MJ Hibbett and The Validators

Pints of Knowledge

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 10:17:00 +0000

On Wednesday evening I had a DREAMLIKE journey across London to distant Chiswick, where I was due to give a TALK for Pints of Knowledge. I say "dreamlike" because it was a series of delays, errors (on my part), more delays, and lots of other trains overtaking us as we tried to get to An Important Appointment with time running out. If my legs had turned into tree trunks and/or I had forgotten to wear any trousers then I would not have been AT ALL surprised.

Still, we got there in the end with approx 7 minutes to spare to find the lovely people who run Pints Of Knowledge entirely unruffled, possibly because this was NOT technically a gig and so there wasn't any real need FOR me to be there until the whole thing actually started. On the way there I had rung them and said "I'm playing at Pints of Knowledge tonight", and The Acts On My Bill pointed out that this probably wasn't the correct terminology. In related news, I also spent about half the journey realising I hadn't got my guitar, panicking I'd left it somewhere, and then remembering I didn't need it.

Professor Steve Cross was also there, wielding a camera for some snazzy pictures (some of which are BELOW), and after a quick chat with him and a hello to the organisers the show... sorry, TALK, began with the host asking if this was anyone's first time at Pints of Knowledge. To my surprise/delight about two thirds of the audience put their hands up, meaning they had come to see ME! Gosh!

I then took to the stage with clicker and microphone in my hands to begin talking about "Why Doctor Doom Is Better Than Batman (and How We Can Prove It)" and realised that OH NO I did not have access to Presenter View. For those who have not done PowerPoint presentations, this is a facility where the current slide is shown on the screen but on your laptop you get a smaller preview of what's coming NEXT as well. This is VERY useful if, like me, you tend to build a talk around the slides and have indeed come to RELY on it, so it was a bit scary to have to try and remember what was coming next, but I think I just about managed it. Also I remembered that many years ago I had gone to TRAINING with Steve at UCL where he spent ages trying to get academics to understand that you need to hold the microphone NEAR YOUR MOUTH, and was now highly aware of exactly where I was placing it. AND that the fact that the screen was MASSIVE meant I kept almost falling off stage in an effort to get out of the way!

Hopefully my multiple internal PANICS did not distract the audience too much, who were ATTENTIVE, ENGAGED and also GRATE. I talked about my Doctor Doom research but then veered off into discussion of how superhero storytelling differs from the conventional three act structure and why that causes problems for Hollywood adaptations, based on last year's book chapter Supervillains are the real heroes (which you can read for free at that link). I also did my usual bit asking for suggestions for characters to try out the unified catalogue of transmedia character components on, which got lots of fab suggestions (we did Wolverine in the end, which I don't think I've had before) and then when we got to the end there was a series of BRILLIANT questions.

My only disappointment was that I think I may have overrun slightly, and so there wasn't a huge amount of time for the Q&A session, which I'd been v much looking forward to. However, after it was over I was joined by a GROUP of people who all wanted to ask questions and we ended up having a BRILLIANT session of DISCUSSION about matters raised. I must say this made me very happy indeed, and also relieved that I have been doing some REVISION e.g. reading the first volume of "Absolute Batman" as there were lots of pertinent and also CURRECT points being made.

It was a pretty amazing evening all round, extraordinarily well organised, even in the face of me panicking, and attended by an overwhelmingly YOUNG audience who were there to expand their BRANES. Cor, imagine if things such as this had existed when I was in my twenties, where you could go to an EVENT and have speakers EXPLAIN interesting stuff to you and then DISCUSS it with other like-minded types - it would have been GRATE!

Episode Two: Attack Of The Podcast

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 02:39:00 +0000

I arose bright and early this morning in order to update the Data and Doctor Doom episodes page with full details of Episode 2, FOR LO! Episode 2 of 'Data and Doctor Doom' has been UNLEASHED and is currently rampaging around wherever you get your podcasts and also HERE:

This one explains how my whole methodology works, fully defines what 'The Marvel Age' actually means, talks about the need for evidence-based research, tells you how to do random stratified sampling, and contains perhaps my favourite joke of the whole series. There's also a whole bunch of new songs, including My Unified Catalogue Of Transmedia Character Components, The Marvel Age and Random Stratified Sampling, plus a whole lot more.

I think it's Quite Good, but am gradually coming around to the realisation that it Might Not Be For Everyone. When I first started putting all of this together I was convinced that there was a huge market for it. It would appeal, I thought, to people who like my music OR people who know the MCU OR people who are interested in statistics. That is a HUGE audience, but I am now beginning to understand that the actual audience may just be people who like my music AND know the MCU AND are interested in statistics, which is - SHALL WE SAY - a slightly more exclusive grouping.

