Chumbawamba
Chumbawamba were an English band who formed in 1982 and disbanded in 2012. They are best known for their 1997 single "Tubthumping", which was nominated for Best British Single at the Brit Awards 1998. Other singles include "Amnesia", "Enough Is Enough", "Timebomb", "Top of the World ", and "Homophobia". Their anarcho-communist political leanings led them to have an irreverent attitude toward authority, and to espouse a variety of political and social causes including animal rights and pacifism and later regarding class struggle, Marxism, feminism, and anti-fascism.
For most of their career, the band had a 7–8 piece lineup and drew from a wide range of musical styles, including punk rock, pop, and folk. While their first two albums were largely punk and pop-influenced, their third was an entirely a capella album of traditional songs. In 2004, several long-term members left the band, which continued with a 4-piece acoustic lineup, with more folk-influenced output.
In July 2012, Chumbawamba announced they were splitting up after 30 years. The band was joined by former members and collaborators for three final shows between 31 October and 3 November 2012, one of which was filmed and released as a live DVD.
Name
The band's members have provided multiple mutually-exclusive explanations for the origin of the name "Chumbawamba", including Boff Whalley's story that it is a modification of the phrase "Chum, chum-ba, wailah!", which he heard chanted by an African drum band in Paris, and Danbert Nobacon's tale that it is inspired by a dream he had in which public toilets were not labeled "male" and "female", but "chumba" and "wamba". Jacobin suggested that "it was a running joke with band members who competed to see who could tell the most ridiculous story about where it came from".Early interviews suggest that the band was initially called "Chumbawailing", and that they intended at one point to change the name for every gig.
A section on the band's former website asserted that the name was deliberately meaningless, as a reaction to the "obvious" names common among bands at the time they formed, and because it did not pin them to any particular associations and would not date.
Band history
Early years (1982–1984)
Chumbawamba formed in Burnley in 1982 with an initial line-up of Allan "Boff" Whalley, Danbert Nobacon, and Midge, all three previously members of the band Chimp Eats Banana, shortly afterwards joined by Lou Watts. The band made their live debut in January 1982. Their first vinyl release was a track on the Crass Records compilation album Bullshit Detector 2. They were initially inspired musically by bands as diverse as the Fall, PiL, Wire, and Adam and the Ants and politically by the anarchist stance of Crass. Another of the band's early releases was under the name "Skin Disease", parodying the Oi! bands of the time so successfully that they were included on Back On The Streets, an Oi! compilation EP put together by Sounds magazine journalist Garry Bushell.In the early period of the band, all members lived together in a communal house, Southview House, on Carr Crofts, Armley, Leeds and kept all money in common.
By the end of 1982, the band had expanded to include Alice Nutter, and Dunstan "Dunst" Bruce, who also moved into the Leeds house. Harry "Daz" Hamer and Mavis "Mave" Dillon - members, along with Whalley, of Barnsley punk band Passion Killers - joined soon after. Simon "Commonknowledge" Lanzon, who had been a member of Donovan's band Open Road in the early 1970s, appeared on most of the band's early releases but was not usually listed as a band member. Another band member, Diane, appeared on early cassettes, but was asked to leave the communal house after conflict with other band members.
Stalwarts of the cassette culture scene, the band released a number of tapes on their own Sky and Trees Records, including in 1983 both Be Happy Despite It All - a split compilation with Passion Killers - and Be a Rebel, Raise some Heck, and in 1984 and Another Year of the Same Old Shit, and were featured on many compilations. Chumbawamba were at the forefront of the 1980s anarcho-punk movement, frequently playing benefit gigs in squats and small halls for causes such as animal rights, the anti-war movement, and community groups. The band's collective political views are often described as anarchism or anarcho-communist. They made several songs about the UK miners' strike, including the cassette Common Ground and a song dedicated to the pit village of Fitzwilliam, which was one of the worst cases of economic decline following the strike.
