Transmissions

Welcome to another episode of the Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions podcast, our weekly interview series. Our guest this week is Lisa E. Harris, whose new album with Nicole Mitchell is called EarthSeed. It was recorded live at Fullerton Hall at the Art Institute of Chicago and features the Black Earth Ensemble—an all-star collection of Chicago improvisers and free jazz artists—backing up the two composers.   Presented alongside a gallery of artist Cauleen Smith’s Human_3.o Reading List, EarthSeed was inspired by the work of Octavia E. Butler and will be released June 22nd, on Butler’s birthday. It’s the third album from Mitchell to draw from Butler’s work. It also represents a return to the ideas of Butler for Lisa Harris. An interdisciplinary artist, composer, and activist from Houston, Texas, Harris had been at work on an opera called Lilith before even learning of Butler’s work—but says that learning the author’s pioneering science fiction opened her up to new worlds of thought. 

Welcome to another edition of the Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions podcast, our weekly interview show featuring artists reflecting on their creative process, history, and work. This week, counter culture icon David Crosby. Anyone familiar with his Twitter feed knows Croz is a fount of opinions and insight, capable of immense warmth and good humor, but never one to pull punches. On July 31st, he’s reissuing the catalog of CPR, his cheekily named late ’90s and early 2000s supergroup with guitarist Jeff Pevar and Crosby’s son, keyboardist James Raymond. Alongside the trio’s two studio albums, 1998’s CPR and 2001’s Just Like Gravity, two live albums, Live at Cuesta College and Live at the Wiltern (featuring guest musicians Graham Nash, Marc Cohn, and Phil Collins) round out the overview of the group that set Crosby off on a late career renaissance that continues with recent albums like 2018’s Here If You Listen. A quick note. Crosby spoke with Transmissions co-host Jason P. Woodbury as the mass Black Lives Matter that began in late May were beginning. The conversation does not reflect the remarkable events of the last few weeks. The latest issues of our Sidecar newsletter is dedicated specifically to the inspirational struggle for justice happening in the streets of America right now.

And we’re back. Welcome to another edition of the Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions podcast, our weekly series of conversations with artists, writers, and creators. This week: a discussion with sitarist and ambient composer Ami Dang, whose new project is called Meditations Mixtape, Vol. 1. Dang is a multi-instrumentalist from Baltimore, and we reached her there to discuss her particular fusion of sounds and the way she explores the middle ground between what’s considered sacred—and what isn’t You can her her new album wherever you listen to music—we recommend heading over to Bandcamp to support Dang and Leaving Records directly by purchasing it digitally or on cassette. We'll be back on Wednesday with a conversation with David Crosby. Thanks for listening.   We'll be back on Wednesday with a talk with David Crosby.

And we’re back. Welcome to another installment of Transmissions. For this episode, we’re bringing you one from the Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard’s archives: a live conversation with Ben Kramer and our founder Justin Gage, discussing 15 years of Aquarium Drunkard. Though RFAD is on pause, keep your eyes open for the eventual return of the Tonight Zone, Kramer’s late night call-in show. For now, tune in and drift as Kramer and Gage discuss the evolution and vision behind Aquarium Drunkard.

And we’re back. Welcome to the Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions podcast—our series of strange conversations for strange times. My guest this week is pedal steel player Luke Schneider. He’s got a brand new album out this month called Altar of Harmony, released by the venerable Third Man Records. Luke is best known as a sideman for country artists like Margo Price and Orville Peck, but he takes the pedal steel for a cosmic ride on his new album, conjuring up uncanny sounds that seem to bend the ear, recalling Robert Fripp guitars one moment, or the shapeshifting keyboards of Harold Budd the next, but all fashioned from raw pedal steel performances. It’s a gorgeous record—another example of Cosmic Pastoral aesthetic Schneider’s friend and collaborator William Tyler has discussed here on Aquarium Drunkard. The new record could be “justifiably be described as ‘new age’ in the most essential sense,” writes previous Transmissions guest Douglas Mcgowan in his bio. It “represents a radical new approach to the versatile and cosmic instrument of the steel guitar…This is something new under the sun, a total reinvention of an iconic instrument. Quite literally, there has never been anything else quite like it.” But we’ll let Luke describe what he’s done on this record himself via this interview we recorded back on Mother’s Day. Thanks for tuning in. A reminder that you can rate and review us on Apple Podcasts—and that you can use the handy share buttons on Spotify, Stitcher, and Tune In to put our show directly into the various feeds of people who might enjoy it. Aquarium Drunkard is funded by our supporters on Patreon, so if you like what we do—this podcast, Justin Gage’s weekly two-hour show on Sirius XMU, our mixtapes, our 24-hour pirate radio stream, the Lagniappe Sessions, where your favorite artists cover their favorite artists—consider chipping in a couple bucks over there. We do appreciate it. We’ll be back next week with a special archived broadcast from Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard’s The Tonight Zone—a longform interview with AD founder Justin Gage. But first, Luke Schneider, exploring his Altar of Harmony.

Were joined by singer/songwriter/producer/guitarist Steve Gunn for this episode of the Transmissions podcast—completing our round of talks with the participants of the Gunn/Lattimore/Tyler canceled tour. But there’s much more to hear here than another pandemic rap. Topics of conversation include the new Livin’ In Between EP, which pairs Gunn’s last Lagniappe Session with a brand-new cover of Neil Young’s “Motion Pictures,” Steve’s hardcore youth, immersion in the experimental Philadelphia scene, and his longstanding creative partnership with drummer John Trucinski.

On this episode, we caught up with guitarist and songwriter Buck Curran. Formerly one half of the psychedelic duo Arborea, Buck is currently situated in Bergamo, Italy, in one of the areas hit hardest by COVID-19. Though he’s quarantining with his family, he decided now was the right time to release his third solo album, No Love is Sorrow.  It’s a gorgeous and comforting record. Writing about it for AD’s Bandcamping feature, Tyler Wilcox said the lp was full of “melancholy but uplifting folk visions” from Curran, whose label Obsolete has also released tributes to Jack Rose and Robbie Basho, as well as archival works by the latter.  “There are traces of both Basho and Rose in No Love Is Sorrow, of course,” Wilcox. writes, “But Buck has his own thing happening, too, managing to expertly balance ominous vibes with heartfelt devotionals.” We connected via Skype to discuss his journey from Maine to Italy, how the new album came together, quarantining with family, and of course the episodes of Star Trek he’s been watching.  Aquarium Drunkard is powered by Patreon, which will allow readers and listeners to directly support our online magazine as it expands its scope while receiving access to our secret stash, including bonus audio, exclusive podcasts, printed ephemera, and vinyl records. Your support will help keep an independent cultural resource alive and healthy in 2020 and beyond.

Welcome to the Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions podcast, and this episode, we’re encouraging you to watch UFOria, a 1985 science fiction comedy starring Cindy Williams, Fred Ward, and Harry Dean Stanton. At once sweet, earnest, silly, and wry,it was a flop upon initial release and has subsequently slipped through the cracks of cinematic history—but thanks to an enterprising YouTuber, you can join AD’s Jason P. Woodbury and Chad DePasquale in falling under its strange spell. “This is one of those movies in which you walk in not expecting much, and then something great happens, and you laugh, and you start paying more attention, and then you realize that a lot of great things are happening, that this is one of those rare movies that really has it,” Roger Ebert wrote in his review. “UFOria is not just another witless Hollywood laugh machine, but a movie with intelligence and a sly, sardonic style of humor. You don’t have to shut down half of your brain in order to endure it.” Aquarium Drunkard is powered by Patreon, which will allow readers and listeners to directly support our online magazine as it expands its scope while receiving access to our secret stash, including bonus audio, exclusive podcasts, printed ephemera, and vinyl records. Your support will help keep an independent cultural resource alive and healthy in 2020 and beyond.

And we’re back. For this episode of Transmissions, we’re joined by author, WFMU DJ, and historian of all things “heady,” Jesse Jarnow. His writing has been published by Relix, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times, and in addition to his beautifully written and deeply researched books, which include Big Day Coming: Yo La Tengo and the Rise of Indie Rock, Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America, and Wasn’t That a Time: The Weavers, the Blacklist, and the Battle for the Soul of America, Jarnow pens a recurring column for Aquarium Drunkard called Blanks and Postage, where he covers the intersection of psychedelics, art, and technology. His weekly WFMU program, The Frow Show, is an essential listen. With society in a state of monumental flux, it felt like the perfect time for Transmissions co-host Jason P. Woodbury to ring Jesse up to discuss the radical possibilities of the current moment, science fiction, various dystopian and utopian happenings, jam culture’s ahead of the curve embrace of live streaming tech, and his next book, which will document the alternate history of the recording industry via bootlegs and grey market releases.