''Project Moonbase'' is the longest-running

retrofuturistic Retrofuturism (adjective ''retrofuturistic'' or ''retrofuture'') is a movement in the creative arts showing the influence of depictions of the future produced in an earlier era. If futurism is sometimes called a "science" bent on anticipat ...

music podcast A music podcast is a genre of podcasts covering topics related to music and musicians, which often includes reviews, interpretations, new releases, musician interviews, music history, music creation, and music theory. History Music podcasts d ...

, recorded in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

, Scotland, with the tagline "The Historic Sound of the Future".

Premise

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. 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.

Format

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 The Moog synthesizer ( ) is a modular synthesizer invented by the American engineer Robert Moog in 1964. Moog's company, R. A. Moog Co., produced numerous models from 1965 to 1981, and again from 2014. It was the first commercial synthesizer ...

steel drum The steelpan (also known as a pan or steel drum) is a musical instrument originating in Trinidad and Tobago from Afro-Trinidadians. Steelpan musicians are called pannists. In 1992, the steelpan was declared Trinidad and Tobago’s national in ...

theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone, etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named aft ...

chiptune Chiptune, also called 8-bit music (although not all chiptune is 8-bit music), is a style of electronic music made using the programmable sound generator (PSG) sound chips or synthesizers in vintage arcade machines, computers and video gam ...

kazoo The kazoo is a musical instrument that adds a ''buzzing'' timbral quality to a player's voice when the player vocalizes into it. It is a type of '' mirliton'' (itself a membranophone), one of a class of instruments that modify the player's v ...

ukulele The ukulele ( ; ); also called a uke (informally), is a member of the lute (ancient guitar) family of instruments. The ukulele is of Portuguese origin and was popularized in Hawaii. The tone and volume of the instrument vary with size and con ...

, and the voice of

Wing A wing is a type of fin that produces both Lift (force), lift and drag while moving through air. Wings are defined by two shape characteristics, an airfoil section and a planform (aeronautics), planform. Wing efficiency is expressed as lift-to-d ...

. Music from the 1980s is typically excluded, the hosts describing it as "the forbidden decade". The show includes some regular sections: * ''The Unnecessary News'', in which MC Zirconium reads humorous science-fiction-related news stories. (Example: "Meat and potato pie 'sent into space' from Wigan") * ''The Sea of Tranquillity'', in which a contrastingly less-lively music track is played. * ''Poetry read by the Dalek Vicar'', in which MC Zirconium imitates a polite

Dalek The Daleks ( ) are a fictional extraterrestrial race of extremely xenophobic mutants principally portrayed in the British science fiction television programme ''Doctor Who''. They were conceived by writer Terry Nation and first appeared in th ...

. * Cover versions of the jazz song ''

Caravan Caravan or caravans may refer to: Transport and travel *Campervan, a type of vehicle also known as a motor caravan *Caravan (travellers), a group of travellers journeying together **Caravanserai, a place where a caravan could stop *Caravan (trail ...

'' (of which over 350 exist). * Music created and submitted by listeners. 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 (7 hours) dedicated to French Moog musician

Jean-Jacques Perrey Jean Marcel Leroy (20 January 1929 – 4 November 2016), better known as Jean-Jacques Perrey (), was a French people, French electronic music performer, composer, producer, and promoter. He is considered a pioneer of pop electronica.patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy or Oriental Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, fa ...

of the show". Other example themes have been: * "Shapes" including tracks named ''The Glass Triangle'', ''Isosceles Trapezoid'', and ''Hendecagon''. * "Popcorn" featuring numerous covers of the 1969 synth-pop track ''

Popcorn Popcorn (also called popped corn, popcorns, or pop-corn) is a variety of corn kernel which expands and puffs up when heated. The term also refers to the snack food produced by the expansion. It is one of the oldest snacks, with evidence of p ...

