Get all 29 MJ Hibbett & The Validators releases available on Bandcamp and save 50%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Bad Back (Osteopaths Of Glory Mix) (single), The Unearthly Beauty Of, The Swingin' Sound Of Sixties Marvel, Goodbye To Great Britain (single), I Don't Have To Worry About That (EP), A Museum Of One Thing (single), People Are All Right (EP), You're A Tory Now (single), and 21 more.
1. |
Billy Jones Is Dead
02:49
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Martin works in Mark's and Spencers
Sharon stocks up cash dispensers
Mary married a man who hears
Voices in his head
Your mate Brian knocks down buildings
Sean and Sally had six children
I'm ensconced in academia
And you, you're still in bed
But do you remember when we'd go to town
Meet our friends and hang around
And talk about what we'd like to be?
We slowly went our separate ways
Meeting up on holidays
To talk about the way it used to be
Our headmaster's back in prison
Peter plays for the first division
No-one's heard from Fred
Sexy Sadie's put on weight
Michael's working in Kuwait
Billy Jones is dead
And do you remember when we'd go to town
Meet our friends and hang around
And talk about what we'd like to be?
We slowly went our separate ways
Meeting up on holidays
To talk about the way it used to be
You said that you'd be famous and drive a flashy car
I thought that I would be the first man on Mars
But you couldn't pay your insurance and had to sell your guitar
And I'm stuck in the Midlands
I guess I didn't get too far
No I didn't get too far
No I didn't get too far
But do you remember when we'd go to town
Meet our friends and hang around
And talk about what we'd like to be?
We slowly went our separate ways
Meeting up on holidays
To talk about the way it used to be
Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing
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2. |
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I left Poly in the '90's when there wasn't any jobs
I signed up for highbrow affluence, that wasn't what I got
Deducting drink from dole money it didn't leave a lot
I had to shop around for bargains, had to shop in certain shops
'Cos after social life and rent
I found my money mostly spent
And so I had to go and shop at Aldi's
Pound-stretchers, Lidls, Costcutters, all them
Four cans of beans for fifteen pence is rarely seen in Mark & Spencers
So off to Aldi's I went
But it turns out ZX Spectrum use gave me a skill for work
And I took up typing audio as a very junior clerk
As my words per minute rate rose so did I up through the grades
Till I earnt a temporary secretary's starting wage
And though you'd hardly call me rich
I had enough cash to say this:
I am never going back to Aldi's
I will never give a penny more to them
I'm gonna pledge my troth to Tesco, Sainsbury's or maybe Waitrose
I will never darken Aldi's door again
And you may ask me why
I prefer to pay a higher price
You see a fridge full of nice things is my equivalent of bling
It's a sign of my progression through my life
And when I say I'm never going back to Aldi's
I mean I'm charting a new course for quality
I'll sail the seas of excellence, I'll count my blessings, not my pence
I'm worth it, I'll fly the flag of me
I'm wearing clothes that won't collapse after one go in the wash
I'm buying records that I like whether they're cool or not
And I'll do the same for books and films, and when it comes to wine
I'll buy a bottle with a cork in that costs four pounds ninety nine
To The Spice Girls I said Yes
But I will never accept Steps
Because I'm never going back to Aldi's
No I'm never going back there again
I've worked for years for what I've got, so don't fob me off with pound shop pop
And don't kid me with brown label literacy, like Harry Potter
I'm never going back to Aldi's ever again
Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing
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3. |
The Merchant Ivory Punks
00:56
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You're very lucky nowadays if you get to see them
Outside of the confines of a fashion musuem
Antique speed and classic glue
All dressed up in a period costume
Here they come - the Merchant Ivory Punks
Merchant Ivory Punks
The Merchant Ivory Punks
You're making a statement but no-one's listening
Playing Pretty Vacant at your daughter's christening
Sid Vicious died to put your face on a postcard
Looking like a reject from a seventies theme park
Here they come - the Merchant Ivory Punks
Merchant Ivory Punks
The Merchant Ivory Punks
With your archeological attitude
The world's moved on so why don't you?
Punk's not dead, but you're not needed
Ever felt cheated?
Here they come - the Merchant Ivory Punks
Merchant Ivory Punks
The Merchant Ivory Punks
Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing it: very fast indeed, was often the answer.
