Bacon Fest--Nobacon Fest

We've covered Vegan Mania, and in the interest of fair reporting (and at the risk of vegan ire!), we'll be covering Chicago's Baconfest, too.   Now in it's 2nd year, Baconfest Chicago is slated for April 9th, 2011.  That's far in the future, however.   


This week we're bringing you Nobacon fest.   We have a Tuesday full of Danbert Nobacon live videos from The Devil's Ball at Martyr's in Chicago in October.   We're leading up to ChiIL Mama's Win A Disc Wednesday tomorrow when you can win his new book and CD.   Enter HERE to win through midnight tonight.   Tomorrow we'll be announcing our winner of 3 Dead Princes and Woebegone.


In subsequent weeks, we'll have 2 more copies of Woebegone to give away, and more footage from Danbert Nobacon's book reading and mini acoustic performance at The Book Cellar in Chicago.


If you didn't get a chance to check out our Nobacon interview, click HERE.   Danbert still eats no bacon, but concedes that he does eat some fish nowadays.   His daughter, however, loves bacon, like someone else I know, who sprang from at least one vegetarian parent...


Danbert was personable and fun to meet, and I can completely relate to the bacon munching spawn and the family food dilemma.   During the book signing, Nobacon said that they decided to leave personal veg versus meat choices up to the kids.    That's what we decided, too.    From 1989 for a bit over 10 years, I was a complete and conscientious vegetarian.   Then I fell for a self described meatatarian!


As a couple, we maintained middle ground and each made some concessions, like no red meat cooking at home. But when we reproduced, I fed the kids healthy veg food throughout baby hood and most of toddler hood, and we vowed to let them choose once they got bigger.   Then came the day I was out and Dug was holding a 1 year old Sagezilla in one hand and a big, multi layered red meat sandwich half from work in the other.    When he picked up the phone to talk to me, and transferred the cheese steak, Italian sausage fest onto the baby side, the rest was history!


All I heard was this little voice going, "Mmmmmm.    MMMMMMMHHHH.   MHHHH.    MORE!!!!"   And then Dug saying, "Oh no.   Honey......    Please don't kill me.   The baby's devouring my meat sub.    She's chowing down on it!   I can't get it out of her hands!   What do I do?    Oh man.   I'm gonna have to make myself something else to eat.    The baby just ate my whole half a sandwich!!"


I sighed, and told him he was changing those diapers for the next couple days!   What can ya do?   Our 9 year old son and I still don't eat red meat except every very great once in a while, and he won't touch bacon.   And 7 years later, our daughter...is still a bacon freak. 


For all the bacon and Nobacon freaks out there...vegans, vegetarians and carnivores can all enjoy our Tuesday Nobacon feast.    Don't forget to enter to win 3 Dead Princes and Woebegone through midnight tonight.

Bacon or Nobacon...That is the question.

Danbert Nobacon-The Ol' Devil Kerosene

Danbert Nobacon-The Devil's Ball-Martyr's Chicago

Here's Danbert Nobacon live at Martyr's in Chicago in October.   Remember Win A Disc Wednesday is tomorrow!   Enter HERE through midnight tonight to win both the anarchist fairy tale, 3 Dead Princes and the CD, Woebegon.  

We've been reading 3 Dead Princes as a family and Sagezilla is enamoured with Princess Alexandra Stormybald Wilson or "Stormy".   She said, "I don't usually like princessy stuff, but she's like me.   She's snarky, she has brown hair, she's mighty, and she was born during a big storm, just like me!"

The night of Sagezilla's home birth, the doctor and midwife almost didn't make it into the city because there were tornadoes in the burbs, high winds, and torrential downpours that took out all the traffic lights and caused deep standing water on the roads!    I remember standing at the door watching the lightening rip across the sky between contractions.    The rain was literally coming down horizontally.  

Alex Cox's illustrations of Stormy may resemble Danbert Nobacon's 10 year old, Stella, but her spirit and her stormy birth are equal parts Sage.   I think the 3 S girls-Stella, Stormy and Sage would get along great.    If you're raising a little anti-princess (or wish you were), then this is the fairy tale for you.

Win A Disc (and book) Wednesday: Woebegone and 3 Dead Princes by Danbert Nobacon

Back in the day, Danbert Nobacon was likely to show up for a gig in a nun's habit or strip naked on stage.   Now he's a full time dad to ten year old twins, on an adventure of quite a different type, in small town Washington state.   ChiIL Mama's fascinated by how becoming parents influences people's creative careers and how creatives parent.   


Cultures are influenced and changed by our art, music, theatre and literature.   Past cultures are remembered by their arts.   And our future culture is shaped by our children.   Every 100 years-all new people.


ChiIL Mama interviewed Danbert Nobacon a couple weeks ago, at The Book Cellar in Chicago and we have that interview for you here, today. 


He had a double whammy of a book and CD release, which both fell in October (N is for Nobacon post).   This week we are giving away both 3 Dead Princes, and his new CD, Woebegone, Danbert Nobacon & The Bad Things.   Enter to win at the end of this post.   





While everyone's still in a devilish mood from Dia De Los Muertos and Halloween  we'll have a Nobacon Fest all week.   We have lots of footage of Danbert in novelist mode and as MC for The Devil's Ball at Martyr's on 10/17.   You'll get to meet Mr. Death (and see Nobacon hone his ventriloquism skills), and hear live tracks from his new release.   Check back with ChiIL Mama like we vote in Chicago--early and often.


If you missed ChiIL Mama's earlier review of 3 Dead Princes, you can check it out HERE.   


Nobacon's Wobegon CD is based on the novel "Damengeist or The Devil Came Down To Yorkshire" by Bebon Candorant, which is still a work in progress. This 14 track CD is quirky, complicated, and creative and will be appreciated by older kids and parents.


Nobacon gets into character and transforms into the itinerant twisted player, Johnny Woebegon who is "mixed up in the head and got mixed up in things way over his head".   This CD will take the listener time traveling forward and backward and across the globe from 1620 Hamburg, Germany to 2025 in Manchester, England, Langley, VA, Prague, Czech Republic and Halloween in Black Diamond, WA.   Listeners are then "rewound" to Chicago, IL in 1993 and "fast forwarded" as far into the future as 2092 in Atomica, NW.


According to The Journals of Bebon Candorant, "Music is imbued with potential energy, and the atoms therein, if arranged in the right configuration, combine as that energy transforms kinetically.   In this way the listener can be transported.   The transportation is figurative, of course, but some tell of the odd occasions when it is literal.   Real."


If you're ready to time travel with anarchists, gypsy punks, and Bad Things, while reading about snarky anarchist princesses and adventures led by a Fool,  enter here to win.   You know the drill--one entry per family per week.   Enter through Tuesday midnight.   Winner will be chosen by random.org.   Entry info won't be sold, shared or written on bathroom walls.   We also have 2 more copies of Woebegone to give away in subsequent weeks.   Good luck!

ABC Wednesday: N is for...

Nobacon!

Du-Jay and Sagezilla get their copy of 3 Dead Princes signed

Nah, it's not VeganMania again.   We're talking about Danbert Nobacon, "freak music legend", and founding member of the anarchist punk band, Chumbawamba.   We actually got to see him in both author mode and musician mode, at The Book Cellar Thursday and at Martyr's Saturday.  

    Danbert Nobacon and his little friend, Mr. Death

We have an exclusive interview describing his first novel, 3 Dead Princes, and footage from both events to share shortly.   Check in to hear the origin of his unique stage name (hint:   it's a spin off of a childhood knock knock joke),  how he's found himself a Dad to ten year old twins (with a birthday just one day before his), and his extreme version of eating locally grown produce (but still no bacon).

ChiIL Mama will also be offering one copy of Nobacon's book and latest CD Woebegone, with the band The Bad Things.   You can win both in November in our Win A Disc Wednesday give away.   We'll also give away two more copies of his disc, with more tasty tidbits and coverage, in subsequent weeks.   If you missed ChiIL Mama's book review of 3 Dead Princes, you can check it out here.

We also had a great time interviewing The Verve Pipe and filming their show at SPACE in Evanston, earlier on Saturday.   We still have one copy of A Family Album to give away and some fun, live stuff to share with you.

We'll have both of our exclusive interviews, plus loads of great concert footage shortly.   I have 4 hours of video tape to edit at the moment and two kids too young to drive themselves anywhere.   Apple box on the gas pedal anyone?

Till then, amuse yourselves with more eNtries at ABC Wednesday.

ChiIL Mama's Review: 3 Dead Princes by Danbert Nobacon

ChiIL Mama was sucked in and swept away by the anarchist fairy tale, 3 Dead Princes.   This book has Iggy Pop's seal of approval right on the cover.    He says, "It definitely  rocks!   I ought to know."   Jessica Mills, author of My Mother Wears Combat Boots, calls 3 Dead Princes, "An alternative fairy tale for anarchist/punk/fellow traveler parents to read with their kids!"

Our whole family enjoyed Princess Stormy's induction into The Order of The Accidental Adventurers and her first wild journey lead by a Fool.   Danbert Nobacon is witty, wicked, and wonderfully unconventional.    He gets extra bonus points because he doesn't dumb down the English language for readers.   His uniquely inventive vocabulary even resulted in a 6 page glossary of new words at the end of the fairy tale!

Nobacon's mythical creatures are imaginatively absurd, and the one off references to classics like Shakespeare, Alice in Wonderland and myths had me snorting aloud as I read to the kids.    We loved the giant cat with the "Lancashire smile" and the inclusion of Rosenstern and Guildenkrantz .   

Nobacon has created a descriptive, post apocalyptic world that adults and children will relish exploring together.   Of course, Alex Cox's illustrations of great hairy beasties and freaky people add to the tale.   

I was raving to another pierced, tattooed Mama friend about how much we were digging this book, while our kids hung from trapezes, ropes and silks in a great Circesteem aerial class.   She asked to borrow it and said what I thought was "These are art people."   I hastily agreed, "Yeah, art people and musicians."  What can I say, I was front row at Riot Fest the night before, shooting pixs of The Circle Jerks and Bad Religion, without earplugs, so my hearing was temporarily worse for the wear.   She laughed, enunciated and said "No, OUR people."   Yes, indeed.   Even more so.   This is THE fairy tale for OUR PEOPLE.   

There are some off color remarks, a smattering of 4 letter words, 3 accidental murders, a newly menstruating tween protagonist, and a few paragraph long sentences that may leave you gasping for breath, if you are reading aloud.   However, if you're not particularly prudish, Nobacon's first novel is pretty appropriate for most kids elementary and up, and a fun read that hides a myriad of true gems of wisdom.   I was so jazzed to read "Tools over weapons, my dear girl," said the Bird.   Ideas over ideologies.   Like the wonderlook.   It helps us see things in new ways.   If we have the tools and the imagination to look at the world afresh, then we will never cease to be startled by what we find in it."   Truly words to live by!

Danbert Nobacon is better known as a singer, song writer and founding member of the     anarchist punk band, Chumbawumba.  The back cover proclaims he loves children and animals.   This is his first book.   Alex Cox is better known for his film making skills.   He loves monsters.

Nobacon's first novel continues his clever reeducation of the world in the true nature of the original anarchists.   He writes "There was an actual anarchist prince in old Russia, called Peter Kropotkin.   And contrary to the stereotyped image of the black-cloaked, bomb-throwing anarchist, Kropotkin was a rational, articulate thinker.   He developed a theory of the human tendency toward cooperation, or mutual aid as he called it, rooted not in wishful thinking, but in observable science."  

ChiIL Mama recommends this funny fairy tale about girl power, peace, and the overarching value of a world view that celebrates cooperation, intelligence, curiosity, exploration, creativity, magic and diversity.

Danbert Nobacon will be at The Book Cellar in Lincoln Square at 7:00pm tonight (Thursday) for a reading, so you can get your own signed copy and meet the mastermind himself.