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"FLASHBAX Ω ULTIMATE" COVER ART OPENS TRANSDIMENSIONAL PORTAL: MMATT'S OF TWO UNIVERSES UNITED!

It began at the end of September last year, some four weeks before our 'best of' set, "Flashbax Ω Ultimate", was due for release on the German Klappstuhl label. Messages appeared on the Twitter feeds of myself and Julie White Hawk, from one '@DrAlbertTronPsD', the real name of Dr. Magic in the MMATT back story. The message on my feed read; "Thanks to you, my young friend, I have found a way to make the journey! I will be with you soon. Best wishes, Albert M. Tron." An amusing hoax, I thought, but the guy had clearly done his homework. When I started taking the piss (yes, I realise this will come as a shock to many of you, but I have occasionally been known to behave that way), he tweeted me in grammatically perfect Ecian, a language I had invented especially for the aforementioned back story, as being a native tongue on Gamma Syndrome. Now anyone could check some of our lyrics sheets, album covers and booklets for suitably 'alien' phrases to use, but this guy was constructing his own sentences, as well as including information that I was positive I'd never published in English, let alone in my made up extra-terrestrial idiom. He claimed to be the REAL Dr. Magic on a parallel Earth, one where all the MMATT tales of Ford Escortrons and little green men in bowler hats were actually true. I, however, was quite convinced this had to be an old friend playing a very clever wind up. When he insisted he would be visiting our Earth on October 25th, our album's release day, it rather confirmed it in my mind. Naturally, I wasn't averse to a bit of real-time drama on social media helping to publicise the album, so I played along. Which, for a week or so, was quite good fun, the guy played the role as well as I did back in the 80's! But then it took an unpleasant turn and he started to take himself seriously, calling a friend of mine a "stupid damn human" and myself an "arrogant ass" (honestly, I ask you). I decided to

The "Dr. Magic" Twitter account that first made contact on Monday 28th September 2015. They'd have you believe that stranger things happen at sea. Please let me assure you; they don't. Well, Bermuda Triangle maybe.

give him a public lecture on good manners and told him he'd be blocked if he overdid it. I mean, there's funny and there's just plain rude. Then lo and behold, he confesses to being an old friend of mine stitching me up, one that I hadn't seen in a couple of decades. We started chatting about the old days on PM's, I was amazed how much he remembered, some of which you'll have to forgive me for not wishing to share publicly! We announced that he really had been telling the truth, that he was genuinely Dr. Magic from an alternate universe, then began working out a story script, as co-admins of a 'Dr. Mick Magic PsD' Facebook page, to make our social media 'live theatre' all the more fun. We began a photo album on it called "Anti Matter - The Story From An Alternate Universe...", in which he put the lion's share of the story ideas forward, while I created the accompanying graphic images. And all was good till it took a sinister turn. A few days before launch, we'd arranged to meet for lunch at a pub in nearby Lancaster, just to cross the t's and dot the i's, plus do a serious bit of catching up. Only he didn't turn up and I wasted most of my afternoon. When I returned home, I found I'd been removed as an admin on the Facebook page and he'd gone completely off script, claiming just about everyone ever associated with the MMATT of his world had been killed by some intergalactic tyrant. I was furious, MMATT stories were supposed to be funny, multiple homicide seemed to miss that remit by a yard or so. That afternoon, I was catching up with the news on BBC i-Player, when an image appeared that really disturbed me; mixed in with the TV signal and somewhat fuzzy was "Dr. Magic" in a photo that was clearly taken in my studio, holding a copy of our album, which I hadn't even got a copy of myself at the time. When confronted with something like this, you're concerned, naturally. You start wondering if someone has broken in when you've been out. But then pictures can be faked. Then you start thinking your PC must have been hacked and regret sticking with XP as long as you have. Intensive virus scans revealed absolutely nothing. However, his claim that he would be 'paying me a visit' on Saturday 25th October suddenly took on a more menacing tone...

The image that greeted me whilst watching the BBC News on i-Player that fateful evening. As luck would have it, my camera was right next to the computer, otherwise people might have thought I was making it up...