To be honest I do think there's a bit more too it than that, and that it should appeal to people with ENQUIRING MINDS who'd like to know how some aspects of our current culturual landscape actually WORK, but do have a listen and see what you think - DOOM COMMANDS IT!

(PS saying "DOOM COMMANDS IT!" at the end of everything is very very enjoyable and I am sure I am going to find myself using it at the end of work emails before too long)

Like Batman But Better (slight return)

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 10:12:00 +0000

Today the remorseless promotional campaign for the Data and Doctor Doom podcast rolls on, with the release of a new (ish) video for Like Batman But Better, as heard in episode one.

Keen-eyed observers will note that the video itself is in fact a very lightly re-tooled version of the video I did LAST year for this song, but that the MUSIC is hopefully somewhat upgraded, with the LUSH PRODUCTION (hem hem) what is used for all the songs in the podcast. To be perfectly honest it would have been nice to do a whole new video - for this and several other tracks - but I'm still up to my eyeballs finishing the rest of the series off so haven't had time so to do!

The idea, as with all of this sort of thing, is to keep trying to find ways to TELL people this exists so that they give it a listen. I've got a couple more Promotional Opportunities planned for the next couple of weeks, but if anyone reading this has any ideas about how I can get this to more people, do please let me know!

Data and Doctor Doom - The Podcast Begins!

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 09:38:00 +0000

At long last, today sees the UNLEASHMENT of episode one of the PODCAST version of Data and Doctor Doom, available wherever you get your podcasts and also HERE:

This is an adaptation of the live show, which was a musical adaptation of my book, which was itself an adaptation of my PhD thesis, but this time with extra songs and extra THORTS. As you'll hear I have gone ALL OUT (or as far out as I'm capable of going anyway) on producing this one, with ALL the songs put together in full arrangements and the chat in between full of EFFECTS and (what I think of as) BITS. To be perfectly honest it was originally meant to be a fairly straight, mildly "recorded", version of the live show, but then I decided I'd need to write a SCRIPT, and that led to IDEAS and EXTRA SONGS and goodness knows what, until it ended up becoming the most complicated thing I've done since Dinosaur Planet!

So what I'm saying is that I'd REALLY appreciate it if you could have a listen, subscribe to it and, if at all possible, tell some other people. I think it is Quite Good and would really like people to be able to listen to it!

Data and Doctor Doom - the podcast!

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 04:47:00 +0000

Yesterday was VERY exciting for me because Marvel finally officially released the trailer for Avengers: Doomsday - the movie that is going to feature my specialist subject i.e DOCTOR DOOM!

To be honest I was expecting this to be released in a few days time at San Diego Comic Con so was taken a bit by surprise but, to quote an entirely other franchise, The Moment Had Been Prepared For, for LO! I was all ready and able to unleash a trailer of my very own, BELOW!

This is the trailer for my new podcast Data and Doctor Doom, a five-part weekly series that kicks of on Tuesday 28 July. You should be able to find it on most podcast apps, such as these ones here:

The podcast is an adaptation of my live show Data and Doctor Doom, which itself was a musical adaptation of my book Data and Doctor Doom: An Empirical Approach To Transmedia Characters (which is now on sale for £25, a quarter of the original price!). THUS it includes loads of new songs, old jokes, and rigorous evidence-based analysis of who Doctor Doom is, how transmedia characters work, and why any of it matters. If you saw the live show there's also quite a lot of extra stuff that I couldn't fit into that version, including a lot more about Dennis The Menace and several extra songs!

I've been working on this for most of the past year so it's all very exciting - and very SCARY - to finally be unleashing it upon the world. As I say, it's available everywhere you get podcasts, and I would HUGELY appreciate it if you could have a listen and even tell other people - and don't forget to LIKE! SUBSCRIBE! Doom commands it!

The South London Comics And Zine Fair

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 09:35:00 +0000

On Sunday I headed SOUTH to distant SOUTH LONDON - South Norwood, to be precise, which kept sounding to me like they could have saved a lot of time and just called "Wood". Is there somewhere I can send this useful suggestion to?

I was there at the behest of Dr G Brookes to attend South London Comics And Zine Fair at Stanley Hall, a venue I had heard tell of many times due to its use by various comedians but had never actually been to. I was thus astonished when I arrived to find that it is actually about 17 entirely different venues all crammed into a single building that looks a lot like an old library, but one made of VENUES. Everywhere you looked there was a magical door into another room, and most of these rooms were crammed with COMICS and ZINES.

The ZINE SCENE is truly one HECK of a thing that astonishes me with its size and RAINBOW BEAUTY every time I dip my toe anywhere near it. Crumbs but it was full of young people of all types and size - rarely have I felt so HETERONORMATIVE as I do at these sort of events, and it was all rather wonderful. All around were people being VERY KEEN INDEED on what they were doing and, very importantly, on what other people were doing too. I didn't really have the first clue what to buy, so stumbled round like an elderly relative who doesn't know what's going on but thinks everyone is Doing Very Well Indeed.

I was there to take part in a talk about Getting Kids Into Comics, where again I felt like a bit of a FRAUD as I have absolutely no idea about how to do that or what anyone else is currently doing about it either. Gareth had very kindly asked me because of The Funny Comics Fan Club but everyone else on the panel was actually active in the world of MAKING comics. To be honest my main concern was not to sound like a grumpy old git just talking about comics from 50 years ago, an impression that may not have been helped by the fact that I was wearing my Whizzer And Chips t-shirt!

The whole thing was chaired by the excellent Alex Fitch so we were in safe hands, and I think I managed to NOT say anything too deranged, instead relating the whole "three generations of Dennis the Menace" story and a bit about the history of credits in British weekly comics. Towards the end I went off on SOMETHING of a tangent, induced by a question from one of the many Alexes in the room, all about remembeing life from the viewpoint of a child, and how the things that made us who we are (e.g. bullying, masking, insane killer sharks with metal spikes in their face) are not necessarily the same things we'd like children today to experience.

As the ever-relevant song says, I Think I Did OK.

After that I had a couple of cans of DELICIOUS Gipsy Hill Bandit Pale Ale (it really is v nice, also LOCAL) then saw a panel on Comics Studies featuring PALS VARIOUS and then one on Escape Magazine which made me all excited to be in the same room as the people who made that magazine what seemed so far out and cool when I used to buy it from The House On The Borderland.

It was a good day out, capped off by a slightly disappointing World Cup Final (especially after that AMAZING play-off the day before) where, finally, justice was at least doen. A good day all round!

It Was 20 Years Ago Today... When We Were On Radio One!

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 10:38:00 +0000

It seems impossible, but I have been informed by Mr F A Machine that our live session on Radio One was TWENTY YEARS AGO to this very day!

Twenty years!! That can't be right can it? It seems like only... well, maybe a couple of years ago, but not two whole decades. CRIKEY.

The whole thing came about because Steve Lamacq was coming to the end of his time on The Evening Session and decided that, as nobody else was likely to give us a session, then HE flipping well would. Some have suggested that this was an act of REVENGE against Radio One for ending the show, but I personally cannot see how that would make sense? Surely putting US on, rather than one of those bands people actually like, was REITHIAN in its public service?

As you can tell from my blog about the day it felt HUGE at the time, and to be honest it still does - I got nervous all over again just reading about it! There's several bits about the day I don't remember (Mark Lammar?) but also some I DO recall that I didn't mention back then, notably the fact that the lovely studio team asked if we'd like to come for a drink with them (which was apparently A Thing) but we said no because we had to go and see our pals in the pub. Is there an alternate universe where we DID go, and now we're on tour with SONIC YOUTH?

I do distinctly remember doing the interview bit with Steve, him asking me to introduce the next song, and me suddenly realising that I was now broadcasting LIVE, on my own, with nobody to tell me what to do, to at least a MILLION people! As the original blog says, I'd been doing this sort of thing in my head my whole life, so actually doing it in reality felt sort of natural... until it was all over, at which point the ENORMITY of it all hit me.

There may be a few other alternate universes where we properly CAPITALISED on it, but actually having typed that I can't think of what we could actually have DONE. As it was we went on tour the following week and at most gigs there were approx TWO additional people who'd heard us on the radio and come to see what we were like, but that was about it in terms of audience. The main thing was having GRATE fun being able to SWAN AROUND for the rest of the year saying "Oh yes, when we were on Radio One" at any opportunity, and it did FEEL like we were slightly more likely to be asked to do gigs for a while, but two decades on it's become something ASTONISHING (like Hey Hey 16K going viral, or us getting into Rolling Stone) that doesn't seem like the sort of thing that SHOULD happen to a band like us, but totally DID.

It was a fab day and a LOVELY thing for Mr Lamacq to do for us - he could have got somebody on that would make him look cool (or cooler), but instead gave us a leg up that we didn't necessarily take advantage of, but certainly enjoyed. I don't think the session's online anywhere anymore, and ASTOUNDINGLY nobody has tried to licence it for re-release, but you can always enjoy the photo gallery of our time there. It was brilliant, I just can't believe it was so long ago!

The Final Pop At The Lock

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 05:26:00 +0000

At the weekend I headed once more to distant MIDDLEWICH, there to play the final (EVER) edition of Pop At The Lock.

