Love is the Message: Dance, Music and Counterculture

Latest Episodes:

Motown to Salsoul pt.1: Music in the Age of Fordism Jul 15, 2021

Show notes

In this week's episode Tim and Jeremy begin the first of a three part series-within-a-series connecting the dots between Motown and Salsoul. We start with Fordism, Antonio Gramsci's term for both the industrial practices of Henry Ford and the wider post-war settlement in which they occurred.
Tim and Jeremy discuss how the experience of Ford's production lines inspired Berry Gordy to create Motown Records, the groups and solo acts birthed by the label, and the emergent cultural norms they both expressed and reacted to. We also hear about the changing patterns of employment for musicians in the post-war era, the bohemia of Jazz and the Beats, and the imminent, embodied and sexual power of Funk.
Tim Lawrence and Jeremy Gilbert are authors, academics, DJs and audiophile dance party organisers. They’ve been friends and collaborators since 1997, teaching together and running parties since 2003. With clubs closed and half their jobs lost to university cuts, they’re inevitably launching a podcast.

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.
We are committed to making Love is the Message free to everyone who wants it, but if you have the means, please become a supporter by visiting www.patreon.com/LoveMessagePod for as little as £3 a month so we can stay free.
Tune in, Turn on, Get Down!
Tracklist:

Ike Turner & His Kings of Rhythm - Rocket 88
The Miracles - I Got a Job
Martha and the Vendellas - Third FInger, Left Hand
Lennie Tristano - These Foolish Things
Bob Dylan - Times They Are A Changing
The Shangri-Las - I Can Never Go Home Anymore
James Brown - Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine

LITM Extra - What We're Listening To, July '21 [excerpt] Jul 11, 2021

Show notes

This is an excerpt of a full length episode currently only available to patrons. To become a patron and support what we're doing from £3 per month, head to www.patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.
In this patrons-only bonus episode, Jeremy and Tim have a conversation about what music they're listening to at the moment. Tim and Jeremy discuss Afro-psychedelia, chill out rooms and ambient music, and how best to use the sound system at the start of a party. They also talk about rock & roll, contemporary harp, and give as a taste of a new label reissuing some of the earliest dance edits from Francois K and Walter Gibbons.
The two tracks discussed are:
Noel Brass Jr - Prism Jousting
Marty Wilde - Jezebel
Mary Lattimore - Jimmy V
Sunshine Sound - I Feel Love Medley (Francois K Edit)
If you like the clips we played, we'd encourage you to support the artists and buy the tracks, most of which are available on bandcamp. And be sure to check out Moonshine Sound for more historic reissues: https://moonshinesound.bandcamp.com/music
Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.

Rewind! Early DJ Culture pt.2 Jul 08, 2021

Show notes

In this week's episode Tim and Jeremy continue their two-part look at early DJ practices. They consider the role played by the personality-focused radio DJs of the late '60s, interrogating the relationships between these radio jocks, the party DJs, and the record companies, and the conditions that led to the establishment of the NYC Record Pool.

Tim and Jeremy also take an in depth look at other aspects of DJ culture, including early mixing techniques, beat juggling and turntablism, as well as charting the history of the first dancefloor-focused remixes. Finally, they consider whether the figure of the DJ - branded, mobile, and able to process large amounts of musical information on behalf of a paying public - prefigures the ideal neoliberal subject.
Tim Lawrence and Jeremy Gilbert are authors, academics, DJs and audiophile dance party organisers. They’ve been friends and collaborators since 1997, teaching together and running parties since 2003. With clubs closed and half their jobs lost to university cuts, they’re inevitably launching a podcast.
Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.
We are committed to making Love is the Message free to everyone who wants it, but if you have the means, please become a supporter by visiting www.patreon.com/LoveMessagePod for as little as £3 a month so we can stay free.
Tune in, Turn on, Get Down!
Tracklist:
Love Unlimited Orchestra - Love's Theme
Manu Dibango - New Bell
Incredible Bongo Band - Apache
Rare Earth - Happy Song
The Glass Family - Smoke Your Troubles Away
Jakki - Sun Sun Sun (Walter Gibbons Remix)

Early DJ Culture pt.1 Jul 01, 2021

Show notes

In this week's episode Tim and Jeremy turn their attention to the wheels of steel, and the inhabitants of late 1960s and early 1970s New York who played them. We hear about the overwhelmingly Italian American young men who first pioneered the scene, the various public discotheques in which they performed, and the numerous technical innovations which advanced the craft.
Tim and Jeremy also contrast the emergent New York scene with the soundsystem culture of Jamaica by considering the extent to which both could be thought of as assemblages of dancers, DJs, MCs and equipment, and share how rudimentary advances in beatmatching and mixing laid the groundwork for what we would consider today as the DJing archetype.
Tim Lawrence and Jeremy Gilbert are authors, academics, DJs and audiophile dance party organisers. They’ve been friends and collaborators since 1997, teaching together and running parties since 2003. With clubs closed and half their jobs lost to university cuts, they’re inevitably launching a podcast.
Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.
We are committed to making Love is the Message free to everyone who wants it, but if you have the means, please become a supporter by visiting www.patreon.com/LoveMessagePod for as little as £3 a month so we can stay free.
Tune in, Turn on, Get Down!
Tracklist:
The Chamber Brothers - Time Has Come Today
The Upsetters with Lee 'Scratch' Perry - Black Panta
Chicago - I'm A Man
Eddie Kendricks - Girl You Need a Change of Mind
The Joneses - Sugar Pie Guy
Zulema - Giving Up

