This week’s conversation with Cochemea Gastelum brings our season to a close. The saxophonist and bandleader joins us to discuss his beautiful LP Ancestros Futuros, out now on Daptone Records. Mining his Indigenous roots, soul jazz, and funk, it’s a fantastic album, and it completes a trilogy that began with 2019’s All My Relations, continued with 2021’s Baca Sewa, and now concludes.
Category: Podcast
Transmissions :: Mike Ayers ( The Untold Story of the ’90s Jam Bands)
The ’90s were a strange time. From Gregorian chants to swing bands, you never knew what would make it onto the radio. But some of the strangest groups to improbably infiltrate the mainstream came from the post-Grateful Dead jam band scene. Our guest today is Mike Ayers, author of Sharing in the Groove: The Untold Story of the ’90s Jam Band Explosion and the Scene that Followed.
Transmissions :: Steve Wynn (The Dream Syndicate)
This week on the show, a return guest: Steve Wynn of The Dream Syndicate and solo fame. He last joined the show part of a trio: in 2018, we taped with him, Howe Gelb of Giant Sand, and Robyn Hitchcock live at the KXCI studio at Hotel Congress in Tucson Arizona. That talk also made it into the Transmissions feed again in 2021.
Transmissions :: Steve Von Till
Welcome back to Transmissions. This week: Steve Von Till, of sludge legends Neurosis, the tribal ambient spin-off Tribes of Neurot, solo albums under this own name, and the psych folk project Harvestman. He runs the independent label, Neurot Recordings. And as if all that isn’t enough, he’s also a poet, and an educator—when he’s not playing music, he’s bringing knowledge to the next generation, working as a fourth grade teacher in North Idaho.
Transmissions :: Kate Pierson (The B-52s)
This week on Transmissions, Kate Pierson, vocalist and keyboardist of The B-52s. Writing about the legendary Athens band, AD founder Justin Gage says, “The B-52’s 1979 debut album ushered in a practically fully formed sound/band. No one else was doing this…whatever ‘this’ was.” Pierson joins us to discuss the band’s history, Yoko Ono, her time with Julee Cruise, and much more.
Transmissions :: Gary Lachman
This week, we present a conversation with writer, rock & roller, and esoteric scholar Gary Lachman, author of a new memoir, Touched By the Presence: From Blondie’s Bowery and Rock and Roll to Magic and the Occult. It is, Lachman charts his journey from a young New Jersey misfit immersed in comic books and paperback fiction to his days playing bass in Blondie as the band rose to stardom from the New York City punk underground.
Transmissions :: DM Hotep (Sun Ra Arkestra)
This week on the show, we sit down with Sun Ra Arkestra guitarist DM Hotep, who, under the leadership of 101-year-old saxophonist Marshall Allen, continues the work of Ra.
Transmissions :: Emmylou Harris
Welcome back to Transmissions, a weekly interview podcast created and curated by Los Angeles online music magazine Aquarium Drunkard. This week on the show, host Jason P. Woodbury speaks with a living legend, and one of our all-time favorite vocalists and songsmiths: Emmylou Harris.
Transmissions :: Pam Grossman
Welcome back to Transmissions, a weekly podcast series from Aquarium Drunkard. This week on the show: Pam Grossman, host of The Witch Wave podcast and author of a new book, Magic Maker: The Enchanted Path to Creativity. This show, at its core, is about the relationship between magic and art. What do we mean by magic? Let’s turn to Grossman’s book for a helpful take. She writes that magic is quote, “a way of shifting one’s entire mode of being in the direction of Creative Force and interacting with it…When magic is working properly, there is a feeling in the body of being activated. Power is raised. Ideas flow. Something outside of our egos is allowed entrance, and we respond to its visitation in kind.”
Transmissions :: The Cosmic Tones Research Trio
This week on the show, the Portland-based group of Roman Norfleet, Harlan Silverman, and Kennedy Verrett, aka The Cosmic Tones Research Trio. “Cosmic” is a term that has, thanks to critics and writers, become a little overused. Practically every indie rock band or country-based singer/songwriter with an effects pedal employs “cosmic” touches these days. But as this spiritual jazz trio explains, each of us contains our own cosmos.
Transmissions :: The Autumn Defense
This week on Transmissions, we’re toasting harvest season with John Stirratt and Pat Sansone of The Autumn Defense, who release their first album in a decade this week. It’s called Here and Nowhere, out October 10 on Yep Roc Records. You might know John and Pat from their work in Wilco; Stirratt is a founding member, and Sansone joined in 2004. But the duo’s work in the Autumn Defense stretches all the way back to 1999, when they formed the Laurel Canyon-style folk rock band in New Orleans.
Transmissions :: Dan Wriggins (Friendship)
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. He joins us to discuss.
Transmissions :: Joan Shelley (2025)
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, [she] continues an unbroken streak of masterpieces.” Her latest is called Real Warmth, and it offers precisely what the title states. She joins us to discuss.
Transmissions :: Jens Lekman
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. He joins us to discuss.
Transmissions :: Marissa Nadler
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. She joins us to discuss cinema, working life, and her relationship with heavy music.