'' by Gershon Kingsley. * "Shatnoy" featuring tracks by

William Shatner William Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is a Canadian actor. In a career spanning seven decades, he is best known for his portrayal of James T. Kirk in the ''Star Trek'' franchise, from his 1966 debut as the captain of the starship USS Enterpri ...

and

Leonard Nimoy Leonard Simon Nimoy ( ; March 26, 1931 – February 27, 2015) was an American actor and director, famous for playing Spock in the ''Star Trek'' franchise for almost 50 years. This includes Development of Spock, originating Spock in Star Trek: T ...

and covers of

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...

theme tunes. Episode 46 ("Cassette Heads") was also available to purchase on physical cassette tape. There has also been at least one live appearance of ''Project Moonbase'' alongside the group ''

Space Dog Bullseye Art was a New York City-based art collective that pioneered art and animation on the web. Founded in 1995 by Josh Kimberg, Nick Cogan and Ryan Edwards, the company gained fame for creating unique and offbeat interactive cartoons made us ...

'' at the

Edinburgh International Science Festival Edinburgh Science, founded in 1989, is an educational charity. It organises a two-week Edinburgh's annual Science Festival, the world's first public celebration of science and technology, and still one of Europe's largest. Alongside the annu ...

in 2012.

History

Leith FM Radio (2007–2010)

The first episode of Project Moonbase was broadcast 15 June 2007 on Leith FM, an Edinburgh-based

community radio Community radio is a radio service offering a third model of radio broadcasting in addition to commercial broadcasting, commercial and public broadcasting. Community broadcasting, Community stations serve geographic communities and communities o ...

station launched May 2007. Each episode was two hours in length and broadcast from 20:00 to 22:00 on Sunday evenings. 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". The last radio broadcast of Project Moonbase was on 27 June 2010. Recordings of these shows are not available to the public, but were made available to paying subscribers of Project Moonbase.

Podcast (2010–2017)

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. (One trial podcast had been released previously on 24 July 2010, recorded while still part of Leith FM.) 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 th
Internet Archive
In 2017, DJ Bongoboy suffered a

stroke Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...

, and was unable to continue hosting in a conversational format. The last episode of the podcast was released 17 March 2017.

Spotify (2018–present)

The format of the show changed, dividing the content between two media. Music is presented as a weekly

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...

playlist A playlist is a list of video or audio files that can be played back on a media player, either sequentially or in a shuffled order. In its most general form, an audio playlist is simply a list of songs that can be played once or in a loop. ...

on a particular theme. The first playlist, entitled "PMB Super Galactic Modulation 1" was released 13 May 2018, and a new one has been released every Sunday since then. News is reported daily by both hosts via the show's officia
Facebook
an
Twitter
social media accounts.

Hosts

DJ Bongoboy

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 Jakarta EE, formerly Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) and Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), is a set of specifications, extending Java SE with specifications for enterprise features such as distributed computing and web servi ...

technical developer by day, "space age bachelor by night". 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 The Edinburgh Art Festival is an annual visual arts festival, held in Edinburgh, Scotland, during August and coincides with the Edinburgh International Festival, Edinburgh International and Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Fringe festivals. The Art Fes ...

and Edinburgh Annuale. He occasionally remixes tracks for the podcast, and has also released items on

Bandcamp Bandcamp is an American online music distribution platform founded in 2008 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with an office and record store in Oakland, California. Acquired by Epic ...

on behalf of Project Moonbase (with cover art by co-host Fielding) including an album of telephone ringtones ''Ringtones from Space Volume 1'', and a track ''The Coming of the Dial'' to accompany telephony-themed podcast episode 208 ''Dial M For Moonbase''. He has also performed with the group ''

'' in Brighton and Edinburgh. Baldock suffered a stroke in March 2017 (aged 52) leaving him with acute

dysphasia Aphasia, also known as dysphasia, is an impairment in a person's ability to comprehend or formulate language because of dysfunction in specific brain regions. The major causes are stroke and head trauma; prevalence is hard to determine, but aph ...

and verbal

dyspraxia Developmental coordination disorder (DCD), also known as developmental motor coordination disorder, developmental dyspraxia, or simply dyspraxia (from Ancient Greek ''praxis'' 'activity'), is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impair ...

which prevented him from presenting the podcast. He was forced to move in to more accessible housing. He appeared on national television and the local newspaper front-page after Scottish

First Minister A first minister is any of a variety of leaders of government cabinets. The term literally has the same meaning as "prime minister" but is typically chosen to distinguish the office-holder from a superior prime minister. Currently the title of ' ...

