Love is the Message: Dance, Music and Counterculture

Latest Episodes:

LITM Extra - 'Rather be a Cyborg than a Goddess': Feminist Perspectives on Music pt.1 [excerpt] Jun 29, 2023

Show notes

This is an excerpt from a patrons episode. To hear the full show, and much more like this, head to Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

In this patrons-only bonus episode, Jeremy explores what it means to analyse music from a feminist perspective. Beginning with a literature review of both the various forms of feminism theorised in the 1970s, and the body of feminist music writing from the late 80s to the early 2000s, we hear about the work of important thinkers like Susan McClary, Simon Reynolds, Angela McRobbie and Judith Butler to tease out what the various feminist perspectives were and what the task of feminist music criticism might be.

We consider formal expressions of gender within music through Bach, Beethoven and Black Sabbath; spend time with the feminist post-punks Siouxie Sioux, Patti Smith and the Raincoats; think about how disco fits into all this; and consider the work of Laurie Anderson and Donna Haraway in the early 80s as they point towards a new form of cyborg feminism.

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.

Books and Articles:
Simon Frith and Angela McRobbie - Rock and Sexuality
Simon Reynolds and Joy Press - The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock and Roll
Richard Dyer - In Defence of Disco
Andy Beckett - I Promised You A Miracle: Why 1980-1982 Made Modern Britain
Donna Haraway - A Cyborg Manifesto

Tracklist:
JS Bach - The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 (Contrapunctus 1)
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
The Byrds - Wild Mountain Thyme
The Chicago Women's Liberation Rock Band - Mountain Moving Day
The Pleasure Seekers - What a Way To Die
Joni Mitchell - Woman of Heart and Mind
Siouxsie And The Banshees - Mirage (John Peel Sessions)
Patti Labelle - The Spirit’s in It
Donna Summer - I Feel Love
The Raincoats - Lola
The Raincoats - Dancing in my Head
Soft Cell - Say Hello, Wave Goodbye
Laurie Anderson - O Superman

Dancing with Finesse: History of Social Dance pt.1 Jun 22, 2023

Show notes

We say that LITM is a podcast about music, the dance floor, sound systems and counterculture, but we realise that we haven’t dedicated a show to dance floor practices for some time. So in this episode, Tim is in the hot seat to give us a quick primer on the history of social dance in the USA and beyond. With reference to the prevailing gender, class and power relations of their time, we learn about the surprising sensuousness of the Waltz, James P Johnson and the Charlston, the Lindy Hop, the Swing Age, The Twist and even Deadhead freakouts.

Calling into this history the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, Elvis, the Acid Tests and more, Tim charts a history of social dance spanning over 200 years, and bringing us to the doors of the Loft and the Sanctuary in the early 1970s, from where we’ll pick up next episode.

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Tracklist:

Johann Strauss II - The Blue Danube Waltz

James P Johnson - Charlston

Frankie Manning - Hellzapoppin

Count Basie - One O’Clock Jump

Hank Ballard & The Midnighters - The Twist

The Grateful Dead - Mama Tried (Live at Woodstock)

LITM Extra - The Prelude [excerpt] Jun 15, 2023

Show notes

This is an excerpt from a patrons-only episode. To hear this and much much more, become a patron at Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

In this patrons-only bonus episode, Tim draws on some recent research into David Mancuso’s record collection to share some tracks that might have been played during what he called ‘the prelude’ - the introductory portion of the night’s musical entertainment. Taking into account the different settings at both the Broadway and Prince Street Lofts, and David’s never-ending adjustments of the sound system, Tim explains what the prelude represented for the party, why hi-fi audio was crucial, and how the prelude changed across the 70s.

Drawing on the three bardos understanding of the acid trip, we explore why this gentle introduction to a night of dancing was an important innovation and select a range of pieces of music that we can speculate would have been played.

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.

Tracklist:

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks

Morgana King - A Taste of Honey

Aretha Franklin - Amazing Grace

Valerie Simpson - I Don’t Need No Help

Jean-Michel Jarre - Oxygene, Pt. 1

Gong - Bambooji

Norman Connors - You Are My Starship

Elliott Fisher - Land of Make Believe

Carl Orff - Fortune Plango Vulnera

Donald Byrd - Places & Spaces

Larry Levan Jun 08, 2023

Show notes

In this episode Jeremy is reunited with Tim to explore the early life and times of the legendary DJ Larry Levan. We hear about his youthful friendship with fellow DJ (and future leading light of House) Frankie Knuckles as they embed themselves deep in early 70s dance floor culture, taking us not just to discos but to rent parties, drag balls and The Continental Baths.

Naturally, we look at the role David Mancuso played both in inspiring Larry and in advancing his career, and shout out one of his less well-known mentors, T Scott, alongside the ever-present Nicky Siano. Tim and Jeremy also discuss shame, the Hustle and Mick Jagger’s strut, and ask the question: should we all be playing more musical theatre records?

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And check out our new website: https://www.loveisthemessagepod.co.uk/

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.

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Tracklist:
B.B. King - Philadelphia
Shirley & Company - Shame Shame Shame
Consumer Rapport - Ease On Down The Road
Donald Byrd - Change (Makes You Want To Hustle)
Babe Ruth - Elusive

LITM Extra - Deleuze and Guattari on Music [excerpt] Jun 01, 2023

Show notes

This is an excerpt from a patrons-only episode. To hear more, become a patron at patreon.com/LoveMessagePod

In this patrons-only episode Jeremy is once again flying solo on the podcast to explore the lives, ideas, and uses of the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Starting in the intellectual hotbed of late-60s Paris, Jeremy explains who the pair were, how they met, what their shared - somewhat heterodox - philosophical canon was, and how this was expressed in their two-volume work Capitalism and Schizophrenia.

Deleuze and Guattari are often seen as being very hard to comprehend, but Jeremy introduces us to concepts like schizoanalysis, deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation, the rhyzome, the refrain and the notorious body-without-organs in accessible and easy to digest language.

Through the work of both the composers cited by the philosophers and a good deal of musicians who weren’t, Jeremy shows how the radically materialist, non-dualist analysis of Deleuze and Guattari can help us understand how music works on us as listeners, with examples ranging from Messiaen to Keith Rowe and Kode9.

Books: Deleuze and Guattari - Anti-Oedipus Ian Buchanan - Reader’s Guide to Anti-Oedipus Deleuze and Guattari - A Thousand Plateaus Jeremy Gilbert and Ewan Pearson - Discographies Jeremy Gilbert - Common Ground Kojo Eshun - More Brilliant Than the Sun Ian Buchanan & Marcel Swiboda (eds) - Deleuze and Music Tim Lawrence - “In Defence of Disco (Again)”. New Formations, 58, Summer 2006 Jeremy Gilbert - “In Defence of 'In Defence of Disco’”, New Formations, 58, Summer 2006

Tracklist: Olivier Messiaen - Fête des Belles Eaux Olivier Messiaen - Chronochromie Mozart - Adagio for Glass Harmonica Schumann - Cello Concerto in A Minor mvt. 1 Debussy - Rêverie Spontaneous Music Ensemble - Karyobin Pt. 5 Keith Rowe - Ode Machine No. 2 Oval - SD II Audio Template Kode9 & The Spaceape - Sine of the Dub

The New Left pt.2 May 25, 2023

Show notes

In this episode Jeremy takes to the lectern for a two-hour mega-episode on the New Left in the second half of the Twentieth Century (and beyond). Picking up in the 1950s, where our previous episode concluded, we chart the full emergence of the New Left in various locations on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Students for a Democratic Society, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the anti-Vietnam war movement and more. Jeremy spends time explaining the pivotal year of 1968, with its raft of political assassinations, violent disorder at the Chicago Democratic Convention, and the barricades of Paris, set alongside the work of crucial thinkers like EP Thompson and Raymond Williams.

Jeremy contests the prevailing notion that the New Left laid the groundwork for the bourgeois individualism of the 80s, showing how its focus on anti-racist, feminist, anti-authoritarian politics, along with demands for maximum democratic freedom, can be traced all the way to the Bernie Sanders movement.

Jeremy relates the politics of the New Left to a series of musical scenes, including Krautrock in Germany, proto-punk in Detroit, West Coast acid rock, Feminist post-punk, Hawkwind, the Pet Shop Boys and more.

Next episode we return to NYC for our first encounter with Larry Levan.

Check out our new website: https://www.loveisthemessagepod.co.uk/

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.

Tune in, Turn on, Get Down!

Books: Raymond Williams - The Long Revolution Port Huron Statement, 1962 Guy Debord - The Society of the Spectacle Raoul Vaneigem - The Revolution of Everyday Life Eve Chiapello and Luc Boltanski - The New Spirit of Capitalism

Tracklist: Buffy Sainte-Marie - Universal Soldier Phil Ochs - I Ain’t Marching Anymore The Stooges - 1969 MC5 - Kick Out The Jams Jefferson Airplane - Volunteers Can - Mushroom Marvin Gaye - Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) Hawkwind - We Took The Wrong Step Years Ago Helen Reddy - I Am Woman Tom Robinson Band - Glad to be Gay T. Rex - Children of the Revolution The Strawbs - Part of the Union The Clash - Remote Control The Slits - Typical Girls Pet Shop Boys - Shopping

LITM Extra - What We're Listening To, May '23 [excerpt] May 18, 2023

Show notes

This is a patrons episode. To become a patron, head to Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

In this patrons-only bonus episode, Jeremy and Tim have a conversation about what music has been on their turntables recently.

Tim kicks things off with a bang - sigh - with a field recording of a thunderstorm and a lengthy conversation about New Age, David Mancuso’s wind machines, Frankie Knuckles and the -8 pitch control. Jeremy brings Deep House and Welsh Jazz harp, along with memories of the trials and tribulations of record shopping at Fat Cat Records.

Tim and Jeremy also return to Summer of Soul, share a lesser-known Pharoah Sanders cut, Afro-House floor fillers and dedicate some time to the life and work of Collin Curtis.

This is part 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.

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.

Tracklist:

Environments: Totally New Concepts in Sound - Ultimate Thunderstorm

Amanda Whiting - Little Sunflower

Ju Ju - Black Samba

Pharaoh Sanders - Oh Lord, Let Me Do No Wrong

Arturo Sandoval - Fiesta Mojo

Nina Simone - Are You Ready

Guinu - Palagô (Jose Marquez Remix)

Slam Mode - Monopole

Cignol - Modularity

Born Under A Rhyming Planet - Spasm Band

The New Left pt.1 May 11, 2023

Show notes

Following our last episode on the state of psychedelic culture in the 1970s, we wanted to expand the historical setting in which our series is situated. In that spirit, in this episode Jeremy goes solo, taking it all the way back to the 1790s for a historical primer on the New Left: a political tendency to emerge from the decline and split of the hegemonic left forces of the early and mid-century left tradition. In order to accurately explain who the New Left were - and to challenge a prevailing inaccurate story about what they achieved (more on that next episode) - we go back to the origins of the French Revolution for a refresher on what we mean by ‘left wing’. In a whistle stop tour, Jeremy explains the concepts of Liberalism, Conservatism and Radicalism, and the historical conjunctures that they emerged from.

We hear about the ‘old left’ of the Communist party and the USSR, exploring their aesthetic and political frameworks, and how the tendency fractured after 1956. For the music heads, Jeremy discusses the somewhat bogus ideas of popular authenticity that gave folk music a privileged position within the old left, and lays the groundwork for the more expressive libertarian art forms that would accompany the New Left. Plus the Spanish Civil War, Trotsky and the New Left Review.

Become a patron at Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.

Tune in, Turn on, Get Down!

Books:

Doris Lessing - The Golden Notebook

EP Thompson - The Making of the English Working Class

Tracklist:

Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger - Dirty Old Town

Peter, Paul & Mary - If I Had A Hammer

Trini Lopez - If I Had A Hammer

Ewan McColl & Peggy Seeger - The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

LITM Extra - The Schizo-Culture Conference pt.3 [excerpt] May 04, 2023

Show notes

This is an excerpt from a patrons-only episode. To hear the full podcast, plus much much more, become a patron at Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

Jeremy and Tim conclude this mini-series on the 1975 Schizo-Culture conference with a look at some of the other contributors to the event. They explore the rhizomatic theories of Gilles Deleuze and discuss desire with Felix Guattari, taking in the Steppe nomads, molecular revolution, and explaining why trees are bad as they go. We also hear about the composer John Cage and his Zen Buddhist influences, the Mudd Club, the internal pressures the conference faced, and ask whether it could be seen as a success.

Plus, minimalism, the Modern Lovers, and the meaning of ‘schizo’ in the conference title.

Books:

Deleuze and Guattari - A Thousand Plateaus

William Burroughs - Naked Lunch

Tracklist:

Spontaneous Music Ensemble - Forty Minutes pt.1

John Cage - 62 Mesostics Re Merce Cunningham

Steve Reich - Music for 18 Musicians

Eliane Radigue - Triptych pt.1

The Modern Lovers - Roadrunner

The State of 70s Psychedelia with Jesse Jarnow Apr 27, 2023

Show notes

In this episode we were extremely happy to welcome to the show the writer, podcaster and historian Jesse Jarnow to discuss the state of psychedelic culture in 1975. Jesse is the author of several books, including Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America, as well as the host of the official Grateful Dead podcast, so he is the perfect guide through the bardos of American drug history.

Jeremy and Jesse cover the history of modern urban psychedelic use through the Twentieth Century, including the boom in legal usage through the 50s and early 60s for multiple purposes: therapeutic, mystic, mind-control and goofing around. They go on to cover the shift in attitude towards psychedelics in the mid-60s, prohibition, and the racist antecedents of ‘reefer madness’. After getting reacquainted with Ginsburg and the Beats, we consider the veracity of the claim that the main schism in leftist organising in the 60s was between the old school straights in the SDS and the new unruly Hippies, and we spend time tripping on the couch with the Weavers.

Jesse gives a fascinating account of the ‘family tree’ of Owsley Stanley’s acid production, noting the various distribution networks and showing how writing history about something so secretive is not always easy! He introduces us to The Parkies - early NYC hippies living and turning on in Central Park - and reveals the links between Dead-related chemists and the Rajnish. And of course, all this acid use circles back round to our main story on the show, the NYC party scene and - you guessed it - The Loft.

We are really grateful to Jesse for coming on and being such a generous guest. We thoroughly encourage you to check out his podcast The Good Old Grateful Dead Cast at dead.net/deadcast, tune in to The Frow Show every Tuesday night on WFMU and learn more about Jesse’s work at jessejarnow.com.

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.

Tune in, Turn on, Get Down!

Books:

Jesse Jarnow - Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America

Jesse Jarnow - Big Day Coming: Yo La Tengo and the Rise of Indie Rock

Jesse Jarnow - Wasn't That a Time: The Weavers, the Blacklist, and the Battle for the Soul of America

Mike Jay - Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic

Stephen Stiff - Acid Hype: American News Media and the Psychedelic Experience

Jay Stevens - Storming Heaven; LSD and the American Dream

Ken Kesey - Electric Cool Aid Acid Test