MJ Hibbett and The Validators

Out Of Office

Sat, 12 May 2012 08:46:00 -0500

You find me this Saturday morning in a state of QUIET PANIC, for LO! we're off on holiday in about 45 minutes!

Packing so far is within more than acceptable parameters, TFL says the tubes and Overground are running OK, and there's no strikes. I've got a PLAN for the day's travel with all our connections (we're taking a train, a tube, a train, a plane, a bus and another bus) and this is about the EIGHTH time we've made this particular journey.

So you can well understand why I'm in such a PANIC - this is the bit in the movies where THE METEORITE STRIKES BEGIN!

We're going, as usual, to Puerto Pollensa in Majorca for the week, where we shall a) drink Cava b) read books c) REPEAT TO FADE. When I get back we'll have a brand new video for The Battle Of Peterborough, a DELIGHTFUL press release, more gigs and all KINDS of other stuff, but in the meantime look after yourselves and I'll see you in a week!

Unless, of course, THE METEORITES STRIKE.

Totally Acoustic

Fri, 11 May 2012 10:55:00 -0500

I rolled up at The King & Queen last night to discover Mr Gavin Osborn outside, RARING to continue our gruelling tour - third date in with only a fortnight's break!

We went in and had some DELICIOUS beer, a bit of an old chat, got the chairs sorted out, and were soon joined by various lovely people, including The Beer In My Pint Glass. We were not, however, joined yet by Mr Francis Albert Machine, our TOUR BUDDY and other act for the evening. I'd read online earlier that trains into London from the Midlands were taking an extra 70 minutes, and that added to the fact that I couldn't get through to him on his phone led me to PANIC and ring MRS Frankie Machine... just as Frankie came over the horizon, thus easing MY worries but inadvertently handing some over. Sorry Mrs Machine!

The room slowly filled and soon it was time for me to hit the stage and do THIS:

Totally Acoustic

Programming Is A Poetry For Our Time

Strangely Attractive

The Stores Of Not To Be

Leave My Brother Alone

I Come From The Fens

Hey Hey 16K

It was the most fun I've had at one of these for AGES - I did the "never podcasted" songs at the start and once i knew those were fine the rest of the set was a JOY! I had a lovely time, with a LOT of chat. SMASHING!

Next up was the ever-marvellous Frankie Machine, who did possibly even MORE chat than I did - which is always EXCELLENT. I do like the way he can go from these subtle, emotional songs into SUPREMELY DRY remarks and/or MILD LEWDITY and then back again. He finished with the song I mentioned last time about his lad, now called "Never The Breaker" and it was the perfect combination of both the above APSECTS. It was BRILL!

Then the GIG section of the evening finished off with Gavin, doing THREE brand new songs, all of which were FANTASTIC. I particularly enjoyed "I've Got Merch", which he'd been talking about as just an IDEA on the train to Bristol on the tour, and now had as a fully formed HIT, with Audience Participation and EVERYTHING. He also finished with my current favourite, "Sweet Bedford", which always makes me WELL UP.

You don't, by the way, have to take my word for how ACE it all was - the PODCAST is available RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW!

After we'd finished we went down for the main part of the evening, and another SONGWRITER SUMMIT as we were joined by Ms Jenny Lockyer and Mr Pete Green, amongst others. OH what a FAB time we had - chat! LARFS! Incisive Comments! THORTS! GAGS! We gradually thinned out as various of us DRAGGED ourselves away from the THRONG and by the time myself and Messrs Green and Machine headed out the chairs were on the tables and the lights were going off.

One of the best Totally Acoustics EVER I reckon, and a lovely lovely evening!

The Great Escape

Thu, 10 May 2012 01:43:00 -0500

I was out of the house at the UNGODLY HOUR of 7:50AM (a!m!) today to head to Brighton, where I was due to take part on a panel called "DIY Artists - Getting Started" at The Great Escape Convention.

I felt quite EXCITED about being part of such an AUGUST INSTITUTION. I was only asked last week because somebody else had dropped out, but still, even as a Super-Sub it's very nice to be thought of. I was, however, very NERVOUS - i was acutely aware that this is a Proper Industry Conference, which people had PAID to come to, and that i would have to BEHAVE and be GROWN-UP about it all. On the other hand I didn't really want to turn up and be The Boring Guy On The End - I used to RUN conferences a decade or so ago in Leicester, and I have seen FAR too many of Those Guys to ever want to BE them.

It was all very similar to those conferences - registration was a scene of PANIC, and everyone seemed to be turning up at the last moment, and though there was a PLETHORA of A4 signs stuck up over all and every surface, delegates were still wandering around confused. It brought back a LOT of memories, of getting up at EVEN LESS GODLY hours in hotels in other countries to try and sort out other people's badges for them.

Once I was all sorted out I saw Mr Chris T-T, said hello, then nipped over the road to The Old Courtroom where my session was due to happen. It was the first of the day and so, AS TRADITION DICTATES, it started ten minutes late... and then FLEW by. Mr Chris Cooke was hosting and asked me a bunch of questions first, which i THINK i answered all right, but may have GONE ON a bit. He'd sent me some questions beforehand and I'd spent the past few days THINKING about them, so had a wide and various range of POINTS to make, some of which hadn't necessarily been asked, but it seemed to go all right. As ever I tried to make points with GAGS, which didn't get MASSIVE LARFS but then it WAS still first thing in the morning. Everyone else on the panel was dead good too - I spent a LOT of time NODDING - and at the end I think I caused some disagreement in the audience when I said that only a TINY percentage of GEEKS give a toss about high quality audio. I think I was right tho - everyone else listens to SONGS, not recordings, on crappy little headphones or driving at speed through tinny car speakers.

The next session was about "Getting Noticed", again for DIY Musicians. Everyone kept saying "DIY Musician" as if it's officially A THING now, which made me very happy. When i first started on what must now be called THE DIY ROUTE it was just called "Unsigned", which was a rubbish description for a MODEL that was all about independence from The Bad Old Ways. It's only over the past couple of years that "DIY" has become the accepted lingo, and I'm very glad of it.

Anyway, the "Getting Noticed" panel featured all round hero Chris T-T - he, like me, was the only actual DIY Musician on the panel (the other speakers on both panels were very good, but it did seem odd only to have one actual PRACTITIONER on a panel with three service providers) and, like me, talked a lot MORE than anyone else. This was fine with me as he had much WISDOM to impart. The most interesting bit, I thought, was when he said that if you're starting out you should be PATIENT, and WAIT until you're Actually Any Good before doing your first gigs.

Initially this got my BACK UP. "What?" i thought. "Surely you should get STRAIGHT OUT THERE and LEARN YOUR CRAFT! That's what I did and... oh... hang on..." for LO! i started doing gigs on my own as soon as I could nearly play TWO CHORDS, and did lots of gigs where I was TERRIBLE. This MAY be why large sections of the East Midlands still think i am LIKE that - I played so much that way that it DID leave a lasting impression of DREADFULNESS, and maybe it would have been better to BE better first.

It was certainly food for thought, though I didn't have much time for MULLING. I had a quick chat with a couple of very nice people (and gave away more BUSINESS CARDS than ever before i.e. TWO!) then had to ZOOM OFF for my train. As with the Horizons event on Saturday, I really wished I could have stayed - there were lots of fascinating discussions going on and TONS of interesting people, but I the LIFESTYLE of the DIY ARTIST (hem hem) does seem to be one of constant dashing around. I had to get back to work for the afternoon, and tonight it's Totally Acoustic. The rock and roll treadmill, it NEVER STOPS!

Nuts In May

Wed, 09 May 2012 09:14:00 -0500

Having already played a gig before NOON on Saturday it was time to head up to The Lake District, ready for Sunday's gig at The Nuts In May Festival. I thus RENDEZVOUSED with THE TIGERMOBILE at Leicester station and myself, Tiger and Cat hit the ROAD, FLYING up the country towards our first destination: Cockermouth Travelodge.

Staying in Cockermouth was EXCELLENT, mostly because saying "Cockermouth" is INHERENTLY HILARIOUS. We checked into our rooms, finding them to be SUPER SPACIOUS. It looked like there was meant to be a LOT more furniture in them which hadn't arrived yet, but otherwise all was well, so we ordered ourselves a TAXI and headed off to the festival site.

Nuts In May is, I guess, a BOUTIQUE festival, with about 1,000 paying customers, on a compact and bijou site where the two main stages are only about a 2 minute walk away from each other. There were happy people, kids, teenagers, foodstuffs and a lot of folk music, and happily not much MUD. The only mud ANYWHERE, in fact, was at the Cup Of Wonder Stage i.e. the huge MARQUEE where we'd be playing next day. I think the whole SITE would have been muddy earlier in the week when it was put up, but everywhere else had dried out by the time we arrived.

We were soon joined by the entire CLAN PATTISON and LO! there was BEER and YAKKING and EATING and discussion of the Festival Programme, which featured a little write-up of us, accompanied by a photograph... of Frankie Machine! We later saw Mr D Proud, who'd booked us to play, and he was mystified by how it had happend! Before long it was KERSHAW O'CLOCK! The great man Mr N Kershaw HIMSELF was playing, and we'd all been excitedly wondering what he'd play - well, I say "wondering", certain members of Team Percussion had got SO excited that they'd been online googling setlists.

He was EXCELLENT - ALL the hits were played, including "The One And Only" which, of course, he wrote, and even the NEW stuff sounded good. It was a GRATE set, made even more delightful by the sight of so many hard core anarchists in "Destroy Capitalism" t-shirts getting GIDDY when he played "The Riddle".

More beer was taken and then we decided to call it a night, as it was COLD, and we ended up back at the Travelodge for 11pm. SENSIBLE!

Next morning, after a hearty breakfast, we headed into Cockermouth ITSELF, where we looked at the RIVER (mercifully NOT flooded) and then had a wander round the Wordsworth House. It was Quite Good - personally I prefer these sort of places to have more of the actually WRITING by the author, like they do at the Samuel Johnson Houses, or indeed the Dickens Museum, but this was National Trust so I guess they're more interested in the house. It was GOOD tho, and we then strolled down the street for a PUB LUNCH with The Pattisons.

WHAT AM I SAYING?!? That isn't what happened AT ALL, ignore ALL THE ABOVE. What actually happened, ON TOUR, is that we stayed up all night then rode on motorbikes into Carlisle to visit a CRACK DEN. That's definitely it.

Reports were coming in from The Frankie Machine Camper Van Machine that their battery had run out, but by the time we got back on site all was well and we were QUORATE. Beer, chat, ALL THAT, and soon it was time to soundcheck.

