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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of My Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show

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Speaker 1: that brings you the secret histories and little known fascinating

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Speaker 1: facts and figures behind your favorite TV shows, movies, music

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Speaker 1: and more. We are your two tub thumpers of trivia.

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Speaker 1: I'm Alex Hegel and I'm Jordan run Tag and I've

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Speaker 1: put the cart ahead of the horse this time around

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Speaker 1: with that introduction, because it gives away what we're here

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Speaker 1: to do, which has spend way too much time talking

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Speaker 1: about Chumba Womba's tub Thumping, which turned twenty five this year.

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Speaker 1: I can't say it with a straight face. I remember

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Speaker 1: those dog days of the summer of nineteen seven, nineties,

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Speaker 1: seventy seven, ninety Can you imagine this song was years old?

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Speaker 1: I remember the dog days of summer of ninety seven,

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Speaker 1: when our nation turned its hopeful eyes across the pond,

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Speaker 1: hoping once more our forbears in the United Kingdom might

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Speaker 1: help heal a divided nation through the gift of song.

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Speaker 1: Truly a better time. We're the waning days of cool Britannia.

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Speaker 1: Oasis could do no wrong, The Spice Girls taught us

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Speaker 1: to love again, and a bunch of peace punks from

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Speaker 1: northern England gave us a resolutely working class anthem for

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Speaker 1: the ages. I have nothing else to say about this

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Speaker 1: song because I was ten when this came out, and

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Speaker 1: this is a dumb song for people who like dumb things.

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Speaker 1: This is being mean, But I was ten. This is

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Speaker 1: a ten year old song. You know what I mean

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Speaker 1: by that. It's just loud and obnoxious, and by halfway

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Speaker 1: through you have all the parts and you can just

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Speaker 1: start yelling along. I don't think I had the record.

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Speaker 1: I don't think I listened. I haven't listened to this

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Speaker 1: song while doing this, but I have. I will get

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Speaker 1: into why I have a whole level of respect for

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Speaker 1: this band. What about you? Yeah, I was sort of

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Speaker 1: perfectly positioned as an overly serious ten year old to

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Speaker 1: be supremely annoyed by this song. I figured you would

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Speaker 1: go one extremely thing, would be no middle ground with

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Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, the whole soccer stadium chant nous of

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Speaker 1: it all didn't really really play in my world. In

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Speaker 1: your world, immaculate four part Beach Boys harmonies exactly, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: A song that you could just bang like a pie

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Speaker 1: plate too, didn't really. Yeah, that wasn't really my thing,

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Speaker 1: but I just went a level with listeners right now.

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Speaker 1: This was a song that Higel has been pushing to

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Speaker 1: do for I think months, and I've been really skeptical.

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Speaker 1: But after he gamely agreed to do not just Margaritaville

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Speaker 1: but also American Pie, I figured I owed this to him.

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Speaker 1: But you know the song, having listened to it voluntarily

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Speaker 1: for probably the first time of my life in preparation

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Speaker 1: for this episode, it does have a certain amount of charm.

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Speaker 1: I have to admit, not to mention a very nice message.

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Speaker 1: It's all about endurance and resilience, whether it's about overcoming

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Speaker 1: major life obstacles or just getting so drunk that you

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Speaker 1: can't enter your own home. The song it makes me

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Speaker 1: think of the Frankie boyle bit Is, the Scottish comedian,

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Speaker 1: and he said that the most Scottish thing that he'd

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Speaker 1: ever seen was he saw a guy peeing on a

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Speaker 1: front door to house, and then he took out his

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Speaker 1: keys and opened the door and went inside, So that

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Speaker 1: was the most Scottish thing you'd ever seen. It makes

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Speaker 1: me think of this song for some reason. Yeah, Plus

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Speaker 1: this is all courtesy of a bunch of anti corporate

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Speaker 1: rebel rousers who have marched to the beat of their

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Speaker 1: own tub since day one, standing up for animal rights,

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Speaker 1: gay rights, feminism, and taking a stand against classism. The

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Speaker 1: writer Magdalene Taylor, writing for Male Magazine, describes tub thumping

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Speaker 1: as quote a trojan horse designed to covertly deliver a

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Speaker 1: narco communism to the masses. And uh, yeah, I gotta

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Speaker 1: say you were absolutely right. This story is fascinating and

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Speaker 1: I knew exactly none of it, and I'm so excited

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Speaker 1: to kick it off. Were Nanacho syndicalist collective commune. All

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Speaker 1: decisions have to be put to a uh one of

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Speaker 1: these to a committee vote, which then has to be

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Speaker 1: so that has to be ratified by two thirds majority. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I you know, I've read like Emma Goldman and some

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Speaker 1: of that anarchist theory, and I can tell you that

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Speaker 1: anyone who thinks anarchists are into chaos is extremely wrong.

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Speaker 1: Anarchists are extremely into order and rules anyway. From Chumbawoma's

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Speaker 1: origins as a deeply principled set of anarchists in Northeast England,

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Speaker 1: to the controversy they courted in the press, to the

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Speaker 1: still raging debate as to whether this is a great

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Speaker 1: one hit wonder or one of the most annoying songs

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Speaker 1: of all time. Here is everything you didn't know about

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Speaker 1: tub thumping. I can't even say it with a straight face,

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Speaker 1: still never will be able to uh. To understand part

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Speaker 1: of what makes the success of this song so hilarious,

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Speaker 1: you need to know a little bit about the music

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Speaker 1: scene that the group emerged from when they played their

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Speaker 1: first show in January two. That's right. They had been

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Speaker 1: a band for fifteen years when this song came out.

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Speaker 1: Most people probably have a passing familiarity with sex, pistols

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Speaker 1: and anarchy in the UK and the clash, But I

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Speaker 1: would wag your guest that unless you spent a lot

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Speaker 1: of time in the punk rock trenches, you aren't fully

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Speaker 1: aware of the sub subgenre of anarcho punk. I was not.

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Speaker 1: I gathered as much anargroup punk or peace punk, which

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Speaker 1: is I believe the preferred term. I don't know. It's

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Speaker 1: an umbrella and under which a very loose conglomeration of

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Speaker 1: second Ish wave British punk bands fall. I say second

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Speaker 1: Ish because the Godfather, the Granny, the whale spring, the

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Speaker 1: watershed from which these bands fall is crass um that's

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Speaker 1: the name of the band. He's not making a judgment. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think they took it. I think they actually took

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Speaker 1: that name from Ziggy Stardus. The kids was just cross.

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Speaker 1: I believe that is where they got the name from.

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Speaker 1: Love Ziggy Bauhause covered Ziggy as well, but they were

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Speaker 1: contemporaries of the Sex Pistols, and the Penny Rambo, who

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Speaker 1: is one of the main founders, was like the same

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Speaker 1: age a as all of these guys. So they heard

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Speaker 1: all this music, but rather than signed a record contract,

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Speaker 1: they moved into this big ramshackle commune called the Dial House,

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Speaker 1: which is this enormous farmhouse, and they you know, vegetarian, passive,

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Speaker 1: non resistance, but they were also like they get weird,

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Speaker 1: but some of the music is very abrasive, and they

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Speaker 1: were this is crass, crass, yeah, and then and it's

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Speaker 1: like an a tremendous breath of fresh air and to

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Speaker 1: the punk scene at this point, because when you think

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Speaker 1: of what they call seventy seven punk, like UK seventy seven,

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Speaker 1: you think of these peacock ludicrous safety pends through their

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Speaker 1: nose plaid bondage trousers. Crass were all black all the

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Speaker 1: time and would like very minimal stage shows, and they

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Speaker 1: were all about like peaceful protest and they did a

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Speaker 1: lot of this direct action stuff like anti vivisection protests,

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Speaker 1: anti animal cruelty. Anyway, these are all bands who had

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Speaker 1: been influenced by the sex pistols in the Clash, but

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Speaker 1: in particularly the case of the Clash, felt they'd sold

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Speaker 1: out their ideals, didn't take all this stuff far enough.

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Speaker 1: So they were invested in being very political and in

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Speaker 1: a lot of cases you you get sort of the

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Speaker 1: underpinnings of what becomes crust punk because they were kind

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Speaker 1: of also into like British heavy metal at the time.

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Speaker 1: So all of that is the scene from which Chumbawomba emerges. Um,

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Speaker 1: I can laugh when you say Chumba Womba, I crash

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Speaker 1: it is. I mean, if you grew up listening to

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Speaker 1: punk rock, you saw they have this truly amazing graphic

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Speaker 1: design logo that's like an auura boros snake and an

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Speaker 1: anarchy a and a peace symbol. It's just one of

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Speaker 1: the It's like the black flag and the dead Kennedy

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Speaker 1: is in the Misfits logo. It's one of the great

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Speaker 1: triumphs of punk graphic design and Crash. They could basically

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Speaker 1: do no wrong and so Chumba Womba are of a

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Speaker 1: piece with them. They come out of this sort of

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Speaker 1: decaying steel mill town of Burnley, Lancashire. They were immediately

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Speaker 1: a band of part. There's a tremendous oral history of

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Speaker 1: this scene called the Day the Country Died, which is

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Speaker 1: a sub human song written by a UK j list

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Speaker 1: and punk rocker named Ian Clasper, and chumb Owoma guitarist

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Speaker 1: Alan boff Whalley told Ian that they were they were

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Speaker 1: not interested in being your bog standard punk rockers. He said, quote,

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Speaker 1: we were desperate right from the start, not to just

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Speaker 1: before people in a band playing rock and roll music.

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Speaker 1: We were fans of early Frank Zappa and things like that,

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Speaker 1: who really tried to challenge their audience with what they

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Speaker 1: did on stage, the way they presented their music, the

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Speaker 1: way they chopped and changed all the time, and like Crass,

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Speaker 1: they embodied this collective, communiesque model of being in a band.

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Speaker 1: They were squatters. A lot of these bands were squatting

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Speaker 1: at the time because you had the whole bottom and

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Speaker 1: falling out of the British economies. A lot of these

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Speaker 1: people had like a lot of the landed gentry had

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Speaker 1: like vacated their homes or moved they couldn't keep up

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Speaker 1: their country homes, and all these punks just moved into them.

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Speaker 1: So they were squatting this big old Victorian house. They

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Speaker 1: were like everybody who came through the house. They were like,

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Speaker 1: can you like bang on a pot in time? Or

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Speaker 1: like strong like you're in the band now were rated

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Speaker 1: by the police repeatedly for drugs uh, and once for

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Speaker 1: bomb making equipment. So they were like doing Weatherman type

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Speaker 1: stuff or being or or being persecuted for without actually

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Speaker 1: doing that. And at least once they talked about Um.

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Speaker 1: They drove a bunch of fellow punks to an animal

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Speaker 1: testing laboratory and broke in and made off with a

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Speaker 1: bunch of beagles and mice. Um, and then they were

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Speaker 1: arrested for it at once. The police like subsequently caught

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Speaker 1: up with all of them because they were like the

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Speaker 1: getaway drivers. They piled all the people into their band

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Speaker 1: van with all these dogs and mice, and then the

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Speaker 1: police caught up with them later. Um. One of the

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Speaker 1: band members I think who sings the Pissing the Night

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Speaker 1: away line, Alice Nutter whose name is Anne Holden, but

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Speaker 1: she renamed herself after a woman who had been hanged

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Speaker 1: as a witch in the sixteen hundreds, which is again,

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Speaker 1: I'm painting a picture of these people, she told Rolling Star.

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Speaker 1: Other band members Harry and lew are a couple now,

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Speaker 1: and Lu and Boff had to relate aation ship for

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Speaker 1: a few years. The rest of us shagged each other occasionally,

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Speaker 1: But you get to a point where once you've done it,

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Speaker 1: you've done it, and it's almost out of the way.

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Speaker 1: You don't have to keep doing it. So a cross

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Speaker 1: between a dorm room and Fleetwood mac and A and

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Speaker 1: a rock and roll protest commune, and you've got early Chumbawamba.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you said this a few minutes ago about

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Speaker 1: how people have this misconception of anarchists as being all

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Speaker 1: about chaos, and you're right. It's not that they don't

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Speaker 1: want rules. They don't want government to impose the rules.

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Speaker 1: They themselves feel the arbiter of a very strict set

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Speaker 1: of rules that everybody has the responsibility of enforcing, and

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Speaker 1: relentlessly democratic, and they do. Some of the interviews I've

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Speaker 1: read in this they talked about it actually being a

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Speaker 1: problem because they would like talking about they produced all

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Speaker 1: of this stuff recorded, produced all this stuff themselves, and

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Speaker 1: they would like they were like, yeah, it would become

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Speaker 1: a big problem because there's twelve people on the record.

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Speaker 1: They would all be in the mixing room asking for

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Speaker 1: their visual contributions to be louder. There's a vice profile

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Speaker 1: from I don't know, I think like or something, and

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Speaker 1: they're all these quotes from like eight members of the

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Speaker 1: band basically giving their take on whether or not to

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Speaker 1: sign with E M I a major label, do a

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Speaker 1: major label deal after being an independent for so long,

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Speaker 1: And it was just so funny, like hearing them these

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Speaker 1: eight very different takes and just like, wow, it must

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Speaker 1: have been impossible to get anything done. The wonder it

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Speaker 1: took him fifteen years to get a song on the charts.

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Speaker 1: But yes, Chumbawamba was from the start a lot less

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Speaker 1: sort of doomy than most of their punk peers. Uh.

