The Last Working Day Of The Month: Issue 33

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(MJ Hibbett & The Validators FACT, October 26th 2007 )

Hello all, and welcome to this BAG PACKING edition of our monthly newsletter, a couple of days early because I'm off work next week, ROCKING. Let's HIT THE ROAD!

GIGS TO COME

This month I am mostly on TOUR, and here's where:

Saturday October 27 - University of Sheffield Students' Union
(onstage at 4.30pm AND 9pm at FUZZTIVAL, with Los Campesinos, Pete and the Pirates, You Say Party We Say Die!, Piney Gir, Mr Steve Lamacq and more)

Tuesday October 30 - The Captain's Rest, Glasgow
(with Pete Green and The Just Joans)

Wednesday October 31 - The Castle Hotel, Manchester
(with Pete Green and The 10p Mixes)

Thursday November 1 - The Cornubia, Bristol
(with Pete Green and Rescue Aid Society vs. The Black Terror)

Friday November 2 - Bodrum Café, London
(Bucket Of Fun Cabaret night)

Tuesday November 6 - The Lamb, London
(Totally Acoustic Night, with Pete Weiss of The Weistronauts)

Thursday November 29 - Jamm, London
(Vic Lambrusco's Cabaret Hour)

Friday November 30 - Island Bar, Birmingham
(With Winston Echo and The Icicles)

Check http://www.mjhibbett.net/gigs/gigs.htm for further details.

GIGS WE'VE DONE

I had a GRATE night at The Buffalo Bar at the start of the month, especially as i got to see Sarandon again, then the next weekend The Cleator Moor Validators regrouped to play at the Kooba Radio Benefit in Lewisham. I had a cold, so couldn't stay very long, but BATTLED back to health in time to play my first full ukelele gig at the Shortfuse Cabaret night later in the week. It was back to full band ACTION in Sheffield when we played The Boardwalk with The Fighting Cocks, who were EXCELLENT as ever, and then a few days later I headed up to Middlesborough to record a session for Bob Fischer on BBC Cleveland and then play a gig with him later that night. It was in a Veggie Restaurant and I ate Bread & Butter Pudding... with GRAVY!

RECORDS

The new album, "A Million Ukeleles" is OUT NOW! You can download it from iTunes (see http://www.mjhibbett.net/releases/itunes.htm for more information) and there's a few handmade copies left which will be coming out on tour with me. I spent WEEKS making all 200 of these, so was a bit upset when so many of them got stuck in the postal strike, but they appear to be getting through now. People seem to be enjoying it so far, and one of the songs was played on Huw Stephens' Radio One show last week!

Doing "A Million Ukeleles" as a limited handmade edition went so well that we'll be doing it again in the New Year, with the long-awaited (by me) re-release of "This Is Not A Library". More information on that when things calm down a bit and I've got time to sort it out!

Meanwhile sessions for the next Validators album continue apace. A couple of weeks ago we gathered to do some of Tom and Emma's parts on the songs we started a while back, and this weekend me and The Rhythm Section are going to start off on a few more. Tim has now taken over as Official Producer, which will hopefully mean a tangible improvement in Project Management!

OTHER THINGS

There seems to have been a bit of a RUN on Cover Versions just lately. This month I've recorded a version of "Saddle Up" by The Weisstronauts for the Stereorrific 10th Anniversary Compilation and "Little Donkey" (by Trad Arr) for Don't Start Feeling All Romantic's Christmas Do. I've also having a go at a song from the Bugsy Malone soundtrack for Kooba Radio, and on Sunday we're going to start a Validators version of "Songs About You" by The Language Of Flowers for the PopArt Collective. It's all go!

Talking of PopArt, I've just started contributing to their Digest, which can be found at http://popartlondon.co.uk/digest/ . My bits are called My Exciting Life In ROCK - it's going to be like the columns I did for Sandman Magazine and the ill-fated BOOK, but hopefully a bit more regular than either of them.

The next issue of Thee Humbug, Thee Sheffield Phonographic Company's fanzine, will feature an interview and a POEM (yes!) by me, and if all goes to plan there'll be an exclusive track "Honey Honey You Work Too Hard" on the accompanying CD... if we get it finished in time!

And finally, as promised last time, there's a new song on the youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/mjhibbett), a rather SWIFT version of "A Million Ukeleles" itself.

What a FRANTIC time it is - do please check the website (http://www.mjhibbett.net) for updates as the month progresses and hopefully see ON TOUR if you're in the area, or back here in a few weeks for more!


Cheers,

Mark

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