Ooh, it is nice to play on a big proper stage - there was plenty of ROOM, everything sounded GRATE (Tim ESEPCIALLY was BORN to play STADIUM GIGS!) and we even got to have our own monitor mixes, it sounded FAB. The other stage was running late, so they asked us to hold back a while, so it was just after 6pm when we went on stage and did THIS:

Billy Jones Is Dead

Hey Hey 16K

Theme From Dinosaur Planet

Don't, Darren, Don't

A Little Bit

Please Don't Eat Us

Being Happy Doesn't Make You Stupid

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Easily Impressed

Playing on a big stage is GRATE... but it doesn't half make your audience look small! We had about 30 people in, which would have been FINE in normal circumstances, but did leave rather HUGE spaces in the rest of the tent!! A few people wandered in during the course of the set, and a few more wandered out - we didn't really fit with the more folky sound of the festival, I guess, and the sun WAS out and the main stage WAS, i think, restarting quite soon, so there were all kinds of reasons not to be packed out (i personally think the photograph of Frankie Machine was to blame!), and anyway, we had a LOVELY time. The sound was AMAZING and, much to our own surprise, we seem to have become a TIGHT ROCKING BAND in our old age!

It was HUGE fun to be all together and sounding so good, and I was rather proud of our MATURITY in the face of tiny crowds. Not so long ago it would have got us down, but the people who WERE there were ACE, and we gave them a RIGHT PROPER SHOW. I did, I must admit, miss out the usual "Introducing The Band" and "THE TIGER'S ROAR" bits, and didn't do as MUCH chat between songs (our 9 song set was thus about 15 minutes shorter than our 9 song set at Firebug last month!!) but other than that we WENT for it with full GUSTO. It was GRATE!

And then afterwards I was amazed to find a QUEUE had formed of people wanting to buy CDs! Best of all, at the front of the queue, was a young lad who wanted us ALL to sign his copy for him - it was wonderful! I also met a man later in the day who VERY STERNLY wished to tell me that he REALLY enjoyed it and thought it was EXCELLENT. I got the distinct impression he'd been talking to some people who disagreed!

With our job done we relaxed and enjoyed the rest of the day - I had a chat to Mr Sean McGhee of R2 magazine who, hilariously, had lost track of time and kept saying "I'm really looking forward to seeing you", and we watched an EXCELLENT covers band doing "Enjoy Yourself" and some proper Irish folk songs. We even smiled benignly when the band AFTER us PACKED OUT the tent doing a cover version of "Motorcyle Emptiness!"

It was a beautiful day out, and it ended with the whole lot of us sitting around outside the Pattisons' tent eating biscuits, drinking beer, and talking a load of old nonsense. We ALWAYS say it but, really, the actual GIG part of these expeditions is such a tiny tiny part of the whole thing, it almost gets in the way of the sitting around talking to each other.

Next time, however, I hope we manage to do it somewhere a bit warmer, as it was BLOODY FREEZING. Hugs were had and soon we were back in the warmth of the Travelodge at the SUPREMELY SENSIBLE time of 10.30pm. It was good to get some kip - the next day I ended up travelling for nearly EIGHT HOURS to get home.

It had been a fantastic weekend though, with two very different but equally lovely gigs, and it's always brilliant to see The Validators. I wish we got to do MORE festivals really, they're ACE!

Horizons At The BFI

Tue, 08 May 2012 10:47:00 -0500

I was up SUPER EARLY on Saturday morning, so that I could ZOOM across town to the BFI where I was due to appear at Horizons: The Sinclair ZX Spectrum At 30 as part of the Sci-Fi London festival.

I arrived super early because I knew that the South Bank (where the BFI is) is NOTORIOUSLY difficult to navigate, and this wasn't helped by the fact that I had foolishly printed out the BFI's own Simplified Map. Aaah! The Simplified Map! Has there ever been a WORSE idea? "Hey, fellow design guys! This boring ordinary map is too complex, with all its street names and representation of actual geography. Let's simplify it so it LOOKS nice!" "But boss! Won't that make it impossible to use?" "GET THEE AWAY, young Novice Design Guy! Maps are meant to LOOK NICE, who cares if they actually work as MAPS?!?"

Eventually i found the BFI Southbank - UNDERNEATH a bridge, not on a street running parallel to it as the Simplified Map had beautifully described it - and after some wandering about with a fellow lost soul (who I was following because he looked like he knew where he was going... but he turned out to be trying to follow ME) we found our way to the Blue Room, a very pleasant 100-ish capacity room. I was quite relieved to find out it WASN'T a cavernous space, as it made doing my soundcheck much easier i.e. I didn't NEED any amplification, so didn't have to do one.

More people arrived, including someone running a STALL selling old ZX Spectrum tapes, which everyone gathered round to DROOL over. There were also copies of the original ZX Spectrum User Guide, my BRANE went ZANG with MEMORIES!

While we waited to start people kept coming over saying "AHA! You must be MJ Hibbett!" For AGES i thought "Gosh, I must be WELL famous" before I realised that a) I was the only person there carrying a guitar and b) I was wearing a Hey Hey 16K t-shirt. That would probably explain it.

This actually worked out pretty well as lots of nice people came over to ME for a CHAT, which was lovely. There were a couple of people there with a Posh Camera filming the event, and they came over to say hello too - they were making a documentary about the effects of the ZX Spectrum, and asked if I'd mind them using "Hey Hey 16K" over the end-titles. I told them I didn't mind that ONE LITTLE BIT, and excitedly exchanged BUSINESS CARDS!

Soon it was SHOW TIME and, after a brief intro, I took to the stage and played Hey Hey 16K. I'd been really worried about it beforehand, as I nearly ALWAYS get it wrong, but this time I not only got it RIGHT but also played it at a reasonable TEMPO too. It turns out that playing songs at 11:30am when you HAVEN'T drunk loads of beer makes it MUCH easier to remember the words!

I then delivered a couple of REMARKS about how GRATE the legacy of the Spectrum is (my idea to go "AHAHA! The Commodore 64 is RUBBISH!" was vetoed by the same part of my BRANE that remembers lyrics before noon) and then I did Programming Is A Poetry For Our Time, which seemed to ALSO work pretty well, then GOT OFF.

I had time to hang around for a LITTLE bit afterwards, but I soon realised that that would mean shuffling around getting my gear together and noisily leaving during someone else's TALK, so thought it best just to get GONE. It was a shame as the rest of the day looked BRILLIANT, and I wish i could have stayed, but I had another appointment to keep, so dashed off to St Pancras, and thence to Leicester, where the rest of the weekend was waiting for me.

Ron Mueck And Posh Pubs

Fri, 04 May 2012 12:00:00 -0500

Living in London is often ANNOYING, but it's also MEGA-BRILL, as it's FULL of exciting things to see and do every single day. So much so that it feels RUDE not to go and do some of them occasionally.

Thus on Thursday, having been and placed my vote on the way to work (now waiting for them to pick the WINNING vote - though I'm not sure what the prize is?) I went AFTER work to Saville Row, to visit the Hauser Wirth Gallery for their Ron Mueck exhibition. I'd been to see his last exhibition,tipped off to its ACENESS by my brother Thomas, and so when I saw that THIS one was happening I alerted the self-same sibling, and we met in the gallery.

It was GRATE. I'd read a couple of reviews online and seen some pictures, and had assumed that the four sculptures shown were highlights... but actually they were the WHOLE THING, so it only took ten minutes, at a slow pace, to see them all! They're basically super-realistic sculptures, painted to look entirely lifelike, but at odd sizes, and they are LOVELY. The woman with sticks was my favourite, I think, but they were all (well, maybe not the giant chicken) CUDDLE-ABLE. I strode round with a big silly GRIN on my fave, LOVING them... though I must say by the time I got to the last one the THEME had become a bit over-powering. "YES!" i thought, loudly. "IT's JESUS! I GET IT!"

Finding ourselves finishing much earlier than expected we retired to a nearby pub - I'd had a look on Fancyapint before coming out and found one called The Windmill which turned out to be SURPRISINGLY nice. That bit of London is full of a) tourists b) MEGA-POSHOES so PUBS are a bit rum, but this one was delightful, with a HUGE range of Beers on. I drank OTTER all night - we ended up staying for ... er... more than a couple, as DISCUSSIONS RAGED on subjects various - but there were about NINE choices!

It was also hilariously full of the MEGA-POSH, most of whom didn't seem to understand how pubs worked. Some of them looked displeased to constantly be asked to move, not having realised that standing IN FRONT OF THE STAIRS LEADING TO THE TOILET might NOT be the best of plans, while others appeared to be using a BAR for the first time. The bar area looked constantly PACKED, three deep, but it kept turning out that they were ALL going TOGETHER, EN MASSE, as if they thought you had to be age-identified individually. It was quite sweet really.

It was all part of a marvellous bit of London-Useage - something which continues tomorrow morning when I ZOOM over to the BFI to play the Horizons: 30 Years Of The ZX Spectrum event. It looks like being a FANTASTIC week of events - all of which I shall miss as i THEN zoom off to a train, in order to catch the TIGERMOBILE from Leicester to Cumbria, where we're playing the Nuts In May Festival.

It's a busy weekend ahead, I shall report back if I manage to get home in one piece!

Bands And Stand-Ups And Competitions

Thu, 03 May 2012 10:44:00 -0500

A few months ago there was a HUGE FUSS in the world of stand-up comedy when a Stand-Up Comedy Competition was seen to be CHARGING people to enter. Those of us from the world of ROCK threw up our hands in MOCK ASTONISHMENT. "What? Charging people to enter a competition? That would NEVER happen here!"

For LO! For us a Battle Of The Bands Competition (which is the direct equivalent of all these stand-up comedy talent shows) is ALWAYS a complete rip-off. You pay a fee, drag all your friends down to a local pub on an otherwise quiet Monday night, and whoever gets the most friends in WINS their round. This is repeated EVERY Monday night until the Grand Final, when the band with the haridest followers gets a prestigious three hour session in the local studio and everyone else goes home. The only lasting legacy of ANY of these is that any bands still going at the end of it all learns a valuable lesson: NEVER give money or time to ANYBODY who asks how many people you expect to bring along to the gig.

Over in stand-up though it does appear to be different. Comedy bookers actually GO to these sort of shows, so appearing in them (at least, appearing in the finals) CAN to lead to other bookings. Comedians not only ADMIT to winning competitions but put their awards on their CVs, PROUDLY - any band who did that would surely be a LAUGHING STOCK - and the competitions themselves are regarded as a VALID, WHOLESOME part of a young comedian's career.

The situation seems to be even MORE different in the world of WRITING, where I have also been dabbling of late. Here there are competitions GALORE, with prizes AND publication at the end of it, and special SCHEMES set up SPECIFICALLY to FIND new writers. Even more than that, whenever I've sent SCRIPTS out to Producers and Script Editors I've ALWAYS had responses - not from everyone I've sent them to, but from SOME of them. In all the years I sent demo tapes out I never EVER got a reply, and I certainly didn't get the constructive criticism and MANNERS I've had from Script Rejection Letters.

But WHY should this be? Whenever I've spoken to people about it the first answer is usually "Because there's MONEY in music" but it's actually COMPLETELY THE OPPOSITE. Musicians are FOREVER getting stiffed for CA$H - we OFTEN don't get paid for gigs, or just get petrol money, are stuff is forever being used without permission, and hardly ANYBODY makes a living doing it. The old MYTHS about making your fortune with a song are OLD OLD STORIES perpetuated only by people who think they can make money out of young bands willing to sign away their lives on the promise of a Rolls Royce in a swimming pool.