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Speaker 1: They kind of had a bit of the you know

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Speaker 1: ken Kisi Mary prankster energy by way. But for instance,

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Speaker 1: another subgenre of punk at this time was OI that's

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Speaker 1: how you put electric avenue style right by short for

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Speaker 1: Oi poloi, which was a punt on Hawaii poloi, which

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Speaker 1: is it means thelar for the working classes. Yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: and so exactly yes, yes, Scott's Sucker, whool against et cetera,

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Speaker 1: um so oi, which is, you know, sort of nominally

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Speaker 1: about working class struggles and culture. This whole genre gave

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Speaker 1: rise to bands and fans that were basically skinheads and

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Speaker 1: it was very popular. Actually, before we go any further,

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Speaker 1: how would you define a skinhead, Well, it was different styles.

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Speaker 1: This gets so in the weeds about like punk rock stuff.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the whole thing, the whole fashion of it

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Speaker 1: emerges from the working class, right, because you had short hair,

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Speaker 1: because we get stuck in machinery. You wore big boots

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Speaker 1: because you need steel toe boots for your industry, your

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Speaker 1: shitty industrial job, right, and so basically early OI um

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Speaker 1: like Schamp sixty nine and Angelic upstarts, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of this stuff is very like it's pub rock. I

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Speaker 1: mean it's essentially pub rock with the musical competency dialed

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Speaker 1: down a little bit. And what as hap and has

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Speaker 1: has happened in the United States, you get people who

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Speaker 1: are very like this is England is the like archetypal

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Speaker 1: thing about this, You know, they wore the documentary they

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Speaker 1: were they would wear the flight jackets because, like there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of the lower class people, their only

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Speaker 1: choice was going into the military. Like that's where you

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Speaker 1: get like a lot of this discarded you know, military

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Speaker 1: ephemera um like the parkas and the flight jackets that

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Speaker 1: are such a part of it. And basically what happens

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Speaker 1: is being very pro England and being pro working class

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Speaker 1: metastasizes into being racist. And that's when you start getting

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Speaker 1: actual white power skinheads, and there's a whole schism in

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Speaker 1: the scene of furiously anti racist. There's actually a group

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Speaker 1: called Sharp which is skinheads against racial Prejudice. And it

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Speaker 1: comes down to the point where they started drilling down

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Speaker 1: into the color of the laces that you tied your

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Speaker 1: boots with meant you were either a white power skin

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Speaker 1: head or an anti racist skin And there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of overlap because these guys who were living these council

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Speaker 1: flats or whatever shared a lot of space with people

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Speaker 1: from the Caribbean that there was a lot of overlap

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Speaker 1: in skinhead music, like actual skins who were into ska,

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Speaker 1: and so you would see like these dudes embraces the

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Speaker 1: suspenders and and these um Fred Fred Perry, what's that

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Speaker 1: Papa top be In an early reggae song from the

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Speaker 1: late sixties was a skinhead anthem, And you know it's

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Speaker 1: it's strange. You've got this social movement with two distinct

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Speaker 1: subsects of it. One is extremely fascinated by, not fascinated

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Speaker 1: by passionate about black culture, and the other subsection is

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Speaker 1: extremely racist and the only thing that you can really

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Speaker 1: tell them apart by are their shoelaces. Yeah, and there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of bands that are still very I don't

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Speaker 1: know about this. I'm going on a limb here, but

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Speaker 1: it's like if the country music industry in the fiftiest

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Speaker 1: clan members in it, because there's like very formative OI

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Speaker 1: bands that became like Screwdriver is the biggest one, and

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Speaker 1: they started out as an OI band and became aggressively racist,

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Speaker 1: and it came over to the States about five ten

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Speaker 1: years later. Like you really start seeing it in its

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Speaker 1: in not ten, that's an exaggeration, but it really in

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Speaker 1: the second wave of punk, Like once you start seeing

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Speaker 1: hardcore takeover in the early eighties, like the Black Flag

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Speaker 1: and um Minor Threats wave of punk, you start seeing

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Speaker 1: people being like, oh, we have like skinheads in our scene,

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Speaker 1: and it culminates in there's a famous Dead Kennedy's song

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Speaker 1: called Nazi Punks off Ah, there's your MANI history of

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Speaker 1: skinheads and well. OI was very popular with journalists at

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Speaker 1: the time in the early eighties, and one in particular,

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Speaker 1: writing for an outlet called Sounds Magazine, got the name

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Speaker 1: of Gary Bushell. And so a young chumble Woman decided

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Speaker 1: to prank this writer, like claiming that they were an

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Speaker 1: OI band that they just made up called skin Disease,

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Speaker 1: which is a great name for a bit is and

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Speaker 1: and this journalist bush Will invited them to record a

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Speaker 1: track for a compilation of OI bands that he was

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Speaker 1: putting out, And so they recorded a song in which

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Speaker 1: the only lyrics are I'm thick repeated sixty four times

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Speaker 1: I'm thick, meaning in you know, English slang like basically

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Speaker 1: I'm stupid um, which really, when you think about it,

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Speaker 1: is kind of great practice for tub thumping because it's

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Speaker 1: just just like a chant. Now. So in their pre

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Speaker 1: Chumble Woman band they called themselves Chimp Eats Banana Um.

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Speaker 1: The drummer Dan Burt no Bacon told band Camp earlier

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Speaker 1: this year, we used to do something called a bed gig,

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Speaker 1: where we would lay on the stage and wake up

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Speaker 1: and start playing. One time we had a gig a

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Speaker 1: couple of miles away from where we lived, and we

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Speaker 1: decided to walk to it. We had pajamason and dressing gowns,

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Speaker 1: and the cops stopped us. They thought we estaped from

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Speaker 1: a mental institution or something, and they were apparently somewhat terrifying.

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Speaker 1: On the stage, there would be just ten people in

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Speaker 1: matching T shirts and asymmetrical haircuts and blindfolds sometimes who

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Speaker 1: it must be said, could barely play their own instruments. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but you know, an unabashed lack of musical prowess. It's

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Speaker 1: about where their similarity to the punk scene ended. As

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Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, they stood apart from punk in Northern

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Speaker 1: England by attempting to integrate themselves into the community rather

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Speaker 1: than sort of standing on the outskirts of society. They

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Speaker 1: distributed pamphlets and food the workers families, and they even

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Speaker 1: started a theater troupe to perform for miners children. And

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Speaker 1: they made a point of putting themselves into uncomfortable situations

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Speaker 1: with people who had varying points of view and This

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Speaker 1: eventually caused them to distance themselves from the you know,

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Speaker 1: in quotes punk movement, who they viewed more and more

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Speaker 1: as hard line and humorless, and Boff Wiley of Chumbawamba

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Speaker 1: referred to this as quote a process of unlearning some

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Speaker 1: of the insular and anti social ideas we picked up

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Speaker 1: from an insular and the social political movement. And in

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Speaker 1: his memoir Boff talks about Chumba Womba growing frustrated with

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Speaker 1: the punk scenes quote stamp soaping culture, which was a

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Speaker 1: habit that they would do where they would basically peel

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Speaker 1: stamps off of letters and wash the ink off of

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Speaker 1: it so that they could reuse them. They just thought

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Speaker 1: it was pointless to you know, scam the postal service

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Speaker 1: rather than just participate in the economy like everybody else.

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Speaker 1: They're really interesting. They were not like you have to

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Speaker 1: drop out of society. They were like, you know, you

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Speaker 1: can kind of still do your thing and live by

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Speaker 1: certain ideals. And they got tart and feathered for it. Man.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we'll talk about this later, but people really

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Speaker 1: came at them as being sellout. But as we will discuss,

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Speaker 1: they've were very much like, no, we are like we

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Speaker 1: can we would participate in this, but we will not

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Speaker 1: at any point compromise what we actually believe in, which

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Speaker 1: is and they didn't. I mean, it gets back to

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Speaker 1: the old question of do you change the system from

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Speaker 1: the outside from within? Which is the most effective, and

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Speaker 1: you know, it kind of remains to be seen. And

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Speaker 1: this whole sentiment was echoed in an insert that was

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Speaker 1: included in a Crass Records seven inch I think it

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00:19:07,520 --> 00:19:09,640
Speaker 1: was a seven inch and it said, you say you're

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Speaker 1: an anarchist, but you're begging the system for help. You're

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Speaker 1: standing in the doll lines, but you want to be independent.

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Speaker 1: And I think that's kind of their point there, is like, well,

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Speaker 1: you can't have it both ways here. If you're going

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Speaker 1: to rely on the system for sustenance, then don't try

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Speaker 1: to cheat it and try to change outside of it.

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Speaker 1: And the whole million of the time in the eighties

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Speaker 1: is it's interesting because all the eighties US punks were

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Speaker 1: obsessed with the concept that we would be in vulgulfed

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Speaker 1: in a nuclear war. So there's this whole world ending thing.

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Speaker 1: But over in the UK, I mean Thatcher, Margaret Thatcher

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Speaker 1: was their Reagan. She was a tremendously conservative person, but

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Speaker 1: she was stamping down all the working class people. I

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Speaker 1: mean they nationalized the mining industry in Wales and I

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Speaker 1: believe also Scotland and Ireland fact check that. But um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean she was hated by all of these people

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Speaker 1: for this, and so jumble one with particular really glamed

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Speaker 1: onto the miners because they were in the north as

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Speaker 1: the people that they were going to support and the

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Speaker 1: communities that they were going to work within. Um. And

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Speaker 1: the Falklands is the other thing that happens. I mean

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Speaker 1: the Falklands uh pointless war, which people speculate launched is

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Speaker 1: either a flag waving power play or an economic jump starter.

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Speaker 1: But there's a famous crass record called yes Sir, I

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Speaker 1: will where um and they have a picture of this

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Speaker 1: in the liner notes is wild. Prince Charles was meeting

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Speaker 1: with a bunch of Falklands War veterans, including a guy

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Speaker 1: who has been horrifically burned, and Charles, in the fantastically

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00:20:39,680 --> 00:20:43,159
Speaker 1: constipated way that the British have of dealing with one another,

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Speaker 1: he says, well you be a good boy, you'd be

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Speaker 1: a good lad or something and get better. Like he

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Speaker 1: says something like you better. You know you you you

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Speaker 1: get better. Thank you for your service. Yeah, and the

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00:20:52,600 --> 00:20:57,320
Speaker 1: guy goes, yes, sir, I will, which is you know rightly.

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Speaker 1: They were like horrified that this guy who would law

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Speaker 1: his face in a pointless war was saluting the man

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00:21:03,760 --> 00:21:09,520
Speaker 1: who ostensibly sent him there. Anyway. By late Crass had

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00:21:09,520 --> 00:21:12,840
Speaker 1: released the first Chumba Womba songs on vinyl called three

387
00:21:12,920 --> 00:21:16,480
Speaker 1: years Later and Volume two. They put out these compilations

388
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Speaker 1: called Bulls Detector, and they take their name from this

389
00:21:18,800 --> 00:21:22,040
Speaker 1: Clash song Garage Land, in which Joe Strummer sings back

390
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Speaker 1: in the garage with my bullet detector carbon monoxide, making

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00:21:25,640 --> 00:21:29,680
Speaker 1: sure it's effective. Um, there's a whole thing about being

392
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Speaker 1: a garage band, because I think someone had dismissively had

393
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Speaker 1: written in a review of the Clash, this generation of

394
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Speaker 1: garage bands should stay in the garage or something like that. Um,

395
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Speaker 1: and yeah, it's funny because these guys later came at

396
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Speaker 1: the Clash. I mean, this is the by what the

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Speaker 1: mid eighties, when the early eighties you'd say around this

398
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Speaker 1: has been the Clash, opening for the Who and doing

399
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Speaker 1: like their stadium tours. So that's why all these punks

400
00:21:54,000 --> 00:21:55,480
Speaker 1: were like, oh, you guys have sold out, but they

401
00:21:55,520 --> 00:21:59,280
Speaker 1: still loved the clash. I mean both Whalley covered this

402
00:21:59,359 --> 00:22:02,280
Speaker 1: song Joe Land on one of these compilations. Yeah, this

403
00:22:02,320 --> 00:22:06,360
Speaker 1: whole scene has, as we mentioned earlier, a really strict

404
00:22:06,400 --> 00:22:10,280
Speaker 1: code of conduct. Tchambama got flak for issuing one of

405
00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:13,919
Speaker 1: their albums on vinyl instead of the much more affordable

406
00:22:13,960 --> 00:22:19,640
Speaker 1: cassette like even that was seen as you know too Far. Yeah, yeah,

407
00:22:19,800 --> 00:22:22,280
Speaker 1: their debut full length. I love this. This is actually

408
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Speaker 1: the record that I listened to the most while I

409
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Speaker 1: was researching this. It's called Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records.

410
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Speaker 1: Not only does Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records sound

411
00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:34,159
Speaker 1: nothing like tub thumping, it barely sounds like anything else.

412
00:22:34,600 --> 00:22:38,320
Speaker 1: It was contemporaneous with there's trumpets, there's like tape speed

413
00:22:38,480 --> 00:22:41,399
Speaker 1: experiments like samples that are on there, slowed down and

414
00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:45,879
Speaker 1: sped up. Both told MTV of the record, we finally

415
00:22:45,880 --> 00:22:48,640
Speaker 1: got this collection of songs and ideas together, and about

416
00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:51,239
Speaker 1: two or three weeks before we went to record it,

417
00:22:51,600 --> 00:22:54,840
Speaker 1: the Live Aid album came out, so we scrapped everything

418
00:22:54,920 --> 00:22:59,200
Speaker 1: and rewrote the entire album to react against it. They

419
00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:02,439
Speaker 1: scrapped all of their songs because they were so upset

420
00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:05,240
Speaker 1: at Live Aid. He said, quote it was such a

421
00:23:05,240 --> 00:23:08,440
Speaker 1: big watershed and pop culture and pop history. We felt

422
00:23:08,480 --> 00:23:11,080
Speaker 1: it deserved some little guys standing up and saying, look,

423
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Speaker 1: we have a different point of view going on here.

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Speaker 1: We would have participated, but we would have gone up

425
00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:19,160
Speaker 1: there and explained why children are starving, not just hey

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00:23:19,440 --> 00:23:22,159
Speaker 1: send money. And they make a very good point because

427
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:25,840
Speaker 1: in Live Aid, when uh, Phil Collins took the concorde

428
00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:28,680
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic to play at both of them, nothing

429
00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:31,720
Speaker 1: says feed starving children like a millionaire taking up speed

430
00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:34,480
Speaker 1: of sound jet from one gig to another and ruining

431
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 1: the LEDs up of the Union. Yes sure did, uh yeah,

432
00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:43,640
Speaker 1: skip the concorde and rehearse phil um. In nineteen eighty nine,

433
00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:47,199
Speaker 1: they released a ten inch that was just acapella renditions

434
00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:51,480
Speaker 1: of English Protests songs like the oldest one of these

435
00:23:51,480 --> 00:23:56,399
Speaker 1: songs is from like eighteen twelve. I what a perverse move.

436
00:23:56,720 --> 00:24:00,200
Speaker 1: I mean talk about just not even every day now

437
00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:03,359
Speaker 1: everything is so stage managed, like, oh, your your record

438
00:24:03,400 --> 00:24:05,159
Speaker 1: has to sound like this, and you have to follow

439
00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:07,560
Speaker 1: up with the produced blah blah blah. They followed one

440
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:12,159
Speaker 1: record that was like cracked New wave with a record

441
00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:16,359
Speaker 1: that was acapella inclined songs, and Bob said that this

442
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:19,360
Speaker 1: got them banned from Maximum Rock and Roll, which were

443
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:22,800
Speaker 1: very influential, very famous punk magazine based in San Francisco.

444
00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:25,800
Speaker 1: He said they actually sat around and had a meeting

445
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:28,440
Speaker 1: about this record and decided it was going too far

446
00:24:28,560 --> 00:24:33,200
Speaker 1: to have a punk band playing acapella folks songs. Um

447
00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 1: Bob told The Guardian in sixteen that we didn't make

448
00:24:36,040 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 1: any money for at least ten years because we played

449
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:41,240
Speaker 1: benefit concerts all the time. You know, they released we

450
00:24:41,280 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 1: talked about the mine workers before they released songs about

451
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:47,000
Speaker 1: the striking mine workers. They have one called never Mind

452
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:50,119
Speaker 1: the Ballots that's a whole record about how the voting

453
00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:53,879
Speaker 1: system is rigged. Um. They released a parody cover of

454
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 1: let it Be that mocked this charity single that was

455
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:00,479
Speaker 1: released by the Sun. The Sun is famously like up

456
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 1: there with a Daily Mail, It is like being extremely conservative,

457
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:08,639
Speaker 1: extremely bottom feeding UK tabloid and um the chumba womba

458
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:11,240
Speaker 1: version of this single was released under the name scab

459
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:15,800
Speaker 1: Aid All the all the lyrics mock make fun of

460
00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:18,960
Speaker 1: the Sun. It charted and it was featured in Enemy.

461
00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:23,040
Speaker 1: The extremely influential British music magazine before anyone realized it

462
00:25:23,080 --> 00:25:27,520
Speaker 1: was them, just across the board, subversive, tremendous stuff. I mean,

463
00:25:27,680 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 1: some of the most successful trolls in UK music history. Yeah,

464
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 1: exactly exactly, as you meditate on that, We'll be right

465
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:53,720
Speaker 1: back with more, too much information. After these messages, the

466
00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:55,600
Speaker 1: band was at least able to quit their day jobs

467
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:57,760
Speaker 1: by the early nineties, at which point, they, like everyone

468
00:25:57,800 --> 00:25:59,520
Speaker 1: else in the UK at the time, began to fall

469
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:02,600
Speaker 1: into this way of techno music and rave culture. Uh.

470
00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:06,320
Speaker 1: If you've ever seen twenty four hour party people, this

471
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:09,840
Speaker 1: is Yeah, this is the There's a great part in

472
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:13,439
Speaker 1: the Trip where Steve Coogan posits that Northern England is

473
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:18,280
Speaker 1: more influential than the entirety of Wales, and Rob Rob

474
00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 1: Rob gets extremely upset at him for suggesting that. But

475
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:23,960
Speaker 1: it is interesting because I'm wearing a New Order T

476
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:26,600
Speaker 1: shirt as we talk about this. I mean, I kind

477
00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:28,880
Speaker 1: of have a Beatles poster behind me. Or also from

478
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:32,440
Speaker 1: Northern England. The whole scene that descended from the Factory,

479
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:35,560
Speaker 1: you know, jor Division Begat, New Order, New Order Begat.

480
00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:38,600
Speaker 1: The rest of the Factory bands as best typified by

481
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:42,320
Speaker 1: what probably Happy Mondays right. Primal Scream is another big

482
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:44,600
Speaker 1: one from this time, So everyone was into techno music

483
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:47,920
Speaker 1: and rave culture and Trumble Woman response to this with

484
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:52,880
Speaker 1: releases like they had records called Slap from and From

485
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:55,639
Speaker 1: two that had a lot of these um sort of

486
00:26:55,640 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 1: repetitive dance beats and samples. The album was originally intended

487
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 1: to be released as Jesus H. Christ you can imagine, Yeah, which,

488
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:09,040
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, did not work out for them. Yeah.

489
00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:11,680
Speaker 1: I think this was like a completely different album that

490
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 1: never got released. It was just wall of wall uncleared

491
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:18,720
Speaker 1: samples and companies of the most expensive music. You can imagine.

492
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 1: It was a total anarchist move. They just stole these

493
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:25,120
Speaker 1: iconic songs. They had clips from Sergeant Pepper's only arts

494
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 1: club band, The Rolling Stones, Abba Casey and the Sunshine Band,

495
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:32,959
Speaker 1: Wings t Rex and Buzzcocks. They even covered Stairway to Heaven.

496
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:36,360
Speaker 1: So it's just just the cost of licenses and clearances

497
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:38,680
Speaker 1: alone would have made this one of the most expensive

498
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:42,080
Speaker 1: albums ever, so it was obviously scrapped. I mean, this

499
00:27:42,080 --> 00:27:44,639
Speaker 1: would have been what like eight years before The Verve

500
00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:49,040
Speaker 1: were sued into oblivion for the Bitterstreet Symphony sample. Yeah, yeah, less.

501
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:51,320
Speaker 1: I mean I think like one of the Maybe I'm wrong,

502
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:52,800
Speaker 1: somebody is going to correct me on this, but I

503
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:55,919
Speaker 1: feel like one of the last albums that got away

504
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:58,639
Speaker 1: with sort of sampling whatever the hell they wanted was

505
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:04,560
Speaker 1: Paul's Boutique, right, and then people started clamping down on that. Yeah,

506
00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:10,320
Speaker 1: tremendous quote from vocalist Dunston Bruce about this era everybody

507
00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:12,639
Speaker 1: was going to raves. I think what happened what I

508
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 1: found with that movement. It was the first time since

509
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:17,080
Speaker 1: punk I felt like I was part of this huge

510
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:19,639
Speaker 1: movement and maybe we could actually do something about the

511
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:22,399
Speaker 1: state of the world. Looking back, I realized it was

512
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:27,760
Speaker 1: only because I was high on ecstasy. I love it

513
00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:29,840
Speaker 1: so much. If you've read um our band could Be

514
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:32,000
Speaker 1: Your Life in the mud Honey chapter, it's so funny

515
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:35,680
Speaker 1: because they talk about the same thing. Mark arm is like, yeah,

516
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 1: you know, like all these Seattle bands. They made this

517
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 1: big thing in the press about like all these Seattle bands,

518
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:41,200
Speaker 1: Like we were like buddies and we go to these

519
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:43,280
Speaker 1: gigs and we loved each other so much. And I

520
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:45,200
Speaker 1: think what it really was was there was this wave

521
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 1: of really pure m d a that came through Seattle.

522
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:51,239
Speaker 1: At the time, we're all just like loved up on

523
00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 1: each other, extremely rolling face. I mean, it's hey in

524
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 1: Ashbury in the sixties with Owsley acid like White Lightning

525
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:06,040
Speaker 1: and all the good all good drugs. But at the

526
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 1: dawn of the nineties when Chambawama, we're getting into this

527
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:13,840
Speaker 1: kind of Manchester dance club type music, hacienda beats and

528
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:16,960
Speaker 1: all that. Chumbawomma band member Alis Nutter told Vice that

529
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:19,840
Speaker 1: around this time, at the dawn of the nineties, Chumbawomma

530
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:23,320
Speaker 1: realized that a new decade required a different political approach.

531
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:27,080
Speaker 1: The band was bored with the politics of victimization the

532
00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 1: big brother is going to get you line, So instead

533
00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:33,800
Speaker 1: they worked on this premise that optimism breeds optimism, which

534
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:41,080
Speaker 1: I feel like it's the least punk ethos I've ever heard. Yeah, yeah, well,

535
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:47,040
Speaker 1: you know, we'll see um. So by the time they

536
00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:49,440
Speaker 1: go to make this album, Dunston Bruce told The Guardian

537
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 1: that before we went made this record, I felt we

538
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 1: were in a mess. He said, we'd become directionless and disparate.

539
00:29:56,720 --> 00:29:59,719
Speaker 1: So the purposely made a record that doubled down on

540
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 1: their sense of englishness. In particular Northern England. They recorded

541
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 1: this record from August to February seven at Woodland's studio

542
00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:15,120
Speaker 1: in Castleford, West Yorkshire. Um I assumed going into this

543
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:17,760
Speaker 1: that they had signed with a producer for this record.

544
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:20,680
Speaker 1: They did not. They made this the same way they

545
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:22,600
Speaker 1: made all of their other ones, which were just in

546
00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:26,800
Speaker 1: a studio with one dude who later became their bass player.

547
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 1: Was like still in the Fold, still an insular record.

548
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 1: Alic Snoder told The A V Club in seventeen we

549
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:35,200
Speaker 1: made tub Thumbing at a point when people had written

550
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 1: us off. We made a really terrible record before it.

551
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:40,480
Speaker 1: We felt like our backs were against a wall and

552
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 1: if we were going to continue to exist as a band,

553
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:44,600
Speaker 1: we were going to have to pull together and be

554
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: really tight. We wanted to prove ourselves to ourselves. Both

555
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 1: told The Guardian tub Thumbing was written as a collective.

556
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:54,920
Speaker 1: Like everything else. We wanted to make a very English

557
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 1: album and the song is about the resilience of ordinary

558
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 1: people of Bandark because they're gonna hire a producer, you know,

559
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 1: I don't know. Talking to The Guardian back in this

560
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:07,720
Speaker 1: Guardian interview, he says, at the time we lived near

561
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:13,160
Speaker 1: great pub called the Ford gran in Leeds, Irish, Afro Caribbean,

562
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:16,640
Speaker 1: Asian white. Everyone went there. Our next door neighbor, who

563
00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 1: was Irish, would come home drunk every weekend from there

564
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 1: and try to get into his house, fall over and

565
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:25,720
Speaker 1: shout for his wife. It was a weekly ritual. Yes

566
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 1: and chumba wamma drummer danver Nobacan is it no no

567
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:34,840
Speaker 1: bacon because they're probably vegetarian, right okay, which, as you mentioned,

568
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:37,239
Speaker 1: is sadly not his real name. Shut a little more

569
00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:40,440
Speaker 1: light on the situation, which includes where the Danny Boy

570
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 1: part of tub Thumping Danny Boy. Yeah, he's talking to

571
00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:49,480
Speaker 1: the a V Club. Boff was in bed at night

572
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 1: with his wife and they heard the next door neighbor

573
00:31:51,760 --> 00:31:54,920
Speaker 1: coming home. He was super drunk, making a lot of noise.

574
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:57,920
Speaker 1: He's singing Danny Boy, which became a lyric in the song.

575
00:31:58,280 --> 00:32:00,480
Speaker 1: He goes up to the door, he puts his key in,

576
00:32:00,840 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 1: he falls over, and he gets back up. It happened

577
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 1: two or three times. He was just so drunk he

578
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:10,200
Speaker 1: kept falling over. Eventually he went in and he went

579
00:32:10,240 --> 00:32:13,840
Speaker 1: to bed presumably and fell asleep. It just clicked in

580
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 1: Boff's brain when he woke up the next morning. It

581
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 1: fit the chorus your cousin, Marvin no Marvin, no Bacon.