The day got off to a HIGHLY auspicious start when I was greeted at Euston by a voice behind me saying "I bet you're going to the same place I am" and LO! it was Mr M Oliver, heroic gig-goer and all-round good guy who indeed WAS going to the same place as me, and more specifically the same HOTEL as me too. Thus, after a highly productive train trip to CREWE during which I wrote a whole CHUNK of my Judge Dredd book (or at least the first of many drafts of said CHUNK) we emerged from the station and hopped into a TAXI together for the Middlewich Travelodge. This was a whole lot more fun than my original plan, which was to wait ages, get another train, wait ages, get a bus,and then have a HIKE to get there, and was so successful we managed to arrive before even Early Check-In had begun, although they let us in anyway. WINZ!

After a pleasant couple of hours lurking around (and finishing off reading the excellent When There Are Wolves Again) I strolled down to The King's Lock. It was a nice walk, full of memories of the several other times I have wandered along to play there over the years, ending with me going to the SPECIAL PEOPLE table at the festival entrance to get my SPECIAL PERSON wristband. I also got an envelope containing DRINKS VOUCHER which I spent immediately, thereby breaking my own record for firmly saying I wasn't going to have a drink before playing and then having a drink.

I watched Baby Arms, who were v good (although I may have a pro-Media Studies PhD BIAS as Jen from them mentioned having finished hers) and then got myself set up with Mr G Williams at the Gazebo Stage for my own set, where I done THIS:

Clubbing In The Week

Bad Back

I Think I Did OK

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

It Only Works Because You're here

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Boom Shake The Room

I had a BLOODY LOVELY time - as I've said previously, it's SO nice to do a Normal Gig where I can change the setlist and make up new JOKES and DIVERSIONS, rather than having to stick rigidly to an order due to the SLIDESHOW that goes along with it. Also, the crowd were DELIGHTFUL and up for it, notably BOOING correctly when I said I was having a Hydration Break, and to my surprise included lots of people who clearly had not heard some of the songs before. It was ACE.

The rest of the day was spent saying hello to various pals both new and old, BEER, some delicious GRUB and some excellent bands. I was keen to see Mt. Misery and The Cords as I had both their albums but had never actually seen them - they were GRATE, and I was especially impressed by the a) pedals b) MOUSTACHES of Mt. Misery.

Francesca's Word Salad, as Liz from The School pointed out, was UTTER FILTH, and The School themselves were fab, as were The Sunbathers. I missed most of the other bands due to the aforesaid chatting, drinking and eating unfortunately!

INDEED, such were the levels of the above that by the time The Cords had finished I was DONE IN. I could have stayed for The Darling Buds and the Indie Disco, but THE WISDOM OF YEARS told me that if I left NOW I would be able to walk home fairly successfully and get to BED, rather than verging on TIPSINESS (hem hem) and the very real danger of falling asleep/over on the way home. In my defence I'd been up late the night before watching Argentina vs Cape Verde in THE FOOTBALL, so was KNACKERED.

Hence I went back to the Travelodge for a much needed KIP, rising fairly bright and sort of breezy next morning to meet Mike again for our taxi back to the station. Thanks VERY MUCH INDEED to Team Pop At The Lock for having me, it was a FANTASTIC day out all round - it's just a shame it was the last one!

Doctor Doom Podcast Approaches

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 10:14:00 +0000

For the past several months I have been toiling away on the PODCAST version of Data And Doctor Doom, which has turned into QUITE the production but is now approaching ACTUALITY.

The first of two really big jobs I've had to do was recording all the SONGS. I made the decision early on to do them "properly" i.e. not just me bellowing over a guitar, and while that has been FUN it has also been an enormous amount of effort, as I have spent many evenings crouched over a hot MIDI FILE trying to program synths when I have 0 idea how to do so. This task was exacerbated by my decisions to a) put back all the songs that I had to take out of the live version for Timing Reasons and b) actually WRITE lots of new stuff, including new versions of the theme tune for each episode's beginning and end and a whole new song about Dennises The menaces.

The second really big job was to write the SCRIPT. Initially I thought I'd just SAY stuff based on what was in the original show, but I very quickly realised that the original show itself had had a script and that there was a very good reason for that i.e. there is certain stuff that HAS to be in there and be correct, and also that otherwise I will just chunter on for many hours before forgetting what I was meant to be saying in the first place.

The script also became important when I realised that this was a whole other thing that would need a whole other structure that would be MUCH easier to work it out in script form rather than just having a go and hoping for the best. One very obvious example of this was that I had no idea how long it would end up being or where the episode breaks would go, which it was much easier to work out by writing it down first. This, I guess, is why all TV, radio, films, plays etc etc do it the same way!