With Agit-Prop Records (1985–1992)
By the mid-1980s Chumbawamba had begun to release material using the vinyl format on their own Agit-Prop record label, which had evolved from an earlier project, Sky and Trees Records. The first release was the Revolution EP in 1985, which quickly sold out of its initial run, and was re-pressed, reaching No. 4 in the UK Indie Chart, and staying in the chart for 34 weeks. The first LP, Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records, was a critique of the Live Aid concert organised by Bob Geldof, which the band argued was primarily a cosmetic spectacle designed to draw attention away from the real political causes of world hunger. During this period, as band members got jobs outside the band, they stopped sharing all money, and some members moved out of the communal house.Chumbawamba toured Europe with Dutch band the Ex, and a collaboration between members of the two bands, under the name "Antidote", led to the release of an EP, Destroy Fascism!, inspired by hardcore punk band Heresy, with whom they had also toured. Both the Ex and Chumbawamba were released on cassette tape in Poland during this period, when music censorship was entrenched in Iron Curtain nations. The "RED" label, based in Wrocław in south-west Poland during the late 1980s, only released cassette tapes and, despite the limits enforced by Polish authorities, was able to release Chumbawamba's music, in addition to bands from the USSR, East Germany and Czechoslovakia. Cobie Laan, formerly sound engineer for The Ex, joined Chumbawamba as live sound engineer, and was also credited as a vocalist on 1988's English Rebel Songs 1381–1914.
Chumbawamba's second album, Never Mind the Ballots...Here's the Rest of Your Lives, was released in 1987, coinciding with the general election, and questions the validity of the British democratic system of the time. The band adopted another moniker, Scab Aid, for the "Let It Be" song release that parodied a version of the Beatles song recorded by the popstar supergroup Ferry Aid to raise money for victims of the Zeebrugge ferry disaster.
Image:Danbert2.jpg|thumb|Vocalist Danbert Nobacon at the University of Birmingham, 1986, supporting Conflict
The 1988 album English Rebel Songs 1381–1914 was a recording of traditional songs.
By the late 1980s and early 1990s, Chumbawamba had begun to absorb influences from techno music and rave culture. The band members quit their day jobs to begin concentrating on music full-time as they could now guarantee sales of 10,000 and they moved away from their original anarcho-punk roots, evolving a pop sensibility with releases such as Slap! and the sample-heavy Shhh . They also toured the United States for the first time in 1990.
When Jason Donovan took The Face magazine to court that same year for claiming he was lying by denying he was gay, Chumbawamba responded by printing up hundreds of "Jason Donovan – Queer As Fuck" T-shirts and giving them away free with the single "Behave".
With One Little Indian Records (1993–1996)
After signing to the independent One Little Indian record label, Chumbawamba released "Enough Is Enough" in 1993 as a joint single with Credit to the Nation. This was their first entry in the UK singles chart, reaching number 56 - their highest chart ranking until "Tubthumping" four years later. The song also topped John Peel's Festive Fifty for 1993. They followed this up with "Timebomb" which hit 59 on the singles chart and 23 on the Festive Fifty. The band recorded sessions for John Peel's show in 1992 and 1993, in the first of which they only performed cover versions, opening with Black Lace's Agadoo.Both singles featured on the band's sixth album, Anarchy, with lyrics addressing issues such as homophobia, the Criminal Justice Act and the rise of fascism in the UK following the election of Derek Beackon, a British National Party councillor in south-east London in 1993. The album was the band's biggest success to date, reaching number 29 in the top 30. Third single "Homophobia" also entered the low end of the UK Singles Chart. The live shows to support the album were recorded and went to make up their first live album Showbusiness!, released in 1995. One Little Indian also re-released Chumbawamba's back catalogue, which meant that the first three albums were released on CD for the first time, with the first two repackaged as one disc under the title First 2.
Chumbawamba parted with One Little Indian during the recording of the 1996 album Swingin' with Raymond, although they did release one last CD entitled Portraits of Anarchists, which came with copies of Casey Orr's book of the same name.
With EMI Records (1997–2001)
Controversy over EMI signing
Chumbawamba signed to EMI in Europe in 1997, a move that was viewed as controversial by many of their followers. They had been involved with a compilation LP called Fuck EMI in 1989, and had criticised the label in many of their earlier songs.The anarcho-punk band Oi Polloi released an 'anti-Chumbawamba' split EP with Riot/Clone, Bus Station Loonies, Anxiety Society, The Chineapple Punks, Love Chips and Peas, and Wat Tyler, called Bare Faced Hypocrisy Sells Records.
Chumbawamba argued that EMI had severed the link with weapons manufacturer Thorn a few years previously, and that experience had taught them that, in a capitalist environment, almost every record company operates on capitalist principles: "Our previous record label One Little Indian didn't have the evil symbolic significance of EMI however they were completely motivated by profit." They added that this move brought with it the opportunity to make the band financially viable as well as to communicate their message to a wider audience.