list

ACFM

podcasts and talks

Welcome to ACFM, the home of the weird left. Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn bring you a show examining the links between left-wing politics, culture, music and experiences of collective joy.

Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert dig into the politics of folk. With music from The Pogues, Steeleye Span and Enigma, the gang discuss island cults, progressive patriotism, Communist folkies and the pitfalls of accelerationism. Turn on, tune in, muck out!

Music: Woodie Guthrie - You Gotta Join That One Big Union / Steeleye Span - Hard Times of Old England / The Pogues - The Irish Rover / The Incredible String Band - The Hedgehog's Song / Ewan MacColl and The Pogues - Dirty Old Town / Billy Bragg - A New England / Enigma - Return To Innocence

Books: Alex Niven - Folk Opposition / Simon Reynolds & Joy Press - The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock 'n' Roll / Raymond Williams - Culture and Society; The Country and the City / Fred Turner - From Counterculture to Cyberculture / Alex Williams & Nick Srnicek - Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work / Simon L. Lewis & Mark A. Maslin - The Human Planet

Film and TV: The Wicker Man / Blood on Satan’s Claw / Straw Dogs / Deliverance / The Owl Service / The Good Life

Other: My Albion podcast

Produced and edited by Chal Ravens and Matt Huxley. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

Novara Audio: Radio For A Different Politics  

#ACFM Trip 15: Folk

Jeremy Gilbert hits the road for a musical microdose accompanying the #ACFM Trip on Folk. Connecting different strands of folk music with their various political tendencies, Jeremy looks at the communism of Woody Guthrie and the singers of the Dust Bowl era, the Vietnam protest music of Bob Dylan and the Greenwich Village scene, and the folk psychedelia of the Incredible String Band and Vashti Bunyan.

The episode includes over 40 musical examples spanning a period of around 100 years.

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

Novara Audio: Radio for a Different Politics

#ACFM Microdose: Jeremy Gilbert on Folk Music

In this extended Trip, Keir Milburn, Nadia Idle and Jeremy Gilbert wrestle with the idea of “the long '90s”: a set of cultural, political and affective assumptions that have outlasted the 20th century, and from which a certain cohort of today's politicians, commentators, columnists cannot seem to escape.

With music from Massive Attack, Stereolab and Kula Shaker, the gang discuss to what extent the long '90s were shaped by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and the Chinese Communist Party, how "new laddism" emerged as a riposte to cultural pluralism, and what people really meant when they declared "the end of history". Finally, they agree to disagree on the musical and social value of Britpop.

Music: Roni Size - 'Brown Paper Bag' / M-Beat ft. General Levy - 'Incredible' / Kula Shaker - '303' / Spice Girls - 'Wannabe' / Stereolab - 'Ping Pong' / Asian Dub Foundation - 'Fortress Europe'

Books and articles: Eric Hobsbawm - The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991 / Gavin Mueller - 'Stereolab's Revolutionary Horizon' / Francis Fukuyama - The End of History and the Last Man

Produced and edited by Chal Ravens and Matt Huxley. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

#ACFM Trip 16: The Long '90s

The Perfect Life is an epic electronic soul track, which showcases the collaborations album to dramatic effect. Wayne Coyne from The Flaming Lips joins Moby to deliver an uplifting and melodic anthem.

The track is taken from Moby's forthcoming album, 'Innocents', which is out on Sept 30, pre-order 'Innocents' here:
Deluxe CD: http://smarturl.it/innocents2cd?IQid=soundcloud.description
iTunes LP: http://smarturl.it/innocentsitunes?IQid=soundcloud.description
Double Gatefold LP + CD: http://smarturl.it/innocentslp?IQid=soundcloud.description

The much anticipated video for the The Perfect Life was shot in L.A with Coyne and Moby dressed up as a Mexican mariachi band. Watch it here: youtu.be/t3ZDqe5j4q8

The casting call was posted on Moby’s Facebook and included some very specific extras, "S&M gimp rhythmic gymnast", "eight roller-skating ghosts", "12 goth choir members", "2 obese bearded bikers in red speedos", "a punk rock brass brand" and " a drunk king: guy with beard age 35-50".

Pre-order Innocents

Another Perfect Life (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn bring you #ACFM, a new show examining the links between left-wing politics and culture, music and experiences of collective joy. In this episode: what is - or was - the counterculture? What is 'Acid Corbynism'? And is expanding consciousness anti-political? You can find the Acid Corbynism project on Facebook. http://novaramedia.com/?p=11481

PRS LICENCE NUMBER: LE-0016481

#ACFM – Trip 1: Out of the Box

Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert discuss the politics of collective joy.

Edited and produced by Olivia Humphreys, Matt Huxley and Matt Phull.

PRS LICENCE NUMBER: LE-0016481

Tracks featured:

Martha and the Vandellas - Dancing in the streets
MFSB - Love is the message
Orbital - Halcyon
Chumbawamba - Tubthumping
Sun Ra - UFO

Books referenced:

Baruch Spinoza - Ethics
Lynne Segal - Radical Happiness: Moments of Collective Joy.
Barbara Ehrenreich - Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy.
Jeremy Gilbert - Common Ground: Democracy and Collectivity in an Age of Individualism.
John Protevi - Political Affect: Connecting the Social and the Somatic.
E. P. Thompson - Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism.
Sigmund Freud - Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego.

Novara Media Podcast

#ACFM – Trip 2: Collective Joy

Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert discuss the weird left.
Edited and produced by Olivia Humphreys, Matt Huxley and Matt Phull.

