 |
| Project Moonbase | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Presentation | |
| Hosted by |
|
| Genre | Music podcast |
| Language | English |
| Updates | Weekly |
| Length | 60 minutes |
| Production | |
| Audio format | MP3 |
| No. of episodes | 293 |
| Publication | |
| Original release | 15 June 2007 |
| License | CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 [1] |
| Related | |
| Website | projectmoonbase.com |
Project Moonbase is the longest-running retrofuturistic music podcast, recorded in Edinburgh, Scotland, with the tagline "The Historic Sound of the Future".
The King of the Moon and his hutched companion are stranded in a dilapidated moon base held together by duct tape. Their mission is to explore time and space for unique things to broadcast to humans on Earth. [2] This takes the form of bizarre music and news stories.
The show is named after a 1953 black and white science fiction movie about the attempted sabotage of a moon base in 1970.
Each show includes 12 full music tracks in pairs, often from the 1960s and 1970s (or modern pastiches of such), using exotic instruments such as the Moog synthesizer, steel drum, theremin, chiptune, kazoo, ukulele, and the voice of Wing.
Music from the 1980s is typically excluded, the hosts describing it as "the forbidden decade".
The show includes some regular sections:
Shows often have a theme that unifies the tracks and news. Often the theme is the music of, or inspired by, a particular artist who is celebrating an anniversary that week. Notably, there have been four episodes [4] [5] [6] (7 hours) dedicated to French Moog musician Jean-Jacques Perrey, whom the hosts describe as "the patron saint of the show". [6] Other example themes have been:
Episode 46 ("Cassette Heads") was also available to purchase on physical cassette tape. [10]
There has also been at least one live appearance of Project Moonbase alongside the group Space Dog at the Edinburgh International Science Festival in 2012. [11]
The first episode of Project Moonbase was broadcast 15 June 2007 [12] on Leith FM, an Edinburgh-based community radio station launched May 2007. Each episode was two hours in length and broadcast from 20:00 to 22:00 on Sunday evenings. [13] After three years, the show ceased being broadcast for undisclosed reasons, though DJ Bongoboy claimed that "we left on good terms, or a least we would have, had anyone been there". [14] The last radio broadcast of Project Moonbase was on 27 June 2010. [15]
Recordings of these shows are not available to the public, but were made available to paying subscribers of Project Moonbase.
Four months after the final radio broadcast, the show was continued in a podcast format, with the first episode (numbered 001) being released on the date 10/10/10. [16] (One trial podcast had been released previously on 24 July 2010, recorded while still part of Leith FM. [17] [13] )
Aside from the duration being reduced from 2 hours to 1 hour, the format of the show remained unchanged and was released every Sunday evening for the next seven years for a total of 273 episodes plus 20 bonus episodes. These are all available at no cost from the Project Moonbase website, and have also been added to the Internet Archive.
In 2017, DJ Bongoboy suffered a stroke, and was unable to continue hosting in a conversational format. [18] The last episode of the podcast was released 17 March 2017. [1]
The format of the show changed, dividing the content between two media.
Music is presented as a weekly Spotify playlist on a particular theme. The first playlist, entitled "PMB Super Galactic Modulation 1" was released 13 May 2018, [19] and a new one has been released every Sunday since then.
News is reported daily by both hosts via the show's official Facebook [20] and Twitter [21] social media accounts.
The official website describes DJ Bongoboy as a "genial host, broadcaster, polymath, ruthless leader, de-facto king of the moon, Moon-Pope and space-penguin".
His real name is Robert Baldock, from East Lothian, a J2EE technical developer by day, [22] "space age bachelor by night". [23]
He creates experimental music under the name Aleatory Music Systems using "analogue synths, Java applications and Max/MSP/Jitter", and has performed at the Edinburgh Art Festival [24] and Edinburgh Annuale. [25]
He occasionally remixes tracks for the podcast, and has also released items on Bandcamp on behalf of Project Moonbase (with cover art by co-host Fielding) including an album of telephone ringtones Ringtones from Space Volume 1, [26] and a track The Coming of the Dial [27] to accompany telephony-themed podcast episode 208 Dial M For Moonbase. [28]
He has also performed with the group Space Dog in Brighton [29] and Edinburgh. [11]
Baldock suffered a stroke in March 2017 (aged 52) leaving him with acute dysphasia and verbal dyspraxia which prevented him from presenting the podcast. [18] He was forced to move in to more accessible housing. [30]
He appeared on national television [31] and the local newspaper front-page [32] after Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon confirmed that the life-saving thrombectomy operation he received would no longer be available to an expected 600 Scottish patients in 2018. [33] Baldock handed a petition of 4,147 names to Health Secretary Jeane Freeman requesting restoration of thrombectomy as an option for patients. [34] The campaign was successful and the procedure is due to be fully reinstated by 2023. [35]
The musical group The Twelve Hour Foundation, who created the theme tune and jingles [36] for Project Moonbase, released a charity EP (with cover artwork by host Andy Fielding) which raised £350 for The Charles Bell Pavilion unit where Baldock was treated. [37]
The official website describes MC Zirconium as a "jovial sidekick, prisoner, news-hound, dogs-body, dog".
Each show, he reports on quirky stories that he has found on websites such as Boing Boing .
