Episode Overview
This is a wide-ranging conversation that covers everything from the Internet hustle culture of the twenty-teens, to a history lesson of Washington, DC’s go-go music, music and the Civil Rights Movement, and revisionism in history.
Our Crossroads
Brian and I are historians who have spent our careers working with and for historic sites. Each of us has been deeply immersed in our professional lives as we’ve pursued our own interests on the side. We’re girl dads. We’re musicians and cultural historians. And we both care deeply about helping others navigate the world.
The Conversation
Be Better Guys. Brian founded Be Better Guys—a guy’s guide—in 2006. The idea was that certain male rights-of-passage like tying a tie or buying a suit used to be rituals passed down through institutions. He democratized the information—sharing it widely online at a time when the internet was really providing some great stuff.
Dress for the moment. Brian is a clothes horse. His philosophy? Dress with urgency for the moment you’re in. He credits his older brother and his attorney father for his sense of fashion, but he returns to his great-grandfather, a tobacco farmer who dressed exactly for what the day required.
Go-go. Brian walked me through Washington, D.C.’s sound, how Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers stretched out songs with extended loops to keep dancers on the floor, turning percussion into the engine of the music and horns into a call-and-response line. It was inclusive music to play and participatory for audiences.
Rethinking the Civil Rights Movement in Albany, Georgia. Brian spoke on a panel around the 50th anniversary of the Albany Movement. It changed my view of this important event. Albany had long read as a failure because the SCLC never got the confrontation they desired. But the coalition on the ground, SNCC organizers working alongside local leadership, secured full desegregation within a year.
Washington, D.C. Brian gave a great lesson on the history of our nation’s capital. Geographically it sits below the Mason-Dixon line, and demographically it filled with Southern migrants chasing federal jobs from World War II onward. Home rule didn’t arrive until 1973. He mapped the city’s segregation ward by ward, and the flight of Black families out to Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties.
Playlist
I asked Brian to pull together a go-go playlist. Here’s what he sent along.
Don’t expect anything even remotely similar to the Allman Brothers Band except a groove that is a mile wide and a mile deep—and a sound built for a live audience.
Rare Essence - Overnight Scenario
Trouble Funk - Drop the Bomb
Trouble Funk - Pump Me Up
Trouble Funk - Let’s Get Small
Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers - Chuck, Baby
Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers - Run Joe
Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers - Bustin’ Loose
Experience Unlimited - Da Butt
Grace Jones (backed by members of EU) - Slave to the Rhythm
Junkyard Band - Sardines (and Pork & Beans)
Solange, Backyard Band - Cranes in the Sky remix (Youtube only)
