It should be understood from the beginning that this is no history of any artist. Unlike a lot of stuff I do, you’ll get no profile here. If you don’t know the artist in question, make that mouse work for ya dude, I got better things to do. This is just an investigation into what happened to the artist after their fame waned, or seemed to. In the case of Timbuk3, it’s always seemed to me that their fleeing popularity was not based on the song being great, but literally on gimmicks, three in number. One: the name of the band, a clear play on the place Timbuktu, which for some reason I’ve never been able to understand was always used in Ireland as a catch-all for a faraway or unlikely place, usually in response to the question “Where are you off to at this time of the night (or similar)?” to be answered “I’m going to Timbuktu!” Or the other idea, you might as well be going to Timbuktu as there! I firmly believe that at this time - 1970s/80s - there weren’t a whole lot of people in Ireland who had the first idea where Timbuktu was. In fact, I thought for a very long time it was a made up place like Narnia or Middle Earth.
Anyway, that’s one. The other gimmick was the cover of the single (and album), which couldn’t help but draw attention. I mean, it’s a friggin’ donkey. With a TV set on its back. If that’s not going to make you stop and look again, well, what can I say? Third then is the title of the single, their only hit. It’s just something that again attracts interest. It’s long, it’s a clever pun and it looks good on the cover. But was it a good song? Meh, it was all right. Have a listen. Nothing special.
It came from the debut album
Welcome to Timbuk3 (more clever wordplay there) and was the only single taken from that, giving the band an almost top-twenty hit on both sides of the Atlantic (21 in the UK, 19 in the USA). Apparently the lyric has been misinterpreted, but **** that, not interested. So What happened after that album, which, after the initial success of the single, completely failed to follow its popularity and bombed, just falling outside the top fifty in the UK and barely making it into the top 50 in the US? Well, undaunted, they went on, it seems, releasing no less than six more albums between 1985 and 1997, none of which did anything. Their second,
Eden Alley couldn’t even haul itself into the top 100 Stateside and was totally ignored in the UK, while a similar fate befell their next five efforts on both sides of the water.
Singlewise, there was a small bit of movement, with 1987’s “Life is Hard” peeping nervously into the American top 40 before falling back out, making only the number 35 slot, and ignored in the UK, as would every single (sorry) single of theirs be for the next ten years. They may have said “All I Want for Christmas (Is World Peace)” that same year, but unlike John Lennon’s timeless simple classic, nobody in the world was interested and the song made no impression whatever anywhere. The only slight impact they had after that - more a slight indentation than an impact really - was when their ridiculously-titled “Rev Jack and His Roamin’ Cadillac Church” (uh, what?) briefly visited the USA at number 35. The sensible English wanted nothing to do with this American nonsense at all - Cadillacs indeed! Hadn’t that Springsteen fellow sung about those? Twice? No thank you, we’ll stick with our Rovers and our Ford Granadas thank you very much!
Nobody was interested in their “National Holiday” (seriously? For a band who came up with such a cool and hip title for their hit, how had they not the sense to release something with a bit more snap to it?) and when they finally tried one more time, in 1995, declaring “I Wanna Funk with Your Mind”, everyone told them to funk off, except the Australians, who shrugged and allowed the single a tiny foothold at 99, then thought better of it and let it fall into obscurity, where any song with a title like that, not written by a funk or at least black band, deserves to be sent. The idea!
They were nominated as one of several Best New Artists by the Grammys for 1987 (which possibly just goes to show what the Grammys know about music!) along with Simply Red and Glass Tiger, but were beaten to it by Bruce Hornsby and the Range, and for some reason released a greatest hits package in 1992. I mean, come on: they had ONE hit single (and not a huge one - it just barely made top twenty) and that was it. What was on the album? Sixteen remixes of “The Future’s So Bright”? Never understand that. Whatever, that more or less marked the end of their career as a band, but not as musical artists, it would seem.
A two-piece consisting of a husband and wife, Timbuk3 now perform separately, Barbara Kooyman with her own solo albums, of which she has three now, though she says she “also performs the Timbuk3 material.” Again, I say what - that one single? Nobody else seems to know any of the other songs, even on the debut album. I just bet they’re all shouting for “Facts about Cats”, “Friction” or “Shame on You”. Yeah. Right. To be fair to her, Kooyman has also set up a sort of foundation, called Artists for Media Diversity (a4md.org),which she says “exists to restore the purity and power of the spiritual relationship between music and radio. A4MD can help you bring your radio station and your listeners back to the roots of the magic before music became heavily commercialized.” Right. Not quite Save the Children, then.
And what of her ex-hubby? Is he an ex-hubby? Well, yes he is; they're divorced and Pat MacDonald now lives in Spain, apparently, and continues to tour. With what? Well it seems he’s, in the words of the most famous song he and his ex-wife recorded, doing all right, though whether he’s getting good grades or not is another thing. He’s released three solo albums of his own, heavy on the acoustic guitar and with a Middle Eastern vibe (it says here) and recently - well, 2019 - released an album of, um, Depeche Mode covers. Good for him. I guess.
No. I’m not going to say it.
I’m not.
No.
No.
Oh all right then, if you insist.
Enjoy the silence.
Result of Case No. THDAMMXXII-VII-IV/01/01
