If time is a flat circle, the members of Oneida have figured out how to toss it like a frisbee. Nearly a quarter century since their debut album, the avant-rock quintet have returned with one of the most straightforward, riff-heavy records in their vast discography: Success. Bobby Matador and Kid Millions join us to discuss the record, the band’s history, and the Grateful Dead.
Category: The AD Interview
While We Wait: A Conversation With Kevin Morby
On the heels of his latest and seventh long-player, This Is A Photograph, we caught up with Kevin Morby to discuss Memphis, Butterflies, and his appreciation for someone who died 25 years ago. Hallelujah! Hallelujah.
The Aquarium Drunkard Interview :: OSEES’ John Dwyer
For his most recent OSEES album, A Foul Form, John Dwyer shifts again, this time revisiting the punk and hardcore that shaped his Rhode Island adolescence. And since he’s looking back, it seemed like a good time for us to look back, too, in an interview that spans the Dwyer career so far, from Providence skate punk to SF garage rock to Castle Face honcho to free improv experimenter.
Joseph Allred :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Stringed-thing wizard and tireless sonic explorer Joseph Allred is in the process of moving back to the only place that truly feels like home: The verdant sliver of rural Tennessee that inspired their new album The Rambles & Rags of Shiloh, a collection of 10 gorgeous instrumental works for acoustic guitar and banjo. We recently connected with Allred for a wide-ranging chat about Black Sabbath, Buck Gooter, being a hillbilly in a big city and finding a sense of belonging in music.
Oligarchs And Water: A Conversation With Daughn Gibson
The hymn of images is difficult to convey. Daughn Gibson has returned. His first new music in six years. We caught up with him to talk about his new EP, Kriminelle Energie. What was difficult now seems easy. He sings for us. Stay tuned.
Joan Shelley :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
We caught up with Joan Shelley on a summer Friday shortly after the Supreme Court upended Roe Vs. Wade, a weird and unsettled time for everyone, but perhaps particularly for a female artist in Kentucky with a new daughter. We talked about making art in a pandemic, the importance of collaboration and the difficulties of doing anything else when you have a young child, as well as the pleasures of listening to music all the way through, the way it was intended.
Lael Neale :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Singer/songwriter Lael Neale sits down at Schubas Tavern in Chicago to discuss her album Acquainted with Night, her collaborator Guy Blakeslee of Entrance Band, and where she’s going next.
Color Green :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Arriving July 22 via AD and Org Music, Color Green’s full-length debut is music of absolute forward motion, meant to be played from open car windows no matter the speed you’re traveling. The songs nod reverently to their forebears—from the Allmans-tinged sunshine of “Ill Fitting Suit” to the JJ Cale taillight lament of “Ruby”—before tossing up a wave and taking the whole show a little further down the road. With another record in the works and a road-tested band behind them, we caught up with Noah Kohll and Corey Madden as their Color Green hive mind ambles steadily toward its next incarnation.
Marquee Friends: A Conversation With Matt O’Keefe (Baby Chuck)
For better or worse, there is something within us that won’t give up. For better, that is what Matt O’Keefe does with his music. We recently caught up with O’Keefe in his front yard to discuss three songs that will be released off his debut solo record, Warm Infinity.
Andy Paley :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Depending on your entry point, Andy Paley’s body of work might be familiar via a number of unique gateways. Recording with Phil Spector and the Wrecking Crew. Producing the Shangri-Las. Writing with the Ramones. Sharing the stage with Patti Smith. And, of course, Brian Wilson’s proclamation of Paley being “the greatest musical genius I’ve ever come across”. Now residing in Vermont, Paley connected with us to discuss his long trajectory traveling all avenues of music, as well as current projects still rooted in the Spector-inspired tradition of the sixties “girl group” and French yé-yé sound.
Jeff Tweedy :: On Wilco’s Cruel Country
On Wilco’s Cruel Country, Jeff Tweedy takes a dazed look around. He joins us to discuss why it felt important to cut the new album live, the influence of the Grateful Dead, and what it feels like to inhabit Yankee Hotel Foxtrot 20 years later.
Lee Ranaldo :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Ten years past the end of Sonic Youth, Lee Ranaldo takes the stage at a low key festival in northern New England with just a couple of guitars and a few microphones. He strikes a note, hard, on an aging acoustic, cocks his head a little, and seems to contemplate that reverberating sound. From an iPhone lying on a stool next to him, the sounds of urban life flicker—an indistinct voice, some running water, the sounds of faraway traffic.
A few days after the concert, we connect by phone to talk about Ranaldo’s experience of the pandemic, how it moved him to create this new piece and how his attitudes towards touring and performing have changed since COVID.
Zach Phillips :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Zach Phillips’ OSR Tapes is probably among the most admired contemporary labels you’ve never heard of. Defining Phillips’ style in one paragraph is as hard as summarizing the history of the dozens of pseudonyms he has composed under.
For this interview we caught up with Philips to discuss institutional experiments with labels, his relation to South American music, his poetry and friends in New York, his imagination of harmony, Agamben’s messianism, and more …
Taper’s Choice :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Since their live debut at Gold Diggers in December of last year, Taper’s Choice have rolled through a smattering of dialed-in shows: more nights at Gold Diggers, Big Sur freakouts, New York rooftops and playing amongst the wine vines of Sonoma. Ahead of their inaugural festival later this month (Choice Fest), we caught up with the band to get a bit more detail about what’s ahead, how fast things have come together, and much more.
Carson McHone :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Carson McHone has been singing on the barroom stages of Austin, Texas since she was 16 years old. She’s a rare contemporary country artist who was born and raised in the Lone Star State, rather than moving to the rootsy music mecca to try and make it. Her latest is Still Life, produced in collaboration with Daniel Romano, her husband.