His real name is Andy Fielding, a graphic designer residing in Edinburgh. [38] [39]
Fielding creates unique artwork for every episode of Project Moonbase and sells prints on his own website. [40]
He was the creator of the 2006 Cartoon Network show IMP . [41]
Fielding also created the 2008 animated series Life According to Dinosaurs for UK Channel 4, of which the two dinosaur protagonists were voiced by the pair of Project Moonbase hosts ("Dave Yellow" by Baldock, "Steve Green" by Fielding). [42]
Describing his taste in music, Zirconium said in 2011:
I like my sonification to fill me with terror. If I am listening to radiation emanating from distant parts of the universe, I want to feel horrified by the scientific majesty of it all. [43]
Wired magazine had an article by Questlove titled "How to Listen Now" in March 2014 [44] in which Questlove described Project Moonbase as an "oddly specific podcast specialising in sitar-driven psychedelia, 8-bit and other trips". [45]
Rolling Stone magazine's music columnist Colleen Nika wrote "I take head trips with them often – my preferred method of travel of late". [46]
BBC Radio 6 presenter Tom Robinson in his Pick of the Pods podcast in 2011 described Project Moonbase as an "exotic and wonderful musical world". [47]
Mark Barton, editor of Losing Today indie music magazine described the show as "sumptuously populated by all manner of strange sounds, library take outs, lounge lilts and sonic curios". [48]
Musician John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants recommended Project Moonbase as a "highly entertaining detour into the world of electronic music old, older and sometimes more recent". [49]
The podcast holds a rating of 4.9 stars out of 5 on Apple Podcasts. [50]
The show features no advertising nor sponsorship, being fully listener-supported.
The website offers Amazon affiliate links so that the show can earn a commission for any music purchased by listeners through their site.
The show offered the opportunity for listeners to purchase a title of nobility on the moon, such as a "Moon Baron", for which they would receive a certificate, have their name displayed in the "Moon Hall of Fame", and also receive access to listen to recordings of episodes of the show from Leith FM that were not available by other means. [51] Musicians reaching 80 years of age were automatically granted an honorary Moon Lordship.
Space: 1999 is a British science-fiction television programme that ran for two series from 1975 to 1977. In the opening episode, set in the year 1999, nuclear waste stored on the Moon's far side explodes, knocking the Moon out of orbit and sending it, as well as the 311 inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha, hurtling uncontrollably into space. Space: 1999 was the last production by the partnership of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and was the most expensive series produced for British television up to that time. The first series was co-produced by ITC Entertainment and Italian broadcaster RAI, while the second series was produced solely by ITC.
The Mighty Boosh is a British comedy troupe featuring comedians Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. Developed from three stage shows and a six-episode radio series, it has since spanned a total of 20 television episodes for BBC Three which aired from 2004 to 2007, and two live tours of the UK, as well as two live shows in the United States. The first television series is set in a zoo operated by Bob Fossil, the second in a flat and the third in a secondhand shop in Dalston called Nabootique.
UFO is a 1970 British science fiction television series about the covert efforts of an international defence organisation to prevent an alien invasion of Earth. It was created by Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson with Reg Hill, and produced by the Andersons and Lew Grade's Century 21 for Grade's ITC Entertainment company.
Perrey and Kingsley was an electronic music duo made up of French composer Jean-Jacques Perrey and German-American composer Gershon Kingsley. The duo lasted from 1965 to 1967 and both are considered pioneers of electronic music. They released under Vanguard Records two studio albums The In Sound From Way Out! and Kaleidoscopic Vibrations. They also were among the first artists to incorporate the Moog synthesizer, prior to the successful 1968 release, Switched-On Bach by Wendy Carlos.
Project Moonbase is a 1953 independently made black-and-white science fiction film, produced by Jack Seaman, directed by Richard Talmadge, and starring Ross Ford, Donna Martell, Hayden Rorke. It co-stars Larry Johns, Herb Jacobs, Barbara Morrison, and Ernestine Barrier. The film was distributed by Lippert Pictures and is based on a story by Robert A. Heinlein, who shares the screenwriting credit with producer Jack Seaman.
Ahmir K. Thompson, known professionally as Questlove, is an American musician, record producer, disc jockey, filmmaker, music journalist, and actor. He is the drummer and joint frontman for the hip hop band the Roots. The Roots have been serving as the in-house band for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon since 2014, after having fulfilled the same role on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Questlove is also one of the producers of the cast album of the Broadway musical Hamilton. He is the co-founder of the websites Okayplayer and OkayAfrica. Additionally, he is an adjunct professor at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University.
The Moonbase is the half-missing sixth serial of the fourth season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 11 February to 4 March 1967.
Moonbase 3 is a British science fiction television programme that ran for six episodes in 1973. It was a co-production between the BBC, 20th Century Fox and the American ABC network. Created by Doctor Who producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks as a realistic alternative strand of TV science-fiction, it was not a commercial or critical success.
"Ring Around the Moon" is the fourth episode of the first season of Space: 1999. The screenplay was written by Edward di Lorenzo; the director was Ray Austin. The shooting script is dated 14 December 1973 with green page amendments dated 17 January 1974; the final shooting script is dated 8 February 1974. Live-action filming took place Wednesday 27 February 1974 through Thursday 14 March 1974.
Jean Marcel Leroy, popularly known as Jean-Jacques Perrey, was a French electronic music performer, composer, producer, and promoter. He is considered a pioneer of pop electronica. Perrey partnered with composer-performer Gershon Kingsley to form the electronic music duo Perrey and Kingsley, who issued some of the first commercial recordings featuring the Moog synthesizer. Perrey was also one of the first to promote, perform, and record with the Ondioline, developed by Georges Jenny.
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Breakmaster Cylinder, also known as The Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder or by the initials BmC, is a musical composer and producer who has provided title themes and background music for a number of radio shows and podcasts, principally with Gimlet Media's Reply All. Known for their pseudonymity, Breakmaster Cylinder does not make public appearances and has employed stand-ins for interviews, photographs, and other media appearances.
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