Blog Archive: December 2024

Song Flooding Continues Unabated
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was undergoing a song flood, with a total of FOUR new songs having been written. At the time that seemed like a big deal but I can now report that it was as NOTHING compared to the DELUGE that has continued since then, leading to the New Songs Total now standing at a mighty TEN SONGS! And counting!

THREE of these (or 30% if you prefer) are Doctor Doom songs, which are being lined up for next year's Doctor Doom SHOW. It's not going to be an Actual Musical or anything, as that would be complicated in terms of a) writing b) performing c) COPYRIGHT LAW. The plan though is to follow The Rule Of When Songs Happen In Musicals i.e. do them at moments when the emotions are so strong that it's impossible NOT to burst into song. As anyone who's READ my Doctor Doom book will know, there are moments when the emotions are SO STRONG that it's almost too much delight to cope with, so hopefully this will make it easier for everyone!

The rest of the songs so far (70%, fact fans) are a bit of a mixture. The PROJECT which has excited me into doing all this writing was originally meant to be concentrating on some of my old songs, and specifically the more "grown-up" ones, and so I HAVE written several like that, but I've also ended up doing a few that are ROCK BANGERS that will probably go into the BANK OF BANGERS for future Validators releases. I'm also wondering whether it might be a good idea to record a solo version of AI Guy for release early next year so that it's out in the world BEFORE The Terminators come and get us!

It's all VERY exciting for me, as it's been a reminder of how much FUN it is writing songs, especially when you've got one NEARLY finished and then have to spend three days trying to work out the last knotty rhymes. It's then possibly even MORE brilliant when you get one finished and can then spend the next week or so SINGING it to yourself all the time and giggling at your own COLOSSAL GENIUS!

Perhaps the BEST bit of all this is that it's reminded me of WHERE song ideas come from. Several decades ago when I first started writing songs I seemed to have ideas ALL the time - not necessarily GOOD ideas, but ideas nonetheless, and I had notebooks FULL of THORTS for things to write about. In the past decade or so that dried up a bit, as a) my BRANE was full of things like PhDs and so forth but also because b) I had lost track of where those ideas come from. For LO! it turns out that The Rule Of When Songs Happen In Musicals ALSO applies to when songs happen in real life i.e. when the emotions are so strong that it's impossible NOT to ... er... get a guitar out and spend hours and hours trying to think of a rhyme for "perceptible". Or to put it another way, when a THORT occurs to me and starts rattling around my BRANE I would previously just go and TELL someone about it, either in-house, in-pub, in-work or on THE SOCIALS. Now, however, I have remembered that if you let the idea MARINATE in your MIND for a little while it can start to RHYME and grow CHORUSES and so on and become an ACTUAL SONG. That's how I always USED to write songs, and now after many years it is how I am writing them again, and it's all rather lovely.

So yes, the total of new songs currently stands at TEN, but I am hopeful that it will grow significantly higher over the next few weeks. Stand by for further updates!

posted 19/12/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Cambridgeshire And Kent In One Day
Flipping heck I had a REALLY busy day on Saturday. It began, as many Saturdays do, with a trip to Peterborough for the football. The talk before the game was all about how rubbish it was going to be and so, of course, it ended up being an explosion of SEVEN GOALS with Posh winning 4-3 after a great deal of running about, hoofing, indelicate passing and shouting. Pretty much THE USUAL for this season, in fact.

Normally that would have been enough for one day, but this time I was also booked to head down to deepest KENT to play a gig for the lovely chaps of Careful Now Promotions at The Oasthouse in Rainham. THUS once the football had finished I nipped back to the nearby Premier Inn Peterborough where I had STASHED my guitar (using an APP to book it, for I am dead modern like that), did my usual trip back to old London Town, and then hopped on a High Speed train down South. I had spent AGES planning the whole thing out to make sure I could get there at a reasonable time but in the end I got different trains for pretty much every leg of the trip, just getting whatever was available. To my surprise this all WORKED!

Once in Rainham Kent (it feels wrong just sating "Rainham" as there's ALSO a Rainham in Essex and everyone seems to say "Rainham Kent" like that's the full name) I made the 2 minute journey round to the Oasthouase and said hello, did a quick soundcheck, and then wandered back out to the chip shop which, last time I was there, did HUGE portions of chips. They did again!

Back at the venue I was VERY SENSIBLE, as is my WONT these days, and stuck to alcohol-free beer before going on, and watched the EXCELLENT Sassyhiya who were on first. One of the many things I liked about them were that they LOOKED and SOUNDED like a band i.e. always looking round at each other, INTERACTING, and clearly having a GRATE time of it. I thought they sounded a bit like PO! but that may be due to my somewhat limited mental library of bands who sound a bit like that, but either way they were GRATE.

Then it was my turn to go on, and I did THIS:

Bad Back

AI Guy

The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B)

Clubbing In The Week

I'm Doing The Ironing

In The North Stand

Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

It Only Works Because You're here

The Lesson Of The Smiths

As you can see I was VERY BRAVE and committed myself to doing a new song, AI Guy, which went down pretty well. I was not, however, sufficiently brave to debut a live version of Moshi Twistmas, as heard on the Joyzine Advent Calendar. I'd practiced it a few times, and had stuck the KEYWORDS to my guitar to remind me of the order, but I was a bit too NERVOUS to try it out. Maybe next year!

I think I might have slightly MISJUDGED the setlist too. Usually these days I find it's better to do the SLOWER songs and so did - including a somewhat slowed down version of The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B) - but this time I think more FAST ones might have been better. Still, it all seemed to go all right and I might even say that, once we'd all got past my terrible whistling solo during In The North Stand, it built up to a pretty good finish!

After that it was time for some ACTUAL BEER before settling back into watching Swansea Sound, who are not only an INDIEPOP SUPERGROUP but also a group who are... er... SUPER at indiepop (they can use that on posters if they like)! They sounded fantastically PUNCHY and POPPY and generally ACE, and it made me think once again what a difference today's modern PA systems make. Back in the dark days of the 1980s when this sort of music first emerged it was played through RUBBISH systems managed by generally unenthusiastic and/or inept soundmen, but nowadays we can hear what it was always SUPPOSED to sound like, which is GRATE!

I also really enjoyed some of the Advanced Stagecraft which went on, including getting the Careful Now chaps to REENACT the video for Marking It Down. Excellent work one and all!

Soon however it was time for me to dash off and get my train back to London, and then onto the Not Yet Officially The Night Tube version of the tube and home, seeing a) a Pearly King and Queen and b) the local Actual Fox on the way. I had a fab day but this final bit of the journey did remind me how I used to do gigs like this ALL THE TIME, sometimes 60-70 times a year, and I must admit that I was glad I don't do that anymore. I had had a lovely time, but I was flipping knackered by the end of it!

posted 15/12/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Moshi Twistmas
As you may or may not have noticed, to paraphrase N Holder, "It Is Christmas!" Or Advent at least, which means it's time for Christmas SONGS!

Regular pals will be EXTREMELY aware that there is a grand tradition of recording and releasing Christmas Songs around these parts, many of which were collected a few years ago on the album Christmas Selection Box. This contains 19 Christmas BANGERS (20 on the Bandcamp version!) recorded over the years as singles, requests, and very often for the Joyzine advent calendar.

Six years ago I thought that putting all the tracks onto an Actual Album (Actually Available on Spotify and similar streaming-type places) would mean my annual festive recordings would cease. However I have since been part of at least TWO more Christmas bangers - Christmas Time Is Here by John Dredge & The Plinths and Is It Too Soon For Christmas? by Jane and John - and now have ANOTHER, done under my own name, to unleash upon you.

For LO! I have recorded a version of Moshi Twistmas by the Moshi Monsters for this year's Joyzine Advent Calendar! This is a song that my late brother-in-law used to put on his MAMMOTH compilations of Christmas songs because it is AMAZING. It does not in any way NEED to be any good - they could have just stuck out a carol or something - but no, The Moshi Corporation seems to have thought "sod it, let's do a MASSIVE CHRISTMAS BANGER" and this is the result. I would like to apologise in advance for you getting it your head but I cannot because it is a WONDERFUL thing to have rattling round your brain. MERRY TWISTMAS everybody!.

posted 9/12/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Finishing Beginning Theory
For the past eight years or so - ever since I started doing my PhD (which I don't like to go on about) in fact - I have been struggling with Literary Theory. Every time I've been to a conference, or read a book, or talked to academical types it's been all Foucault this, Derrida that and structuralism the other, and I have not had a single clue what anyone was on about.

Well, I say not a SINGLE clue - I did do a bit of due diligence and looked some of the most often used words up, but even then I felt like I was missing the point. I distinctly remember, right at the start of it all, hearing people bang on about Michel Foucault all the time with regards to comics, and yet I could not for the life of me find anything he'd ever actually SAID about them. It was the same with Roland Barthes and all of them lot, while the only Philosopher I could find who ever DID say something about comics - Umberto Eco - wrote a paper RIDDLED with factual errors, in which he claimed for instance that the Marvel comics of the 1960s and 1970s (featuring that famous superhero "Devil", without the "Dare") were examples of the "oneiric climate" where all stories existed in a haze of present with little relation to any past or future. Er... don't think that's quite right Umberto!

Frustrated by my lack of understanding I signed up for a series of PHILOSOPHY SEMINARS at UAL. I thought this would sort me out but it was not great and I ended up not going to any after the first, very annoying, session. I then tried BOOKS, YouTube Videos, and all sorts of things like that but never ever got any closer to understanding what the heck was going on.

I was still moaning about this during the summer this year when I met esteemed colleague and pal Dr Martin Flanagan for a drink. He took this all very calmly and said "We usually recommend students get Beginning Theory" and later sent me details of the book he was on about - "Beginning Theory" by Professor Peter Barry.



COR! This was an EXCELLENT recommendation, for LO! it was EXACTLY what I was after. I started reading it around October and have spent the past couple of months up to my EARS in structuralism, post-structuralism, marxism, queer theory, feminism - THE LOT, basically. It's really really nicely written, with the tone of an ACE Professor explaining it all in a kindly way to a group of undergraduates who he will then take to the PUB once a term and get all the beers in for. In fact, it very much FELT like the dream ideal of what going to college should have been like, and indeed what I THORT it was going to be like when I set off for Leicester Polytechnic all those decades ago.

I had high hopes of LOFTY IDEAS and INTELLECTUAL VISTAS but it actually turned out to be like a not very good sixth form college, and reading this book now I see that that's pretty much what it was! I remember one day we had a lecture where the lecturer said "Oh, and you can also do Marxist critiques or feminist critiques" but didn't explain it properly, or follow it up, or do anything at all. I mean, I know it was Leicester Poly rather than BRIDESHEAD UNIVERSITY or whatever, but looking back now I do feel mildly AGGRIEVED that we were fobbed off with pretty much O Level English again. Think of what I could have WROUGHT if I'd known all this stuff thirty years earlier!

I was also slightly gobsmacked to read the chapter on Marxist Theory and realise that, GOR BLIMEY, that appears to be ME. I keep writing all this stuff about how Comics Studies being ashamed to talk about The Beano is due to class snobbery, or how the culture of production of art is key to understanding it (especially with regards to Marvel comics), but hadn't realised that this is a big chunk of Marxist Theory. All this time and I have been DENIED the Donkey Jacket and annoying little cap that should have been mine all along!

So, three cheers for Martin and Professor Barry, no cheers to the Combined Arts faculty at Leicester Poly as was, and full steam ahead for the literary revolution. Let's go COMRADES!

posted 3/12/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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Hibbett's Three Laws Of Robotics
On Sunday I carried out the ancient ritual of going through my recently filled up IDEAS BOOK and checking to see if any of the idea contained within are GOOD and therefore worth carrying on to the NEXT one. It's always quite an interesting job, for me at least, as it means looking back on LOADS of THORTS what I had urgently scribbled down over the past couple of years, thinking they might be VITAL, but which now often make no sense at all. Sometimes this is because they were written in the middle of the night EITHER in the dark AND/OR when I'd not put my glasses on, but sometimes it's because they just don't make any sense!

In amongst the deranged scrawls there were a few good ideas, like some ideas for songs, a few GAGS I'd forgotten about for the Doctor Doom Show, and a LOT of plans and schemes for a massive science fiction opus about a SPACE TREE that I should really get around to writing up properly one day. There was also something called "Hibbett's Three Laws Of Robotics" which I quite liked but have no real use for... except of course to delight you with today, dear reader. Here they are!

Hibbett's Three Laws Of Robotics

1. It's not going to look or act like a robot on the telly.
2. If it does then it's not actually going to be intelligent.
3. If it is then DO NOT SWITCH IT ON.

Clearly these were written after watching a LOT of TV shows where people who have never seen a science fiction film or read a book of any kind talk confidently and entirely wrongly about Artificiial Intelligence. I hope these rules will be useful to future generations - especially the third one!

posted 1/12/2024 by MJ Hibbett
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