Danbert Nobacon

Danbert Nobacon was a founding member of Chumbawamba, and full time operative for 22 years (Jan 1982- Dec 2004). He had a parallel solo career in the 1980's, which fell into disrepair when Chumbawamba became a full time concern in 1992.

When the full electric Chumbawamba went into deep freeze at the end of 2004 Nobacon began writing a history book (entitled, Smart Lies, Secret Wars and Rock 'n' Roll). He quickly fell back into solo performances and some of the research for the book quickly infiltrated the songs and spoken word pieces of his live performances. The book is ongoing.

He is also writing a musical centered on an alter ego Johnny Woebegone, which has been described as a a curious mix between Kurt Vonnegut and Raymond Chandler. A spoken word album to be released in 2008 charts the darkest corners and side conversations of the Bush-Blair years, evolving pieces from which have featured in the live shows over the past three years.

The music is off kilter, adrift at sea somewhere in the Northern Atlantic, a mix of European folk, alt country, blues, punk and lounge noir. The spoken word is Nobacon engaged in dark, humourous and sometimes plainly terrifying conversations with ghosts, past, present and future, who inhabit the corridors and back alleys of power.

Nobacon now lives in Washington State in the USA, having lived in Leeds, Yorkshire, Northern England, for the previous 27 years, and in Burnley, where he was born, until he was 18.

NEW ALBUM OUT NOW: "The Library Book of the World" by Danbert Nobacon and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts on Bloodshot Records.

Danbert Nobacon, traverses uncharted seas armed with all the tools of his trade, as longstanding member of the infamous anarchist collective Chumbawamba, whilst discovering new tricks along the way.

"... Turning expectation on the head has always been a Chumbawamba speciality, and Nobacon carries that tradition ever onwards with a series of unhurried and magnificently realized compositions that combine his left-field roots, classic country, Tex-Mex, gnarly blues and jazz and fuses it together into a great big engrossing whole.

"The Library Book of the World is a vaudevillian-flavoured concept album that takes you on a journey through the voices of the past, present and yet to come, of history, as Nobacon struggles to make sense of the current global predicament. It also
just happens to be the most vital thing he has ever done." - Rock n Reel Oct 2007

On The Library Book Of The World, his first solo album in over two decades, Nobacon dredges up a motley crew of shipmates in the Pine Valley Cosmonauts and embarks on a long-distance voyage through the wreckage of history, setting a course for a future in which contemporary society crumbles about us. The veritable rogues gallery that is the Pine Valley Cosmonauts - old friends and fellow pint-hoisters Jon Langford (Mekons, Waco Brothers), Alan Doughty (Jesus Jones, Waco Brothers), multi-instrumenalist John Rice, drummer Dan Massey and accordionist Pat Brennan - joins Nobacon to raise the rogue flag and sets the sails aflame with a rousing set of riot-folk and heretical sea shanties.

HEAR TRACKS, see videos and more at: www.myspace.com/danbertnobacon

OPINION AND STUFF: www.danbertnobacon.com