It had all been a LOT of work with no real OUTPUT until this weekend, when I finally worked out a way to record the NARRATION properly - a process which involved tiny microphone stands, two different laptops, and ALLEN KEYS. As a test I recorded the TRAILER and then put it together with snippets of songs, sound effects, backing tracks and a guest appearance by Doctor Doom himself. It felt weird to be finally bringing it all together and then UTTERLY WONDERFUL to listen to it and realise that, after all this time and all this effort, it did actually WORK!

There's still loads to do, not least recording about an hour's worth of narration, but I'm hoping to have it all ready so that the trailer can come out on Tuesday 21 July, with the episodes themselves following once a week from Tuesday 28 July onwards. These dates were worked out based on the FACT that the big COMICON starts on Thursday 23 July, where they are fairly likely to FINALLY officially unleash the "Avengers: Doomsday" trailer, so I'm hoping that it'll land JUST when the world at large begins to think "Who is this Doctor Doom anyway?"

Let's hope so anyway, and as ever, if anyone reading this is interested in me blathering on about Doctor Doom do please let me know - I have been building up to this for several YEARS now, and am ready to talk!

To Leicester And (eventually) Back Again

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 04:31:00 +0000

I spent a big chunk of last week in Leicester, there to attend The International Graphic Novels and Comics Conference. I have been going to this conference for TEN YEARS now and it is always a lovely event, but this one was ESPECIALLY lovely as it involved going back to my old ALMA MATER (DeMontfort University, formerly known as Leicester Poly) and indeed my old home town.

In case any OLD PALS are reading this thinking "Why didn't you let me know so that I could have plied you with BEER?" the reason is that I was going to be spending my evenings involved in heady discussions, intellectual debates and plotting the furtherance of the scholarly field with other delegates, and also BEER, so wouldn't really be around. However, I did get to see ONE pal because the actual building where the conference was happening also contained the actual OFFICE of Dr N Brown (formerly known as Neil from Voon) so we met up for a delightful and sophisticated LUNCH one day. We also bumped into each other on Bede Island (formerly known as Vic Berry's scrapyard), just as I was thinking "I always used to bump into Neil here, oh there he is".

The conference itself was GRATE - it's always GOOD but this time there were LOADS of interesting panels and talks with lots of people who these days ALSO qualify as OLD PALS, and also various NEW pals, so there was much hugging and also the aforesaid heady discussions etc. I was v happy that my panel was with two such PALS - Ms C Searle and Dr M Nguyen - who did amazing talks about a) funnny drawing workshops and b) whether reading superhero comics makes you more tolerant. I won't spoil either, for hopefully they will be available in some form in the future, except to say that the latter panel featured one of the GREATEST GRAPHS EVER answering the question decisively and also not necessarily how we would have wanted it to!

There was also a marvelous Conference Dinner in Trinity Gardens - yet another bit of Leicester that I had previously been entirely unaware of - trips to two EXCELLENT pubs in the shape of The Blue Boar and The Castle, and an evening spent with Professor I Horton and Dr P Williams trying to watch the England game with the sound unreliably out of sync, so it was always either ten seconds behind or ten seconds ahead of what we could see, but we were never sure which!

I had a lovely time, and it was a very happy Hibbett who strolled off to get the train home, finding a nice double seat for myself and relaxing with a BIRTHDAY BEER (for LO! it was my birthday) ... until we got to Market Harborough and were told there was an Incident ahead - as it turns out, a very big and serious one too. We went back to Leicester where I bumped into Dr M Nguyen again, which led to me and Mike spending the entire rest of the day on an ADVENTURE together trying to get back to London. This involved a train to Hinkley, where we got detrained AGAIN due to an entirely OTHER signals problem, and then into a taxi with a supremely nice chap and his lad who we'd got talking to while stuck earlier. The four of us then had nearly four hours getting to Golders Green, where Mike and I then got TOOBS to our respective home/hotel. It was all a bit much, but I was a) highly conscious it could have been a lot worse b) glad to be spending the time getting to know the excellent Mike a lot better and c) very VERY happen to finally make it home just after midnight. PHEW!

Philosophy Playdate

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 10:20:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I travelled across London's fashionable LONDON area of London to University College London, in London, to take part in an episode of Philosophy Playdate. This is a podcast where Christabel Cane and Steve Cross take a question proposed by an Actual Child (e.g. "What's it like to be a dog?" or "Who looks after Outer Space?") and try to answer it with PHILOSOPHY.

I've talked about Doctor Doom and superhero stuff at numerous LIVE gigs put on by Steve in the past, so when the current question "Is Lego Batman real Batman?" was asked he thought of ME to help them answer. I was, as you can probably imagine, RUDDY DELIGHTED as I do very much know the answer to this question, and so I did some REVISION i.e. re-read the relevant bits in MY BOOK (which is still very much available) and printed out some NOTES.