Turn Off Your Mind, Relax and Float Downstream... Jun 24, 2021

Show notes

In this week's episode Tim and Jeremy are tuning in and dropping out as we talk all things Acid. We hear a history of the psychedelic movement within the Anglophone world, taking in the accidental maiden trip of chemist Albert Hoffmann, the activities of Timothy Leary at Millbrook and the Merry Pranksters on their Magic Bus, and The Beatles' musical rendering of the classic trip.
Tim and Jeremy also consider how dancing is incorporated into the Acid experience, with a grateful nod to the role played by the Dead and their sound engineer Owsley Stanley, and draw out the tensions between the post-war consumer culture and the emergent psychedelic movement that rendered Acid such a uniquely potent political - as well as pharmacological - phenomenon.
Note: At Love is the Message, we don't encourage our listeners to take Acid, which is of course illegal! Also, more prosaically, in this episode Jeremy refers to Ralph ‘Metzinger’ - he is of course talking about Ralph Metzner, the American psychologist and not Thomas Metzinger the contemporary American philosopher.
Tim Lawrence and Jeremy Gilbert are authors, academics, DJs and audiophile dance party organisers. They’ve been friends and collaborators since 1997, teaching together and running parties since 2003. With clubs closed and half their jobs lost to university cuts, they’re inevitably launching a podcast.
Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.
We are committed to making Love is the Message free to everyone who wants it, but if you have the means, please become a supporter by visiting www.patreon.com/LoveMessagePod for as little as £3 a month so we can stay free.
Tune in, Turn on, Get Down!
Tracklist:
Ali Akbar Khan and Ravi Shankar - Raga Palas Kafi
The Grateful Dead - Alice D. Millionaire
The Beatles - Tomorrow Never Knows
Country Joe and the Fish - The Acid Commercial
Country Joe and the Fish - Colours for Susan
Charles Earland - Leaving This Planet

New York in the 1960s Jun 17, 2021

Show notes

In the first episode of our new series looking in depth at the transformative decade of 1965-75, Tim Lawrence and Jeremy Gilbert discuss the pivotal position of New York City in the 1960s. They contrast the emergent New York with the fading Paris as centres of cultural and political life, taking in such important assemblages as the Greenwich Village Folk scene and Andy Warhol's Factory. Tim and Jeremy also discuss the contrasting schools of Jazz during the period - free, bebop and cool - and consider how the changing demographics of the city, forever a melting pot, led to the introduction of salsa to the New York audiences. The episode also takes in the various manifestations of the aesthetics of minimalism across the city, and ties it all back to David Mancuso's ear for the perfect lyric.
Tim Lawrence and Jeremy Gilbert are authors, academics, DJs and audiophile dance party organisers. They’ve been friends and collaborators since 1997, teaching together and running parties since 2003. With clubs closed and half their jobs lost to university cuts, they’re inevitably launching a podcast.
Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.
If you've enjoyed the show so far, please do tell your friends and share on social media – it really helps us spread the show to a bigger audience. We are committed to making Love is the Message free to everyone who wants it, but if you have the means, please become a supporter by visiting www.patreon.com/LoveMessagePod for as little as £3 a month so we can stay free.
Tune in, Turn on, Get Down!
Tracklist:
Ornette Coleman - Free Jazz (part one)
Joan Baez - Joe Hill
The Velvet Underground - Heroin
Lamonte Young - 31 VII 69 10:26 - 10:49 PM
Ray Barretto - Acid
Miles Davis Quintet - Stuff
James Brown - Think (Live at the Apollo Volume 2)
Petula Clark - Downtown

LITM Extra - What We're Listening To, June '21 [excerpt] Jun 03, 2021

Show notes

This is an excerpt of a full length episode currently only available to patrons. To become a patron and support what we're doing from £3 per month, head to www.patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.
In this patrons-only bonus episode, Jeremy and Tim have a conversation about what music they're listening to at the moment. We had planned to listen to 6 or 7 tracks, but the conversation was flowing and so we only managed 2. Tim and Jeremy discuss the British jazz revival, taking in labels like Gilles Peterson's Brownswood and venues like the Total Refreshment Centre; their own recent experience of throwing parties in East London; developing a more global musical palette than that offered by David Mancuso; and the changing patterns of migration that feed into interesting syntheses of international musics.
This is the first of a rough series of more conversational, unplanned episodes reflecting on what's been on our record players recently and what we've been up to that we'll be releasing to patrons to say thank you for your support. Hold tight for news about a live seminar series with Tim and Jeremy - more info when we have it.
The two tracks discussed are:
Lokkhi Terra mmets Dele Sosimi - Afro Sambroso
KOKOROKO - Abusey Junction
If you like the clips we played, we'd encourage you to support the artists and buy the tracks, both of which are available on bandcamp.
Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.

