Fanzines and Webpages: My Band T-Shirt

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(this was about my Hey Hey 16K t-shirt)

I liked this t-shirt so much I bought two hundred of them. This is the last survivor, a fading reminder of the day I was the 8-bit Bono.

Back in 2004 my band MJ Hibbett & The Validators had an internet hit with a song called "Hey Hey 16K". Rob Manuel of b3ta.com made a Flash animated video for it and a week later it'd had two million hits - that may not sound like much nowadays but back then, before YouTube or Facebook or Twitter had taken off, it was enough to put it in the Top 10 pages on the whole internet. For a couple of weeks I was Internet Famous! All sorts of weird and wonderful events occurred (all for another time of telling) which was all kinds of fun, but I never made any money out of it, as download sites didn't really exist yet either.

A few weeks later we got invited to go and play at a retro-gaming convention and, as "Hey Hey 16K" was mostly a list of old computer games with a couple of choruses bolted on, the organisers thought we'd go down pretty well. "We can't pay you," they said, "but you can always sell t-shirts!" T-shirts! We'd hardly dare to dream that we might be the sort of band who could warrant t-shirts, but here was a gold plated opportunity not only to make them, but also to sell a few!

We arrived at the convention with several boxes full of t-shirts (tending towards the more generous end of the sizing spectrum), emphasising the song and placing the band name in somewhat smaller text. As soon as we arrived we knew this was going to be something special. Everywhere I went people sang "Hey Hey 16K" or gasped in amazement as they recognised me. I felt like a superstar!

The fact that I was wearing one of the t-shirts, and was mostly starting the singing myself, changes nothing - I bet Bruce Springsteen does it all the time.

The gig itself was fantastic. We started off with "Hey Hey 16K" and the whole room was on its feet - 499 men and 1 woman (who'd come with us) standing on tables, hugging each other, and singing along with every single word. We then played six or seven songs which did not directly relate to 8-bit computing... to an angry, stony silence. We were nothing if not experienced professionals however, we'd faced tough crowds before and by the time we'd finished the set we had them back on side, whooping and hollering with joy. Yes, we played "Hey Hey 16K" again.

Afterwards two seperate queues formed at the merchandising table - one to buy the t-shirts, but another, almost as long, of people wanting to have their photographs taken with me. Me! This never ever happens usually, but suddenly I found myself posing with a wide range of men, all of whom looked similar to me (what a strange coincidence, that I should look the same as a group of computer geeks) and appeared to be excited to meet me. One excited chap took a plastic box out of his inside pocket and said "Do you know what that is? That is an original Commodore 64 S.I.D. chip!"

"Do you take that with you everywhere you go?" I joked. He gave me a withering look, conveying just what a stupid question I'd asked. "Of course I do!"

We put the remainder of our stock up for sale in our online store and, to begin with, they sold well. We even re-ordered, though my decision to order "Lady Fit" and "Small" sizes was not the sort of thing that would have impressed Sir Alan. After a couple of months we found that there is a limit to how many people want to own a "Hey Hey 16K" t-shirt (it's about 150) leaving us a pile to give away as "gifts" and this one for me to wear once a week for the gym. Every time I wear it I feel a bit guilty - I bet Bobby Gillespie wouldn't be seen dead working the cross-trainer in a Screamadelica t-shirt. What if someone recognised me?

It hasn't happened yet, but wearing it keeps the possibility alive and reminds me of that one day of feeling properly famous. I don't know what celebrities are complaining about � it was lovely!

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