Love is the Message: Dance, Music and Counterculture

Continuing our mini-series on post-punk, Jeremy and Tim turn their attention to the pre-history of a crucial NYC venue: The Mudd Club. Given Tim literally wrote the book on this stuff, he’s well-placed to tell the story of how three Downtowners got the idea, got the premises, agreed on the name (not without its difficulties) and threw open the doors. We revisit the blending of punk and dance cultures that was emerging in the city at the time, spend a moment in another club - Hurrah - and contemplate the pitfalls of punk. Elsewhere in the episode Jeremy recounts his indie disco escapades, we hear a very early iteration of Psycho Killer, and pour one out for the mighty B52s. Plus: John Wilkes Booth, Molotov cocktails, and Elvis.
Produced by Matt Huxley.
Become a patron at patreon.com/LoveMessagePod

https://www.loveisthemessagepod.co.uk/

Tracklist:

The Rolling Stones - Miss You

The Ramones - I Wanna Be Sedated

Talking Heads - Psycho Killer (Live at CBGB’s)

Elvis - Moody Blue

The Heartbreakers - Chinese Rocks

B52s - 52 Women 

We've dug into our vault of past episodes and unlocked this previously patrons-only interview from last year. To hear dozens more episodes like this from just £3 a month, visit Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

In episode we welcome writer and anti-fascist activist Joe Mulhall to the show to discuss his fantastic book Rebel Sounds: Music as Resistance, a survey across time and place of groups and cultures using musics as part of their resistance to forms of racism and imperialism. We hear about Irish rebel songs, Kneecap and an impromptu Irish history quiz in the toilets of a Wolftones gig; the role of Jazz, Blues and Soul in the Civil Rights Struggle; revisit Tropicalia with fresh eyes and ears; and fly to Nigeria for the Felabration in Lagos. Alongside these topics we consider how our personal tastes can divert from a music’s political power, US cultural hegemony, music in the USSR, 'bone records’, Two Tone, and bring things up to date with a trip to the trenches of Ukraine.

This is an excerpt from a patrons-only episode. To hear the full thing, plus dozens more, become a patron from £3 a month at Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

In this patrons episode we rejoin Arthur Russell in NYC as he takes up musical directorship of the supremely influential downtown arts centre The Kitchen. Jeremy and Tim discuss the Minimalist and Post-Minimalist stylings of the retinue of composer-performers in the area, including Christian Wolff and Rhys Chatham. We hear how Arthur - never a rock lover - became enamoured with the vernacular communication of the Modern Lovers, inviting them for a semi-legendary performance at his venue, and more broadly how their aesthetics of everydayness came to influence a slew of subsequent artists including Arthur himself.

Elsewhere in the episode the guys discuss the curious case of Frank Zappa, gong baths, and share some personal reflections on their experiences with Arthur's music.

Tracklist:
Christian Wolff - For 1,2 or 3 People
Rhys Chatham - Two Gongs
Arthur Russell - Eli
The Modern Lovers - Old World
Arthur Russell - I Forget and I Can’t Tell
The Modern Lovers - Roadrunner (Live at the Kitchen)
Frank Zappa - The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny
Peter Gordon - Machomusic

Grab your zines, dust off your stencils and customise your jackets because Jeremy and Tim are continuing our mini-series on post-punk with a healthy dollop of DIY culture. They discuss the infamous Sniffin’ Glue magazine, visit Dial House to ponder the ultimate UK DIY heroes Crass, and spin some of the most out-there No Wave cuts NYC had to offer. Elsewhere in the episode they dedicate time to outré post punk pioneers Devo, shout out the pipes on Lydia Lunch, dwell on punk’s dub and hip hop influences as expressed through a classic Clash track, and unpick the aesthetics of uptightness. Plus Glen Branca, Epping Forest and… Crosby Stills Nash & Young. 

Produced by Matt Huxley.

Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod

www.loveisthemessagepod.co.uk

Tracklist:

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Ohio

Devo - Satisfaction

Theoretical Girls - You Got Me

Alternative TV - Action Time Vision

The Clash - White Man in Hammersmith Palais

Teenage Jesus and the Jerks - Orphans

Crass - Sucks

This is an excerpt of a patrons-only episode. To hear the full thing, and dozens more like it, visit Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod to sign up from just £3 a month.

In this patrons episode we continue to unspool our mini-series on the great Arthur Russell. We rejoin the composer on the West Coast in the early 1970s, leaving him a few years later at the Manhattan School of Music as he prepares to move downtown. Along the way Tim and Jeremy discuss Arthur’s friendship with Allen Ginsberg, his experiences of Buddhism, and an early recording session with the poet and one Bob Dylan. Elsewhere we hear about William Blake, ‘beginner’s mind’, Ginsberg’s devotional music, hippie cowboys and Indian influences, and take a trip to Wales. In addition to his playing on the Ginsberg recordings, we also hear some of the first music composed by our subject.

Tracklist:
Allen Ginsberg - Wales Visitation
Allen Ginsberg - Pacific High Studio Mantras - Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hum
Allen Ginsberg - A Dream
Arthur Russell - Goodbye Old Paint 

Jeremy and Tim continue our mini-series on post-punk with a bit of 1978 scene-setting. Describing the inflationary crises, militant shop stewards and series of strikes in the UK and US, Jeremy paints a picture of the historic moment out of which a series of self-consciously anti-bourgeois bands were emerging. We hear about Jonny Rotten’s metamorphosis into John Lydon, take a moment to reflect on some of Leeds’ favourite sons the Gang of Four, and cross over to the Rust Belt to listen to an early track by Ohio’s own Pere Ubu. Sticking in the States, Tim spends time talking about Talking Heads’ second album More Songs About Buildings and Food, unleashes the Disco Clone, and enjoys the B52s Rock Lobster. Plus: Eno, Feminism, and the first ever thrift shop in NYC. 

Edited by Matt Huxley.

Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod

https://www.loveisthemessagepod.co.uk/

Tracklist:

Pere Ubu - The Modern Dance

Public Image Ltd - Public Image

Gang of Four - Damaged Goods

Al Green - Take Me to the River

Cristina - Disco Clone

B52s - Rock Lobster

Books:

Bernard Gendron - Between Montmartre and the Mudd Club 

UNLOCKED: we've decided to share this interview with writer Toby Manning that we originally distributed to patrons in May 2025. To hear dozen more bonus episodes on a vast array of topics, visit Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod to become a patron.

In this episode we welcome writer Toby Manning to the show to discuss his recent book Mixing Pop and Politics: A Marxist History of Popular Music. Toby's book offers a political reading of popular music, taking as its methodological starting point the songs found in the charts from the 1950s to the present day, to explore how the music people listen to reflects and resists the politics of their time in fascinating ways.

In this show Jeremy, Tim and Toby discuss the charts themselves, how we think of 'popular music', and discuss lyrics as a tool for analysis. This being LITM, we of course spend some time on the hits of the 1970s, but we hear also about '80s synth pop and yacht rock, Annie Lennox, MJ, and contemporary artists like FKA Twigs and Little Sims. Also found inside: the GLC, the High Sixties and Kneecap.

Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod

www.loveisthemessagepod.co.uk

This is an excerpt from a patrons-only episode. To hear the full thing and dozens more like it, visit Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod to sign up.

In this episode we begin a patrons mini-series on one of the most unique and beloved characters of the LITM story, Arthur Russell. Given Tim literally wrote the book on the singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist, you’re in good hands. We begin with the story of Arthur’s early life in Iowa and his move to San Francisco, including experiences with Buddhism and drugs, alongside musical instruction from the great Ali Akbar Khan. Tim and Jeremy paint a picture of Arthur’s explorations in countercultural living, refute the idea that he simply wasn’t good at finishing things, and introduce the musician as an avatar for the particular melting pot of NYC music and art culture. Join us next time to see us go bang…

Produced by Matt Huxley.

www.loveisthemessagepod.co.uk

Tracklist:

Arthur Russell - This Time Dad You’re Wrong 

Arthur Russell - That’s Us / Wild Combination

Ali Akbar Khan - Shri Rag

Terry Riley - In C 

On this week’s episode we return to 70s for the first of a mini-series on post-punk. A historical period, an unhelpful genre descriptor, a structure of feeling? Whatever it is, the guitar bands of the UK and NYC in 1978 were creating some serious music. Jeremy and Tim discuss where the term came from, what exactly the ‘punk’ it was following was, and some the music’s early proponents. With reference to The Slits, Wire, Talking Heads and more, we hear about the Hacienda, John Peel, Modernism and Mark E Smith. The guys unpack how funk and reggae were influencing bands like The Contortions in their experimentation with rhythm, visit the CBGB club in New York, and dispute received ideas about the division between punk and disco. Finally, we introduce a major character in out story over the coming months: Arthur Russell.

Tracklist:

The Slits - New Town (John Peel Session)

Wire - I Am the Fly

The Fall - Stepping Out

Talking Heads - Tentative Decisions

The Contortions - I Can’t Stand Myself 

Books:

Simon Reynolds - Rip It Up and Start Again

John Savage - ‘The New Musick’ in Time Travel

To hear the extended, 12", almost-2-hour version of this conversation, including discussion on Maximo Park, Kenickie and Bob Davenport, visit Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod and become a patron from just £3 a month.

In this episode of LITM Jeremy is joined by writer and editor of Tribune magazine Alex Niven to talk about the musical history of England’s North East. Our interest in this subject was piqued by Sam Fender’s victory in last year’s Mercury Music Prize. Fender is himself an artist indebted to our recent subject, Bruce Springsteen. Alex talks us through the particulars of the region, one of Britain’s main post-industrial heartlands, exploring through music various expressions of white working class identity and a particular form of masculinity that artists have variously embodied or pushed against. Jeremy and Alex discuss blues rock, ‘sophsti-pop’ and Sting, the folk club legacy of the North East, Richard Dawson, the smallpipes and the Sultans of Swing.

Alex Niven is the author of Folk Opposition, Definitely Maybe for 33 1/3, New Model Island: How to Build a Radical Culture Beyond the Idea of England and The North Will Rise Again: In Search of the Future in Northern Heartlands.

Tracklist:

Sam Fender - Seventeen Going Under

The Animals - House of the Rising Sun

The Animals - We Gotta Get Outta This Place

Eric Burdon and War - Spill the Wine

Lindisfarne - Clear White Light

Alan Hull - I Hate to See You Cry

Lindisfarne - Fog on the Tyne

Dire Straits - Sultans of Swing

Pet Shop Boys - Being Boring

Sting - All This Time

Richard Dawson - The Vile Stuff

Sam Fender - People Watching

Kathryn Tickell - Bone Music