But you only have to turn the telly on to see how many opportunities there are for writers, and especially COMEDY writers. There are hundreds of TV shows on all day every day on hundreds of commerical TV channels needing THOUSANDS of writers to keep them going, and there's also films, radio, commericals, magazines, even comics - a MASS of outlets desperate for anyone who can string a few words together, CRYING OUT for even a HINT of humour. It's a world where you CAN and DO get paid for writing things - you'd think that all the SCAM ARTISTS would gravitate there, rather than piddling around in local pubs on a Monday night.

Or maybe that's why it actually DOES work. Maybe it's the fact that there IS money to be had that means there's a huge structure of Producers, Script Editors, Agents, Talent Scouts, Festivals and so on - there's a Financial POINT behind it that means it NEEDS to work, unlike here in the silly old music "business" where decades of crooks and charlatans have occasionally got lucky, while in the meantime millions of other people have just got on with MAKING music for the fun of it.

So I think what I'm saying is this: OI! THE ARTS! Stop funding grants and outreach for poets and novelists, and go out and buy some ALBUMS instead. We need it, they don't!

Campaign Relaunch Ahoy

Wed, 02 May 2012 02:26:00 -0500

The Dinosaur Planet CAMPAIGN may have appeared to have quietened down a little of late, but like minds immeasurably superior to our own (although, to be honest, not very much like that) the CAMPAIGN TEAM (me) is drawing up PLANS - plans which took a big leap forward today when a hundred of THESE arrived:

They're the PROMO SINGLES for The Battle Of Peterborough, which we'll be releasing as a FREE DOWNLOAD on May 28th, along with a REALLY REALLY EXCITING VIDEO. I've just put the finishing touches to this and, as promised, it does indeed feature some QUITE ASTOUNDING special effects. I'm hoping to put the video up a week or so before the "single" itself goes live, partly to Maximise Promotional Awareness, but MOSTLY because I'm so excited about it I can't really WAIT much longer!

The CDs, by the way, are just for sending out to radio stations and a few print media outlets - I haven't done this with any of the previous free downloads so I thought I'd see if this made any difference to airplay - so i WON'T be making them available for sale. If they DO work, however, and I end up doing a couple more, then i might do some BOX SETS of them later in the year.

For LO! there is more - MUCH more - to come, with at least TWO more videos in the works, a batch of Validators Gigs to play, a mini-revival of the STAGE SHOW in the Autumn and maybe some EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH too. As well as being an all round top notch PERFORMER, Ms J Lockyer also runs STORYTIME at weekends at The Green Dragon in Croydon. As part of the half-term excitement in June she's running two days (Friday 8th and Saturday 9th June) based on Dinosaur Planet, with stories, arts activities, workshops, music - THE LOT. It's all TERRIBLY exciting, and it's making me think about making some resource packs available to Schools,Youth Groups, Libraries - that sort of thing. Does anyone have any THORTS/IDEAS about the logistics/common sense of this? I've got scripts, songbooks, and copies of the artwork that I can give away for free, LOADS of CDs, copies of all of our videos and all manner of stuff like that, and I'd very much like to hear from people in the KNOW about whether that might actually WORK. I recorded Dinosaur Planet with the idea of it being HEARD, especially by KIDS, without really worrying about BOUNDLESS RICHES, and I think this might be a nice way of going about it.

I've also just had my CRB check through!

In summary then: watch the skies my friends, there is a DINOSAUR PLANET looming once more upon the horizon!

Many Mighty Meetings

Tue, 01 May 2012 01:14:00 -0500

I was off work yesterday with the POORLIES (I am being very brave about it and have STRUGGLED IN today) but before that I attended a wide and fascinating range of EVENTS.

On Thursday The Members Of My Movement and I went to St Bride's Church on Fleet Street to see a DISCUSSION about a) Capitalism b) Occupy c) Other. It was simultaneously FASCINATING and ANNOYING - fascinating because there were loads of people with really REALLY interesting things to say and viewpoints I had never really experienced, but annoying because there were people with nothing to say who wanted to say it A LOT in ways I have heard many times. This latter section reminded me very much of Student Union Meetings at Leicester Poly, 1989, when the Social Worker Party would merrily take over all and every discussion by going "But look! LOOK AT US! LOOK!"

This, as ever, got my GRUMP up, but they were roundly outnumbered by people like the Crusty Lad (hem hem, my stereotyping) who talked about the need to be open-ended in their aims (i.e. he said it much better than me!) or the Veteran Feminist who talked about capitalism co-opting feminism, or the market trader who spoke about shareholders taking on big companies, or indeed the PANEL of Naomi Colvin, Giles Fraser and Robert Phillips from Edelman. It was like going to see Billy Bragg in a funny old way, in that i came away ENERGISED and MILDY AGGRIEVED - ENERGISED with a BRANE full of old ideas challenged and new ideas inserted, but mildly aggrieved about Unneccessary Poetry instead of An Excess Of Woody Guthrie. GOOD TIMES!

The next day I went on a COURSE to learn about Taxation For The Self-Employed (booked MONTHS ago when I thought that I would, by now, BE self-employed). I learnt a LITTLE bit about the subject, including getting some answers to questions I'd been WHITTLING about for a while, but mostly I learnt about the interests, practices and incomprehension of MATHS of several reflexology students who were doing this day course as part of their diploma. You know THAT GUY who says "ha!" at every "joke" in a presentation, or "Yes!" at every statement, or basically reacts volubly to EVERY SINGLE THING EVER? Often with Lenghty And Irrelevant Anecdotes? He was there, and so were many of his friends.

