Aquarium Drunkard - Sidecar (transmissions) - Podcast

Welcome back to Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. This week on the show, Dan Wriggins of the Philly band Friendship. Earlier this year, the band released its fifth album, Caveman Wakes Up. Fans of the roots-informed indie rock of Wednesday and MJ Lenderman—frequent collaborators with Friendship—will find plenty of busted and bruised glory in these songs, which fall on the shaggy end of the alt-country spectrum. But for us, it’s Wriggins’ wry and sly lyrics that really seal the deal. Take “All Over the World,” in which a landscaper experiences “the beating heart of God/ laying down a roll of sod.” That down in the dirt realness is what makes Caveman Wakes Up so captivating, and what earned it a spot on the Aquarium Drunkard mid-year review list, where we noted:  “Friendship’s second release for Merge Records is an unhurried, mostly quiet, slow burn of a record, sustained by Dan Wriggins’ delivery and vocal tone and the band’s splendid musical accompaniment that’s hard to keep off the stereo…[it] contains many

Welcome to Transmissions. This week, singer/songwriter Joan Shelley. Her haunted folk songs and crystal clear voice have long made her a favorite of the Aquarium Drunkard crew. Writing about her last one, 2022’s The Spur, Tyler Wilcox wrote: "At this point in her career, we would probably settle for a ‘pretty good’ album from Joan Shelley…But no, The Spur continues an unbroken streak of masterpieces for the Louisville-based artist.”  And, while Shelley, and her daughter and husband, Nathan Salsburg, who’s appeared on this show, have moved from Louisville to Michigan, that whole “unbroken streak of masterpieces” things continues with her new album, Real Warmth. Cut with producer Ben Whiteley, and guests like Doug Paisley and Tamara Lindeman of The Weather Station, the new album is lively, rhythmic, and captivating, with intimate reflections paired alongside protest music of a sort.  She joins us here to discuss—plus, at the start of this one, we get a mini-check in from Nathan and their daughter. Cozy up f

This week on the show, Jason P. Woodbury speaks with Swedish songwriter Jens Lekman. Woodbury has been listening to Jens for just about 20 years—introduced by the 2005 compilation, Oh You're So Silent Jens. Though the comp features songs ingeniously constructed using samples, it was Lekman’s voice that made Woodbury such a fan. Not just his deep, sonorous croon; we mean "voice" in the writing sense: Lekman has a signature ability to sound funny and sad at the same time, or wounded yet somehow simultaneously hopeful.  Jens has a new album out now called Songs for Other People’s Weddings, and it arrives complete with a novel of the same name co-written by David Levithan, who you may know from works like Boy Meets Boy, Wide Awake, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, The Lover’s Dictionary, and others.  Taken together, the novel and the record represent a little bit of reality, and a little bit of fiction. Lekman really has worked as a wedding singer for most of his career—his first album, 2004’s When I Said I

Welcome back to Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. Our guest this week is Marissa Nadler. Last month, she released her 10th album, New Radiations, via Sacred Bones Records.  Like much of her work, New Radiations exudes—like how we didn’t say “radiates” there?—a spooky, haunted feel. Following 2021’s full rock band outing The Path of the Clouds, the self-produced new album finds Nadler focusing on sparser, more solitary zones, her subtle finger-picking augmented by touches of electric guitar, pedal steel, organ, and synths by Milky Burgess and additional synths by longtime collaborator Randall Dunn.  “Psychic sensations (you know what you saw)/New radiations, have taken their toll on me,” Nadler sings on the title track, illuminating the strange darkness and fractured sense of reality that permeates the album.  In these songs, which feature spaceships, lonesome pilots, cosmic collisions, holograms, and references to Martin Scorsese, Nadler draws dark shapes into the light, creating a bewildering science ficti

Welcome to the kick off of Transmissions' new season with your host, Jason P. Woodbury, after a wonderful summer mini-series from Tyler Wilcox, All One Song: A Neil Young Podcast. We first encountered this week’s guest, New Zealand songwriter, actor, and composer Bret McKenzie, as one half of the indie pop/comedy duo Flight of the Conchords in the mid-2000s. But did you know that before that, he was a member of one of New Zealand’s most popular reggae party bands? "Just for context, reggae music in New Zealand is kind of rock music in America or maybe even country," McKenzie says. "Outside Jamaica, New Zealand has the highest sales of Bob Marley records in the world. And it's the music you hear playing in the background when you're out." Since then, he’s gone onto composer for film and TV projects like The Simpsons, The Muppets, Spongebob Squarepants, and more, and in 2022, he released Songs Without Jokes via Sub Pop Records. Inspired by vintage Los Angeles pop, the record showcased McKenzie sans obviou