Why the ’70s? May 27, 2021

Show notes

In this final episode of our introductory series, Jeremy and Tim dig into why the 1970s was such a crucial decade for political, social and musical innovation. Challenging the negative image of the ’70s so popularly held, they discuss the crucial importance of the era's global anti-colonial movements, and its liberation struggles around gender, sexuality and race, which found expression in music through punk, disco, afrobeat, reggae and proto-rap.
Tim and Jeremy also take on the thesis that the Counterculture of the late ’60s and early ’70s served purely as a precursor to neoliberalism, arguing that countercultural movements represented a genuine rebellion against the rigidity and conformity of the postwar settlement. Finally, with an eye to the dancefloor, they discuss how the decade saw the emergence of the DJ, and later the remixer, and the technical innovations both of early mixing and of the 12" single.
We're now taking a couple of weeks off, after which Love is the Message will return with a new series of 8 episodes, looking in depth at the period 1965–1975 with all the good musical, political and social commentary you'd expect.
If you've enjoyed the show so far, please do tell your friends and share on social media – it really helps us spread the show to a bigger audience. We are committed to making Love is the Message free to everyone who wants it, but Tim, Jeremy and producer Matt have all been hit hard by the Coronavirus pandemic, so if you have the means, please become a supporter by visiting www.patreon.com/LoveMessagePod for as little as £3 a month so we can stay free.
Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.
Tune in, Turn on, Get Down!
Cristina - Disco Clone
Max Romeo - Socialism Is Love
Machine - There But For The Grace Of God, Go I
Gil Scott-Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Mirage
Kraftwerk - Trans Europe Express
Brian Eno - Music for Airports pt1
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks - Burning Rubber
Dinosaur L - Go Bang

Love, Love, Love May 20, 2021

Show notes

In this week's episode, Tim and Jeremy are discussing love as the central affect of countercultural dance practice. They talk about the heteronormativity of the post-war period and the queerness of many male '60s pop singers, the religious antecedents to both the anti-war and the psychedelic movements, and the embrace of love as a universal force in both rock and jazz music of the period. They describe a continuum of dancefloor experience that runs from spiritual rapture to eroticised mating ritual, and place the collective experience of shared ecstacy through dance along that time. Finally, Tim and Jeremy recount the special place David Mancuso held for songs about love, and reflect on how Coronavirus has deprived us of that special type of dancefloor friendship.
Join us next week as Tim and Jeremy ask - why the '70s?

Tim Lawrence and Jeremy Gilbert are authors, academics, DJs and audiophile dance party organisers. They’ve been friends and collaborators since 1997, teaching together and running parties since 2003. With clubs closed and half their jobs lost to university cuts, they’re inevitably launching a podcast.

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.

Become a supporter by visiting our Patreon at patreon.com/lovemessagepod
Tracklist:
Big Mamma Thornton - Hound Dog
Elvis - Hound Dog
Love - Alone Again Or
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme pt1, Acknowledgement
Weldon Irvine - Love Your Brother
MFSB - Love Is The Message
Donna Summer - I Feel Love

The Dancefloor May 13, 2021

Show notes

In this week’s episode, Tim and Jeremy chart the emergence of the dancefloor as a site of important cultural practice. From the frigid discotheques of the 1960s to the wild abandon of the all night dancing that would explode in popularity just a few years later, we hear how the role of the DJ changed in both technical innovation and relationship with the crowd, the types of people who were heading onto the dancefloors of the early 1970s, and the repressive society they were seeking to cast off. Tim and Jeremy also discuss David Mancuso’s early audiophile experiments, the parallel sonic explorations also taking place in the sound systems of Jamaica, and draw similarities and differences between dancing and another ’70s activity, jogging.
Join us next week as Tim and Jeremy ask - is love really all you need?
Tim Lawrence and Jeremy Gilbert are authors, academics, DJs and audiophile dance party organisers. They’ve been friends and collaborators since 1997, teaching together and running parties since 2003. With clubs closed and half their jobs lost to university cuts, they’re inevitably launching a podcast.
Produced and edited by Matt Huxley
Become a supporter by visiting our Patreon at patreon.com/lovemessagepod
Tracklist:
Babatunde Olatunji - Jin-Go-Lo-Ba
Eddie Kendricks - Girl You Need a Change of Mind
The Revolutionaries - Kunta Kinte Dub
Chuck Mangione - Land of Make Belief
Taana Gardner - Work That Body

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Love is the Message: Dance, Music and Counterculture

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected