The Last Working Day Of The Month: Issue 8

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(MJ Hibbett & The Validators FACT, October 3rd 2005 )

Hello all, welcome to the EIGHTH issue of our WORLD WIDENING newsletter. A little later than usual this time around as I was on holiday last week, but I'm back now so let's make it HAPPEN!

GIGS TO COME

This month I shall be playing the following places:

Thursday October 6th - The Charlotte, Leicester (with The Validators at the Sorted 10th Anniversary extravaganza)
Friday October 7th - Wimbledon AFC, Kingsmeadow, Kingston upon Thames (supporting Boo Hewerdine)
Sunday October 16th - Bar Firefly (with The Validators, also Thomas Traux, The Chemistry Experiment and others at The First International Horsefair, onstage about 3pm)
Saturday October 29th - University of Sheffield Students' Union, Sheffield (solo at The Fuzztival)
Sunday November 6th - The Lion, Stoke Newington (solo at The Light Programme)

I also MIGHT be playing in Liverpool on October 8th or 27th... or maybe not at all, it's all a bit hazy! If anything happens I'll let those of you in the area know about it, and you can always find the latest news at http://www.mjhibbett.net/gigs.htm on the new IMPROVED gigs page - now featuring venue address, phone numbers, links to relevant sites, gig line-ups and all sorts of HANDY STUFF!

If anyone's interested in putting me on I'm currently available for gigs in the first half of November or after December 20th - details of why I'm NOT around in between those dates later on...

GIGS WE'VE DONE

Lots of gig action this month, and all FUN. I started off playing Malcfest at the start of the month, an actual full powered FESTIVAL in a back garden, where I had a GRATE time and faced down my fear of Morris Dancers. Next I played in Cambridge at The Living Room, which was rather a lovely affair featuring a SOFA and CUSHIONS. The Validators headed to Manchester for RETROVISION, a convention for retro-computing fans, where we launched the new "Hey Hey 16K" t-shirts, played the song twice, and experienced FAN FERVOUR. I then returned to The Flapper & Firkin in Lewisham on my own for JOY in the company of The South East London SCENE before heading back across town to meet The Validators again at The Water Rats. We supported The Wood Children who were ACE, even though I was a bit FREAKED OUT to see Mr Nick Stockman, who I know as the promoter at The 12 Bar, THROWING SHAPES across the stage whilst lead singing. Finally I played my first gig outside the British Isles at Bar Tomate in Majorca, where a very patient audience seemed to enjoy themselves, despite my appalling lack of any sort of Spanish - it was an EXTREMELY fun but rather ODD gig in a month FULL of them!

RECORDS

Things move on with "A Fridge Full Of Nice Things" - Mr Frankie Machine is busily MIXING his way through the completed tracks, Tom's SCORING some extra bits to go on "Mental Judo", I've recorded some BACKWARDS GUITAR for "Breaks In The Journey" (oh YEAH!) and Brighton's King Of Ukelele, Mr James Cairney, has recorded some SESSION UKELELE for us, for possible use on a new version of "Dino At The Sands". It's all go!

A couple of weeks ago I went to Orange & Blue Studios in CATFORD, where I recorded "The Uber Set", the new SOLO album! This is primarily for sale at GIGS, and will thus come in Carrying-On-The-Train-Friendly cardboard WALLETS. Malcolm at Orange & Blue recorded the whole thing pretty much live, with an audience in for most of it, and it sounds really nice. It's currently being manufactured and should be ready in time for The Fuzztival, and it'll probably be sneaking into the online SHOP at the same time. The tracklisting is based on a MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS of my solo sets from the past year, and is as follows: "The Peterborough All-Saints' Wide Game Team (Group B)", "The Lesson Of The Smiths", "Good Luck In Your New Job", "Red & White Sockets", "Things'll Be Different (when I'm in charge)", "Hey Hey 16K", "Work's All Right (when it's a proper job)", "Never Going Back To Aldi's ", "The Perfect Love Song", "Fucking Hippy", "Clubbing In The Week", "I Come From The Fens", "Easily Impressed" and "Boom Shake The Room". There's also a mini-multimedia bit with notes, lyrics, extra sample songs from BAND albums, and even an EASTER EGG (as the young people call it).

In the meantime "Zipcodes" has finally gone off to California and awaits the WORD from Popgun Recordings. More FACT on this and all these other releases next time, hopefully!

RADIO

I recorded a few EXTRA tracks at Orange & Blue, including a rather nice solo version of "We Only Ever Meet In Church" and a cover of "Fly Me To The Moon", for Marcelle van Hoof's show "Another Nice Mess". This goes out every Tuesday night on DFM radio in Amsterdam and online from http://www.anothernicemess.com. My session's being broadcast on November 8th and I must confess I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, so do have a listen if you can!

OTHER THINGS

As mentioned above, we've taken our first step into MERCHANDISING with the Hey Hey 16K T-shirts. These are things of GRATE BEAUTY I must say, and seem to have gone down well with everyone who's got one. They're now on sale from the online shop (http://www.mjhibbett.com/buy) with sizes to suit most shapes, and rather STYLISHLY modelled by... er... me. Don't let that put you off though, they're dead good really!

In other news, from November 21st to December 17th I shall be attempting a WORLD TOUR! My brother's getting married in New Zealand on December 10th, so we're planning to CIRCUMNAVIGATE our way round there, with me trying to play a couple of gigs on the way, ESPECIALLY in New York on either November 23rd or 24th and also maybe in San Francisco (on the 26th or 27th) and possibly northern New Zealand (on around December 12th). I've not really DONE much about any of these yet though, so if anybody'd like to help out, please get in touch!

PHEW! That was a BUMPER CROP of FACT this month wasn't it? Thanks for reading this far, and have a good October!

Cheers,

Mark

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