Jeremy Gilbert will be speaking with Erik Davis in London at the end of June: https://www.facebook.com/events/2299886550339374/

PRS LICENCE NUMBER: LE-0016481

Tracks featured:
The Fall – The Theme from Sparta FC
Captain Beefheart – Sun Zoom Spark
Throbbing Gristle – Discipline (Manchester) 
Laraaji - All of a Sudden

Texts referred to:
Normie Socialism or Communist Transgression, An interview with Kate Doyle Griffiths, Red Wedge Magazine: http://www.redwedgemagazine.com/online-issue/normie-socialism-or-communist-transgression-red-wedge-interviews-kate-doyle-griffiths
Counterculture Through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House - Ken Goffman and Dan Joy.
Keep Socialism Weird, Peter Frase: http://www.peterfrase.com/2018/10/keep-socialism-weird/
Mark Fisher & Jeremy Gilbert Reclaim Modernity : http://www.compassonline.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Compass-Reclaiming-Modernity-Beyond-markets_-2.pdf
Joe Kennedy Authentocrats (Repeater Books, 2018)
Erik Davis High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies (Strange Attractor Press, 2019).

#ACFM – Trip 3: The Weird Left

Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert discuss love and hate. 
Edited and produced by Olivia Humphreys, Matt Huxley and Matt Phull. 
PRS LICENCE NUMBER: LE-0016481 
http://novaramedia.com/?p=13988

Tracks featured: I Hate Hippies - The Skinflics / Love is All You Need -  The Beatles / Hate and War – The Clash / Bullet with Butterfly Wings - Smashing Pumpkins / You Got the Love – The Source (featuring Candi Staton) / I’ll Take You There - Staple Singers / Socialism is Love - Max Romeo / Revolution – Nina Simone 
Texts referred to: Empire – Hardt and Negri / Ethics - Spinoza / Turn the Beat Around - Peter Shapiro Other Links:
This is Not a Love Song – The Free Association - http://www.freelyassociating.org/this-is-not-a-love-song/
Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast – The Free Association http://www.freelyassociating.org/six-impossible-things-before-breakfast/

#ACFM – Trip 4: Love and Hate

Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert discuss consciousness raising. 
Edited and produced by Olivia Humphreys, Matt Huxley and Matt Phull. 
PRS LICENCE NUMBER: LE-0016481 

Tracks featured: Gil Scott-Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised / Johnny Osbourne - Truth and Rights / Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings - This Land is Your Land / Arrested Development - Give a Man a Fish / Childish Gambino - This is America / Gregory Porter - 1960 What? / Bernie Sanders - This Land is Your Land 

Texts referred to: Mark Fisher — Acid Communism (unfinished introduction) / Mark Fisher – Capitalist Realism / Mark Fisher and Jeremy Gilbert – Capitalist Realism and Neoliberal Hegemony: A Dialogue / William H. Hinton - Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village / Keir Milburn - Generation Left 

Other links:
Nadia Idle and Keir Milburn - Building Acid Communism - https://transmediale.de/content/building-acid-communism 
A description of the Acid Communism Consciousness Raising groups we have been running. 

Kathie Sarachild - Consciousness-Raising: A Radical Weapon. - https://womenwhatistobedone.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/1973-consciousness-raising-radical-weapon-k-sarachild-redstockings.pdf 
The classic early text on Consciousness Raising from the Women’s Liberation Movement. 

Institute for Precarious Consciousness – We Are All Very Anxious https://www.weareplanc.org/blog/we-are-all-very-anxious/
An influential text that proposes anti-precarity consciousness raising groups as the precondition for political action under contemporary conditions.


 http://novaramedia.com/?p=14289

#ACFM – Trip 5: Consciousness Raising

Episode 5 sees us reach the letter E as we tackle the dramatic behemoth that is the 1985 BBC thriller Edge of Darkness! Starring Bob Peck, Joe Don Baker, Joanne Whalley and Charles Kay, the series was so popular on its first BBC2 transmission that it was immediately repeated on BBC1. Andy and Martin discuss how they feel this story of nuclear shenanigans stands up today and whether it truly deserves the accolades that have been heaped on it over the years. Get it while it's hot!

Next time: Fortunes of War

5. Edge Of Darkness

David Connolly, secretary of the North East Labour History Society discusses the life and career of Labour leader and Prime Minister Clement Attlee (1883-1967).

Suggested reading:
David Howell, Attlee(2006)

Episode 4: David Connolly on Clement Attlee

Pauline Bryan, founder member of the Keir Hardie Society, discusses the life of Labour's first leader James Keir Hardie (1856-1915).

Further reading
Pauline Bryan (ed.) Keir Hardie and the 21st Century Socialist Revival (2019)
Pauline Bryan (ed.) What Would Keir Hardie Say? (2015)
Both of these books are available here: https://www.luath.co.uk/politics-and-current-issues

Episode 7: Pauline Bryan on Keir Hardie

Raymond Williams speaking on 'Ecology and Socialism' from 1980. With an introduction by Phil O'Brien of the Raymond Williams Society.

'Ecology and Socialism' - Raymond Williams (1980)

Cold open: What does a scanner see?

Welcome to the first installment of This Movie Kills! This week we discuss the film A Scanner Darkly (2006), an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel. What do you get when you shake together drug psychosis, police paranoia, distorted perception, atmospheric anxiety, and identity crisis? Bad vibes all around! Or, maybe just another day in “a world getting progressively worse.” The story is from the seventies, the movie feels like the 90s, but the themes are all about today. 

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl).

10. This Movie Kills: A Scanner Darkly

#ACFM is a podcast about left-wing politics, culture, music and experiences of collective joy, brought to you by Novara Media. 

Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn present a new Trip just about once a month, as well as Microdose interviews with special guests.

Search for "ACFM Music" on Spotify to find a playlist of music discussed on the show and join the mailing list to keep up with everything #ACFM: http://novara.media/acfmlist