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4. |
The Other Rush Hour
03:56
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According to the writers of the TV Guide
It's only just stopped being late last night
And the street lamps can't decide if their shift has ended
There's a parcel that I'm meant to be receiving
Between 7am and 6 o'clock this evening
So I'm up and out at twenty to to the newsagent
I'm waiting for the man in the delivery van
It's cold enough to see your breath
It's the time of day I usually prefer to spend in bed
So I'm surprised to find the High Road is alive with people
Maybe I'm amazed because I'm half awake
But it takes my mind a while to realise that they
Are the early risers who ride in before the office legions
On foot on bike and on the buses
They're rushing an hour before the other hour rushes
In the other rush hour
With paint streaked jeans there's a likely lad
Swinging his sandwiches in a carrier bag
As he strides through to find his fanbase waiting
He's the king among the women of the smoker's laugh
'Cos he reminds them of the good times that they used to have
When they only had themselves to get up in the morning
Getting in to punch the clock
Before my alarm clock's ringing's stopped
The other rush hour
I see a younger me on the top of a bus
Trying to impress girls by reading a book
Even though he'll never speak to the women he'll be working next to
He'll sit on his own when he's eating his lunch
He'll be going straight home when they go to the pub
He's too busy counting down the hours until the next semester
This working class colossus teeters
When he has to actually work with working class people
In the other rush hour
Now, in the corner shop there's a wall of flesh
On the covers of the magazines pretending they're for men
They're the photo's of the jobless actresses afraid and naked
While in the papers immigration and society parties
Mortgage rates and cancer scares and straight bananas
Fill space in the froth of pop and lies and hatred
Page 22 there's a cartoon Chav
A townie, a pikey, to be laughed at
By the other rush hour
As a snotty little sod of 17 years old
I was taken by the arm and very sternly told
That I was never to assume that I was better than other people
You see I'd grown up thinking we were Middle Class
But when I went to Polytechnic I soon found out that
There's a lot more to it than having double glazed bay windows
In the louche lidded eyes of the proper upper classes
I was just another atom in the faceless masses
To the other rush hour
My parcel spent my day off failing to arrive
I finally rang the depot at 5.45
And complained like a PTA chairman in a restaurant
I heard what I was doing and apologised
It was at this very moment that the van arrived
With a driver with a clipboard and a package and my guilty conscience
He said I'm sorry it took so long to turn up
But before he could explain I had to interrupt
And say Yeah, we both got stuck in another Rush Hour
Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing
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5. |
Other Bands' Setlists
02:38
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Any day at load-in time
Like fallen fruits of ROCK you'll find
them strewn across the venue floor
The setlists of the night before
Other bands' setlists - Movin In
Other bands' setlists - U Own Me
Other bands' setlists - Middle Glasses
Other bands' setlists - Killing Psychos
Other bands' setlists - Gold Digger Haircut
Other bands' setlists - We Heart The Doms
Other bands' setlists - The Week
Other bands' setlists - Confess
No matter what the type of band
Their setlists will sound gothic and
Slightly pompous and obsessed
With their's or someone else's death
Other bands' setlists - Intro
Other bands' setlists - Redneck
Other bands' setlists - Beond Anger
Other bands' setlists - Blood on my foot
Other bands' setlists - I Cant Die
Other bands' setlists - Meat feast
Other bands' setlists - Bring the fight
Other bands' setlists - Death Blow
Laser printed on A4
Double spaced with two encores
Was this the font that rocked the place
And won the quarter finals of the local band showcase?
Other bands' setlists - Devils And Angels
Other bands' setlists - My Addiction
Other bands' setlists - Run Or Hide
Other bands' setlists - Soul
Other bands' setlists - Freeze The Sun
Other bands' setlists - The Big Issue
Other bands' setlists - Missing Person
Other bands' setlists - Drive
Was this one writ in blood fresh gouged
Or did the drummer's normal biro just run out?
I wonder if the singer's well
And where on earth he learnt to spell?
Other bands' setlists - Pretty Maybe To Pretty
Other bands' setlists - Love You Till I Die
Other bands' setlists - Happy Song
Other bands' setlists - Take It Away
Other bands' setlists - Chorus Twice At End
Other bands' setlists - Don't Forget The Harmonies
Other bands' setlists - On Your Own
Other bands' setlists - Say Something
The moral of the song is this
If you don't want tomorrow's band to take the piss
Even if your stuff's dead good
Always pick your setlist up
Other bands' setlists - 16K
Other bands' setlists - Gay
Other bands' setlists - Century
Other bands' setlists - QOLED
Other bands' setlists - Fight
Other bands' setlists - Brother
Other bands' setlists - Billy J
Other bands' setlists - Easily
Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing
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6. |
City Centres
02:17
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Every week in Sunday papers
Some silly sod is bound to say
That the fact that British High Streets
Have the same national chains
Means that all our city centres
Are now utterly the same
It seems that life within the M25
Gives you brand names on the brain
Because they say that City Centres
All look the same
Because our modern city centres
Have been taken over by shopping chains
Lift your mind beyond the signs
Of the franchises and you'll find
That the hills and stone of Sheffield (for instance)
Are no way alike
To Peterborough's bricks and flatness
Or to Truro or to Milton Keynes
Even though they've all got Marks & Spencers
Boots and Body Shop and HMV
Yet you say that City Centres
All look the same
Because our modern city centres
Have been taken over by shopping chains
Go get a book and look
At the city 90 years ago
You'll find it in the Local History section
Of Smiths or Waterstones
The architecture's lasted, the street layout's the same
The weather and geography all remain
Only names on shopfronts
And moustaches have been changed
Yet they say that City Centres
They all look the same
I think it's you that's turning Mental
You've been taken over by shopping chains
And if you think that City Centres
They all look the same
I think it's you that's turning Mental
You've been taken over by shopping chains
Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing
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7. |
Leave My Brother Alone
04:10
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I'm standing on the corner getting beaten up
By the kids from the year above
Finding out that smart remarks
Don't help to mop up blood
And when they've finally tired of this
And they've all gone away
Someone comes and helps me up
And quietly says
Leave my brother alone
Leave my brother alone"
He says "Mark, if I was older
And if I had my bike
I would cycle after them
And challenge them to a fight"
I said "James, don't you worry yourself
It's really quite all right
Sometimes it's enough to know
There's someone on your side who'll say
Leave my brother alone
Leave my brother alone"
Fast-forward fifteen years
And we're talking on the phone
About his stupid bint ex-girlfriend
Who has left him on his own
In the house they bought together
While she's out seeing other men
She's got the nerve to wonder why
They can't still be friends, and I thought
Leave my brother alone
Leave my brother alone
I said "James, if I had a car
And if I could even drive
I'd dash straight up the M69
And give her a piece of my mind"
He said "Mark, don't you worry yourself
It's really quite all right
Sometimes it's enough to know
There's someone on your side who'll say
Leave my brother alone
Leave my brother alone
Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing
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8. |
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There's a wanker wearing army boots
Talking loudly in the pub about how he's great
Because he just got back from London
Where he went to a riot on the first of May
And he thinks that Direct Action
Is robbing a Macdonald's and the shop next door
And he doesn't think Direct Action
Is laying down your life to fight Fascism in a war
Didn't we all have a laugh?
Getting pissed up on cider and putting Graffiti on the Cenotaph
And the tabloids wrapped in the Union Jack
Bellow like a General about Churchill's fate
And the gardeners flaunt their bravery
Standing up before the cameras with 10,000 mates
While in the residential homes and the graveyards
The butchered generation's tippexed out again
Is sixty seconds too much to ask for
To remember the sacrifice of love to conquer hate?
Are you so self-obsessed not to have
A sense of shame and disgust to see graffiti on the cenotaph?
Is a slogan on another placard
More important to you than genocide?
Do you put yourself above
The millions from the class you claim as yours who died
Go on, design another t-shirt against Nazis
And refuse to buy a poppy cos it glorifies war
But is there anything except self-preservation
That you'd believe in enough to be prepared to die for?
It's the heroes of the Working Class
You piss on their graves, putting graffiti on the cenotaph
Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing
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9. |
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A seminal season of art-rock extravaganza collides headlong with the South Bank, taking no prisoners. As an experiment in alienation and reappraisal it is a singular success, but fails on many other levels. "Pass the sick bag", whispers General Pinochet, whimsically, as he turns to his neighbour. But she pays him no heed. She is entranced by the Primal Rhythms of the Bolivian Nose Flautist.
"Our intention", proclaims the Head of Entertainments, "is to challenge and bemuse", and the reporter nods her head, looked suitably impressed, but more bemused than otherwise. She stares at his poor quality beard, knowing he sleeps on his head to encourage its growth, when he should be coaxing the hairs with the Primal Rhythms of the Bolivian Nose Flautist.
Somewhere backstage, where the sandwiches are curling for their country, the Queen is searching for booze. "It must be here somewhere", she imagines, but cannot focus her drink antennae, for a strange sound exudes from the theatrical wings, and her eyes defocus as a strange sound sings and she too becomes a victim to the Primal Rhythms of the Bolivian Nose Flautist.
And after the show, when the crowd have left, and the party has been partied and all have departed, all that remains is a haunting sound, filling the auditorium from somewhere quite distant, and a passing bluebottle, having the day of its life, takes an equivalent of a year to stop and listen to the Primal Rhythms of the Bolivian Nose Flautist.
Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing
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10. |
Let The Weird Band Win
03:08
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Let the weird band win in the battle of the bands
Don't let the funk band win it just because they've got more fans
Let's reward imagination, let's applaud their spirit and
Let's let the weird band win in the battle of the bands
You know the ones I mean, they'll have a bloody stupid name
An eclectic range of instruments that none of them can play
And a singer who can't sing, I think it's fairly safe to say
That they're only here because another band has run away
But the songs that they sing
Are about all sorts of things
That no one else has sung about
Or thought about before
Let the weird band win in the battle of the bands
Don't let the blues band win it just because they've got more fans
Let's reward imagination, let's applaud their spirit and
Let's let the weird band win in the battle of the bands
And they're talking to the audience, they're trying to explain
As they stand and sing their hearts out from the island of of the stage
In a set where no two songs will sound in any way the same
They've have found a way to use a plectrum at the same time as a brain
But they're roundly ignored
With sarcastic applause
And the judges will smirk
smile and try to look bored
Because the weird band can't win the battle of the bands
They'll let the punk band win it just because they've got more fans
They wouldn't know imagination if it bit them on the arse
That's why the weird band can't win in the battle of the bands
The enemy's in leather jackets, over denim jackets
Wearing hats of all descriptions and their sun glasses indoors
They started shooting moody glances when a girlfriend started dancing
To our heroes' shambling antics, but she didn't stop because
The songs that they sing
Are about all sorts of things
That no one else has sung about
Or thought about before
And like the first drop of a monsoon something marvellous begins
As all around her other girlfriends start to hear the words they sing
And as the rain falls harder round her and the waters rise up high
It might just be tonight's the night the judges judge the damn thing right
And let the weird band win in the battle of the bands
As the righteous waves wash clean the worlds of other people's fans
And they're applauded for intelligence, imagination and
They let the weird band win in the battle of the bands
The songs that they sing
Are about all sorts of things
And nothing like this has ever happened
To any weird band before
Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing
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11. |
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Call the police and form a cordon
Let's all praise the traffic warden
They keep our cities safe
If they should clamp you
You really should say "Thank You"
It's your own fault if you left your car too late
Leicester was the first place to have them
With their black and yellow suits
Double Yellow Lines are always on their mind
As they walk by in the smart Doc Marten's boots
Before they came to be the Bobby on the Beat
Was in charge of Traffic Control
But now they catch the crooks while the wardens fill their books
Leaving us all free to Rock and Roll
So, call the police and form a cordon
Let's all praise the traffic warden
They keep our cities safe
If they should clamp you
You really should say "Thank You"
It's your own fault if you left your car too late
It's your own fault if you left your car too late
Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing
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12. |
The Drummer's Lament
04:41
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Drummers always have to drive
Then go and park the car
All on their own while the rest of the band
Are hanging out in the bar
And when they've finally struggled back
They'll find that all their kit
Is sat in boxes at the front of the stage
Exactly where they left it
Oh sing with me now
A story that's been sent
From the very depths of time
This is the drummers' lament
The drummer has to soundcheck first
And finish packing last
And worse than this, he cannot drink
Because he's driving back
Despite all this he'd never moan
He takes it on the chin
It makes no difference anyway
His microphone's not plugged in
Oh sing with me now
A story that's been sent
From the very depths of time
This is the drummers' lament
A drummer always says to his children
As Ringo said to Zac
"Don't do what it did son, you'll spend your
life sat at the back"
As Caeser said to Cleapotra
Whilst reclining in his tent
"If you bang me bongoes"
"I'll give you the drummer's lament"
All in all it's a bloody good job
That every percussionist
Gets to work out all his anger
By hitting things, hard, with sticks
Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing
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MJ Hibbett & The Validators London, UK
MJ Hibbett & The Validators have performed live on Radio One, had a Record Of The Year in Rolling Stone, an Album Of The Day on 6Music, released one of the first ever viral videos, toured the UK and Europe, featured in an Edinburgh Fringe Festival show, and recorded a science fiction rock opera, all while maintaining their complete independence from outside record labels. ... more
MJ Hibbett & The Validators recommends:
Echo Bridge
by Gavin Osborn & The Comment Section
Home to many excellent people and albums.
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a short album about stuff
by Matt Tiller
Touring buddy and all round good egg.
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The Worst Way to Die
by Alex and the Christopher Hale Band
One of many sites demonstrating the ROCK of Alex.
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Battle of the Grumbles
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The fingerprints of classic UK psych-folk are all over the beautiful “Battle of the Grumbles,” a work of rich texture & detail.
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