Nicola Sturgeon Nicola Ferguson Sturgeon (born 19 July 1970) is a Scottish politician who served as First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) from 2014 to 2023. She has served as a member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) sin ...

confirmed that the life-saving

thrombectomy Mechanical thrombectomy, or simply thrombectomy, is the removal of a blood clot (thrombus) from a blood vessel, often and especially endovascularly as an interventional radiology procedure called endovascular thrombectomy (EVT). It thus contr ...

operation he received would no longer be available to an expected 600 Scottish patients in 2018. Baldock handed a petition of 4,147 names to Health Secretary

Jeane Freeman Jeane Tennent Freeman (born 28 September 1953) is a Scottish people, Scottish retired businesswoman and politician who served as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport from 2018 to 2021. A member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), she was t ...

requesting restoration of thrombectomy as an option for patients. The campaign was successful and the procedure is due to be fully reinstated by 2023. The musical group ''The Twelve Hour Foundation'', who created the theme tune and jingles 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.

MC Zirconium

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 ''Boing Boing'' is a website, first established as a zine in 1988, later becoming a group blog. Common topics and themes include technology, futurism, science fiction, gadgets, intellectual property, Disney, and left-wing politics. It twice wo ...

''. His real name is Andy Fielding, a graphic designer residing in Edinburgh. Fielding creates unique artwork for every episode of Project Moonbase and sells prints on his own website. He was the creator of the 2006

Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (CN) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the Cartoon Network, Inc., a sub-division of the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks division of Warner Bros. Discovery. It launched on ...

show ''

IMP IMP or imp may refer to: * Imp, a fantasy creature Arts and entertainment Music * IMP (band) a Japanese boy band Fictional characters * Imp (She-Ra), a character in ''She-Ra: Princess of Power'' * Imp a character in '' Artemis Fowl: The L ...

''. 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). 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.

Recognition

''Wired'' magazine had an article by

Questlove Ahmir K. Thompson (born January 20, 1971), known professionally as Questlove (stylized as ), is an American drummer, record producer, disc jockey, filmmaker, music journalist, and actor. He is the drummer and joint frontman (with Black Thought ...

titled "How to Listen Now" in March 2014 in which Questlove described ''Project Moonbase'' as an "oddly specific podcast specialising in sitar-driven psychedelia, 8-bit and other trips". ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's music columnist Colleen Nika wrote "I take head trips with them often – my preferred method of travel of late".

BBC Radio 6 The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current state ...

presenter

Tom Robinson Living people Thomas Giles Robinson (born 1 June 1950) is a British singer, bassist, radio presenter and long-time LGBT rights activist, best known for the hits " Glad to Be Gay", " 2-4-6-8 Motorway", and "Don't Take No for an Answer", with hi ...

in his ''Pick of the Pods'' podcast in 2011 described ''Project Moonbase'' as an "exotic and wonderful musical world". 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". Musician

John Flansburgh John Conant Flansburgh (born May 6, 1960) is an American musician. He is half of the long-standing Brooklyn, New York–based alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants with John Linnell, for which he writes, sings, and plays rhythm guitar. Earl ...

of ''

They Might Be Giants They Might Be Giants, often abbreviated as TMBG, is an American alternative rock and Children's music, children's band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years, Flansburgh and Linnell frequently performed as ...

'' recommended ''Project Moonbase'' as a "highly entertaining detour into the world of electronic music old, older and sometimes more recent". The podcast holds a rating of 4.9 stars out of 5 o
Apple Podcasts

Funding

The show features no advertising nor sponsorship, being fully listener-supported. The website offers

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

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. Musicians reaching 80 years of age were automatically granted an honorary Moon Lordship.

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://www.projectmoonbase.com/ Audio podcasts Music podcasts 2010 podcast debuts Retrofuturism British podcasts Creative Commons-licensed podcasts