My preparation also included some revision on the show itself, which had made me rather nervous as both Christabel and Steve are GIANT BRANES who know lots of STUFF and can not only quote things but also tell you who SAID them and what they MEAN. I was also highly aware of certain issues what arose with me while recording The Funny Comics Fan Club where I would say "yeah" ALL THE TIME and also basically repeat whatever John had just said (if you think this happens a lot on the shows themselves, you should hear what it was like BEFORE I did the edit!), and so when we sat down in a rather large room in the basement of UCL to start recording I was a little TREPIDATIOUS.

However, Christabel and Steve were DELIGHTFUL and I think I managed to rein in MOST of the above tendencies, so ended up thoroughly enjoying our lengthy conversation about multiverse theory and transmedia and all sorts of other items. OBVIOUSLY once I got home after the recording I spent approx 48 hours worrying about it, but listening back now I Think I Did OK. You can have a listen below (or wherever you get yr podcasts) and see whether you agree!

Piano Planning By The Seaside

Thu, 28 May 2026 10:19:00 +0000

On Wednesday I headed once more to sunny Brighton, for further ALBUM ACTION with Mr CJ Thorpe-Tracey. It was a lovely sunny day and as I headed to the station I thought "How delightful it will be to be beside the seaside"... as had approx 87% of all parents currenntly dealing with half-term in London, and so the train was RAMMED!

Once in Brighton I headed off to meet Chris, pausing only to buy a HAT in a HAT SHOP (I have a MASSIVE HEAD so was delighted to find a specialist supplier of hats of various sizes) and then to say hello to a member of Top Local Band The Highchurches who we bumped into in Dave's Comics (it would have been RUDE not to pop in). It was a highly auspicious start to what would turn out to be a highly auspicious day.

For LO! we had gathered not for the simple delights of Actually Making Music but rather for the much more important aspect of ROCK that is ADMIN. It is a truth universally acknowledged that the work of ROCK is about 95% admin - you wouldn't believe it from the LIES of Rock Biopics, who would have you think it is mostly doing gigs, taking drugs, and saying the names of your songs out loud, but even on TOUR you spend between 30-60 minutes doing the actual gig and the whole rest of the day trying to get to places, arguing about setlists, sorting out financial matters to do with merch etc, and saying the names of your songs out loud.

THUS, as two Wise and Experienced artistes we had given ourselves a whole DAY to do exactly that, with a proper AGENDA and list of things to consider, and that is what we did indeed do. We began with an excellent discussion about ASSETS, which is what you have to call PROMO stuff these days, and came up with various thoughts about getting pictures done, FONTS, websites, The Socials, album titles and even a DIFFERENT NAME for the act as a whole!

We then moved on to GIGS and Chris put forward a very exciting plan for some ACTION later in the year which I shall go into no further here but which will hopefully start to make its way into the public domain in a few months. It's basically a way to say to THE UNIVERSE that we exist as an ACT and it made us both Quite Excited!

All of this was conducted in The Fortune Of War pub, looking out onto the beach, but then we upped and strolled along the seafront to No Catch, the vegan fish and chip shop. This seemed entirely the right thing to do on such a lovely sunny day, but again clearly we were not the first to have this thought as they were SOLD OUT of the fish-style products so I ended up having a BATTERED SAVELOY! COR! It was very nice! It was not all SAUSAGE FUN though, as we used this time to go through RECORDING THORTS, talking through all of the songs and making our way to some production ideas and also SOUND PALETTES. Excitement reigned once more!

Full of GRUB we stomped back into Brighton centre and on to The Evening Star, where Chris and I had had our very FIRST meeting about this project just over a year ago. This time we finished our day's work with a discussion about the ALBUM what we are making, and how we plan to get it out into the world. It was all very exciting and full of POSSIBILITIES, but as Chris said, the big thing about it all is that we are pretty sure we are creating something BEAUTIFUL. It would obviously be NICE if the entire planet went mad for it and we have to spend our days fending off offers for Netflix Specials and Albert Hall residencies, but the key thing is that what we're recording sounds GORGEOUS.

Happily sated with this idea and all the planning for it, we said our farewells at Brighton station and I headed home, alongside all the parents and children who'd come down with me, THRILLED at what the future may hold for this album/PROJECT - all we need to do now is finish MAKING it!

The Lemon Twigs (again)

Tue, 26 May 2026 10:48:00 +0000

On Wednesday night last week I headed over to distant SHEPHERD'S BUSH, there to go and see THE LEMON TWIGS. Executive Summary: they were dead good.

Originally I was going to go and see them with Mr M Sutton, who I had been with last time. I'd thought this had been only a few months ago, so was surprised that they'd had time to record a whole other album since then, but it turns out it was about 18 months ago, so fair enough. We had both had a GRATE time but sadly Mark was unable to come along in the end because he had a higher calling i.e. Aston Villa were playing (and WINNING) in the Europa League Final so he was off to watch that instead. This was entirely fair enough, LAUDABLE even, and it ALSO meant that I was able manhandle Mr S Wilkinson to come with me.

We met for a BEER over the road from the venue in The Defector's Weld, which was really nice and oddly FRIENDLY with people actually CHATTING to each other at the bar. We then headed over to the Shepherd's Bush Empire where we were sat upstairs, as me and the aforesaid Mr Sutton had been when we went to see JimBob last year, so I remembered that there was a whole BAR area up there. We thus had time for a further relaxing PINT before heading back into the venue, where we ending up STANDING along the back, behind the seats. This was FAB as it gave us easy access to both Loo and Bar, as well as still being able to see and hear everything perfectly.

With all that sorted out the band came on, once again in their four-piece line-up, and once again were AMAZING. It was like a BARRAGE of ROCK for the first half an hour or so as they reeled off BANGER after BANGER, relentlessly sounding AMAZING. They then did the same thing as last time of swapping instruments and STILL being amazing, and had lots of dancing and clear enjoyment of the brilliant SOUND what they were making. I must admit I found myself reduced to GIGGLING at how silly it was that one group of people could be so GOOD at all this.

The only DOWN side was that, with all the songs being equally amazing, there was no specific song that really stood out as amazing-EST. Normally at gigs you think "Hang on, they haven't done THAT song yet, it'll probably be the encore" but here ANY of the songs could have been the encore, or the first song, or at any place in between. It was a bit odd really, it felt like we'd not had the clear WOW moment because it had ALL been pretty WOW!

Apart from that though, COR, it was dead good - possibly not QUITE as good as watching your team win a European Championship, but I somehow doubt I'll ever get that feeling myself, so this was near enough!

The Validators Return!

Mon, 25 May 2026 12:10:00 +0000

Last week I found myself in lovely Leicester, where I indulged in some new experiences.

The first came about because I recently saw a mention of "Leicester Castle" and thought "Ha ha, how foolish, there is no such thing" and then discovered that there totally is and that it's a whole big area and building which I would have walked past LITERALLY THOUSANDS OF TIMES in the 15 or so years I lived there, on my way to work. THUS I went to have a look at it (it was nice), before going to The Good Earth, a vegetarian restaurant which has been in Leicester for over 60 years but which I had ALSO never been to in the entire time I lived there. It was exactly what you'd want a 60 year-old vegetarian restaurant to be and so I'll hopefully be back again soon, but it did all make me wonder how I could have been so INCURIOUS about things like this back in those days.

Anyway, the REASON I was in Leicester was to take part in the first Validators gig for over THREE YEARS, supporting The Loft at The Big Difference. This had all come about due to the actions of our NEW TOUR MANAGER i.e. Mr T Pattison, who had got fed up with us only meeting for CURRIES and so took it upon himself to book us an Actual Gig. The rest of us have been DELIGHTED with Tim's ascendance to tour manager, even though he humbly insists that he isn't but he TOTALLY IS THAT NOW, because LO! it all went really well. Thanks Tim!

We all met at The Big Difference for a sound check which sounded LOVELY as they do have a nice PA there and the soundperson was dead good. We haven't actually ALL played together since Gig One Thousand back in 2023, and haven't done a fully PLUGGED IN gig with all of us since - crikey - June 2021 but it all came flooding back as if we'd only been out on the road a couple of weeks ago. I guess after nearly THREE DECADES of ROCK then some sort of MUSCLE MEMORY develops!

Duly checked we went to get some CHIPS and then returned to The Green Room (i.e. the upstairs bar) to say hello to The Loft and to have some of the FREE BEER what our Forever Tour Manager had managed to negotiate for us - he's very good you know. Various pals and familiar faces rolled in and LO! there was much fun and chat before it was time to take to the stage where we went and did THIS:

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once

Billy Jones Is Dead

Please Don't Eat Us

It Only Works Because You're here

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Easily Impressed

We Did It Anyway

As you can clearly see, it was BANGER after BANGER after BANGER, and it all went really well. We did Please Don't Eat Us because Joel - one of the tiny wee children from the CHOIR in that song - was now somehow the BAR MANAGER at Big Difference (surely this is child labour?) so he got up to sing his bit with us, and he did so wearing a SHOWADDYWADDY jacket. Somehow the venue has TWO such items behind the bar, one of which Emma wore and then handed over to ME to wear for the rest of the set, which was amazing. I think I have found my new look! Even more amazingly this brought about a NEW FEATURE for the live show, as Ms E Pemberton - quite probably the person who has seen us more times than anybody else - said she had a JOKE related to Showaddywaddy which she then got on stage and TOLD to the audience!

It was a fantastic gig all round really, and a reminder that KRAZY OCCURENCES and ROCKING GOOD TIMES are something that are still very much available to us. As we stood and watched The Loft (the band I have now seen more than any other this year i.e. TWICE) later, Tim asked how we could make this sort of thing happen more often. I guess the answer is for us to book some more gigs!

Album Sessions Continue, Emotions Also

Tue, 05 May 2026 09:48:00 +0000

I had the day off work on Friday to head once more to distant Crystal Palace, there to meet Mr CJ Thorpe-Tracey and Mr J Clayton at Onecat studio for more work recording our ALBUM.

This day was always likely to be MENTALLY STRENUOUS for me, as we were going to be recording a load more VOCALS, and so it went. We got off to an Emotional start with Say It With Words, a song that was sounding lovely, piano-wise, but somehow not quite right when I was singing it. After a while we worked out that it sounded too SAD and MOPEY, as I was trying to sing "properly", being really quiet around the microphone, rather than in my usual way of NOT being quiet. It was a right struggle as I kept thinking "This is meant to be different from what I usually do, so I should try and sing it properly", but then when I did that it didn't sound like ME anymore. However, when I went back into the live room and re-did it sounding like ME, the problem was that it sounded like... well, ME. "It's SUPPOSED to sound like you", said Jon and Chris, but I still TUSSLED with it, and continued to do so throughout they day.

I also introduced a new COUPLET in the middle section, replacing the original words which I have never been happy with, ever since the meeting to decide which songs would go on my DEBUT ALBUM and Ms A Bates of The Durham Ox Singers pointed out that "what's a poor boy supposed to do" was letting the rest of the song down. She was CORRECT, but it's taken me nearly a quarter of a century to do anything about it!

Next we did When You Hear A Bird which I think may be my FAVOURITE of these recordings, as it sounds BLOOMING LOVELY and remained so even after my vocals. This is a song that started off as one of my "Here Is A Thing I Always Say" songs and then became something ELSE, and I really like it. We then did another new one, Was This What You Wanted, which went pretty well, before launching into 7 Hearts. I was a bit trepidatious about this one as THE AUTHOR was sitting in the other room, but I think it came out pretty well, despite (OR BECAUSE OF) some "Lee Marvin-ing" of the vocal i.e. doing lots of drop-ins of specific sections until we got it right.

The morning finished with an attempt at It Only Works Because You're Here. Chris and Jon had been giving NOTES throughout the process, which was lots of fun - usually at home I'm just happy if I get to the END of a song in one piece, rather than trying to make it BETTER - and here Chris made an AMAZING suggestion for the end which was so BRILLIANT that it's going to change the way I perform it forever moving forward. It sounded ACE, but by this time I was struggling with the singing (i.e. even more so than usual) so we paused it there and went off to Sainsbury's to get some LUNCH.

After some GRUB and CHAT we went back in to put down a few more piano tracks. I was looking forward to having a go at I'll Fetch Me Book as I'd been practicing it a LOT at home in the run-up to the session. In the past I've usually done new songs a lot at GIGS, sometimes for YEARS before recording them, which has helped me work out how they're supposed to go and change bits around, but that's not been such an option lately so I've spent the past couple of weeks IMAGING I was doing this one at a gig and making all sorts of lyrical updates. I think this paid off, and although I didn't get to lean into the Hinge And Brackettiness of it quite as much as I'd have liked at this stage my colleague, Dr Evadne Thorpe-Tracey, held up their end admirably!

After that we did a COVER VERSION of a Very Famous Song which I shall speak more of later, before having a LENGTHY practice session for the newest song in our ouvre, Timewasters. This proved to be something of a challenge, and we had many many attempts in the live room together without really getting the whole thing right. Eventually we decided to just have a go at recording it, so I went back into the control room, Jon pressed "RECORD", and suddenly Chris got it completely right on the first attempt - it was AMAZING!

The session concluded with Chris recording a new piano track for Say It With Words, trying to get it to match the new FEEL of the vocal. He did this so well that it made the aforesaid new vocal now feel slightly wrong, so I'll probably need to have another go at that next time!

Chris and Jon were staying on for a practice with The JimBob Big Band, so after hugs (and a hello to the great man himself) I set off back down the hill towards home, very happy with how it had all gone but also FULL of emotions. It's really weird quite how much FEELINGS doing this is dragging out of me, and how VULNERABLE it's making me feel. It's the whole thing of it being PROPER and a long long LONG way out of my usual comfort zone, but I think the INNER TURMOIL it's producing is going to be worth it in the end. Having said that, I'm still looking forward to getting this bit done so we can move on to the fun of overdubbimg flugelhorns and arguing about the alhum title, those are the fun bits!