Vinyl Voyage Radio

If you live in North America (or anywhere in this hemisphere, actually) and you are of European extraction, then the land that you are currently living on was at one time the home of a nation. What nation? Use this link to find out what First Nation owned the land you currently live on. Acknowledging this history should be an important component of Thanksgiving.  After all, Thanksgiving was originally a Native holiday, as old as time itself. Not only that, this continent's First Nation peoples are not historical, they are contemporary. So much of our history is taught as if indigenous people are no longer around. It is important to note that they here. Now. In the present tense. Today, from 2pm to midnight, we will be doing our small part in acknowledging this history by playing music from contemporary First Nation artists. Listen, and let us know what you think in the comments. Happy Thanksgiving.

For the 4th year in a row, we are honoring First Nations this Thursday during the American Thanksgiving. Since the story of the Pilgrims and the Natives are widely told throughout North America at this time, we feel that it is important to acknowledge the true history of the holiday and pay respect to the Native peoples who, in fact, invented the holiday. "Thanksgiving" may have been new to the Pilgrims, but it was a holiday as old as the sun to those who were living here. Although Thanksgiving is celebrated in Canada in October, the holiday in the United States is often more tied to stories involving the First Nations. So, we think it fitting to honor this holiday with music from the people who had made their mark on this continent long before the arrival of the Europeans. From 2 pm until midnight (Eastern), we will be playing a wide variety of music on Vinyl Voyage Radio - from pop to folk, instrumental to spoken word.  All songs and music during this time will be from ...

The Thanksgiving story that we all grew up on is not the whole story.  That moment of mutual peace and respect is a heart-warming story, to be sure. But it is not the whole story. What we fail to recognize is that just a generation after the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims and the Natives were at war in what was the worst war per capita to occur on North American soil. That war was King Philip's War and it devastated Native populations in the northeast. Those native who weren't killed, were enslaved and sent to the West Indies. Some survivors escaped to Canada. The Pilgrims saw this victory as a message from God that they had the right to take Native land.  And take land they did. The rest of the history of the relationship between the United States and First Nations is anything but heartwarming. If you would like a basic primer on this history, I recommend reading Dee Brown's book, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee . This book changed my view of history. On this Th...