582
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:26,160
Speaker 1: You know that new sound you're looking forward, Well, here's

583
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 1: a guy falling down. In a different interview, Bob said,

584
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 1: we wanted to write a song about this very ordinary

585
00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:37,280
Speaker 1: sort of sequence of events. Don't know how ordinary it is,

586
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:40,000
Speaker 1: but okay, which is basically that a lot of people

587
00:32:40,040 --> 00:32:43,080
Speaker 1: have jobs they don't particularly enjoy doing, and they don't

588
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:45,600
Speaker 1: have much money or opportunity, but they find ways to

589
00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:47,760
Speaker 1: enjoy themselves and they go out and they have a

590
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:49,720
Speaker 1: good time, and at the end of it they'll get

591
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:52,760
Speaker 1: up off the floor and go on with life. And

592
00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:55,719
Speaker 1: they used this vision of the drunken neighbor as a

593
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:58,680
Speaker 1: metaphor for the struggles of the middle class held down

594
00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:01,920
Speaker 1: by the elite. Which, sure, I'll go with that. Why

595
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 1: why not? Um? The sweet sounding bridge to the song

596
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 1: Pissing the Night Away? I remember that being like minor

597
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:11,480
Speaker 1: leg controversial in the States. Like I, I don't think

598
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:14,440
Speaker 1: I was allowed to own this because my parents heard that.

599
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 1: But did you want maybe? I don't know, you know what?

600
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:20,600
Speaker 1: The first record I ever bought was around this time,

601
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 1: Um was I've told you this before? Eagle eyed cherry.

602
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:26,720
Speaker 1: Oh right, yes, yes, um. And the other one that

603
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 1: I I think semi sonic was that around from around

604
00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:34,720
Speaker 1: this time? No semi because a couple of years later. Anyway,

605
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 1: piss It's is wordplay. It's a British pun. Piss is

606
00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:39,960
Speaker 1: slang for alcohol. It's there, are you on the piss

607
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:42,840
Speaker 1: taking the piss? Uh so pissing the night away? It

608
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:46,680
Speaker 1: means you were both doing a lot of drinking and urinating. Uh.

609
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:50,560
Speaker 1: And that Lollipop Magazine interview, Bob said we wanted a

610
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:53,240
Speaker 1: lot more of the video to involve toilets, but we

611
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 1: were assured that would be a death wish for the video.

612
00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:00,720
Speaker 1: And the title, which I've always this is just asinine

613
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:03,200
Speaker 1: to me. But the title of the song and the

614
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:08,319
Speaker 1: title of the album are different. I gun to my head,

615
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:10,400
Speaker 1: I don't know which one it is. One's tub thumper,

616
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:15,760
Speaker 1: the other one's tub thumping. Whoa, I never put that together.

617
00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:18,960
Speaker 1: What's the name of the song now, I'm like, what

618
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:23,120
Speaker 1: he knows on this episode, I have no idea tub

619
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:29,080
Speaker 1: thumping is the song tub thumper, but it doesn't. On

620
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:31,640
Speaker 1: the cover of the album, it just says chumba womba

621
00:34:31,840 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 1: and sub thumper at night, sailor's delight, tub thumping at

622
00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:42,360
Speaker 1: dawn sailor's morn. That's how you remember that it's insane. Anyway,

623
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:46,160
Speaker 1: we either what those both mean is um sort of

624
00:34:46,520 --> 00:34:49,759
Speaker 1: a town crier situation, someone who stands on a soapbox

625
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:52,120
Speaker 1: on the street corner and shouts about what's wrong with

626
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:55,080
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah. The American equivalent is basically going on

627
00:34:55,120 --> 00:34:58,279
Speaker 1: the stump or political campaigning. In other words, a protester

628
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:01,800
Speaker 1: or one who makes noise for a cause, which really

629
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 1: points to the true meaning of the song. And this

630
00:35:04,600 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 1: is probably a good time to get into the origin

631
00:35:06,239 --> 00:35:10,200
Speaker 1: of the band's name Chumbawamba, which probably should have done earlier.

632
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:13,600
Speaker 1: The official explanation is that chumbawamba is a meaningless string

633
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:16,800
Speaker 1: of syllables that's sort of rhyme. However, the most common

634
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:20,480
Speaker 1: explanation that I've heard is that band member Dan Bert

635
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:26,799
Speaker 1: no Bacon outlined a dream talked about a dream that

636
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:29,440
Speaker 1: he had where he needed to pee, but he didn't

637
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:32,280
Speaker 1: know which door to use in a public toilet because

638
00:35:32,280 --> 00:35:36,560
Speaker 1: the sign said chumba and wamba instead of men and women,

639
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:42,719
Speaker 1: which terrible. I actually had similar dream once, did. Yeah,

640
00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:45,280
Speaker 1: I have a dream I was, you know, Buckingham Palace.

641
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 1: They do tours. I had a dream that I was

642
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:49,600
Speaker 1: like on a tour Buckingham Palace and I really had

643
00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 1: to go to the bathroom. And I was like just

644
00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:54,640
Speaker 1: wandering through the halls of the palace myself, desperately trying

645
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:56,520
Speaker 1: to find the restroom, and it was getting really bad.

646
00:35:56,920 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 1: And then I'm looking for someone to ask where it is.

647
00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:02,760
Speaker 1: And then I come upon someone and it's the Queen,

648
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:05,279
Speaker 1: and I didn't know, and I didn't know how to

649
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:08,120
Speaker 1: approach her because there's all this like protocol for how

650
00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:10,279
Speaker 1: you address the queen and how you don't turn your

651
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:12,960
Speaker 1: back on her, and you know, you speak when spoken

652
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:14,880
Speaker 1: to and not before. You know all these things. So

653
00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:17,120
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to like approach her to ask

654
00:36:17,160 --> 00:36:20,440
Speaker 1: for the bathroom. And then I woke up. You have

655
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:26,000
Speaker 1: such we have very different nightmares. That record has a

656
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:28,760
Speaker 1: truly awful cover art. You can play a guy named

657
00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:32,320
Speaker 1: Michael Klea at Industrial Strength Design in New York City,

658
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:34,960
Speaker 1: But it was, again, as with most things, an insular

659
00:36:35,040 --> 00:36:39,240
Speaker 1: joke for the band uh There's sixth studio album, simply

660
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:43,279
Speaker 1: titled Anarchy, was released in April. The cover art was

661
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:46,600
Speaker 1: a baby being born, which apparently also caused a lot

662
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:48,640
Speaker 1: of controversy, but they were like, it's literally they took

663
00:36:48,680 --> 00:36:51,600
Speaker 1: it from a children's book, like of like the Miracle

664
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 1: of Birth. It's gross. Yeah, it's gross. It's like straight

665
00:36:55,520 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 1: out of thee Yeah. Uh, so Boff's at the anarchy

666
00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:03,799
Speaker 1: baby was just being born on anarchy, so we thought

667
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:05,839
Speaker 1: it should be about eight months to a year old

668
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:09,719
Speaker 1: with a bit of attitude on tub Thumber horrible album cover,

669
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: I hate it um. They wrote about twenty songs for

670
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 1: this record and cut it down to twelve for the

671
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 1: track list, and then they delivered it to their label,

672
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:20,799
Speaker 1: One Little Indian Records, which is founded by a guy

673
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:25,000
Speaker 1: in another sort of seminal anarcho punk band called Flux

674
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 1: of Pink Indians, which I've never investigated further. Uh, and

675
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:34,000
Speaker 1: the label rejected it. They shot it down. Yeah, I

676
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:37,000
Speaker 1: guess they wanted it to be more punk and they refused.

677
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:40,800
Speaker 1: And then fate intervened when they got a facts backstage

678
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:43,399
Speaker 1: at one of their gigs from E m I, one

679
00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:46,440
Speaker 1: of the biggest label conglomerates in the world, saying they

680
00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:48,960
Speaker 1: were interested in picking up the album and giving them

681
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:51,600
Speaker 1: a six figure advance. Yeah. I mean, this is what's

682
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:53,959
Speaker 1: so funny to me. I think the prevailing narrative about

683
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:55,920
Speaker 1: this that people would think is like, oh, they were

684
00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:58,279
Speaker 1: this punk band, they sold out, blah blah blah. They

685
00:37:58,280 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 1: had this thing done and in the camp and it

686
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:03,680
Speaker 1: was rejected. They didn't approach the labels. All the labels

687
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:07,319
Speaker 1: came to them, Boff told glassber In. Glassberg in Data

688
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:10,200
Speaker 1: Country died. We'd already recorded the album and without any

689
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:12,319
Speaker 1: thought about selling a lot of records and all that.

690
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:13,920
Speaker 1: We were wondering what to do with it. And we're

691
00:38:13,920 --> 00:38:16,320
Speaker 1: getting a bit piste off with it all, to be honest,

692
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 1: and some of us had got part time jobs and stuff.

693
00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 1: Important context in the chums because I'm gonna start calling

694
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:30,680
Speaker 1: them old Chumbley had been involved with the covers compilation

695
00:38:30,800 --> 00:38:35,240
Speaker 1: called E m I, for which their contribution was Heartbreak Hotel,

696
00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:38,760
Speaker 1: a cover of Heartbreak Hotel. This would not age well

697
00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:43,920
Speaker 1: when they signed to E m I. A fellow Ankas

698
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:47,480
Speaker 1: punk band called Oi Ploy, taking the inspiration for the

699
00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:51,600
Speaker 1: genre name of OI to its logical conclusion. They toured

700
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:54,040
Speaker 1: and worked with the Chumbawo and they released an anti

701
00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:57,399
Speaker 1: Chumba Womba EP which is one of the strangest string

702
00:38:57,440 --> 00:38:59,719
Speaker 1: of words I've ever said in my life, which is

703
00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:03,320
Speaker 1: it's self a reference on the Chumba Bomba album Pictures

704
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:06,959
Speaker 1: of Starving Children sell records. The Oibloy record is called

705
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:11,840
Speaker 1: bare faced Hypocrisy sells records. Yeah, so this is And

706
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:14,160
Speaker 1: I guess one of the big beasts with E M

707
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:16,080
Speaker 1: I at this point was that one of their many

708
00:39:16,120 --> 00:39:21,000
Speaker 1: corporate arms was an arms pun intended was an arms manufacturer.

709
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:24,200
Speaker 1: And Bob told Glassber that by this time, when they

710
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:27,040
Speaker 1: were taking the money from E m I, the company

711
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:30,440
Speaker 1: had ceased had divested themselves from the making of missiles

712
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:33,440
Speaker 1: and ballistics and such, so they had a clear conscience

713
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:37,040
Speaker 1: about signing with them. Uh, he said. Some bloke in

714
00:39:37,080 --> 00:39:39,640
Speaker 1: Germany had a copy of the recording and really liked it.

715
00:39:39,680 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 1: And then the German E M I got in touch

716
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:43,600
Speaker 1: with us and we had a meeting with them, and

717
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:45,759
Speaker 1: we said, you do know who we are, don't you.

718
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:49,440
Speaker 1: And we gave them a copy of the EMI album,

719
00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:51,080
Speaker 1: just to make it clear to them who they were

720
00:39:51,080 --> 00:39:53,480
Speaker 1: dealing with. But they were still really into us and

721
00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:56,880
Speaker 1: offered us a hundred thousand pound advance Okay, First of all,

722
00:39:56,880 --> 00:40:00,960
Speaker 1: a hundred thou pound the dance. That's ludicrous. I don't understand.

723
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:03,000
Speaker 1: I mean, I know this was the height of record

724
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:06,319
Speaker 1: label blow. It is probably not a huge advance, but

725
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:08,479
Speaker 1: still for the kind of stuff that they were making.

726
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:10,319
Speaker 1: I don't know if they were just thinking like, oh,

727
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 1: this is kind of like Manchester dance music, maybe we

728
00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:18,160
Speaker 1: could Yeah, maybe they heard a hit. They heard it

729
00:40:18,239 --> 00:40:20,799
Speaker 1: hit um, he said, the biggest argument for signing was

730
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:22,760
Speaker 1: that we were in a rut. We had this audience

731
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:25,400
Speaker 1: that expected us to do a certain thing. We played

732
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:27,400
Speaker 1: to the same people all the time, and we weren't

733
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:30,000
Speaker 1: really going anywhere fast. It almost makes sense that it

734
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:32,560
Speaker 1: was in my Germany because it sounds like a German

735
00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:38,319
Speaker 1: drinking song. I mean October, the band wrote on their

736
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:41,160
Speaker 1: websites frequently asked question page we signed to E M

737
00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:43,799
Speaker 1: I Universal not because we've been co opted into the

738
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:46,759
Speaker 1: if you can't beat capitalism, join at school of thought,

739
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 1: but because experience had taught us that in a capitalist environment,

740
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 1: almost every record company operates on capitalist principles. Our previous

741
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:58,120
Speaker 1: record label, One Little Indian, didn't have the evil symbolic

742
00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 1: significance of M I, which was this huge conglomerate. I

743
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:04,200
Speaker 1: mean it was the Beatles label. It was just that

744
00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:05,839
Speaker 1: you didn't get any bigger than E M I at

745
00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:10,040
Speaker 1: this time. But they were completely motivated by profit. Our

746
00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 1: position was that whoever we signed with, we want us

747
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 1: not for our ideas but for the potential profit. So

748
00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:19,080
Speaker 1: we battle for a contract where we still had autonomy.

749
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:21,719
Speaker 1: E M I and Universal didn't offer us the most

750
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:24,360
Speaker 1: dash which is a British slang for money, but we

751
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:27,440
Speaker 1: did get short term contracts where we still maintain control

752
00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:30,719
Speaker 1: of everything from the production to the artwork. And they

753
00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:33,280
Speaker 1: later said they hope this compromise would help them amplify

754
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:36,280
Speaker 1: their music and therefore their message and help them quote

755
00:41:36,440 --> 00:41:41,920
Speaker 1: change the world for the better, which is adorable. So

756
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:47,000
Speaker 1: I mean anarchists are idealistic, very cute um and a

757
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:51,240
Speaker 1: piece written for Mail magazine, legendary producer Steve Albini expressed

758
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:54,759
Speaker 1: skepticism about this approach, saying, quote, there's the argument that

759
00:41:54,840 --> 00:41:59,560
Speaker 1: broadly appealing commercial music can smuggle progressive ideas into mainstream culture.

760
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:02,600
Speaker 1: Always been suspicious of this idea, as it's a convenient

761
00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:06,080
Speaker 1: cover for the more conventional aspirations of making good money

762
00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:09,839
Speaker 1: and being generally popular. Chumbawamba, on the other hand, had

763
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:12,760
Speaker 1: made more pop and dance inflected music within the underground

764
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:15,640
Speaker 1: community prior to their big breakthrough hit and they wear

765
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:19,440
Speaker 1: the populist mantle a little more cleanly, also evidenced by

766
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:21,400
Speaker 1: the fact that they didn't make a serious attempt at

767
00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 1: following up their mainstream success with you Know Tough Thumping

768
00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:28,440
Speaker 1: Part two. Uh. We touched on the same argument and

769
00:42:28,440 --> 00:42:31,360
Speaker 1: that you get what you give episode. Steve Albini's narrative

770
00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:33,520
Speaker 1: about this whole thing is that Chumbawamba were one of

771
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:37,120
Speaker 1: a million idealistic bands who thought they could subvert the mainstream,

772
00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:39,799
Speaker 1: only to get used by a major label and then

773
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:42,080
Speaker 1: toss the side for the next big thing. How do

774
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:44,520
Speaker 1: you feel about that? What do you think about, you know,

775
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:50,400
Speaker 1: trying to make a catchy radio single that has a

776
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:54,080
Speaker 1: mildly subversive message in it that could get heard by

777
00:42:54,120 --> 00:42:56,680
Speaker 1: the most amount of people, versus something that's a bit

778
00:42:56,719 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 1: more undiluted, shall we say? I mean, I think that

779
00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 1: the any subversion that was lost in the message of

780
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:09,480
Speaker 1: the song they made explicit with their position. And we'll

781
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:13,239
Speaker 1: talk exactly. We'll talk about this in a second. But

782
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:16,160
Speaker 1: like if you were paying attention to this band, and

783
00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:18,280
Speaker 1: I've you know, part of the course for this episode.

784
00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:21,160
Speaker 1: We did every episode we looked at the Rolling Stone

785
00:43:21,239 --> 00:43:23,440
Speaker 1: things from the time, we looked at the MTV news thing.

786
00:43:23,480 --> 00:43:25,600
Speaker 1: At the time, as a ten year old, I was

787
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:28,879
Speaker 1: not clued into this. But like, at no point did

788
00:43:28,880 --> 00:43:31,399
Speaker 1: they ever mince words. At no point did they ever

789
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:36,319
Speaker 1: be like, oh, you know, it's like they were like

790
00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:40,279
Speaker 1: they were like, we are anarchists, like they you know,

791
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:43,640
Speaker 1: Alice Nutter got her head bashed in at a protest

792
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:45,879
Speaker 1: outside of one of their shows. Like they were not

793
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:48,560
Speaker 1: at any point. You know, you could hear this song

794
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:50,280
Speaker 1: and you could be like, Okay, this is a loud,

795
00:43:50,360 --> 00:43:52,960
Speaker 1: dumb chant along song, and like sure plenty of people

796
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:56,960
Speaker 1: did that obviously, but like if you did any investigation

797
00:43:57,080 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 1: into them after the fact, you would be getting those ideals.

798
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:04,960
Speaker 1: You would be getting shot about miners and doc workers,

799
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:07,920
Speaker 1: you would be getting all of this. Like I understand

800
00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:11,120
Speaker 1: how being his position, but like they did walk the walk,

801
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:14,759
Speaker 1: you know, like every single time they were given a microphone,

802
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:18,560
Speaker 1: they were like, support the doc workers, support the sacked

803
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 1: dock workers. You know, it's I gotta I have to

804
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:26,960
Speaker 1: hand it to them. Um, the band's relationship with their

805
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:31,840
Speaker 1: record all one Little Indian Records deteriorated. Further illustrated by that,

806
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:33,759
Speaker 1: you can go on their archived version of their f

807
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:36,839
Speaker 1: a Q page. Uh. They have this whole big rant

808
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:39,719
Speaker 1: about how their back catalog was being held hostage by

809
00:44:39,719 --> 00:44:42,280
Speaker 1: the label who after the success of tub Thumping, smelled

810
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 1: money and we're charging, what they said, exorbitant amounts of

811
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 1: money to reissue those records in the States to capitalize

812
00:44:50,560 --> 00:44:53,960
Speaker 1: on the on the band's success at the time, which

813
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:56,399
Speaker 1: essentially meant that anyone who wanted to find their back

814
00:44:56,440 --> 00:44:59,520
Speaker 1: records were unable to unless you were getting like pricey imports.

815
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:04,160
Speaker 1: Upon it's released in August, tub Thumping was a top

816
00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:08,520
Speaker 1: ten hit in the US, UK, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, a

817
00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 1: number one hit in Canada, Italy, Ireland and Australia. The

818
00:45:13,480 --> 00:45:16,880
Speaker 1: record itself hit number three on the Billboard two hundred

819
00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:21,640
Speaker 1: and sold more than three point two million copies, landing

820
00:45:21,719 --> 00:45:24,640
Speaker 1: at number seventeen on the American tally of the top

821
00:45:24,680 --> 00:45:30,720
Speaker 1: selling albums. I just I don't understand how the song

822
00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:33,560
Speaker 1: caught on. I mean, I know it's catchy, but I

823
00:45:35,160 --> 00:45:39,000
Speaker 1: lad culture right, this is the whole like glassto Glasstow

824
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:42,600
Speaker 1: lads on holiday right, Oh yeah, I guess Oasis we're

825
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:45,120
Speaker 1: starting to take off on the stags and Blur song

826
00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:48,120
Speaker 1: number two was probably big around this time, right. We

827
00:45:48,200 --> 00:45:53,160
Speaker 1: loved Loudish. What we perceived is Loudish British men yelling

828
00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:58,080
Speaker 1: at us. Yeah. This song too is just it's just

829
00:45:58,719 --> 00:46:04,360
Speaker 1: David Auburn going whoo over and over again. We're going

830
00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:06,600
Speaker 1: to take a quick break, but we'll be right back

831
00:46:06,600 --> 00:46:20,240
Speaker 1: with more too much information in just a moment. Half

832
00:46:20,320 --> 00:46:24,160
Speaker 1: the reviews for tub Thumping, including one on CNN of

833
00:46:24,200 --> 00:46:26,400
Speaker 1: all places, recognize the song for what it was, an

834
00:46:26,440 --> 00:46:29,479
Speaker 1: anthem for the working class, whereas the other half thought

835
00:46:29,480 --> 00:46:32,360
Speaker 1: it was a dumb yet catchy drinking song, and Boff

836
00:46:32,360 --> 00:46:35,520
Speaker 1: Whalley later said tub Thumping became known to some purely

837
00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:38,120
Speaker 1: as a drinking song, which is fair enough because, if

838
00:46:38,160 --> 00:46:41,239
Speaker 1: nothing else, it didn't belong to an elite group of musicians.

839
00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:44,800
Speaker 1: It belonged to people. People of football matches, people singing

840
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:47,560
Speaker 1: along to the radio as they drove, people at parties,

841
00:46:47,640 --> 00:46:50,959
Speaker 1: drinking too much whiskey and tripping over kitchen chairs. People

842
00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:56,359
Speaker 1: like me and Alice Nutter expressed similar sentiments a little

843
00:46:56,360 --> 00:46:59,040
Speaker 1: more simply in she said, it's not a song for

844
00:46:59,080 --> 00:47:02,320
Speaker 1: the rich. Really, it's all about surviving the daily grind,

845
00:47:02,520 --> 00:47:07,400
Speaker 1: but doing it with dignity. Yeah, and again this band

846
00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:11,400
Speaker 1: did not shy away from starting the month this song

847
00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:15,200
Speaker 1: came out. Alice Nutter was quoted in Melody Maker probably

848
00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:19,239
Speaker 1: number two the the ABC to the NBC of enemy

849
00:47:19,320 --> 00:47:22,600
Speaker 1: in the British music press saying nothing can change the

850
00:47:22,640 --> 00:47:26,479
Speaker 1: fact that we like it when cops get killed, which

851
00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:28,960
Speaker 1: is that's a hell of a poll quote hot hot

852
00:47:28,960 --> 00:47:34,600
Speaker 1: potato in imagine. Naturally, there was an uproar in the press.

853
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:37,480
Speaker 1: The band was condemned under the Police Federation of England

854
00:47:37,480 --> 00:47:39,560
Speaker 1: and Wales, which like, what were they going to do?

855
00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:42,760
Speaker 1: Come after them with clubs? They don't even have guns

856
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:50,040
Speaker 1: over there on horseback. Bobby's just looking like the scene

857
00:47:50,080 --> 00:47:52,360
Speaker 1: and get back where they can't even get the Beatles

858
00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:56,239
Speaker 1: to stop playing jackass where they like, they're like, come

859
00:47:56,280 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 1: into that. Then they're like, oh, ohy you stop. The

860
00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:04,560
Speaker 1: YPD comes and shoots you forty one times for reaching

861
00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:06,799
Speaker 1: for your wallet to drop a bomb on you from

862
00:48:06,800 --> 00:48:10,040
Speaker 1: a helicopter. The British cops are like, that's not very nice,

863
00:48:10,080 --> 00:48:17,880
Speaker 1: now is it? Uh? Disappointed conject to all these Latin

864
00:48:18,040 --> 00:48:24,000
Speaker 1: verbs on the on the blackboard. I was gonna cut

865
00:48:24,000 --> 00:48:26,680
Speaker 1: the second, but no, I'm not after I'm not losing

866
00:48:26,719 --> 00:48:30,560
Speaker 1: that show. Uh. They resisted pressure to issue an apology.

867
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 1: She clarified her comments by saying, if you're working class,

868
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:36,759
Speaker 1: the police won't protect you. When you hear about them.

869
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:40,800
Speaker 1: It's in the context of abusing people, miscarriages of justice.

870
00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 1: Show me where the lie is. Then appearing on Letterman,

871
00:48:46,040 --> 00:48:49,920
Speaker 1: they interpolated the phrase free Mumia abou Jamal into the

872
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:52,160
Speaker 1: performance of their song. Apparently they also did this on

873
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:54,880
Speaker 1: Leno Yeah or Yeah. On the Tonight Show they did

874
00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:58,720
Speaker 1: that again to the two biggest late night opportunities for bands.

875
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:02,719
Speaker 1: They put free move me at Abu Jamal into their song. Uh.

876
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:04,239
Speaker 1: For those of you who didn't grow up listening to

877
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:06,840
Speaker 1: Rage against the Machine Moving. Abou Jamal had been imprisoned

878
00:49:06,880 --> 00:49:08,719
Speaker 1: a few years prior for a crime. He says he

879
00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:12,280
Speaker 1: was unfairly convicted of killing a police officer. He remains

880
00:49:12,320 --> 00:49:16,400
Speaker 1: in jail. He was a big cause celebrite, particularly with

881
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:19,439
Speaker 1: Bridge against the Machine. He's still incarcerated to this day.

882
00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:21,920
Speaker 1: I think he was the longest serving, one of the

883
00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:24,560
Speaker 1: longest serving people on death row, and some sentence was

884
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:28,040
Speaker 1: commuted in two thousand and one. I think and Dunston

885
00:49:28,080 --> 00:49:31,280
Speaker 1: Bruce did this incredible interview with Democracy Now in seventeen,

886
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:34,319
Speaker 1: very far ranging interview. UM He said the record label

887
00:49:34,360 --> 00:49:37,120
Speaker 1: got into a big discussion with Letterman's people about whether

888
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:40,360
Speaker 1: they could still broadcast it. Uh A Nutter said, I

889
00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:43,160
Speaker 1: think to a V club that the show actually confronted them.

890
00:49:43,320 --> 00:49:45,799
Speaker 1: They recorded, you know, as with late night television, they

891
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:49,440
Speaker 1: recorded an hour before it went out. Uh And the

892
00:49:49,440 --> 00:49:50,880
Speaker 1: show came to them and said, you can't do that.

893
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:52,400
Speaker 1: You have to do another song, you have to do

894
00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:55,080
Speaker 1: it again. And they said, no, you either use the

895
00:49:55,120 --> 00:49:56,920
Speaker 1: song or you don't. I mean, I wonder if they

896
00:49:57,080 --> 00:50:00,320
Speaker 1: just bleeped that part out or I didn't look. I

897
00:50:01,360 --> 00:50:06,120
Speaker 1: didn't listen to this song that includes the live performances.

898
00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:12,440
Speaker 1: A few months after the double Letterman Leno kerfuffle, Alice

899
00:50:12,520 --> 00:50:16,800
Speaker 1: Nutter appeared on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher in January

900
00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:20,239
Speaker 1: and encourage fans who couldn't afford the record to steal it.

901
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:25,440
Speaker 1: This resulted in several music retailers refusing to carry the album,

902
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:29,760
Speaker 1: even as it was doing huge numbers. Virgin Records, for example,

903
00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:33,520
Speaker 1: only pulled the album from their literal shelves instead selling

904
00:50:33,520 --> 00:50:36,799
Speaker 1: it from behind the counter. Another told MTV that same

905
00:50:36,840 --> 00:50:39,720
Speaker 1: month quote, they wanted to talk about people stealing a record,

906
00:50:39,760 --> 00:50:41,920
Speaker 1: which is irrelevant in the scheme of things. What I

907
00:50:41,960 --> 00:50:44,600
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about was why people shoplift and why

908
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:48,000
Speaker 1: in some cases it's absolutely valid. Some people have two

909
00:50:48,080 --> 00:50:51,600
Speaker 1: houses and two cars and luxuries for far more than themselves,

910
00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:54,680
Speaker 1: and other people struggle to survive day by day. And

911
00:50:54,800 --> 00:50:58,040
Speaker 1: Dunston Bruce told Democracy Now, all they did was create

912
00:50:58,080 --> 00:51:00,120
Speaker 1: more interest in the record and in the band, so

913
00:51:00,120 --> 00:51:02,759
Speaker 1: it's sort of backfired on them in a way. It

914
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:05,680
Speaker 1: we could we crucified this band for being a bunch

915
00:51:05,719 --> 00:51:09,279
Speaker 1: of loudish fools with a annoying one hit song. But

916
00:51:09,360 --> 00:51:11,600
Speaker 1: all of this that's been in conversation for the past

917
00:51:11,600 --> 00:51:16,799
Speaker 1: two or three years, police brutality, global economic inequality. They

918
00:51:16,800 --> 00:51:22,319
Speaker 1: were like literally standing, they were tub thumping, they were

919
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:25,920
Speaker 1: standing on every soapbox made available to them, shouting about it,

920
00:51:25,960 --> 00:51:28,760
Speaker 1: and we were like other songs, annoying, dumb one hit wonder.

921
00:51:30,760 --> 00:51:34,960
Speaker 1: A few weeks after that, this is in January February.

922
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:37,440
Speaker 1: The song has been out for less than six months.

923
00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:41,279
Speaker 1: Deputy Prime Minister of the UK John Prescott attended the

924
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:44,040
Speaker 1: brit Awards British Grammys, essentially at a time when the

925
00:51:44,040 --> 00:51:46,440
Speaker 1: New Labor Party was attempting to surf some of what

926
00:51:46,480 --> 00:51:50,319
Speaker 1: we called earlier the cool Britannia's loose term for win

927
00:51:50,400 --> 00:51:52,880
Speaker 1: in the late nineties. This. You know, Oasis is one

928
00:51:52,880 --> 00:51:55,000
Speaker 1: of the biggest bands the world. Blur is huge. This

929
00:51:55,040 --> 00:52:00,360
Speaker 1: whole notion that the you know, British culture is cool again.

930
00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:04,960
Speaker 1: I guess right, yeah, it's it's kind of like sixties

931
00:52:05,040 --> 00:52:11,000
Speaker 1: swinging London part two. Right, sure, yeah, that's good. Um.

932
00:52:11,040 --> 00:52:14,000
Speaker 1: In the A V Club interview, dan Bert nor Bacon

933
00:52:15,200 --> 00:52:19,080
Speaker 1: tweeting us using the hashburg Chumba WMBA singer I already

934
00:52:19,120 --> 00:52:22,959
Speaker 1: forgot who was tweeted us using the hashtag Chumba Womba.

935
00:52:23,040 --> 00:52:26,040
Speaker 1: Drummer Dan Burt no Bacon told the A V Club

936
00:52:26,120 --> 00:52:29,600
Speaker 1: that the band's presence at the brit Awards was a

937
00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:32,279
Speaker 1: concession to their label. He said, the record company said

938
00:52:32,320 --> 00:52:34,680
Speaker 1: you have to go. They'll give you a budget and

939
00:52:34,719 --> 00:52:37,160
Speaker 1: you can do whatever you want with your performance. And

940
00:52:37,160 --> 00:52:39,919
Speaker 1: this was crucial because at the time, the local dock

941
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:42,399
Speaker 1: workers union was on strike and they had just done

942
00:52:42,440 --> 00:52:45,240
Speaker 1: a benefit show for them, so he said they changed

943
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:48,560
Speaker 1: the lyrics in the performance of tub Thumping, Too New

944
00:52:48,640 --> 00:52:51,680
Speaker 1: Labor sold out the dockers, just like they'll sell out

945
00:52:51,719 --> 00:52:54,799
Speaker 1: the rest of us. Their plan had initially been, had

946
00:52:54,880 --> 00:52:57,600
Speaker 1: they won, to bring some of these sacked doc workers

947
00:52:57,640 --> 00:53:01,520
Speaker 1: on stage with them for their acceptance speech. Sadly they

948
00:53:01,520 --> 00:53:04,160
Speaker 1: did not win, but during their performance they also wore

949
00:53:04,280 --> 00:53:08,560
Speaker 1: jumpsuits emblazoned with phrases like sold out shift units and

950
00:53:08,680 --> 00:53:12,759
Speaker 1: label wore you know, And Kurt Koman gets all this

951
00:53:13,000 --> 00:53:15,760
Speaker 1: damn credit for wearing a T shirt that says corporate

952
00:53:16,040 --> 00:53:18,959
Speaker 1: rock magazines still suck ass or whatever for their Rolling

953
00:53:19,000 --> 00:53:23,239
Speaker 1: Stone shoot. But this motherfer never like played uh striking

954
00:53:23,800 --> 00:53:28,600
Speaker 1: lumber Union benefits in Olympia, Washington or wherever the hell

955
00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:33,880
Speaker 1: Aberdeens from Aberdeen, Yeah, you know, like Pearl Jam is. Honestly,

956
00:53:33,920 --> 00:53:35,920
Speaker 1: who comes to mind, because like Pearl Jam, at the

957
00:53:35,960 --> 00:53:40,080
Speaker 1: height of their fame, bankrupted themselves practically trying to fight Ticketmaster.

958
00:53:40,280 --> 00:53:44,080
Speaker 1: There were not that many other big Rage. It's Rage

959
00:53:44,080 --> 00:53:47,120
Speaker 1: and Pearl Jam like they were the two big US

960
00:53:47,239 --> 00:53:53,279
Speaker 1: bands that really took a progressive stance while also becoming millionaires.

961
00:53:53,560 --> 00:53:56,640
Speaker 1: But at least, you know, at least those guys again

962
00:53:56,880 --> 00:53:59,279
Speaker 1: walk the walk. They didn't just talk to talk. We

963
00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:00,879
Speaker 1: didn't get to the best part of the story though,

964
00:54:01,160 --> 00:54:04,960
Speaker 1: yeah sorry. After Chumbawoman's performance, at some point they noticed

965
00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:08,799
Speaker 1: that John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, was there and

966
00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:12,920
Speaker 1: dan Bert no Bacon, in his own words, was always

967
00:54:12,960 --> 00:54:15,960
Speaker 1: the one most easily convinced to do a dare along

968
00:54:15,960 --> 00:54:19,160
Speaker 1: with Alice Nutter, ran over to his table and threw

969
00:54:19,200 --> 00:54:22,360
Speaker 1: a bucket of water on him, shouting this is for

970
00:54:22,440 --> 00:54:25,560
Speaker 1: the dock workers. It was a bucket of water used

971
00:54:25,600 --> 00:54:28,239
Speaker 1: to chill the champagne at the tables. If you need

972
00:54:28,239 --> 00:54:31,840
Speaker 1: a more, a more on the nose, you know, British

973
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:38,280
Speaker 1: monarchy image. So yes, they doused the Deputy Prime Minister.

974
00:54:39,120 --> 00:54:43,000
Speaker 1: No Bacon was arrested, though I guess John Prescott declined

975
00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:46,360
Speaker 1: to press charges, deriving the incident as a publicity stunt,

976
00:54:46,400 --> 00:54:50,400
Speaker 1: which yes it was. Dan Bert no Bacon was formally

977
00:54:50,480 --> 00:54:54,880
Speaker 1: charged with criminal damage to Mr Prescott's suit. That's a quote,

978
00:54:55,360 --> 00:55:00,200
Speaker 1: but then most promptly quote decharged. Can you imagine if

979
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:04,080
Speaker 1: like I don't know, Lizzo threw a bucket of ice

980
00:55:04,160 --> 00:55:08,000
Speaker 1: water on like Kamala Harris. I mean, actually, at this time,

981
00:55:08,040 --> 00:55:10,120
Speaker 1: can you imagine if someone threw a bucket of water

982
00:55:10,239 --> 00:55:14,880
Speaker 1: on in Cheney, they'd be black bagged in Guantanamo. They

983
00:55:14,920 --> 00:55:21,240
Speaker 1: would wake up with electrodes on their testicles. Gore, okay,

984
00:55:21,239 --> 00:55:23,160
Speaker 1: so nothing would have happened. Now, Gore would have taken

985
00:55:23,160 --> 00:55:27,480
Speaker 1: it politely. But it's worth noting that Prime Minister was

986
00:55:27,520 --> 00:55:29,440
Speaker 1: Tony Blair at this point, one of the other architects,

987
00:55:29,680 --> 00:55:33,600
Speaker 1: architects of the Iraq War. You know again, like these

988
00:55:33,640 --> 00:55:36,279
Speaker 1: guys were really ahead of the curve in who they

989
00:55:36,360 --> 00:55:38,960
Speaker 1: chose to target and the stuff they chose to talk about.

990
00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:42,840
Speaker 1: Damn it, Chumba, we we we failed. Chumba. Woman didn't

991
00:55:42,840 --> 00:55:48,160
Speaker 1: fail us. We failed, Chumba Womba. Alice Nutter later told

992
00:55:48,200 --> 00:55:50,160
Speaker 1: the a V clip of the incident, we didn't win

993
00:55:50,160 --> 00:55:53,160
Speaker 1: a brit award. We got drunk, and we felt terrible

994
00:55:53,200 --> 00:55:55,160
Speaker 1: that the dock workers weren't gonna get a voice on

995
00:55:55,280 --> 00:55:57,960
Speaker 1: national television. Remember that if they want a britt they

996
00:55:57,960 --> 00:56:00,239
Speaker 1: were going to bring up these fired dock work is

997
00:56:00,280 --> 00:56:02,799
Speaker 1: to say their piece. So one of the bandmates said,

998
00:56:02,920 --> 00:56:05,759
Speaker 1: Dan's gonna throw water on John Prescott. Shall we get

999
00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:11,400
Speaker 1: him from behind phrasing yes. The reason he was significant

1000
00:56:11,440 --> 00:56:13,160
Speaker 1: is that he used to be a doctor, and the

1001
00:56:13,239 --> 00:56:15,680
Speaker 1: doctors had faith that he was going to help them.

1002
00:56:15,719 --> 00:56:20,160
Speaker 1: They felt sold out. I don't know Prescott. Yeah. The

1003
00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:23,120
Speaker 1: Van put out a statement the morning after the incident saying, quote,

1004
00:56:23,280 --> 00:56:26,960
Speaker 1: if John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister and representative of the government,

1005
00:56:27,000 --> 00:56:28,799
Speaker 1: has the nerve to turn up at such events as

1006
00:56:28,840 --> 00:56:31,400
Speaker 1: the brit Awards in a vain attempt to make labor

1007
00:56:31,480 --> 00:56:34,440
Speaker 1: seem cool and trendy, then he deserves all we can

1008
00:56:34,520 --> 00:56:37,440
Speaker 1: throw at him. This Whatton act of aggriate pop is

1009
00:56:37,480 --> 00:56:41,320
Speaker 1: dedicated to single mothers, sack doc workers, people being forced

1010
00:56:41,360 --> 00:56:44,800
Speaker 1: into quote work fair people who will be denied legal aid,

1011
00:56:45,120 --> 00:56:47,360
Speaker 1: students who will be denied the free education that the

1012
00:56:47,400 --> 00:56:51,239
Speaker 1: whole labor front bench benefited from, the homeless and all

1013
00:56:51,280 --> 00:56:53,719
Speaker 1: the underclass who are now suffering at the hands of

1014
00:56:53,760 --> 00:56:58,640
Speaker 1: the labor government. Damn that is twenty five years later

1015
00:56:59,200 --> 00:57:02,880
Speaker 1: Jeez and drummer dan Bert no Bacon said the label

1016
00:57:03,040 --> 00:57:09,520
Speaker 1: sent Prescott flowers as an apology without their consents, which

1017
00:57:09,600 --> 00:57:12,760
Speaker 1: has smooth things so for Yeah, imagine the Spice girls

1018
00:57:12,800 --> 00:57:16,440
Speaker 1: doing this. Prescott did get the last laugh when Chumba

1019
00:57:16,480 --> 00:57:21,400
Speaker 1: Woma spoiler or announced they were disbanding in Prescott tweeted

1020
00:57:21,480 --> 00:57:25,240
Speaker 1: Chumba who uh, and then joked about buying their greatest

1021
00:57:25,320 --> 00:57:29,040
Speaker 1: hit album. But jokes on you, buddy. You got DAWs

1022
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:32,400
Speaker 1: with ice water on on the on television. God yeah, Man,

1023
00:57:34,840 --> 00:57:37,520
Speaker 1: imagine the Spice girls throwing ice water on somebody. They

1024
00:57:37,560 --> 00:57:40,640
Speaker 1: wouldn't do it, That's the But at this point they

1025
00:57:40,640 --> 00:57:42,400
Speaker 1: were arguably on top of the world. They could have

1026
00:57:42,400 --> 00:57:45,920
Speaker 1: said something about any did they ever do go on

1027
00:57:45,960 --> 00:57:48,760
Speaker 1: the record about any political other than girls saying girl No?

