying "SHH!" so loudly. Once that was done the cameraman shouted. "ALL RIGHT! NOW! EVERYONE SAY - CHEESE!" and then 500 tiny voices whispered "cheese" as one. It was LOVELY. Shortly after that I entered our building and heard a distant "LOUDER!" and the same 500 voices shouting "CHEESE!" and it was BRILLIANT.

I work in an ART COLLEGE and there are often HAPPENINGS and ART and CONCEPTS slathered about, but I don't think I've ever heard ot seen anything quite as moving as half a thousand human beings forming a moment they'll always remeber by shouting about dairy products. More of this sort of thing please!

posted 21/5/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Everything Changes (except The Validators)
On Friday I had the day off to head NORTH to the fabled East Midlands, where I was due to meet up with the mighty VALIDATORS to celebrate the Big Birthday of our own Tom - THE TIGER - McClure.

I'd booked my train for quite early in the afternoon, partly because it was LUDICROUSLY expensive later on, but also because it would give me some time for a bit of a wander round. A few days ago I'd ready something on The Socials that referred to some documents being held in "The Kimberlin Library". "Oh," I thought, "that was the old Leicester Poly library, it must still be there!" I went to look at it on Google Streetview, and was at this point ASTONISHED to discover how much the area around it had changed. Leicester is FORVER changing, as the council seem to have a decades-long urge to repeatedly knock EVERYTHING down and then put something else there, which a few years later gets knocked down ITSELF (as faithfully documented in the song Leicester's Trying To Tell Me Something, but this level of moving STREETS about was something new. "I'll go and have a look at it in real life on Friday", I thought. So I did!

It formed part of a MASSIVE HIKE around town, taking me as far afield as Narborough Road, where I went to have a look at some of the places I'd lived as a student. That area has NOT changed very much AT ALL, and has very definitely "avoided Gentrification". Pretty much everywhere else, however, had swapped around, with places that used to be pubs now supermarkets, places that used to be banks now pubs, and places that used to be derelict factories now student housing. Crumbs there is a LOT of student housing in Leicester now - there was hardly ANY when I was there, A MILLION YEARS AGO, which is why we all lived in shared houses off the Narborough Road, but now it's EVERYWHERE.

SO many buildings had changed purpose that after a while I began to feel quite DISORIENTATED, as my memories of what USED to be there kept bashing up against what was there now instead. This became particularly disconbobulating when I walked back into town and went in search of A Well Deserved Pint. The very few places that WERE still pubs had changed entirely, with all of the ones I remembered as being NICE now being STINKY - again, this seems to happen a LOT, with Leicester's great blessing of LOADS of lovely pubs being tempered by the fact that they never seem to last very long!

In the end I went to The Globe, which HAS changed a bit inside, especially with the old courtyard being KNOCKED THROUGH, but is basically the same pub it was in 1988 when I had some of my very first PUB experiences there. I was also DELIGHTED to find that Currant Affairs is still very much open, and still selling their vegan sausage rolls!

Eventually it was time to head up New Walk to The Marquis Of Wellington, which turned out to be RAMMED, and also weirdly OLD. I don't know what was going on, but it ws PACKED with people older than ME who were QUEUING at the bar! Happily around this time Tom himself arrived and we agreed it was NOT an ideal situation, so went over the road to The Loaded Dog instead, which was reassuringly MUCH younger and LESS packed. The University Tennis Society seemed to be having a big meeting there too for some reason!

The Pattisons rolled up, and then not too long after that The Fleays too, and a MARVELLOUS evening ensued of BEER and YACK and CURRY and MORE YACKING. As I have often said, it is SO MUCH EASIER to have a get together with CURRY instead of doing an Actual Gig, and it was LOVELY to see everyone without having to lug piles of equipment around and do soundchecks! Leicester itself may have changed but The Validators have not - especially PHYSICALLY as you can see from the below BAND PHOTO taken for us by Mrs J Fleay.



Expect to see this as an ALBUM COVER at some point in the distant future!

After we'd finished our fine dining we strolled back down New Walk to Duffy's, which I remember long ago as The Town Arms but is now more like a mini-Charlotte (which itself, inevitably, is now a supermarket). More BOOZE ensued, more HILARITY and a RUDDY BRILLIANT evening was had. Eventually it was time for The Fleays to go and get their train, after which we all hopped into an UBER, with me and Tom being dropped off at The New Tiger Towers to savour some WHISKY.

It had been a slightly PERPLEXING afternoon, but a FANTASTIC evening - I hope we don't end up waiting for another Big Birthday before we do it again!

posted 20/5/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Connie Converse
Last week I was idly wandering through the fields of Facebook when I spotted a post from The James McMahon Music Podcast mentioning a show he's just put up aboout Connie Converse. There was a brief blurb that mentioned something about a singer-songwriter who'd disappeared about 50 years ago, and whose music had only recently been discovered.

"That sounds interesting", I thought, and I was CORRECT, for a deeper dive into the topic (i.e. listening to the show and looking her up on Wikipedia) showed it to be FASCINATING. The very brief version is that Connie Converse was a singer-songwriter in the early 1950s before there even WERE singer-songwriters as what we would understand them today. She lived in New York, wrote several songs, once appeared on a television programme, but got absolutely nowhere with it at ALL and so gave up on music and did other stuff instead until 1974 when she packed all of her belongings into a Volkswagen Beetle and drove off NEVER to be heard from again.

