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Did the Needle Just Skip :: 30 Years of Oh Mercy

Bob Dylan Daniel LanoisPosted on

As Bob Dylan's swampy and haunted classic Oh Mercy turns 30 years old, producer and musician Daniel Lanois reflects on the strange magic he helped create in New Orleans, driven by a willingness to explore seemingly contradictory spaces: "I wanted to make sure that that the music was trying to destroy the singer at the same time as support him . . .

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Terry Allen :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Terry Allen The AD InterviewPosted on

Terry Allen is a maker of things. A sculptor, illustrator, playwright, collagist, and, perhaps most famously, a singer and songwriter who, over the last five decades, has amassed an extensive catalog of avant-country gold. His 1975 album Juarez, a striking and brilliant concept album that plays as a kind of sunburned, southwestern Badlands, and 1979’s sprawling Lubbock (On Everything), a rollicking and wry send-up of Allen’s West Texas hometown, are rightly held up as unimpeachable masterpieces of proto-americana music. Each have recently received extensive reissues by the North Carolina label Paradise of Bachelors, who will . . .

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Zella Jackson :: Days Are Just Like People

Zella JacksonPosted on

St. Louis-based gospel singer Zella Jackson (whose life story is startling to say the least) wrote and recorded this fierce platter in 1974. A midtempo but empowering work of gospel, “Days Are Just Like People” is a B-side that blurs the genre with its scorching synth-draped funk and prog-infused elements of flute and harpsichord. With a single copy of the original 7” going for a cool 370 on Discogs, here’s a rip for your personal salvation . . .

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John Cale, Nick Cave & Chrissie Hynde: Songwriters Circle (BBC 1999)

Chrissie Hynde John Cale Nick CavePosted on

Twenty years ago next month, at the crest of the twentieth century, the BBC aired an episode of its long-running "Songwriters Circle" with featured guests John Cale, Nick Cave and Chrissie Hynde. Recorded in London at the Subterania Club, it's an intimate, potent pairing.

In contrast to its cacophonous origins (via 1982's Music for a New Society), an acoustic rendering of Cale's "Thoughtless Kind" kicks things off, setting the evening's subsequent pace. Nick Cave's catholic treatment of "Into My Arms" shines, while Hynde runs through her sturdy run of . . .

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Posted on Chrissie Hynde John Cale Nick Cave

The Aquarium Drunkard Show: SIRIUS/XMU (7pm PST, Channel 35)

SIRIUSPosted on

Outré California. Even more weird tales from the pacific rim. The Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm PST, Wednesdays + on-demand . . .

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I Must Have Been Out of My Mind :: On the Flawed Beauty of Peter Laughner

Peter LaughnerPosted on

For a minute there in the early 1970s, they tried calling Lou Reed the “Phantom of Rock.” It might have been a better fit for Peter Laughner. Since the Cleveland singer/songwriter/guitarist’s death in 1977, the Rocket From the Tombs and Pere Ubu member has been a spectral presence in the underground, more heard of than heard. Laughner only made it to his 24th year. But he packed an unbelievable amount of musical activity into that brief span of time – and we’re finally getting a full portrait of the man via a long-in-the-works five . . .

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Bob Dylan :: Tight Connection To My Heart (dir. Paul Schrader)

Bob Dylan Paul SchraderPosted on

In "Tight Connection To My Heart," director Paul Schrader envisions a glittering, metropolitan Tokyo, wrapping our hero up in a surreal web of imagery. Wide pans and sudden zooms only add to the disorienting effect, as Bob Dylan wanders the city, searching for something we wouldn’t even know how to begin to describe . . .

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Alice Cohen and The Channel 14 Weather Team ​:: Artificial Fairytales

Alice CohenPosted on

Former roller-disco queen Alice Cohen has returned with Artificial Fairytales, recorded in her New York home with the Channel 14 Weather Team, the duo of Swedish composer Adrian Knight and saxophonist David Lackner . . .

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Transmissions Podcast :: Tim Heidecker/John Coltrane ’58/Johnathan Rice at Gold Diggers

John Coltrane Jonathan Rice Podcast Sidecar (Transmissions) Tim HeideckerPosted on

You’re tuned into the Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions podcast...This month, we bring you the uncut edition of our conversation with Tim Heidecker, explaining the classic inspirations behind his latest LP, What The Broken Hearted Do. Also, a review of the John Coltrane boxset, Coltrane ’58: The Prestige Recordings. And to close out, Johnathan Rice live at Gold Diggers, discussing both his haikus—optimized for the social media age—and new album, The Long Game . . .

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Posted on John Coltrane Jonathan Rice Podcast Sidecar (Transmissions) Tim Heidecker

Hot Sick Vile And Fun: New Sounds From San Francisco (A Compilation)

Sonny & The SunsetsPosted on

Sonny Smith is back, this time with a compilation of “great and weird new art happening in San Francisco” on his Rocks In Your Head Records label. Hot Sick And Vile Fun primarly showcases a bumper crop of current day groups that reside in a sort of San Francisco meets Flying Nun vein (Galore, Cindy, Rays), though there are some unexpected and welcome moves . . .

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The Aquarium Drunkard Show: SIRIUS/XMU (7pm PST, Channel 35)

SIRIUSPosted on

Outré California. Weird tales from the pacific rim. The Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm PST, Wednesdays + on-demand.

Tonight -- from our vault in LA, two hours of music culled exclusively from a decade of Aquarium Drunkard sessions . . .

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Posted on SIRIUS

The Song I Hate: Battery Park NYC, July 4th 2008, or Occupy the Sprawl. Extend the Technique . . .

Sonic YouthPosted on

The arrival of Sonic Youth's Battery Park NYC comes as an opportunity to consider a moment when a previous era was still visible in its twilight—a recent past nevertheless obscured by its break with the present—and to consider what, if any, possibilities for a future of music in opposition . . .

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Mitchell Froom :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Mitchell Froom The AD InterviewPosted on

But Froom is also a musician in his own right, and earlier this year he released an album and an EP, both projects designed to help revisit and develop his sense of the studio. The Monkeytree EP features a handful of compositions put together with David Boucher, and the Ether full-length took Froom on a working tour of his synthesizers, exploring a past sense of the future. "There's a layer of plastic over it," Froom says, describing the alternate-timeline vision of what lay ahead . . .

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The Lagniappe Sessions :: Six Organs Of Admittance

Lagniappe Sessions Melvins Six Organs of AdmittancePosted on

For more than two decades, Ben Chasny’s Six Organs of Admittance has taken on many forms, from full-band blowouts to spectral acoustic balladry, from esoteric approaches to free-form explorations. Wherever he goes, he’s always worth following. For his debut Lagniappe Session, Ben has re-imagined three Melvins songs, paying righteous tribute to the long-running Washington state rockers . . .

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Royal Trux :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Royal Trux The AD InterviewPosted on

Aquarium Drunkard spoke with Jennifer Herrema via Skype back before the tour was canceled and in an hour-long interview discussed returning to Royal Trux after an eighteen year hiatus, the somewhat contested recording story behind White Stuff, their almost unbelievable stint on Virgin Records in the 90s, intense bargaining over streaming their back catalogue, and the proclivity of Burger Kings in the U.K . . .

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Posted on Royal Trux The AD Interview