Juneteenth

Juneteenth celebration in 1900 at Eastwoods Park. Credit: Austin History Center.

Juneteenth is a celebration of the day on June 19th, 1865, when the last remaining American slaves were proclaimed free. It’s often described as an occasion “to celebrate, to educate, and to agitate”

Playlist

Jay Watts: “New Rules”

Tim Carman: “A little bit”

“Rise Up” by the Greenwood Rhythm Coalition

these are from the album: Talk minus Action equals Zero: a compilation benefitting Black Lives Matter. Buy it on Bandcamp tonight, June 19th, and all your proceeds go to social justice. Like all the music on tonight’s show, it’s published by Rough Trade Publishing and Bank Robber Music.

The end of season two of The Bug…

This season began during the lockdown, as I was desperate to find some focus, and some way to express my own personal anguish. As the season gatherered momentum, many listeners sent in their own experiences, good and bad, of quarantine. We heard about birds, and pollution, and silence, zoom music, and free online art, and demonstrations, and racism.

These issues don’t stop now. I want you to keep listening to new sounds, in the small sense of hearing the birds, but also in the larger sense of hearing the world around us. That’s the natural world and the political world. So I want us all, and that includes me and you, to take action against dangerous politicians and frightening policies. 

…

So make your voice heard! You could post on facebook (which is probably pointless), but more effectively, you can vote, you can help others vote, you can get out in the street and demonstrate if you feel comfortable, you can reach out to people who are not like you, and open dialogue with them (which is definitely uncomfortable), you can buy music and art from creators of color, and you can also give money to causes you support.

Buy the CD! Download the music!

Black lives matter compilation

download the album today, and your purchase price goes entirely to BLM charities

more

The historical legacy of Juneteenth

PS: if you want more podcasts, join me in mid-July for a new series, called “under/city/sound” – I’ll be talking about the sounds of a city – in this case, The Hague.