Love is the Message: Dance, Music and Counterculture

This is an excerpt from a patrons-only episode. To hear the full thing and a hell of a lot more, visit Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

Timothée Chalamet is currently lighting up the silver screen as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. Have you seen in? We haven’t, but we still thought it high time to dig into some Dylanology. In this episode Tim and Jeremy discuss Bob’s early albums up to 1966, interrogating his intentions, his seriousness, his self-mythology, and whether he invented rock music.

Tracklist:
Bob Dylan - Song to Woody
Bob Dylan - Blowin’ in the Wind
Bob Dylan - Chimes of Freedom
Bob Dylan - Mr Tambourine Man

Tim and Jeremy are back on European soil for our second episode on Eurodisco. Examining their record boxes with a post-colonial lens they discuss the aesthetics and politics of race within the genre. We also here about homoeroticism, history-themed tracks, ‘the honky box’, and the life and times of two of the key players in the scene: Jacques Morali and Richie Rome.
And of course… Village People.

Next time – Moroder!

Tracklist:
The Ritchie Family - Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
The Ritchie Family - African Queens
Village People - San Francisco
Boney M - Ma Baker
Boney M - New York City

This is an excerpt from a patrons-only episode. To hear the full show and lots more like it, visit Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

For the first time in a while Tim and Jeremy dig into their record bags for a selection of tracks they’ve been enjoying recently. We hear the strange deep tones of the Rudra Veena, contemporary virtuosic New Age noodling out of California and some Antipodean sitar funk. Elsewhere in the episode Jeremy buys his first D’n’B white label in a long while, we get a few tributes to some big names of the UK scene, and revisit the mighty WAR.

Tracklist:

Madhuvanti Pal - Bhairavi (Part 1)
Turn On the Sunlight - Floating Sunset
Glass Beams - Black Sand
War - War is Coming! War is Coming!
Yannis & The Yaw - Walk Through Fire
Vibration Black Finger - New Wave (The Hustle Bustle Song)
Ariwo - El Alacrán
Sami Galbi - Dakchi Hani
Big Bud - Cloudsurfing
Calabra - Mazzara Return
The Mighty Zaf & Linkwood - Thinking About Phlash

This is an excerpt from a patrons-only episode. To hear the full thing and a whole lot more besides, visit Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

For the first time in a while Tim and Jeremy dig into their record bags for a selection of tracks they’ve been enjoying recently. We hear the strange deep tones of the Rudra Veena, contemporary virtuosic New Age noodling out of California and some Antipodean sitar funk. Elsewhere in the episode Jeremy buys his first D’n’B white label in a long while, we get a few tributes to some big names of the UK scene, and revisit the mighty WAR.

Tracklist:

Madhuvanti Pal - Bhairavi (Part 1)

Glass Beams - Black Sand

In the first episode of 2025 Jeremy and Tim attempted to understand a somewhat maligned genre: Eurodisco. What is it and where did it come from? We hear about the cross-continental currents that gave rise to the form, unpack its aesthetics and spend time with some of its key proponents like the French composer and drummer Cerrone. Tim and Jeremy also take time to unpack the Switched On Classics, play us an infamous Beethoven reinvention, ask what the Enlightenment has to answer for, and compare Eurodisco and another genre that riles people up, prog rock.

Tracklist:

The Walter Murphy Band - A Fifth of Beethoven 

Kongas - Jungle

Cerrone - Love in C Minor

Love and Kisses - I’ve Found Love (Now That I’ve Found You) 

This is an excerpt from a patrons-only episode. To hear the full show and lots more, visit Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

On this patrons episode we complete our close reading of Resistance through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain’. Jeremy and Tim take in chapters on criminality and culture, Style, and feminist analysis of girls’ culture. They refer to another seminal work ‘Policing the Crisis’, interrogate the links between class and generational consciousness, and return to the Mods, alongside Taylor Swift and Ray Davis.

Jeremy and Tim also examine the long theoretical introduction to the book - a watershed piece of writing in the development of cultural studies. 

Tracklist:

In this episode of Love is the Message Jeremy and Tim have packed a bag chock full of stone cold 1977 dance floor classics that share a Black Disco aesthetic. We hear a number of cuts from Tom Moulton and Walter Gibbons that can be pinpointed as some of the most important contributions to early remix culture (whilst still guaranteed to go off at a party). François K makes a fleeting appearance, alongside Boney M, Grace Jones, Miami, the SalSoul Orchestra and Henri Bergson. We close out the show with an all-timer in Lamont Dozier’s ‘Going Back to my Roots’. Enjoy this week listeners, as next time we’re taking on Euro Disco… 

Due to licensing issues, we can only play short clips of the music discussed. If you’d like to listen along to the full tracks, we have an ever-expanding Spotify playlist hosting (most) of the tracks played in the show. You can find Series 6 here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ZpKyqhvhOXfTuPMHCBkFs

Produced by Matt Huxley.

Tracklist:

CJ & Co - Devil’s Gun (Tom Moulton Mix)
Elton John - Bite Your Lip (Get Up and Dance) (Tom Moulton Mix)
First Choice - Dr Love (Tom Moulton Mix)
Loleatta Holloway - Hit and Run (Walter Gibbons Mix)
Rare Earth - Happy Song (François K Edit)
T-Connection - Do What You Wanna Do
Peter Brown - Do You Wanna Get Funky With Me?
Sine - Keep It Coming
Lamont Dozier - Going To My Roots

This is an excerpt from a patrons-only episode. To hear the full show, plus dozens more like it, visit Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

We start this patrons episode with a tribute to Phil Cohen, a colleague of Jem and Tim’s at UEL and a fellow traveller to the Birmingham cultural studies writers discussed in this episode. From there we pick up where we left off in our reading of the seminal edited collection ‘Resistance Through Rituals’. Tim and Jem cover the two ethnographies of 70s drug use found in the book - weed and acid if you’re wondering - before rolling on to a disappointed essay on the Commune movement. We hear about Tim’s experience on a Kibbutz, The Farm and a funky cut from YES.

Produced by Matt Huxley.

Tracklist:

The Farm Band - Loving You
Bob Marley and the Wailers - Duppy Conqueror
Big Joe Turner - Shake Rattle and Roll

In this episode Tim and Jeremy continue the story of Frankie Knuckles first year at the controls of the seminal Chicago nightclub, the Warehouse. We hear an investigation of Frankie’s early musical aesthetic, how it would lend itself to the development of the House sound some years later, and whether stability or dynamism are better for a pumping dance floor.

Tracklist:

Pam Todd & Love Exchange - Let’s Get Together

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

In this patrons episode we begin a reading series on a book we mentioned in the last episode: ‘Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain’, edited by Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson. This collection, first published in 1975, is a classic of the cultural studies reading list, but upon revisiting it for this show Jeremy and Tim found its content extremely pertinent to the project of this podcast. So, in true LITM style, why have one episode when you can have many? As such today we embark on a deep reading of the volume, starting with the first three chapters.

Tracklist: