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Old News: January - June 2002
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News of ROCK therefore seems a little unimportant now, but hey, maybe that is a Good Thing eh? There is certainly plenty of NEWS, so let's get going. Although there still seems to have been almost NO hearings of Milk & Baubles anywhere outside of us lot, it has at least gone down well with The People We Know. "50,000,000 Elves Fans Can't Be Wrong" DID come out in America in the end (and a big HOWDY PARDNER, YUP! to any of our American friends joining us as a result), and I've had quite a few messages from people liking our track, which is ALWAYS welcome. We've also been asked to provide a track for a compilation of Country & Western songs, so we'll hopefully be rerecording "Another Man's Laundry" with the BAND at some point, once, of course, certain members have recovered enough from ACTUALLY GIVING BIRTH.
Talking of compilations, there's apparently going to be a CD specially for the gogojohnnyagogo event in Leeds next month, my track will either be "Leave My Brother Alone" or "Billy Jones Is Dead" - it's coming up quite fast now that gig, it's been in the DISTANCE for ages and now it's here. I'd better get practicing really, oughtn't i?
Meanwhile, over the FESTIVE PERIOD i made a FANTASTIC DISCOVERY: The walk from my flat to the flat of MY LADY is EXACTLY the right distance and nature for GRATE THORTS! Hoorah! Not since the days of Popping Round To See Simon [ace keyboardist from Voon and putative TV star] have i had such a walk, and so MANY MANY IDEAS have been born. For instance, a visit to the New Songs page will demonstrate that the Song Bung is but a DISTANT MEMORY, with new ditties flowing from my MIGHTY BRANE like... um... canoes. Actually, i am DEAD CHUFFED with this new batch, and have made PLANS to get them demoed as soon as possible, and thence to GET THEM OUT THERE, for LO! there are more IDEAS:
Three of the songs will be put up for adoption for the "MJ & Frankie" PROJECT. The PLAN for this is that Mr Fleay and I will get together and record a few numbers together, then release it as a single - LIKE a split single, but, well, not split. This sounds to me like being FUN. The other three will hopefully be recorded by THE BAND to go onto THE ALBUM - I am coming round to the idea of it being BIG, and though the NEARLY finished songs are GRATE, i'd like there to be a bit more. Also, one of the songs, if all goes well, will be released over the INTERWEB as another Internet Single - can you, dear reader, GUESS which one it will be?
And as well as these and the aforementioned "Another Man's Laundry", I also plan to rerecord ANOTHER of my old songs, and do a VERY limited release (about 50 copies) of it, with MAYBE trying to get someone else to put it out in the summer. Ooh, it's like a QUIZ today isn't it? THOUGHTFUL readers might twig which one this is, but for now i shall say merely that coming out THIS summer is the important thing.
All this is of course only a dream at present - my one ROCK hope for this year, truth be told, is to get the album DONE. The IDEA for the cover has FINALLY arrived in my BRANE (on that walk, naturally), and is looking good, all we need to do now is finish recording the songs! I hope to commence the demoes before the next time we are together, and should have some recording sessions booked. And maybe, if we all hope just a little bit extra, there'll be some gigs... but that's enough for this time, we don't want to get too excited do we? Thanks very much for dropping by and, hopefully, I'll see you back here in a fortnight - Happy New Year!
And STILL the fun continues. Last week we got SALES FIGURES for the EP, and my friend they had NOT exactly been flying out of the shops. I sat with my Lady Love and had a RIGHT old moan about this, so we set to thinking of IDEAS of how to promote the ALBUM (IDEAS which, i'm afraid, you will be being INFLICTED with at the time) when it comes out, all of which required some mechanism for SELLING it too - "If only", i wailed, "you could buy it from Amazon!". So, i looked on Amazon to see how i might ask for this to happen, and LO! IT ALREADY IS!!!. You've probably already NOTED the logo to the left of the screen, which leads to the rather funky www.mjhibbett.com/buy/, where you can, for now anyway, BUY the Milk & Baubles EP and, hopefully, the album tooo.
I thought NOTHING ELSE could be quite as excited, but AGANE i was WRONG. Picture the Scene: it's last Tuesday at about 10pm. I am sat in my living room playing The Sims... er... i mean, writing a revolutionary treatise on the evils of THE MAN, yes, when the phone rings - it's about 17,500 people, one after the other going "Put the radio on! You're on the radio!" CRIKEY! And they weren't lying either - Mr Steve Lamacq, LORD LOVE HIM, played "Easily Impressed" as the last track of his show (and TECHNICALLY the first track of John Peel's... ahem). MY phone then went ringing around The Validators, and there was a-singing and a-dancing across the land! WAHEY!
So it's all been rather exciting. There HAS been other news too - Tom came round at the weekend, and he began ARRANGING some STRINGS. We're in with Mr Reverb next week to put them down, then there's only the BRASS to go before this BATCH of songs is done. Meanwhile i spent a happy weekend in with My New Four Track recording "Kazoo III: ATAK of the Kazoos", the NEW demo tape for the band featuring SEVEN songs for recording, including a resurrected "Good Cooking" which will, hopefully, take the place of "Another Man's Laundry" for the compilation album.
In the world of WRITING and THAT, there's a new article by ME over at Freaky Trigger magazine, AND "The Curse of Voon" is now featured on the Nearly Made It page, which is GRATE all on its own anyway. I found a new GRATE BAND i LIKE when we saw Dressy Bessy at the weekend, and have been BLESSED with seeing The Chemistry Experiment (whose Giraffe Album is ALSO on Amazon, by the way) not once but TWICE in the space of week. Truly i was blessed, especially the second time when not only were they ACE but LOADS of people i knew turned up and said "COR! You was on the RADIO!" and AGANE there was a-dancing and a-skipping. I've spoken to several AMERICANS too (Americans, they are GRATE - so glamorous! And they know SPIDERMAN!), not least Mr Pete Weiss with whom i have had an Transatlantic ROCK SWAP, leading to ME getting a bit pile of HIS GRATE RECORDS - SOOL especially, are BRILLIANT. Or, rather, "Mighty Fine, Yes Sirree" (foreign). All this, and i got to see our new audience member last week too - aaaaaaaaaah.
It's all good, really it is, all this and gogojohnnyagogo IMPENDS OMINOUSLY! COOL. Next time we should have some more FACT on recording, and goodness KNOWS what else - do pop back, won't you?
So, what's been going DOWN? First and foremost and with most importance to THE ENTIRE FUTURE OF ROCK, Mr McClure and i were in the studio last week recording some STRINGS. It was FANTASTIC, and i am now very VERY excited - highpoint was the addition of a string SECTION to "Nothing In Common, Except, Maybe", which sounds ACE. A similar section will be added to "Back Of The Sofa" when we're in next week, as well as Mr Fleay's TRUMPET, and then that batch will, FINALLY, be DONE. Then we should, hopefully, be in AGANE to begin work on the FINAL (honestly, really, FINAL) batch of four songs before the whole thing is DONE.
It feels sort of good to know we're GETTING towards the end, but LORD! i wish that it would come sooner, kids you must hear the stuff we have been doing, it is GRATE! I was reminded of this last week when i listened to "Last Orders" for the first time in ages, with its fantastic HUBBUBBERY and a MELANGE of other noises. IT's going to do people's HEADS in, really it is.
Oh, i'm sorry, i came over all PUBLICISMIC there for a moment - this has been building, BUILDING within me since we discussed the Various Promo Ideas discussed at our recent Board meeting, wherein we PLANNED ways to ACTUALLY make people HEAR this one - hoorah!
The only other news of late has been the FANTASTIC display of Peterborough United recently, both against Darlo and Newcastle. MAN! i was PROUD. Anyway, do pop back next time for some more recording news and - OH LOR! - probably a report on what'll happen in Leeds next weekend - ZANG!
I'd hoped to bring you news of the final recording session for the current batch of songs, but unfortunately that didn't happen, as the mighty Mr Reverb was brought low by the VILE VIRUS that everyone (including me) seems to have had lately. It was a BUGGER, i must say, but we should be reconvening soon. We've also got an Actual Band Practice in a couple of weeks, when we'll be larning up the FINAL (honest) set of songs for the album, and if that goes ahead as planned there will be NEWS of it here next time.
Other than that ... er... well, i went to see The Pet Shop Boys last night, that was quite good, even if they did do a few too many slow/obscure/boring ones for my liking. Next week myself and The Joy Of My Heart are off to see DEEP PURPLE, i think it might possibly be DISSIMILAR to last night's ACTION.
And that's about it for now I'm afraid - i have MANY THORTS at the moment about the album, and am REALLY itching to get some of them going, so next time we speak there will be MORE to tell, that is my PLEDGE to you.
Hopefully i won't be writing any songs about the mighty database querying abilities of SQL, but i can't promise anything. ANYWAY, there has been a TAD of ROCK since last we spoke, despite the best efforts of The Deep Purples (who postponed the gig that the Light Of My World and i went to on Saturday) and the combined FORCE of a week in That London meeting old pals and siblings every night. For LO! We actually had a BAND PRACTICE the other night! It must be getting on for a year since we last did this, and BOY OH BOY was it a lot of fun, my dears i had quite forgot how MUCH fun playing with my mighty band can be. We learnt up the basics of a few songs, most notably a Prolapse-esque take on "Holdalls Is The New Name For Midlands Mainline Lost Property" and a particularly magical revamping of "The Fair Play Trophy (again)". The current plan for this latter is now to release it as another INTERWEB SINGLE, as then the whole NATION can hear it - much MUCH more news on this exciting (well, to me) development over the next few weeks, Football Based Whistfullness fans!
As promised last time i have MOVED FORWARD on recordings too - i'm in with Mr Reverb once a week for the next three weeks in a big PUSH to complete the current batch of songs, so really REALLY this time they should soon be FINALLY done. Then there's "Fair Play Trophy" and 3 or 4 other songs to do, and the album WILL be done. When i tell people i hope it'll be out this year they say "Well, yeah! Obviously!" but i am RESOLUTE, in the light of other postpone-tastic events in the past, to leave the chickens uncounted. But MAN! do i hope it will be so.
And that's it for now - no gigs or anything, but i think i may CONCENTRATE for a bit on the finishing up process. Come back in a couple of weeks my friend, and you shall seeee how it's going...
I don't really want to go TOO far into it - i mean, the countless TENS of people who visit this site every ... er... year must contain at least SOME Agents Of THE MAN, right? But basically, we have been trying to find new ways of getting our PRODUCT out to THE KIDS, especially utilising the INTERWEB. Now, while it is rather problematic getting CDs out into the world, due to VAT amongst other things, these problems do NOT apply to certain OTHER products. Products which could contain a LOT more information than CD booklets.
SO we're looking into the mechanics of this sort of thing, and it's looking GOOD. If THIS plan works out you can expect a LAVISH multi-media version of the album to come out in late summer, though NOT in the usual outlets.
One aspect of all this is that i have decided to change my mind AGANE, and bring recording sessions to a halt. THUS the fourteen songs so far begun WILL now be the final fourteen for the album - i listened to the completely completed 8 songs the other night and thought "Yes, that'll do, pig, that'll do." This idea was helped along by the continuing frustrations of trying to get everybody in to record, especially as the people who take bookings for Mr Reverb tend to forget little things like writing it down, so that, for instance, Tom and i had a wasted evening last week. i STOOD OVER the youth responsible and MADE him write the next SESSION in tho, fear not, so hopefully TOMORROW night i shall be in and A-MIXING again.
After that i have TWO (2) sessions booked in April (again, i stood over the YOUTH as these were written in), ONE to do as much as possible of a) "The Fair Play Trophy" b) the b-side to this and c) "Good Cooking" (for a compilation album), the second to finish off WHATEVER needs finishing off, and then, oh! i hope! it will all be DONE. Then it's FUNTIME for BAND MEETINGS, some more MEETINGS with printers and Various Other People, and then (LET IT BE SO!) we start to look at release dates, publicity schemes and, goodness me, even GIGS!
The long LONG wait may soon be over friends! Stay FIRM until then!
First off, i ACTUALLY managed to get in and do some mixing the other week, and now "The Girl Who..." is added to the DONE tally. Next week I'm in for some more mixing (and i am sure about this as i not only stood over the YOUTH taking the booking, but DICTATED it, as the last time i stood there while they did it it was STILL wrong - cuh! Kids eh?) and then the next week, as previously reported, it's time for INTERWEB SINGLE recording! BRING! IT! Here please.
Meanwhile i have been getting ITCHY again for some gigs - FANTASTICALLY i may be playing in a garden in Leeds next month, and also have SCHEMES to just get out and play somewhere - MAN! when you are dealing with Grown Up House Buying my friends, the need to ROCK only grows. I'm also looking into playing a JUBILEE event, but more news of that when i actually have any.
In fact, there's not an awful lot more to say - the Easter Hols were a) a LOVELY few days in Cornwall and b) a LOT of walking around Leicester looking at houses, neither of which left much time to practice my dark arts, but believe me i am BLOODY GAGGING FOR IT now. This has only been HELPED by two things, 1. Listening to The Streets' album (it's BLOODY GRATE, honestly, BUY IT!), and 2. the news that someone off the TELLY may be asking me about being 30ish and making with the rock and the roll music. How does it feel? It feeels goood.
S'later!
NEWSFACT1:
You can now buy nearly ALL my records online! After weeks of trying to stretch my MIND around the idea of Actually Selling Records, i've set The MJ Hibbett zShop, where you can SIMPLY and EASILY BUY RECORDS! Have a look kids, let's see if it works shall we? I was going to rerelease Hey Hey 16K to promote it, but there's something else coming along that might work better...
NEWSFACT2:
The World Cup Novelty Hit Single is now NEARLY DONE. Last night we had a HEAVY SESSION with Mr Reverb and the whole band. We recorded bits of "Good Cooking" (for a compilation album) and "Everything's Turning Out All Right (everything)" (for This Is Not A Library), but MOSTLY we recorded "The Fair Play Trophy (again)" and its B-Side, a MAGICAL version of "Boom Shake The Room". My dears, we worked our funky ASSES off doing it, and next week I'm in again to MIX it up. I'm then off to AFRICA JETSETTING (oh go on, be impressed, you know you want to) but upon my return the NEW SINGLE will be out! Watch your inboxes for more news, as it happens. And when i DO get back...
NEWSFACT3:
I might be on TELLY! BBC3 are doing a programme about people born in the 1970s, and they're coming to interview long-time COLLEAGUE Dr Kneeeel, also to FILM him at work. If i get back to EUROPE in time i'm ZAPPING up to Leicester to be IN it. Exciting eh?
PHEW! It's all SUDDENLY HAPPENING isn't it? And there's even MORE on the horizon, especially a Frankly GRATE campaign to get Simon Mayo to play "Fair Play Trophy" as part of his World Cup Songs Competition - more on this next time - and sessions for the album continue APACE. I've not got going on the GIG FRONT yet, but when i get back from AFRICA (did i mention i'm going to AFRICA?) i'll get THAT sorted out, DON'T YOU WORRY. And in the real world? In the real world i is the LUCKIEST SAP IN THE WHOLE DARN WORLD!
It's a Good Life really isn't it?
I'm sending out a few CD-R copies, but the bulk of the publicity will, hopefully, be via.email - you may ALREADY have recieved a nice short E-Mail Press Release from me, which i'd be EXTREMELY grateful if you could pass on to anyone at all you think might be interested. It'll be Viral Marketing in the 21st Century A GO GO!
The MIXING was a thing of legend - slightly drunkenly i had booked the mix, i thought, for last Tuesday, just before i set off to AFRICA (it was Quite Good, by the way, tho a bit like a sunnier Skeggy out of season. Carthage, however, was GRATE). Tuesday evening i'm waiting outside for Kev, and when he turns up he says "What are you doing here?" I had foolishly booked the NEXT night, so in the 20 minutes we had before the Actual Booked Band turned up, we DASHED in and did the vocal, with Kev - PRAISE HIM! - mixing it overnight as i sped towards Gatwick.
But it didn't end there - i returned on Monday to find someone vaguely interested in writing about the single. He needed it by noon the next day - I'd asked Kev to send the CD he'd mixed to Simon Mayo's World Cup Songs Competition (which, bizarelly, we don't appear to have got into...), so needed to get another copy. I thought of using the original 98 version, but the CD i had was OLD and wouldn't work in my computer. And Kev's phone was cut off...
Luckily (at last) his phone was reconnected at 10am, we met up at 11am at Memphis (PRAISE him!), and by midday an MP3 was out onto the interweb. PHEW.
I've since spent many hours burning CD-Rs, cutting out covers, writing letters and LICKING STAMPS - it'd bloody BETTER be a hit now, right kids?
After all THAT - well, looks like i'm NOT going to be on BBC3, although Dr Kneeel IS, and he says i can stand in the background. COOL! Album sessions continue tomorrow night with some rather more leisurely mixing, and the Garden Gig is GO! for May 26th. Lovely. Meanwhile, for those following my House Experiences, there has been yet another SWERVE, and now me and The Oasis Of My Desert/Star In My Sky/Gorgeous BURD are NOT buying a house, but maybe renting somewhere for a bit. Or maybe not! Or maybe somewhere else - it's all Quite Groovy and modern, i reckon, and be assured you will be updated on progress, whether you want to or not.
That's that for now then - get gone and get spreading the word!
Anyway, if anyone's been regularly checking these pages they my be wondering why it has been SO LONG in being revived - the reasons are twofold. Firstly, i was REALLY POORLY for over a week - i'll not go into details, suffice to say i lost over a STONE in weight. Yes. Secondly, i have been waiting for NEWS ITEMS to come to fruition, and LO! they have!