1028
00:57:48,840 --> 00:57:50,760
Speaker 1: Because we did this whole thing about them being like

1029
00:57:50,880 --> 00:57:54,800
Speaker 1: margat Thatcher was the pioneer of girl power. Yeah, Jesus Christ,

1030
00:57:54,880 --> 00:58:00,960
Speaker 1: can you imagine two more diametrically holy? The band was

1031
00:58:00,960 --> 00:58:03,520
Speaker 1: getting a lot of different offers for ad placements. What

1032
00:58:03,640 --> 00:58:06,440
Speaker 1: have you for? The song on the Rolling Stone profile

1033
00:58:06,480 --> 00:58:10,080
Speaker 1: from the band is one of my favorite anecdotes. They

1034
00:58:10,080 --> 00:58:14,360
Speaker 1: mentioned of being approached by Dustin the Turkey, a puppet

1035
00:58:14,600 --> 00:58:18,040
Speaker 1: who appears on Irish television, who wanted to commission a

1036
00:58:18,120 --> 00:58:22,560
Speaker 1: version of tub Thumping with lyrics about infrastructure repair and

1037
00:58:22,720 --> 00:58:27,280
Speaker 1: fixing the roads. They supposedly turned down one point five

1038
00:58:27,480 --> 00:58:29,800
Speaker 1: million dollars from Nike to use this song at the

1039
00:58:29,840 --> 00:58:33,240
Speaker 1: World Cup commercial, although they did talk to Barbara Walters

1040
00:58:33,280 --> 00:58:36,200
Speaker 1: on the view which I love the hell. Okay, wait

1041
00:58:36,240 --> 00:58:39,840
Speaker 1: a minute, I think she sings it. I think she

1042
00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:41,920
Speaker 1: like gets it on like a chant of I get

1043
00:58:42,040 --> 00:58:47,360
Speaker 1: knocked down. Um. The single best chumba bomba ad money

1044
00:58:47,440 --> 00:58:49,680
Speaker 1: bit comes from a fears down the line. Actually, they

1045
00:58:49,720 --> 00:58:53,680
Speaker 1: were still able to command offers. In two thousand two,

1046
00:58:54,280 --> 00:58:57,880
Speaker 1: General Motors paid them. The actual song has been lost

1047
00:58:57,920 --> 00:59:00,680
Speaker 1: in the shrouds of history, but somewhere between seventy and

1048
00:59:00,680 --> 00:59:03,200
Speaker 1: a hundred grand to use a song called pass It

1049
00:59:03,240 --> 00:59:07,640
Speaker 1: Along for a Pontiac Vibe television commercial in two thousand too,

1050
00:59:07,680 --> 00:59:12,000
Speaker 1: remember the Pontiac Vibe. The band took that money and

1051
00:59:12,120 --> 00:59:16,400
Speaker 1: promptly gave it to the anti corporate activist groups Indie

1052
00:59:16,400 --> 00:59:19,600
Speaker 1: Media and corp Watch, who used the money to launch

1053
00:59:19,720 --> 00:59:28,640
Speaker 1: a disinformation and environmental advocacy campaign against General Motors. Incredible uh.

1054
00:59:28,720 --> 00:59:31,360
Speaker 1: In the Democracy Now interview, Dunston said, what we found

1055
00:59:31,400 --> 00:59:34,240
Speaker 1: really liberating for us was that we suddenly did find

1056
00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:36,160
Speaker 1: that we had a lot more money because of the

1057
00:59:36,200 --> 00:59:38,440
Speaker 1: money we made from the record, and so we were

1058
00:59:38,480 --> 00:59:40,160
Speaker 1: in a position where we could help a lot of

1059
00:59:40,280 --> 00:59:43,120
Speaker 1: organizations and a lot of community action groups, and a

1060
00:59:43,200 --> 00:59:45,560
Speaker 1: lot of people who previously we would have only been

1061
00:59:45,600 --> 00:59:47,800
Speaker 1: able to give a couple of hundred pounds too, we

1062
00:59:47,800 --> 00:59:50,520
Speaker 1: could now give a couple of thousand pounds to instead.

1063
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:54,360
Speaker 1: The use of this song in video games, mostly sports games.

1064
00:59:54,880 --> 01:00:03,720
Speaker 1: The movie Home Alone three, Home Alone three Everyone Anyone

1065
01:00:05,520 --> 01:00:09,520
Speaker 1: and licensed to a dancing guerrilla toy which I did

1066
01:00:09,600 --> 01:00:13,800
Speaker 1: google on actual toy that does in fact seeing tub thumbing.

1067
01:00:13,840 --> 01:00:16,240
Speaker 1: You can still find it on eBay. Solvio walmart I

1068
01:00:16,280 --> 01:00:21,880
Speaker 1: think right, Yeah, a sort of big mouth, billy bass

1069
01:00:22,000 --> 01:00:26,840
Speaker 1: kind of guy. Um. They spend They put all that

1070
01:00:26,880 --> 01:00:30,040
Speaker 1: money through activist groups. God love them, and as a

1071
01:00:30,080 --> 01:00:33,200
Speaker 1: result they were hit up by basically every insane organization

1072
01:00:33,240 --> 01:00:36,040
Speaker 1: in the world, and we're quickly relieved of basically all

1073
01:00:36,080 --> 01:00:40,080
Speaker 1: their money. Huh. Dunston Bruce, the front man who quit

1074
01:00:40,120 --> 01:00:41,640
Speaker 1: the group in two thousand and four to start a

1075
01:00:41,640 --> 01:00:44,600
Speaker 1: film company, had a Kickstarter for a documentary that he

1076
01:00:44,640 --> 01:00:48,360
Speaker 1: made called I Get Knocked Down. The Untold Story of Chumbawamba.

1077
01:00:48,680 --> 01:00:51,320
Speaker 1: Parenthesis the song You've danced to more than you care

1078
01:00:51,360 --> 01:00:55,760
Speaker 1: to remember or how to survive as a political pop star,

1079
01:00:56,120 --> 01:00:58,720
Speaker 1: keep your friends, self respect, and sense of humor when

1080
01:00:58,800 --> 01:01:03,520
Speaker 1: everyone hates you. Some really great uh slogans for this movie.

1081
01:01:03,760 --> 01:01:07,600
Speaker 1: They knew the slot that they occupied. I have to

1082
01:01:07,640 --> 01:01:10,320
Speaker 1: give them credit for you know, yeah, I mean the

1083
01:01:10,400 --> 01:01:13,200
Speaker 1: description for this movie is a modern day cautionary tale.

1084
01:01:13,400 --> 01:01:16,520
Speaker 1: Chumba Onemba vocalist destined Bruce's account of the roller coaster

1085
01:01:16,600 --> 01:01:19,080
Speaker 1: ride that took them from d I Y Squad gigs

1086
01:01:19,280 --> 01:01:22,800
Speaker 1: to Madison Square Garden and back again at personal exploration

1087
01:01:22,840 --> 01:01:25,760
Speaker 1: of what happens when a political pop band accidentally have

1088
01:01:25,880 --> 01:01:29,720
Speaker 1: a worldwide smash and given their fifteen minutes of fame.

1089
01:01:30,960 --> 01:01:33,120
Speaker 1: I think at long lasts. This film was shown at

1090
01:01:33,160 --> 01:01:37,160
Speaker 1: south By earlier this year. Yeah good one. Yeah, I

1091
01:01:37,200 --> 01:01:39,800
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier in the Rolling Stone profile they talked about

1092
01:01:39,960 --> 01:01:42,440
Speaker 1: Nutter was injured missed a few dates from the European

1093
01:01:42,480 --> 01:01:46,040
Speaker 1: tour because she was in in March protesting the detainment

1094
01:01:46,040 --> 01:01:49,720
Speaker 1: of two political prisoners in Italy. Outside of the venue

1095
01:01:49,760 --> 01:01:52,560
Speaker 1: they were playing. The police showed up and there was

1096
01:01:52,600 --> 01:01:55,120
Speaker 1: a mini riot and she was injured and missed some

1097
01:01:55,160 --> 01:01:59,080
Speaker 1: of their shows. Another funny part remember the protest song

1098
01:01:59,320 --> 01:02:03,720
Speaker 1: record Uh They played h New York's jingle Ball, which

1099
01:02:03,800 --> 01:02:07,640
Speaker 1: is put on every holiday season by the massively influential

1100
01:02:07,840 --> 01:02:12,040
Speaker 1: and I Heart owns Z one station at MSG Madison

1101
01:02:12,080 --> 01:02:15,560
Speaker 1: Square Garden. They were on this bill alongside Celine Dion

1102
01:02:15,640 --> 01:02:20,160
Speaker 1: and Aerosmith. Uh for I guess respectively. My heart will

1103
01:02:20,200 --> 01:02:21,720
Speaker 1: go on and I don't want to miss a thing.

1104
01:02:22,120 --> 01:02:27,920
Speaker 1: What a weird year? Yeah, all right? Probably also Backstreets

1105
01:02:27,960 --> 01:02:30,040
Speaker 1: Back Was the Big was another one from this year.

1106
01:02:31,520 --> 01:02:34,640
Speaker 1: Cherry Pop and Daddy's I Want to say, Yeah, let's

1107
01:02:34,640 --> 01:02:36,720
Speaker 1: just let's just do a quick lightning round. Who were

1108
01:02:36,800 --> 01:02:42,600
Speaker 1: Chumba Womba's peers? Obviously, Jewel You were meant for me?

1109
01:02:42,640 --> 01:02:45,880
Speaker 1: Slash Foolish Games, which I They're the same song to me,

1110
01:02:46,960 --> 01:02:49,800
Speaker 1: I'll be missing you. Puff Daddy and Faith Evans on

1111
01:02:49,960 --> 01:02:54,640
Speaker 1: break my Heart. That's uh, can Nobody hold me down?

1112
01:02:54,720 --> 01:02:59,240
Speaker 1: Puff Daddy featuring Maze I Believe I Can Fly, But

1113
01:02:59,360 --> 01:03:03,200
Speaker 1: he who should not be named Don't Let Go parentheses

1114
01:03:03,240 --> 01:03:07,480
Speaker 1: Love by in Vogue, Return of the Mac. Oh, Yeah,

1115
01:03:07,520 --> 01:03:09,240
Speaker 1: how Do I Live? I was more of a Blue

1116
01:03:09,320 --> 01:03:12,439
Speaker 1: Guy by Leanne Rhymes, but I Love How I Live?

1117
01:03:12,840 --> 01:03:15,920
Speaker 1: That's good. Wanna be Spice Girls, Quipla Games with my

1118
01:03:16,040 --> 01:03:19,680
Speaker 1: Heart Back Street Boys. We should have done Bob. I

1119
01:03:19,680 --> 01:03:21,440
Speaker 1: still have nose bulled for Room Bob. Maybe we'll do

1120
01:03:21,520 --> 01:03:25,000
Speaker 1: Thembob next week. That's too late nineties songs for you.

1121
01:03:25,120 --> 01:03:28,920
Speaker 1: I Will by Monica, Yeah sure, he makes me wanna

1122
01:03:29,680 --> 01:03:35,560
Speaker 1: bitch by Meredith Brooks Man Uh Semi Charmed Life, Third

1123
01:03:35,560 --> 01:03:40,920
Speaker 1: Eye Blind, Barely Breathing, Duncan cheek m hmmm. Anyway, these

1124
01:03:40,960 --> 01:03:45,920
Speaker 1: are their peers main stage. They were on the second stage,

1125
01:03:46,000 --> 01:03:48,160
Speaker 1: which apparently was made up to look like a boxing ring,

1126
01:03:48,200 --> 01:03:51,280
Speaker 1: which I love. But before they played Tom Thumping, they

1127
01:03:51,320 --> 01:03:54,040
Speaker 1: gathered in the center of this stage and saying an

1128
01:03:54,080 --> 01:03:59,320
Speaker 1: acapella anti fascist ballad. Talking to Daily be St Dunston,

1129
01:03:59,320 --> 01:04:01,960
Speaker 1: Bruce said, we were always trying to subvert the mainstream

1130
01:04:02,200 --> 01:04:04,600
Speaker 1: and it was difficult. It was hard, but we had

1131
01:04:04,600 --> 01:04:07,080
Speaker 1: a lot of fun trying. I think that's all you

1132
01:04:07,120 --> 01:04:09,439
Speaker 1: can do, really, I think you just have to let

1133
01:04:09,440 --> 01:04:13,200
Speaker 1: the message be at least we tried. At least we

1134
01:04:13,280 --> 01:04:16,320
Speaker 1: tried to do something. Whether we were successful or not,

1135
01:04:16,560 --> 01:04:18,560
Speaker 1: I'm not the one to judge us, but I think

1136
01:04:18,600 --> 01:04:21,360
Speaker 1: my measure is at least we tried to do something.

1137
01:04:21,840 --> 01:04:27,920
Speaker 1: That's my measure for this podcast. Something literally anything. The

1138
01:04:28,040 --> 01:04:32,200
Speaker 1: band never really broke their stride. I mean, obviously they

1139
01:04:32,320 --> 01:04:34,120
Speaker 1: gave away a lot of this money and never had

1140
01:04:34,160 --> 01:04:38,160
Speaker 1: another hit on the order, but they kept releasing records, documentary.

1141
01:04:38,240 --> 01:04:41,000
Speaker 1: They rebranded as an acoustic act when half their members,

1142
01:04:42,040 --> 01:04:44,600
Speaker 1: basically having as many members as they did, stop being

1143
01:04:44,640 --> 01:04:49,800
Speaker 1: financially viable. Uh Jude Abbott, Boff Whalley, Lou Watts, and

1144
01:04:49,840 --> 01:04:53,000
Speaker 1: the guy who engineered this record, Neil Ferguson. That was

1145
01:04:53,040 --> 01:04:56,240
Speaker 1: this new, stripped down version of the group true to form.

1146
01:04:56,600 --> 01:04:59,800
Speaker 1: They lodged an official complaint and threatened to take legal

1147
01:05:00,000 --> 01:05:02,880
Speaker 1: action with the UK Independence Party. In two thousand eleven,

1148
01:05:02,880 --> 01:05:06,720
Speaker 1: would leader Nigel Ferridge arrived on stage at a conference

1149
01:05:06,760 --> 01:05:09,440
Speaker 1: to the strains of tub thumping. They threatened to sue

1150
01:05:09,520 --> 01:05:13,720
Speaker 1: him for that. Uh. Another became a screenwriter for Jimmygovern's

1151
01:05:13,800 --> 01:05:17,560
Speaker 1: acclaimed drama series The Street. As you mentioned earlier, Dunston

1152
01:05:17,560 --> 01:05:20,880
Speaker 1: Bruce has his own production company, and dan Bert no Bacon,

1153
01:05:24,040 --> 01:05:28,320
Speaker 1: living in Washington State, releases solo work. And as we

1154
01:05:28,360 --> 01:05:31,080
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, the band broke up in they wrote on

1155
01:05:31,120 --> 01:05:33,520
Speaker 1: their site, which is still live. I believe it's still

1156
01:05:33,520 --> 01:05:36,000
Speaker 1: the landing page on their site. We felt we got

1157
01:05:36,040 --> 01:05:37,760
Speaker 1: to a point where what we did as a band,

1158
01:05:37,920 --> 01:05:43,080
Speaker 1: and specifically the writing, recording, touring cycle, wasn't doing justice

1159
01:05:43,080 --> 01:05:45,640
Speaker 1: to what Chumbawamba set out to do in the first place.

1160
01:05:46,040 --> 01:05:49,000
Speaker 1: We were always as much about ideas as music, and

1161
01:05:49,080 --> 01:05:52,320
Speaker 1: that meant doing more than writing, recording and touring songs.

1162
01:05:52,720 --> 01:05:55,320
Speaker 1: It meant trying to be relevant and active and up

1163
01:05:55,360 --> 01:05:58,080
Speaker 1: to date while trying to avoid the dreaded rut of

1164
01:05:58,200 --> 01:06:01,960
Speaker 1: routine or repetition. Being up to date meant giving plenty

1165
01:06:02,000 --> 01:06:04,720
Speaker 1: of time and energy to the band constantly for those

1166
01:06:04,760 --> 01:06:08,480
Speaker 1: thirty years, a constancy we plainly couldn't keep up. In

1167
01:06:08,520 --> 01:06:11,680
Speaker 1: the end, following their final shows, they posted a message

1168
01:06:11,680 --> 01:06:15,120
Speaker 1: to their website that read, that's it. Then It's the end,

1169
01:06:15,440 --> 01:06:19,640
Speaker 1: with neither a whimper, a bang, or a reunion. I

1170
01:06:19,840 --> 01:06:23,400
Speaker 1: just God love him. What it was the sinc statement,

1171
01:06:24,200 --> 01:06:26,360
Speaker 1: I was not talking that. A V Club interview, she

1172
01:06:26,400 --> 01:06:29,560
Speaker 1: had a great quote. Um, we were a gigging band

1173
01:06:29,560 --> 01:06:33,440
Speaker 1: before tub thumping. We had an underground audience. I found

1174
01:06:33,440 --> 01:06:37,320
Speaker 1: America strange, going from radical politics to finding myself at

1175
01:06:37,400 --> 01:06:40,160
Speaker 1: radio stations at seven in the morning. You've got to

1176
01:06:40,200 --> 01:06:44,040
Speaker 1: be polite. I met a lot of DJs with Pony Tips.

1177
01:06:46,560 --> 01:06:49,320
Speaker 1: I enjoyed the surreal novelty of it, but I thought,

1178
01:06:49,600 --> 01:06:51,120
Speaker 1: I don't want to spend the rest of my life

1179
01:06:51,160 --> 01:06:53,320
Speaker 1: doing this. I'm not talking about being in a band.

1180
01:06:53,480 --> 01:06:56,320
Speaker 1: I'm talking about having a taste of fame. I didn't

1181
01:06:56,320 --> 01:07:00,320
Speaker 1: really like it, uh, And that Guardian interview, Boff Whaley said,

1182
01:07:00,400 --> 01:07:03,320
Speaker 1: I still really like tub thumping. I don't feel embarrassed

1183
01:07:03,320 --> 01:07:05,600
Speaker 1: by it at all. I know some bands who hate

1184
01:07:05,640 --> 01:07:08,120
Speaker 1: their songs being popular, but I just think, get off

1185
01:07:08,160 --> 01:07:10,600
Speaker 1: your high horse. The whole point of art is to

1186
01:07:10,680 --> 01:07:14,760
Speaker 1: have an audience. Meanwhile, two thousand eleven, the readers of

1187
01:07:14,920 --> 01:07:18,280
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone voted dubbed Bumping the fifth worst song of

1188
01:07:18,360 --> 01:07:22,840
Speaker 1: the nineties. But the numbers don't lie. The song has

1189
01:07:22,880 --> 01:07:26,320
Speaker 1: a hundred and forty five million listens on Spotify alone,

1190
01:07:26,800 --> 01:07:30,240
Speaker 1: and it actively garners fervent comments on the official YouTube listing,

1191
01:07:30,840 --> 01:07:34,280
Speaker 1: and during the pandemic, the song became an anthem for

1192
01:07:34,320 --> 01:07:38,000
Speaker 1: the historically working class city of Leaves, which is yes,

1193
01:07:39,520 --> 01:07:43,040
Speaker 1: I love that so much. Um you know, band Camp,

1194
01:07:43,640 --> 01:07:46,480
Speaker 1: God love him. Band Camp Daily, the editorial wing of

1195
01:07:46,520 --> 01:07:50,320
Speaker 1: band Camp do some really tremendous features, um, including by

1196
01:07:50,360 --> 01:07:54,880
Speaker 1: you sometimes sometimes yes, but Um. They had a whole

1197
01:07:55,240 --> 01:07:59,919
Speaker 1: interview with Um the band about their early anarchist stuff,

1198
01:08:00,000 --> 01:08:05,120
Speaker 1: all the pre tub thumping stuff. Uh. And and Chumba

1199
01:08:05,160 --> 01:08:10,000
Speaker 1: Womba drummer denvert nor Bacon no bacon Uh. He said

1200
01:08:10,520 --> 01:08:13,320
Speaker 1: to them, I am very proud of what we did.

1201
01:08:13,360 --> 01:08:16,240
Speaker 1: The whole way through. We tried to push the envelope.

1202
01:08:16,479 --> 01:08:19,519
Speaker 1: We weren't always successful, but we always tried. And that's

1203
01:08:19,560 --> 01:08:23,439
Speaker 1: probably a defining characteristic of Chumba Womba. Whatever era or

1204
01:08:23,479 --> 01:08:26,599
Speaker 1: genre we tried, it always had a working class basis,

1205
01:08:26,880 --> 01:08:28,720
Speaker 1: which is a whole other story. When we signed with

1206
01:08:28,720 --> 01:08:31,760
Speaker 1: the major labels in the mainstream, it didn't destroy us.

1207
01:08:32,000 --> 01:08:34,240
Speaker 1: You could accuse us of selling out, but we weren't

1208
01:08:34,280 --> 01:08:38,080
Speaker 1: bought up. The mainstream usually swallows people up and spits

1209
01:08:38,120 --> 01:08:40,559
Speaker 1: them out. I mean it did spit us out, but

1210
01:08:40,640 --> 01:08:46,599
Speaker 1: we took that as a compliment. Really machines all I know.

1211
01:08:47,080 --> 01:08:50,439
Speaker 1: I know, God love him. Um. I will never listen

1212
01:08:50,479 --> 01:08:54,000
Speaker 1: to this song in my life ever again. But UM,

1213
01:08:54,120 --> 01:08:57,719
Speaker 1: I hope I've been able to impress upon I worked

1214
01:08:57,760 --> 01:08:59,599
Speaker 1: on you. I hope I've been able to impress upon

1215
01:08:59,640 --> 01:09:02,559
Speaker 1: our upon our listeners that this band is more than

1216
01:09:02,600 --> 01:09:05,040
Speaker 1: a one hit wonder this is more than an annoying song?

1217
01:09:05,760 --> 01:09:08,439
Speaker 1: Is a bizarre footnote? Did I say this at the

1218
01:09:08,479 --> 01:09:11,880
Speaker 1: top of the episode? Did I compare them to David Lynch? No,

1219
01:09:11,960 --> 01:09:15,000
Speaker 1: that's a new one. Well, in the Eraserhead episode and

1220
01:09:15,040 --> 01:09:16,640
Speaker 1: I was talking about this a lot, I said, I

1221
01:09:16,720 --> 01:09:19,559
Speaker 1: don't think I have a hard I'd be hard pressed

1222
01:09:19,560 --> 01:09:22,040
Speaker 1: to think of someone who is genuinely on the who

1223
01:09:22,040 --> 01:09:24,200
Speaker 1: went from the avantcarde to the mainstream in quite the

1224
01:09:24,240 --> 01:09:28,720
Speaker 1: same way that David Lynch did twenty five years from

1225
01:09:28,920 --> 01:09:32,519
Speaker 1: eraser Head to getting an Oscar nom for Mholland. I

1226
01:09:32,560 --> 01:09:35,479
Speaker 1: would be hard pressed to think of another band other

1227
01:09:35,520 --> 01:09:39,840
Speaker 1: than maybe Rage Against the Machine who smuggled this much

1228
01:09:40,160 --> 01:09:43,920
Speaker 1: subversive stuff into the American main stream, and Rage against

1229
01:09:43,920 --> 01:09:45,840
Speaker 1: the Machine it was at least in there in their name.

1230
01:09:46,080 --> 01:09:49,080
Speaker 1: Chump Jumbo Bombo is like, how many millions of people

1231
01:09:49,120 --> 01:09:51,519
Speaker 1: listen to this song and had no idea that they

1232
01:09:51,560 --> 01:09:55,599
Speaker 1: were listening to a band of anarchists who were then

1233
01:09:55,680 --> 01:10:00,519
Speaker 1: smuggling anti cop anti corporate messages into their songs and

1234
01:10:00,680 --> 01:10:04,599
Speaker 1: dowsing of vice PM and ice water. It's great stuff.

1235
01:10:05,160 --> 01:10:08,479
Speaker 1: God love him. Once again, Chumba Woma didn't fail us.

1236
01:10:08,479 --> 01:10:13,559
Speaker 1: We feel Chumba womba folks, thank you for listening. Raise

1237
01:10:13,640 --> 01:10:17,680
Speaker 1: a pint to your local anarchists. Well, I've made a

1238
01:10:17,760 --> 01:10:19,760
Speaker 1: Jimmy Buffett fan out of you, and you've made a

1239
01:10:19,840 --> 01:10:22,479
Speaker 1: Chumba Womba fan out of me, So let say that,

1240
01:10:22,640 --> 01:10:25,160
Speaker 1: Universes and balance, thank you for listening. Everyone. This has

1241
01:10:25,200 --> 01:10:27,920
Speaker 1: been too much information. I'm Alex Heagel and I'm Jordan

1242
01:10:28,000 --> 01:10:35,599
Speaker 1: run Tug. We'll catch you next time. Too Much Information

1243
01:10:35,680 --> 01:10:38,400
Speaker 1: was a production of I Heart Radio. The show's executive

1244
01:10:38,400 --> 01:10:41,560
Speaker 1: producers are Noel Brown and Jordan run Talk. The supervising

1245
01:10:41,560 --> 01:10:44,640
Speaker 1: producer is Mike John's. The show was researched, written and

1246
01:10:44,720 --> 01:10:47,799
Speaker 1: hosted by Jordan run Talk and Alex Hegel, with original

1247
01:10:47,880 --> 01:10:50,960
Speaker 1: music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra. If

1248
01:10:51,000 --> 01:10:53,000
Speaker 1: you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us

1249
01:10:53,000 --> 01:10:55,800
Speaker 1: a review. For more podcasts and I heart Radio, visit

1250
01:10:55,800 --> 01:10:58,760
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you

1251
01:10:58,760 --> 01:11:04,840
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. Can Act Again, Chat that

1252
01:11:05,280 --> 01:11:09,439
Speaker 1: landon at Black Bass and