My FINAL meeting of the weekend was MUCH more fun, being a reconnoitre with my old pal Mr S Carter to go and see "THE AVENGERS". I went in thinking "I bet I'm going to enjoy this" and BY GOLLY I DID. The first half was PRETTY RUDDY GOOD but the second half... CRIKEY! It was pretty much everything i love about a) comics b) exciting films c) Mr J Whedon all jumbled up together and labelled "WARNING: ALMOST TOO MUCH FUN". I think the only problem I had with it was that I kept thinking it was all an end-scene. "Ah!" I would think. "Here is Samuel L Jackson. I can put my coat on and go home now". Also I kept thinking things like "Yeah! It would be SO COOL to see a FITE between THOR and IRON MAN, especially if they got the proper actors in" as if my MIND could not HANDLE the FACT that THIS WAS ACTUALLY HAPPENING!!!

It was MEGA-BRILL - and who could have guessed that ALL the best bits would be THE HULK eh? Not me, that's for sure. It topped off a trio of BRANE CHALLENGING events in the best possible way. It's not wonder my body needed some time to recover!

The Stores Of Not To Be

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 09:53:00 -0500

As subscribers to the newsletter will by now know, today sees the release of a brand new SINGLE by me - The Stores Of Not To Be.

It's been released by those marvellous young people at House VS Home as part of their monthly singles club, and comes complete with another brand new recording, this time of Only A Robot (from out of off of Moon Horse. It also has a rather SMASHING cover, THUS:

Good eh? It's all available RIGHT NOW at a "name your own price" kind of price. I must say I'm quite PROUD of how it turned out, hope you enjoy it!

Museums Show Off

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:33:00 -0500

I don't know how it's happened, but I seem to have become ADDICTED to doing gigs at The Camden Head - I seem to be have been there more than any nearly other venue over the past couple of years, and I was back there again last night to meet Mr S Hewitt before our performance at Museums Showoff.

The idea of the evening is to get people who work in (or, I think AROUND) Museums to come and talk about aspects of their WORK - it's a Slightly More Specific spin-off of Science Show Off, and this was their first, or PILOT, show. We'd got on board because, like, Museums have Dinosaurs in them?

After dropping off our gear and saying "We won't need the PA thanks" we hopped over the road to The Maharani where we were soon joined by The Spice In My Balti for a DELICIOUS curry. MAN but that place is good - maybe THAT is why i am so drawn to the Camden Head? I don't think ANYWHERE else has SUCH a nice curry house directly opposite!

We got back to the venue just after things had started, to find the room PACKED OUT. As it was the first show I'd thought it might, at best, be half full, but I forgot: this is the world of COMEDY, where gigs GET FULL! Pretty much ALWAYS!

The format of the evening was that each person got nine minutes to talk about their topic, and of course Academics being Academics nearly everyone got OVER-EXCITED and had to RUSH their last few slides - when I used to run conferences many years ago this ALWAYS happened and it's rather CHARMING to see it still goes on in a NEW GENERATION. I used to think it was bad planning but now I realise it's because these people LOVE what they do and are THRILLED to have the opportunity to tell everyone else about it, it's LOVELY.

There were all sorts of FASCINATING things talked about, with an audience who HUNG on every word. I can think of no more impressive demonstration of how KEEN everyone was than the following: towards the end of a GRATE talk about a Collection of TATOOED, PRESERVED, HUMAN SKIN the presenter showed a recently discovered picture of the original "owner" of the skin. He was totally in the NUDE and you could see his PENIS. VERY CLEARLY. And did anyone LARF? Did anyone POINT or mention it AT ALL? My friends, they did not. I was EXCESSIVELY impressed!

Someone, however, had to bring down the tone and this was OUR job as we went on at the very end of the evening and did THIS:

Theme From Dinosaur Planet (overture)

The Theory Of A Dinosaur Planet

A Little Bit

Literature Search

Dinosaurs Talk Like Pirates

After everyone else had been so LEARNED and PROPER I thought we might struggle a bit, but BY GOLLY it went REALLY well! We were both a) quite surprised b) very pleased! I guess we should have expected playing A Little Bit for a crowd made up almost ENTIRELY of people who work in research MIGHT go down quite well, but the whole thing seemed to work out well. I did most of the talking, Steve did most of the singing, and the FACT that we'd actually THORT about it beforehand and worked out the setlist didn't half help. Of the many shows we've done of Dinosaur Planet (and, indeed, Moon Horse) excerpts, this was far and away the BEST. HOORAH!

Afterwards we sat around for a bit and had a chat to even MORE interesting people, including a group of paleontolgists who were very polite about me saying "Like Ross from Friends?", and then headed out into the night, full of the joys of RESEARCH. A bloody lovely evening!

Green Man

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:48:00 -0500

At last, after months of me DESPERATELY fighting the need to SHOW OFF LIKE MAD, it can finally be revealed: me and Steve are doing Dinosaur Planet at The Green Man Festival!

We were actually ASKED if we'd be interested in doing this LAST year, but it clashed with our shows at The Fringe and we couldn't work out a way to do BOTH. THIS year, however, with NO Fringe planned, we were well up for doing it and were very VERY pleased to be asked again. This is the main reason for the abbreviated version we were practicing the other day, and also the THRUST behind the performance at The Camden Fringe.

It's all VERY exciting, bit least since I've discovered PALS like Mr G Osborn and Mr B Moor will also be playing, and I'm RIGHT looking forward to seeing Jonathan Richman. INDEED, myself and The Hills In My Valley got SO excited about it that we're actually staying on for a week AFTER the festival's finished - we're having an ever so grown-up holiday in THE BRECON BEACONS, staying in a cottage and going for walks (to the pub).