All of the above is INTRIGUING, but what makes it much more so is that in 2004 some TAPES of her music were played on a radio show and they were AMAZING. She never officially released anything at all - a friend had recorded some of her songs half a century earlier, and some other recordings of hers were found in a cabinet in her brother's garage, and so in 2015 a compilation called How Sad, How Lovely was released. INTRIGUED further I went and downloaded it off of Bandcamp and have been listening to it ever since because it is FANTASTIC.

It sounds like music from an alternative universe (The Connie Converse-verse?), like something you have heard a million times before but also never have until just now, as if it had existed in a previous version of the universe but somehow got erased. The actual music reminds me a bit, for some reason, of Stan Laurel singing "Lonesome Pines", and also of Madeleine the rag doll from Bagpuss, in that it sounds super-OLD, but also weirdly MODERN and new. The tunes are GRATE (I have been wandering around singing the title track all WEEK) and the words are BRILLIANT. I think that's what makes it strangest to listen to, with her singing very modern but also very old-fashioned lyrics but knowing it was seventy years ago.

What I am saying is that she is/was GRATE and I would highly recommend everyone go and have a listen. Also, if anyone knows what happened to her and happens to have her contact details, please ask if she'd like to come out of retirement and do a Totally Acoustic!

posted 6/5/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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A Thing In Barbican
At the weekend I ventured into the labyrinths of London's BARBICAN for ANOTHER secret meeting!

This time I met with Mr John Dredge to discuss a THING that we have been talking about doing. As with other SECRET THINGS, I don't want to go into too much detail about what it actually is just yet as OBVS we want to save that for the news conferences, live tweetalongs and TV news broadcasters that will all be accompanying the international LAUNCH, but I can - EXCLUSIVELY - reveal that it will involve recording me and John talking to each other. WOTEVER could it BE eh?!?!?

In order to facilitate this idea we'd agreed to meet up and have a trial run of recording us talking about something, and we'd chosen the Barbican to have a go at doing it because it is a big place with loads of nooks and crannies that one could hide in, where in theory it would be quiet enough to record a CHAT. This did not turn out to be the case as when we turned up it was FULL of people wandering around (some traditionally LOST within the Barbican's many tunnels, as I had been on the way) or loafing about in great groups of NOISE.

Eventually we went outside and found a nice quite spot round a corner, sat on a bench, with nobody around where we settled ourselves down and began our YACK. I'm not quite sure what happened over the next twenty minutes or so but I can only guess that people spotted us and thought "they look exciting and modern, let's wander over and be near them so that we too can be that cool" as LOADS of people turned up, mooched around, and then left to make way for others to come and stand about for a bit too. Over the course of the next hour not one but TWO entire flipping TOUR GROUPS came past and stood near us to be told the history of - I assume - this intensely cosmopolitan park bench.

We carried on regardless and had a DELIGHTFUL time - Mr John Dredge is not only a fine comedian but also an EXCELLENT chat-participant - and once we'd completed our task we went back inside for a discussion of how it had gone (WELL) and plans for what to do next. Many THORTS and IDEAS flew about, almost all of which were GRATE, but while this was going on something caught my eye. I looked up and a few feet away saw DOCTOR DOOM! On closer inspection it turned out the be the back of an MF DOOM t-shirt, but one which was very very heavily based on this classice image from Fantastic Four #84:



It felt to me like THE UNIVERSE was saying "Yes, this is a good idea, and here is a representative of a previous good idea to give its ASSENT!" I went and asked for a photo, and the chap seemed DELIGHTED, and so was I!

Further chat and PLANS ensued, and we now have some TASKS to complete to work out what comes next. As I say, I can't reveal full details just yet, but when I do it is, I feel, going to be GRATE!

posted 5/5/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Bandcamp Bank Holiday
As anyone who's ever bought anything on Bandcamp will know (from the 10,000,000 emails from bands telling you so), today is Bandcamp Friday!

That means that Bandcamp don't charge the ARTISTES any fees, which is very nice of them, but doesn't really apply to ME with my latest release Oadby Wonky Knobby as you can get it for FREE. Rather than have my gallant band of CONSUMERS miss out on the fun, therefore, I had a dig into the ARTISTE TOOLS section and discovered you can have discount codes, so am unleashing a MIGHTY DISCOUNT!

It works thusly: go to my lavish Bandcamp site and BUY some stuff, and then when you get to the checkout enter the discount code justbeinghelpful and you'll get 20% off THE LOT. By "THE LOT" I mean EVERYTHING, including the full discography package. It is a KRAZY BARGAIN!

MATH FANS can also experiment with getting the aforesaid Oadby Wonky Knobby for nothing and seeing how Bandcamp deals with calculating 20% off ZERO, although if SMOKE starts to come out of its ears, the tapes start whirring into a blur and Bandcamp Dot Com collapses with a message saying "404 ++ DOES NOT COMPUTE ++" then please don't tell anyone it was my idea.

The offer is VALID until the end of Bank Holiday Monday... I think. I had to enter the end date in the stupid and wrong American style, so there's a slight chance that it might be useable until early June, but either way please partake of it as you will, with happy Bandcamp Friday wishes to one and all!

posted 3/5/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Monster Island
Last week, as part of the EXCITING BUILD-UP to the release of Oaby Wonky Knobby I put out a video for 'Only A Robot'. However, the EXCITEMENT does not end there for today I am UNLEASHING yet ANOTHER video, this time for Monster Island, which you can witness RIGHT HERE:



This one was put together using clips from various public domain movies, notably The Lost World from 1925. It was a GRATE deal of fun to put together, especially MARVELLING at the ingenuity in some of these old films, and I hope it is similarly DELIGHTFUL to watch!

posted 1/5/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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