Welcome back to All One Song, a Neil Young podcast presented by Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. We’ve spent the summer talking with some great musicians and writers about the strange and wonderful Neil Young universe. And we’ve had a good time. But all good things must come to an end! After today’s episode, we are handing the keys back to Jason P. Woodbury, the host of Transmissions and editor of Aquarium Drunkard. — he’s got an incredible season of interviews coming your way as summer turns to fall. And hey, our final guest on All One Song is none other than Jason P. Woodbury! Jason is the guy who has been running a lot of the behind the scenes action for All One Song over the past couple months. Transmissions is a consistently fantastic listen, packed with insight, wit and wisdom. The fact that Jason juggles about 50 other cool projects, from his music as JPW to his expanding WASTOIDS empire, makes it even more impressive. We're already talking about more All One Song, but before that … we’ve got one

Welcome back to All One Song, a Neil Young podcast presented by Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. All summer long, we’re talking to some of our favorite musicians and writers about their favorite Neil Young song. Or at least one of their favorite Neil Young songs. This week, our All One Song guest is Ethan Miller. Ethan has been a longtime fixture in the underground, first coming to my attention back in the early aughts as the co-founder of the psych noise pioneers Comets on Fire. But Ethan is nothing if not prolific — he’s played with an array of awesome bands over the years, from Howlin Rain to Feral Ohms to Odyssey Cult. Ethan was also one-fourth of Heron Oblivion with our previous guests Meg Baird and Charlie Saufley … and he’s one-third of the Orcutt Shelley Miller trio, with another previous guest Steve Shelley. It’s all a rich tapestry, right? At least when it comes to Neil Young. The upcoming — and totally amazing — Orcutt Shelley Miller record is being released on Ethan’s own label Silver Current, w

This week’s All One Song guest is the definition of a multi-hyphenate — your friend and ours, Jesse Jarnow. Jesse is an incredible writer, having penned such essential books as Big Day Coming: Yo La Tengo and the Rise of Indie Rock, Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America,  Wasn’t That a Time: The Weavers, the Blacklist, and the Battle for the American Soul, and the forthcoming epic, The Invisible Hit Parade: A People’s History of Recorded Music. You’re probably going to recognize Jesse’s voice. He’s a longtime DJ over at WFMU, the world’s greatest free-form independent radio station, hosting the Frow Show every Tuesday night, bringing strange and wonderful sounds to the masses. He’s also a podcaster, writing and co-producing the amazing Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast, which recently kicked off its 12th season. The Deadcast’s depth of research, insight and sweet vibes puts pretty much every other podcast to shame—including this one. Finally, Jesse is one-third of Sloppy Heads, a long-running Brooklyn-based b

Welcome back to All One Song, a Neil Young podcast presented by Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. This week is going to be slightly different. This week, we’re talking about a song that was not written by Neil Young. Nevertheless, it’s a song that is very much a part of the Shakey multiverse: Danny Whitten’s “I Don’t Want To Talk About It,” which appeared on Crazy Horse’s debut LP in 1970. Danny Whitten, of course, was one of Neil’s key collaborators and musical soul mates before his untimely death in late 1972. A little while later that decade, Rod Stewart took “I Don’t Want To Talk About It” to the top of the charts. But it’s Whitten’s version that remains definitive. Here to guide us through the impossibly lonesome landscapes of “I Don’t Want To Talk About It” is singer-songwriter Rosali Middleman—or just Rosali if you prefer. She’s been a longtime fixture over at Aquarium Drunkard. But even though we've loved pretty much everything she’s done, she somehow seems to get better with each new album. Her late

Welcome back to All One Song: A Neil Young Podcast. We’re spending the summer talking to some great musicians and writers about their one favorite Neil Young song. Or at least one of their favorite songs. Last week, our guest was Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth — and of course, the conversation went deep into Steve’s memories of Sonic Youth’s tour with Neil and Crazy Horse in 1991, when both bands were bringing incredible waves of feedback to the masses across North America. An exciting time! For Neil, the tour resulted in a fairly traditional live album, the classic double-disc Weld. But that wasn’t all. Inspired partly by what he heard Sonic Youth doing, Young also put together Arc, one of — if not the — most avant-garde pieces of music Young has ever created. Basically, it’s a 35-minute noise collage consisting of the elongated and improvised endings of various songs that he and the Horse played in early 91. It’s the sound of amplifiers pushed to their limits, of things falling apart in ragged, glorious fash

Welcome back to ⁠All One Song⁠, A Neil Young Podcast presented by Aquarium Drunkard. We’re spending the summer talking to a few of our favorite artists and writers about their favorite Neil Young song. This week, we’ve got someone very special: Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth. Steve spent about 25 years behind the drum kit for Sonic Youth as the band radically redefined and reimagined rock and roll. He’s easily one of the greatest drummers of the past four decades, as heard on such classics as Sister, Daydream Nation, Washing Machine, Murray Street, and beyond. His style is explosive, sensitive and always imaginative. Steve is so much fun to listen to, in pretty much any context.   Since Sonic Youth called it quits, Steve has kept incredibly busy, not only managing the ever-expanding SY archives, but also playing with his former bandmates Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore, Can vocalist Malcolm Mooney, Bush Tetras, Tape Hiss and the forthcoming Orcutt / Shelley / Miller LP coming out on Silver Current Records lat

Welcome back to All One Song, A Neil Young Podcast presented by Aquarium Drunkard. We’re spending the summer talking to a few of our favorite artists and writers about their favorite Neil Young song.  This week, you’re getting two fantastic guests for the price of one: Meg Baird and Charlie Saufley. Meg first came to my attention thanks to her work with the innovative Philadelphia psych-folk collective Espers, and since then she’s created a pretty much flawless solo career — her most recent record, 2023’s Furling, is a perfect showcase for her pristine guitar work and beautiful vocals. Charlie Saufley co-produced that record with Meg and the duo also played in Heron Oblivion with Ethan Miller and Noel Von Harmonson — a group that only managed one studio record during their existence, but that’s ok. That one studio record was awesome. Charley also played in the Bay Area psychedelic rock group Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound; he’s a killer guitarist, and — like Meg — is a serious Neil head. That last fact sh

Welcome back to All One Song, A Neil Young Podcast presented by Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. We're spending the summer talking to a few of our favorite artists and writers about their favorite Neil Young song.  Our guest this week is Jeff Parker, best known as the guitarist for the long-running Chicago post-rock group Tortoise. Jeff  has been on a serious hot streak of late. He’s released awesome, entirely solo records like Slight Freedom and Forfolks, along with great albums with the New Breed. He’s collabed with heavy hitters like Daniel Villareal and Makaya McKraven. He’s been an invaluable part of the Big Ego label’s session player roster, contributing to great records by Psychic Temple, Dave Easley and Maria Elena Silva. And Jeff is the leader of one of the most exciting improv groups working today — the ETA quartet, featuring Parker, drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss and saxophonist Josh Johnson. Their second LP, The Way Out of Easy, was one of the very best records of 2024. Oh and did w

We hope you enjoyed the first episodes of Tyler Wilcox’s All One Song series, but we're back with, well, something different: it’s a bonus Transmissions conversation between Transmissions host Jason P. Woodbury and musician, writer, and podcaster Stephen Coates, host of the Bureau of Lost Culture. This episode also appears today in the Bureau of Lost Culture feed and I can’t recommend checking that show out enough if you haven’t already. Dedicated to counter cultural explorations, the show has covered everything: Stonehenge, club culture, Victorian freak shows, mushrooms, ska, the Beats, teddy boys (and teddy girls) and much more. One of my favorite episodes—and one that spurred this conversation—features esoteric author Gary Lachman in conversation with the great writer and magician Alan Moore—though usually, it’s Stephen who steers the conversations along, quite masterfully, as he does here.  We recorded this a few months back, and we're excited to share it with you to tide you over ahead of next week’s

Welcome back to All One Song: A Neil Young Podcast, presented by Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. You may have noticed our awesome theme music. No, you’re not hearing some unreleased Neil Young and Crazy Horse rehearsal. You’re hearing Coca Leaves and Pearls, the Philadelphia-based Neil tribute band fronted by guitarist Chris Forsyth and featuring John Murray (guitar), Jordan Burgis (bass), and Joey Sullivan (drums). They’ve been playing primarily Ditch-era Neil tunes at various clubs around the northeast for the past few years, bringing a very Horse-y vibe to the chosen few (you can check out a tasty recording via Archive.org). They’re incredible—and Coca Leaves and Pearls was kind of enough to record some killer theme music for All One Song at Jeff Zeigler’s Uniform Studios. Now, Chris Forsyth is much more than just the leader of a great Neil Young tribute band, of course. Much more! For more than a decade, he’s been one of our favorite guitarists, blending Richard Thompson with Tom Verlaine, Robert Qui

Welcome to the very first episode of All One Song: A Neil Young podcast, presented by Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. Join liner notes author, musician, and Shakey historian Tyler Wilcox and an array of great musicians and writers discussing their favorite Neil Young song, diving deep into Shakey lore and getting personal about this amazing body of work. It’s a series for Neil heads by Neil heads. Our first guest on All One Song should need no introduction for long time Aquarium Drunkard readers. But let’s give him one anyway! For the past 15 years or so, Steve Gunn has built up one of the strongest, most wide-ranging catalogs in independent music. He’s released classic albums on such labels as Three Lobed, Paradise of Bachelors, Matador and more. Steve is a singer-songwriter-guitarist triple threat with a powerful sense of adventure and imagination that’s always worth paying attention to, whether he’s collaborating with drummer John Truscinski in the Gunn-Truscinski Duo, creating beautiful soundscapes wit

All One Song: A Neil Young Podcast is coming this summer from the people who bring you Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. In this deep dive audio experience, liner notes author, musician, and Shakey historian Tyler Wilcox (Pitchfork, Uncut, host of Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard’s Doom and Gloom from the Tomb on dublab) invites musicians/artists/writers to discuss…one single song by Neil Young. Join guests like Steve Gunn, Jeff Parker, Ilyas Ahmed, Meg Baird, Rosali, Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth, author Jesse Jarnow, Ethan Miller (Howlin’ Rain, Comets on Fire), Transmissions host Jason P. Woodbury, and Chris Forsyth, whose Coca Leaves and Pearls musical combo provide the show with original Young-inspired music.  “With this show, Tyler explores Neil’s work in ways that feel revelatory, as if each song is indeed just coming into existence. That’s what Young’s best music does— communicate the freshness of a single musical moment distilled down to its rawest form. With this show, Wilcox offers a glimpse into the his

We close out the 10th season of Transmissions with a special look under the hood with Justin Gage, who founded Aquarium Drunkard 20 years ago in 2005. Initially envisioned as just a place to share cultural recommendations with friends, Aquarium Drunkard blew up as the blog rush began. Suddenly, Gage found himself running a respected media outlet. 20 years later, he joins host Jason P. Woodbury to discuss how Aquarium Drunkard has stayed true to the maxim of only the good shit. In this frank back and forth, the two colleagues share how an ethos that puts music and deep engagement with it at the forefront feels like a counter-cultural endeavour in this day and age, and how they’ve managed to keep in touch with the love of art that initially inspired Aquarium Drunkard. You can read a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠full transcript⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ of this conversation at Aquarium Drunkard, where you’ll find 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here’s to another decade. ⁠⁠⁠⁠

This week on the show, something different: an extra-sized Transmission that’s been locked in the vault for years, a two-hour talk with singer/songwriter Damien Jurado.  Way back in 2022, host Jason P. Woodbury sat down with Jurado in the recording studio at Gold-Diggers in Los Angeles for a career spanning conversation, exploring the stories behind his oracular visions, his history, and his collaborators, including the late Richard Swift. The idea was that perhaps the talk would be chopped up for a mini-series, but the project never materialized—and instead this revealing talk was locked away on a hard drive, that is until now, as the time has come to share it via Transmissions. Woodbury been listening to Jurado’s music for about 25 years; first encountering his 2000 Sub Pop release Ghost of David, a haunted album of lo-fi folk songs. Years later, Jurado’s sound bloomed into psychedelia when he began collaborating with the late Richard Swift for 2010’s Saint Bartlett, which was followed by the Maraqopa Tri

On the cover of Deerhoof’s new album, Noble and Godlike in Ruin, is an image of the band’s lineup—Satomi Matsuzaki, Ed Rodriguez, John Dieterich, and Greg Saunier—collaged together into one strange visage. Given that the album’s title is drawn directly from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, this cobbled together assemblage makes sense, but it also doubles as a handy metaphor for Deerhoof’s identity as a band. Together, they equal more than the sum of their parts; working together in radical co-operation, they become  one art rock organism.  By the time most bands reach their third decade, they’ve settled into a groove, but Deerhoof seems custom built to resist static stasis or aesthetic complacency. Noble and Godlike in Ruin pulls from free jazz, prog rock, noise, and j-pop, resulting in a sound that is at once recognizable as Deerhoof, but nonetheless surprising, even to the band’s members themselves. Focusing in on sci-fi futurism and some of the most directly political songs of the band’s vast discography, it’