I should say at this point that it IS just me and Steve - I'm not sure why it says that The Vlads are playing, but hopefully we can make that come TRUE another year. It's a real honour to be asked to play at such an PRESTIGIOUS festival, and rest assured we're going to be spending the next four months learning our lines in preparation!

An Afternoon Of Dinosaurs

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:00:00 -0500

I was up to my neck in DINOSAURS for most of this weekend. Myself and Mr S Hewitt are performing a selection of songs from Dinosaur Planet at Museums Showoff tomorrow and as it's been a while since we performed any of those songs we thought it might be a GOOD IDEA to get together for a practice.

This we very much DID - we have a 9 minute slot, so worked up a 7 minute SETLIST, finishing with a DANCE ROUTINE, which ought to do the trick. After that we moved on to a performance of a revised version of the entire SHOW. We're reviving the whole thing for a couple of gigs in August, one of which will be at a Festival That I'm Not Allowed To Tell You About Yet, and the other will be a WARM UP for said extravaganza at The Camden Head on August 13, as part of the Camden Fringe.

The main lesson I learnt from doing the two-man version of Dinosaur Planet was that BORING BITS aren't much fun for everyone. I distinctly remember how getting to certain points of the show and thinking, every time, "Oh well, we're putting the Robot Heads on soon, it'll pick up again then." When I wrote Moon Horse I tried my best to eliminate ALL boring bits, and almost succeed - anyone who's seen may remember the whole "rhyming section" which never worked as I'd hoped, but otherwise I think it managed at least not to SAG at any point.

With this in mind (and especially considering we'll be doing it an an ACTUAL FESTIVAL where people might be sat a fair way away) I PRUNED the story, cutting out some characters (Sgt Phil, Professor Probersite) ENTIRELY and generally trimming back some of the less, shall we say, EXCITING parts. It seemed to work pretty well - we both expressed dismay at various removals, but largely agreed on the changes, and made a recording of the whole thing so that we can learn it up over the next few months. There's not much time for practicing between the end of THE OLYMPICS (which, as you may know, Steve is basically the STAR of) so it seemed like a good idea.

Not satisfied with all THAT we then spent a GLEEFUL fifteen minutes MANIPULATING LIZARDS. I'm making a video for The Battle Of Peterborough (due for release in about 5 weeks, I will MOST LIKELY be mentioning it a few times between now and then!) which uses ASTONISHING SPECIAL EFFECTS, and some of these require two pairs of hands to make work. Thus we sat in front of my computer WAVING DINOSAURS around in front of the camera. It's very difficult NOT to make Dinosaur noises when doing this sort of thing... so we didn't try, and had a very lovely time going "GRAAAGH! NGGG! RARGLE! GRRRR!!" and EMOTING via plastic.

Then we went to THE PUB for a couple of WELL EARNED pints. It had been an afternoon FULL of Dinosaurs, and we were WORN!

What It Did Get Me Today

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:41:00 -0500

Today is (INCREDIBLY) the 30th Birthday of the ZX Spectrum and, rather wonderfully, my entire twitter feed is ALIGHT with people singing it's praises.

And so they should - as I've mentioned elsewhere the Spectrum had a MASSIVE effect on my entire generation. It's hard to believe now, but when I was a young teenager me and all my friends would spend huge chunks of our spare time CODING for FUN. We'd swap program listings between us, which we'd TYPE into the machine by HAND, and by doing so we learnt how to program a quirky version of BASIC.

Obviously we ALSO swapped tapes of GAMES between us - A LOT - but even that had unforseen Education Benefits. Playing games (A LOT) led you to understand how they were made, and therefore how programming was done too. Working out that the pieces of the AMULET in SABRE WULF appeared in one of four groups of locations, for instance, led to an understanding of ARRAYS, and wondering how they made the MAPS of Lords Of Midnight led to all manner of investigations into DATABASES.

And to think, all those times I told my Mum that playing on my computer was EDUCATIONAL, I was actually RIGHT!

Of course this BUBBLE didn't last, and new pre-programmed games machines came along which not only didn't REQUIRE coding knowledge, but didn't even ALLOW it. I was stunned when I did my computing MSc a decade ago to find that, though people of MY generation had an in-built understanding of how computers ACTUALLY WORKED, people younger than us had no idea AT ALL. We'd WHIZZ through Javascript like it was second nature, but to them it was a whole new THING.

As well as all that, of course, it had a MAJOR impact on my life when I went and wrote Hey Hey 16K, first in 1999 when we made it The World's First Ever Internet Single (all other contenders: SHUT UP) and then in 2004 when Mr Rob Manuel turned into into one of the first ever viral videos. We had over two million hits for his flash animation in the first FORTNIGHT of released - pretty incredible when you consider that there was no YouTube, and most people didn't even have the internet at home - and it's continued to be a MAJOR part of my gigging life ever since.

So, today, let us all SALUTE the mighty little machine that changed the lives of my generation and - if you want to get PRACTICAL about it - made this country a MAJOR PLAYER in the FUTURE, with a ready made nation of PROGRAMMERS who could take on THE WORLD. Thank you Sir Clive, thank you very much indeed!

The Final Night Of The Tour - Birmingham

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:01:00 -0500

On the second (FINAL) day of the tour I woke up to a TEXT from Mr Chris T-T, who'd been also playing in Bristol the previous night. We arranged a MEET UP and so I found myself at 11:30am struggling up an ENORMOUS HILL to the Boston Tea Party cafe for a SUMMIT ... on a SUMMIT!

I was soon joined by Chris and Ms Laura Kidd, who is TOURING with him, and a little while later by Gavin, and OH WHAT A TALK we all had. It was BRILLIANT - you know when you're yacking away and someone says "OOh, we should go really" but it's all SO INTERESTING you just keep on going until, 15 minutes later someone says it again but... well, you get the idea. SHOP was very heartily TALKED, some DELICIOUS BREAKFASTS and coffee were consumed, and new FRIENDSHIPS were ablossom. It was GRATE - meeting and chatting to COLLEAUGUES like this is usually one of the BEST BITS of ANY gig, so it was fab to get an extra bonus bit in!

We finally said our farewells and me and Gav went DOWNHILL to the railway station, for a most pleasant trip to Birmingham which FLEW by in a WHIRL of FURTHER CHAT. Goodness me but Mr Osborn has had an Interesting Career, I never knew the half of it! He never knew the half of what I was banging on about either, but LUCKILY FOR HIM i TOLD him!

We were booked into The Britannia Hotel, which Mr Frankie Machine had described as "Adequate and Cheap". Reviews online had been APPALLING but we found it to be, well, ADEQUATE. It was the kind of vast lump of CONCRETE that Birmingham City Centre used to be famous for, and had clearly seen MUCH better days, but apart from having the THINNEST WALLS I've ever experienced in a hotel it was FINE.

Mind you, when Frankie arrived he found himself in reception with a man shouting "THIS IS THE WORST HOTEL EVER!!!" so maybe I was just too full of the joys of THE ROAD to judge correctly? While he (Frankie, not the angry man) went to get checked in the rest of the party retired to Harvey's Bar, where Happy Hour mean LUDICROUSLY cheap drinks - which is probably why it attracted several NE'ER DO WELLS who were almost immediately CHUCKED OUT. It was EXCITING!

Frankie came downstairs, further TALES were exchanged (including an EXCELLENT one Gav had heard the night before from Mr Graeme Garden about Larry Adler - it was SHOWBIZ!) and we hopped into a taxi and out to The Station pub in Kings Heath.

They sold Butcombe Bitter on tap. Three grown men thus spent the rest of the evening saying "Mmm, i love the taste of Butcombe" AGANE AND AGANE. Life On The Road!

Mr R Kirkham, PROMOTER, arrived shortly after us with a DELICIOUS pile of GRUB, we set the room out, and a CROWD gradually arrived. It was a proper crowd too, it was ACE!

Ray had been worried about people talking, so asked me to, basically, COMPERE, so I could tell people NOT to. As it happened nearly everyone was FINE - the only exception being the pals of the BAR STAFF, who didn't seem to realise we could here them. I never understand this - it's happened a few times when doing Totally Acoustic stuff, everyone else is mega polite, but the bar staff (who've SURELY worked during gigs before) YAK AWAY.

It was fine really tho - it only happened a couple of times, and during my set I did STERN LOOKS and QUIETNESS and it stopped, it just felt a bit ODD!

ANYWAY the evening kicked off with Mr David Leach, who did a GRATE set on his ukelele. He was brilliant, even tho he almost LOST the audience by doing a song about how he used to think TWENTY TWO was old. You could HEAR a whole section of the room GROAN, and following it up with "I'm 26 now tho" didn't really help! He was ACE tho, and we did a CD swap later, leading me to have a KNITTED CD case!

Frankie went second and held the room in the palm of his hand, with them all craning forward to get every drop of his beautiful songs. "Black Eyes" and "How Grate Thou Art" stood out, as did closing with a song about HIS BOY which... well, you'll have to hear it, it's the sort of song only HE could write, being beautiful, sentimental, and ASTOUNDINGLY BLUNT all at once!

Mr Osborn came on third and won over THE LOT. As I said before, I can't understand why The Indie COmmunity hasn't taken him as one to their BOSOM, WRESTLING him from a world of Comedy Type Gigs and claiming him as OURS. He was, as ever, touching, funny, and DELIGHTFUL in equal measure. And then I went on and - HO! - spoilt the mood by doing THIS:

My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once

The Stores Of Not To Be

The Perfect Love Song

It Only Works Because You're here

IT Guy Addendum

Strangely Attractive

Theme From Dinosaur Planet

Hey Hey 16K

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Boom Shake The Room

I THOROUGHLY enjoyed it - after YEARS of SHOWS and ALBUMS it's lovely being FREE to do whatever I want to play, and I'm particularly happy about bringing IT Guy Addendum into the live set, doing Strangely Attractive all by myself (it works!) and getting an ACTUAL NEW SONG involved in the shape of The Stores Of Not To Be. It was FUN all round, for me at least, and the room seemed to quite like it too. GOOD TIMES!

There was more conversation and HUGS before it was time to go for the TOUR CURRY we'd promised ourselves. Ray took us to one nearby which turned out to be CLOSED, and so we HOPPED in a taxi and asked to be taken to FOOD. The driver recommended Dirwan Balti, which we'd been to YEARS before, so that's where we went. The food was FANTASTIC, but after a few minutes we realised that it was a Bring Your Own Beer place, and we were there LONG after the closure of all off-licences.

A strange MATURITY took hold (which, to be frank, was very little in evidence from our conversation at this point!) and we all realised this might not be such a bad idea, and so the evening - and, indeed, the TOUR - ended with us swapping stories over curry and glasses of WATER. We taxied back to the hotel full of a) food b) JOY, and said our farewells, ready for different journey times next day.

It was a BLOODY LOVELY couple of days, seeing LOTS of pals, talking LOTS of nonsense, and drinking a surprisingly UNLUDICROUS amount of BEER. Let's do it again some time chaps!