For the latest installment of Aquarium Drunkard’s VIDEODROME column, we sat down with writer and cinephile, Matthew Specktor, to discuss Shoot The Moon (1982), the Hollywood cycle of divorce films from the eighties, and his upcoming book.
Year: 2023
Aquarium Drunkard Book Club :: Chapter 21
We’re back in the stacks with creative guides from Rick Rubin and Chris Schlarb, looks at the music of The Byrds and Sonny Rollins, and Amiri Baraka’s groundbreaking Black Music.
Andrew Broder :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Minneapolis-based producer and composer Andrew Broder joins us to discuss his soundtrack for Alan Moore’s dream-like detective movie The Show, plus his work with luminaries like MF Doom, Joe Rainey, Lambchop, and Alan Sparhawk and the late Mimi Parker of Low.
The Drin :: Today My Friend You Drunk the Venom
On Today My Friend You Drunk the Venom, Cincinnati’s The Drin, from Cincinnati sheathes unyielding staccato rhythms in the undulating ooze of dub. Stark drum beats push electro-shocked funk/soul vamps into denatured, machine-like fury, while guitars scream and basses rumble and one Dylan McCartney chants blankly about worms and dooms and poisons.
Bandcamping :: Winter 2023
First Nation free jazz, drum machine folk, Beefheart-ian scrawls and more. Plenty of killer sounds to get you through the dark days of winter, ranging from vintage Motor City jazz to Iranian tanbur improvs. And don’t forget, the next Bandcamp Friday (during which the platform waives its usual fees) hits on Feb. 3 …
The Aquarium Drunkard Show: SIRIUS/XMU (7pm PST, Channel 35)
Via satellite, transmitting from northeast Los Angeles — the Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm California time, Wednesdays.
34.1090° N, 118.2334° W
Sole Inspiration :: Life
A ripping slice of late 60’s psychedelic Texas soul, Sole Inspiration’s “Life” is a Saturday night jam for Sunday morning sorrows. Recently dug up by Numero Group, the track bursts out the gate with a righteous organ that bellows across the holy blood cries of front man & songwriter Juan Gonzalez’s existential despair.
Transmissions :: James Yorkston and Nina Persson
Nina Persson of The Cardigans and James Yorkston join host Jason P. Woodbury on Transmissions to discuss The Great White Sea Eagle, their low key and homey collection of folk rock, we explore a bevy of interesting topics, run-ins with members of Black Sabbath, Tom Jones, an ill-fated tour with John Martyn, and much more.
C.I.A. Débutante :: “The Punch” / “The Garden”
A subterranean entity which has been releasing records since 2016, C.I.A. Débutante exist in their own dusted lane where the distinction between no-fi rock and bedroom-synth music blurs into a fun-house-mirrored mirage. On their single “The Punch” b/w “The Garden,” they maintain their uncompromising sonic universe while gesturing toward recognizable rhythms.
Robert Forster (Go-Betweens) :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Fueled by familial strife, Robert Forster’s The Candle and the Flame is one of 2023’s loveliest and most moving records. We talked to Forster about life and love, time and memory and creativity—and his top favorite concerts in a lifetime of going out to see music.
Soft Machine :: Live At Jazz Bilzen
Dig into this priceless footage of Soft Machine performing an early take of Robert Wyatt’s magnum opus, “Moon in June”. With bassist Hugh Hopper rounding out the trio (following the departure of Kevin Ayers), this Wyatt/Ratledge/Hopper line-up is the force behind Volume Two and “Moon in June” landing spot, Third, in which the band plunged further into merging obtuse psychedelia with their singular brew of jazz fusion. Joined by the likes of the Ornette Coleman Quartet, Shocking Blue and Keith Jarrett, Jazz Bilzen might have been the perfect setting for the peak of this seminal trio.
Chico Lessa :: S/T
Chico Lessa’s debut record, a post-Tropicalia jazz-funk private press release from 1982, has just been reissued by the Madrid-based label Vampisoul. It retains influences from the popular Brazilian funk of the early 1980s, from the then-somewhat-defunct Clube da Esquina scene (whose conductor Wagner Tiso is a center feature of the record), as well as from the exploratory and dissonant MPB of Boca Livre (whose mastermind Maurício Maestro signs the arrangements here). A bright little gem in an otherwise uneventful career that, much like the recent rediscoveries of José Mauro or Hareton Salvanini, makes us wonder what Brazilian music could have been — or what we are still to find out it was.
Television :: Tell A Vision
A reluctant farewell to Tom Verlaine, who helped define (and then quickly transcended) the NYC punk scene of the 1970s, inspiring countless groups through the decades.
We’ll likely have more to say about the man in the days/weeks to come, but in the meantime, here’s an hour’s worth of Television covers stretching from the 1970s on through the present day, putting a spotlight on the impact the band had on the generations of artists that followed in their wake.
Old Fire :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
On John Mark Lapham’s second release under the moniker Old Fire Voids, the musician and filmmaker creates a sprawling and meditative odyssey through the darkest corners of the West Texas towns that continues to spark his imagination. A guest-filled journey with vocal and lyrical contributions by Bill Callahan, Adam Torres, Emily Cross and Julia Holter, Lapham pulls elements from post-rock, avant-country, spiritual jazz, and murky drones to soundtrack eroding structures that cast shadows in the desert for nefarious characters to hide.
Journey To Inner Space With The Groundhogs
Built on stones laid down by John Lee Hooker, Tony “T.S.” McPhee’s The Groundhogs were labeled “post-blues” by the rock & roll press of the late ’60s and ’70s. The band was farther out than Cream, and they tapped into an end-of-flower-power darkness like a less disdainful The Doors, and shared the medieval attitude of Ladbroke Grove bands like Deviants, Pink Fairies, or Hawkwind. but their journey to Inner Space reflects entirely unique concerns.