The MAIN news is that "The Fair Play Trophy" might - only MIGHT, mind you - be appearing in the Times World Cup Handbook, which is meant to be out this Saturday - there's an article about World Cup Singles and we're featured - ZANG! The CAMPAIGN has petered out a little of late and could do with a BIG KICK, so hey, if you like it, why not tell someone eh? It's www.mjhibbett.com/fairplay, get clicking!
The other DELIGHTFUL news recently was that the band Fat Freddy And The Fourier Transforms got in touch to let me know they were GIGGING the other night, and were doing their own version of "Hey Hey 16K". Isn't that BRILLIANT eh? MAN! I was WELL chuffed - couldn't make it down to That London to see as notice was short, but NEXT time i shall be right there.
In other news, the mixing mentioned last time was GOOD - i now have a CD-R of all the completed songs so far, and it's sounding FANTASTIC tho says so myself as shouldn't. So ENERGISED by it was i that i decided to CARRY ON and do SEVERAL more songs - worry not tho, it will be finished one day, just not yet. Also the AAS Away Day occurred, and we came to the GRATE DECISION that we would get rid of all the unsold records in our attics by ... GASP ... selling some! You can help this PROJECT by clicking on that button to the top left of the screen, or hopefully at one of the gigs... oh go on, you know you want to.
And i think that's about that for now - the next couple of weeks sees a GIG, lots of FOOTBALL, and lots of TIME OFF! Hoorah for SUMMER!
The news here is not very extensive i fear - "The Fair Play Trophy" DIDN'T appear in the Times Football Handbook last week. I did suspect it probably wouldn't, but it was still something of a disappointment. OH WELL - we wait, hopefully, for it to come into play, and given the general MALAISE of the Sweden game we can but hope it doesn't become necessary TOO soon.
2-1 to England on Friday though, that is my prediction.
The only real ROCK ACTION undertaken was last weekend, when i went to LEEDS to play in the living room of Johnny Strangeways - it was ACE, gentle reader i got back on the horse and found i could still ride it. Now i am getting EAGER for next week, when not ONLY do i play TWO gigs, but also get the rocking band together to LARN UP even MORE songs! Ooh! The gigs should be fun tho - one of them will see the first test of the new AAS Actually Trying To Sell Some Records policy.
Other than that... er... well, The Light That Illuminates My Heart and i have had a jolly old time getting a) drunken and b) sunburnt WITHOUT having to go any further than Wolverhampton, which is a good trick if you can manage it. I've seen Star Wars twice now, once fully conscious and once not (it was MUCH better awake), and the pair of us have developed several Interesting Remarks re. The State Of Football.
A GOOD TIME for all, but i can only apologise for the lack of HARD ROCK NEWS - next time, friends, we hope for GIG ACTION! Song LARNING! and - dare we hope? - possibly, maybe even some Fair Play Trophy EXPLOITS!
(though probably not two weeks today... it's my BIRTHDAY!)
Meanwhile, some ROCK has occurred. Firstly, i am happy to report that for the first time in MONTHS there is a GRATE NEW SONG in the new songs section - it's called "Things'll Be Different When I'm In Charge" and i'm really chuffed with it as it covers almost everything that will be altered when a grateful nation hands the reins of power over to ME. With any luck we'll get it recorded for the ALBUM also - beautifully, there has been a smidgeon of ACTION there too, as we are now BOOKED for TWO sessions, one to do some VIOLINS (hopefully finally finishing off "Back Of The Sofa", a song i WROTE about four years ago!!) and another to do basic tracks for the - HONESTLY - final songs. It's taking a long time i know, but i reckon it's going to be WORTH it. Trust me, The Kids!
Out in the live arena i did TWO gigs - the first was SMASHING, at The Lamplighters, and was the first "normal" gig i've done in Leicester for about four years too! Later in the week we played as A BAND supporting Zodiac Mindwarp. We, frankly, died on our ARSES and realised that we weren't perhaps the TRAD ROCK band we thought we had become (which isn't necessarily such a bad thing), but had a GRATE time onstage anyway AND got to see Mr Reverb in full ROCK ACTION.
Ooh, and there's a couple MORE gigs coming up in the near-ish future, did i mention that last time?
Meanwhile, "The Fair Play Trophy (again)" hasn't been picked up by more than a few BRAVE PEOPLE, even though it is surely the time when The Nation needs it most... oh well, there's always 2004, for us AND for The Lads. It's been a BRILLIANT few weeks though hasn't it? ALREADY i'm getting nervous at 7pm when Match Of The Day isn't on, and i know soon the phrase "A World Cup Of Surprises!" will appear only in Football Specials, and not 11,000 times a day on all channels. We say: go KOREA!
That's all the news for now, be happy!
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