Brown Mountain Lights

08/16/2025

1975
an incredible year
of ideas, culture
and change

This Saturday
11 am
Asheville FM

08/14/2025

Best Albums of 1975

Our show’s huge crew of producers has narrowed it down to 13….

with a giant list of honorable mentions

listen Saturday at 11 for a core sample of 1975

Asheville FM

08/12/2025

What does the year 1975 say about the American story?

excess, simplification, back to roots, or something brand new?

Join us this Saturday at 11 for an audio exploration of America mid decade

Asheville FM

08/10/2025

1975 was a complex year of brooding intensity and transition.

With the disastrous and humiliating evacuation of Saigon, the US faced a turning point unlike any it had experienced since the end of World War 2.

While the Carter presidency was in the incubator, a more coherent and rising conservative movement stewarded by Nixon would continue to grow even more powerful.

Bands like the Ramones, Television and Pere Ubu were formulating a revolutionary strategy to blow the lid off of the way music would sound.

Bryan Ferry, Patti Smith and John Cale seemed to embrace and embody the tension of the moment.

Meanwhile, disco is emerging to dominate pop culture.

Ironically, punk and disco merge later for some exciting music in the late 70s and early 80s.

The loft scene in 1975 was keeping jazz alive and performers like David Murray and Amina Claudine Myers would reinvent free jazz and ignite a new improv underground that would inspire a new generation of musicians like John Zorn and William Parker.

Intellectual minds like Susan Sontag, Saul Bellow, JG Ballard and Michel Foucault brought some clarity to the moment, even while the deepest questions would continue to plague us.

I was a robust 6 then….so it will provide an absolutely foggy version of the events.

Join us Saturday August 16 as we take a mostly musical tour of 1975

08/06/2025

Akiko Kawamoto was born in Los Angeles in 1926. She moved to Japan with her family along with a US built Baldwin piano in 1932. Akiko took lessons and played the piano daily until the war broke out.

80 years ago today, an atomic blast destroyed her home in Hiroshima.

She did not survive, but her piano did.

Survivors of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are referred as Hibakusha.

11 pianos also survived the blasts.

These hibaku pianos serve as symbols of peace and are played to commemorate the losses and promote peace and disarmament.

I am so grateful for the chance to play this incredible piano in front of the atomic bomb dome in Hiroshima, Japan. I thought for sure I would have to stop o...

07/25/2025

sounds for your journeys

interior & geographical

Saturday 11am

Asheville FM

07/12/2025

Voices 3

07/12/2025

more 1970 era music

bob seger system

heavy ala mc5 energy

🔥

07/07/2025

Nigerian born drummer Ijebu Ode aka Ginger Johnson leading a lengthy percussion jam at Hyde Park 1969

He was a true pioneer in exporting African music to London in the late 1940s 

Rolling Stones live at Hyde Park in 1969, this would be Mick Taylor's first stones gig.....

07/05/2025

Big band from across the ages and a few continents today with a few brassy pop songs thrown in for something to grab onto 

Asheville FM

07/04/2025

Celebrate sonic freedom
Big band,
brash brass,
free orchestral improv
and unbridled trombones

Sat 11a-1p

Asheville FM

07/04/2025

independence weekend

Big band special

Sat 11 am-1

brassy pop and soul
to Ellington, Monk & Sun Ra

Asheville FM