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Musical scares
SCOTT COSTEN applauds a book that demonstrates the breadth of state surveillance against musicians in the US
COUNTERCULTURE: Nina Simone at the Hollywood Bowl on June 15, 1986.
[Pic: Jose Galvez/CC]
Given the power of the live experience, MIK SABIERS recommends Jon Spencer’s new album
Reviews of T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo, Tamikrest, and Dub Colossus
The bard celebrates two other fine practitioners of the art, and laments a lost brewer
This right-wing conspiracy theory is used to justify the coercive measures against gender, race and labour rights that best serve capitalism, attests GAVIN O’TOOLE
KENNY MONROSE recommends a new exhibition that highlights the significance of Black British music
Whole World in an Uproar: Music, Rebellion and Repression – 1955-1972
by Aaron J. Leonard
Repeater Books, £12.99
SURVEILLANCE, censorship and deplatforming may be hallmarks of the digital age, but they existed long before the advent of Facebook and Twitter.
Consider the case of the young Bob Dylan, scheduled to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show on May 12, 1963.
Told he couldn’t play Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues, a satirical indictment of the virulently anti-communist John Birch Society, the folk singer walked off the set rather than perform something else. Days later, the song was stripped from his forthcoming second album by nervous record executives.
Similar stories
RON JACOBS is enthralled by an account of the surveillance and political repression on the left in the US
April 9 1928 – July 26 2025
From sexual innuendo about Blackpool Rock to Bob Dylan’s ‘God-almighty world,’ the corporation’s classist moral custodianship of pop music has created a roll call of censored artists anyone would feel honoured to join, writes NICK MATTHEWS
RON JACOBS welcomes a survey of US punk in the era of Reagan, and sees the necessity for some of the same today