After a much-longer-than-expected interlude... the podcast returns. You're never gonna keep me down.
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[Start of transcript]
Hi there.
Welcome to The Music's Not A Threat. A podcast about nothing, and everything, and a little band of anarchists called Chumbawamaba.
It's been a while.
When this episode releases in October 2023, it will be almost 3 years to the day since the last episode posted.This episode released at 10am PST on Saturday, October 21, 2023. The last episode before the hiatus announcement was EP. 003 - Introduction, posted on October 23, 2020. In November 2020, I put the podcast on indefinite hiatus while I dealt with unexplained vision issues that were making it impossible to research and write.The hiatus announcement was posted on November 6, 2020.
And... a lot has happened in three years.
The vission issues have improved, although they're still unexplained. After months and months of doctor's visits (or mostly anxious waiting in between doctor's visits) we still don't really know what happened or why it stopped. But at this point I've done all I can do, and all we can do now is move forward.I'm able to be sanguine about it now, but it took a LONG time for me to get to this point emotionally.
I missed a lot of big news events in those three years. I missed the 2020 US Presidential Election by less than a month... The Queen died! Can't believe I missed that -- would have been a great time to talk about Chumbawamba and monarchism, or their final release, In Memoriam: Margaret Thatcher... and then, you know, also talk about whether it's crass to be talking like this about somebody dying.Not to be confued with the seminal punk band Crass, who will definitely come up more later in the podcast.
Plenty to unpack there, and I missed it. And speaking of missed opportunities...
I've joked before about how I spent so long preparing to start this podcast that another song-by-song Chumbawamba podcast got started before I did. (Like, what are the chances, right?) But it was kind of a comfort when I went on hiatus to know that Chumbology was still out there fighting the good fight. And then recently as I've been looking to bring the podcast back, and sort of tuning back into things... come to find out Chumbology themselves went on hiatus more than a year ago! (At least I finally beat them to the punch on something, I guess.)
So, not only am I finally ready to pick up where I left off, but it turns out that there is once again a gaping void in the world of song-by-song Chumbawamba deep-dive podcasts. (Gotta keep the torches burning 'til the Chumbologists get back.)
So, yeah, here it is, the glorious return of The Music's Not A Threat. First new episode coming in two weeks.
For episodes after that, I'm not promising I'll stick to the biweekly schedule I originally planned, (obviously what I "originally planned" fell apart VERY quickly -- I didn't even remember until today that I'd started writing a script for a return announcement two years ago, so clearly you shouldn't rely on my plans panning out).
So there will be new episodes coming, on whatever schedule I'm able to make work, starting with the first one in two weeks.
Stay tuned. I'll see you then.
As for the original hiatus announcement, I'm going to take it down; I feel like leaving it up would be confusing. But in the interest of historical preservation, here is that original announcement, in it's entirety, as it was posted on November 6, 2020 with the title: "An Interlude: A Longer Interlude":The original hiatus announcement episode description text read: "Podcast and personal announcement: A longer interlude than was expected, but hopefully not too long."
Hi there.
Welcome to The Music's Not A Threat, a podcast about Chumbawamba and about... everything else.
Now, "Everything" was always going to be a big topic, which is a big part of why I wanted to use Chumbawamba to sort of focus my research. Even with that focus, it's still a minimum of 193 songs, and getting even one episode to the point where I'm happy with it requires a ton of research, writing, and re-writing, and... it was always going to be a big, difficult project, but I knew that going in.
Then, recently, I started having trouble with my eyes. For almost a month now, I haven't been able to look at a computer screen comfortably for any length of time. I can't effectively use the internet, my primary source for research; I can't use the computer to write; I can't record or edit for any length of time.
The last couple of episodes were done or almost done before this happened, but now my buffer's run out. The next episode is going to be "Salome (Let's Twist Again)" from the album Swingin' With Raymond, and obviously, I've gotta do the second part of the album timeline, so be on the lookout for those.
As of now I still don't really know what's going on. I have doctor's appointments scheduled, and I'm hoping I can get back to researching and writing and recording as soon as I can. I don't want to be one of those podcasts that releases just a couple of episodes and then falls off the face of the earth... but I just can't right now.
In the meantime, to get your Chumbawamba fix, you can listen to Chumbology, the other Chumbawamba podcast -- or, more like I'm "the other Chumbawamba podcast."
And if you're going through some struggles of your own right now, and for some reason you want my reccomendation of Chumbawamba songs appropriate to the situation, maybe look at "I Never Gave Up", "El Fusilado", maybe "Outsider", and of course:
[♫:"I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down! I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down!"]
Yeah, the band recorded a country/western version of "Tubthumping"... Give that a listen if you haven't.The same YouTube channel also has an upload of the full Amnesia ~ Japan Only Mini-Album which features several other interesting re-interpretations of their songs.
If you want more obsessively thorough deep-dives taking seemingly light pop-culture way too seriously, check out the YouTube videos "A Lukewarm Defense of 50 Shades of Grey" by Folding Ideas. Or also on YouTube, check out the series "Politics Unboringed" by Jay Foreman or "Map Men" by Jay Foreman and Mark Cooper-Jones. Both great sources of interesting, entertaining content that actually teaches you something. Hopefully those'll tide you over until I get back.
Be well, be excellent to each other and whatever you do, please, cite your sources.
Thanks for listening.
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