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Transmissions Podcast :: Yosuke Kitazawa/Remembering Richard Swift/Strange Stars

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Humid funk out there, but we're keeping cool. You are tuned into the July edition of the Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions podcast, our monthly series of interviews,  features, and audio esoterica. On this episode, Justin Gage sits down with crate digger and producer Yosuke Kitazawa, to discuss Light in the Attic Records' Japan Archival reissue series, which kicked off last year with the essential rock/folk/and pop compilation Even a Tree Can Shed Tears, picks up next month with a grip of Haruomi Honsono reissues, and will eventually feature Japanese new age, AOR, ambient, and electronic music.

Then, we crack the spine on author Jason Heller's new book, Strange Stars: David Bowie, Pop Music, and the Decade Sci-Fi Exploded. Focusing on the 1970s, Heller explores the myriad ways science fiction influenced music across genre lines, from the rock of David Bowie to the cosmic jazz of Sun Ra, and examines the changing ways we continue to conceive our ideas about "the future." But first, Gage and co-host Jason P. Woodbury sit down to reflect on the passing of Richard Swift. A prolific producer and sideman–known for his work with Damien Jurado, the Shins, the Black Keys/Dan Auerbach, Laetitia Sadier, Foxygen, David Bazan, the Pretenders, Starflyer 59, Kevin Morby, and countless more–Swift also proved himself one of the most idiosyncratic voices in indie rock on his own solo LPs for Secretly Canadian. Recorded at the beginning of the month, just after the news of his passing had broken, the talk focuses on his legacy, history, of course, his songs.

Transmissions Podcast :: Remembering Richard Swift/Yosuke Kitazawa/Strange Stars

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James Booker :: The Lost Paramount Tapes (1973)

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One night in 1973, pianist James Booker and his band, freshly seasoned from recent shows at the nearby club Dirty Pierre's, sauntered into Paramount Recording Studios in Hollywood. It was late at night, maybe 10:30 or 11, and the plan was loose. Booker sat down at a spinet tack piano, and his group of Dr. John associates–bassist Dave Johnson, drummer John Boudreaux, saxophonist David Lastie, guitarist Alvin "Shine" Robinson, and percussionists Richard "Didimus" Washington and Jesse "Ooh Poo Pa Doo" Hill– proceeded to cut a record.

As the story so often goes, the tapes got shopped around to labels, each one passing on them, and a reference copy wound up shelved somewhere to be mostly forgotten. Booker went on to find appreciative audiences in Europe, where he was hailed as an American treasure, "the Black Liberace," or as Dr. John called him, "the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced," all the while struggling with substance abuse, which eventually resulted in his passing in 1983.

But good sounds have a hard time staying a secret forever. This August, General General and Vinyl Me Please is set to reissue the wild recordings Booker and co. laid down that night, 45 years after the fact. The album follows a CD edition of the tapes released by DJM in the '90s, but the new version comes with expanded liner notes by Lily Keber, director of the essential Booker documentary Bayou Maharajah, and decked out with a new cover, featuring a photo snapped by Ginny Winn, one of the rare photos featuring a two-eyed Booker. The music here provides a startlingly electric taste of what led Allen Toussaint to call Booker "an extraordinary musician, both soul-wise and groove-wise."

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

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Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35, can now be heard every Wednesday at 7pm PST with an encore broadcasts on-demand via the SIRIUS/XM app.

SIRIUS 530: Jean Michel Bernard — Générique Stephane ++ Gil Scott-Heron — Message To The Messengers ++ Sinkane — U’Huh ++ Gal Costa — Relance ++ Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy w/ Tortoise — Cravo î‰ Canela ++ Yoko Ono — Mind Train (AD edit) ++ Lizzy Mercier Descloux — Wawa ++ Yabby U — Conquering Dub (excerpt) ++ Serge Gainsbourg — Javanaise Remake ++ Brian Eno — No One Receiving ++ Faust — Just A Second (Starts Like . . .

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Daniel Bachman :: The Morning Star

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Our romanticized image of the American Primitive-style guitarist is of a solitary figure. We picture him or her alone, hunched over six strings, eyes closed in concentration or reverie, shutting the noise of the world out. On his latest effort, the ambitious, challenging and beautiful  The Morning Star, Daniel Bachman lets some of that noise in.

The . . .

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The Lagniappe Sessions :: Wilder Maker

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Lagniappe (la ·gniappe) noun ‘lan-ˌyap,’ — 1. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. 2. Something given or obtained as a gratuity or bonus.

Wilder Maker’s new album Zion is an angry yet passionate, tongue in cheek dispatch from singer/guitarist Gabriel Birnbaum (Debo Band) and his long-time collaborators Katie Von Schleicher, Nick Jost (Baroness), Adam Brisbin (Sam Evian, Jolie Holland) and Sean Mullins. The album is self-described as a "kaleidoscopic snapshot of years hustling for a break in New York City” - and ultimately reconciles that while change cannot be stopped, embracing the current uncertain state of being is where art is created. That is “Zion” - for better or for worse — for all of us. Wilder maker in their own words, below . . .

Wilder Maker :: I Wanna Destroy You (The Soft Boys)

This is a song both me and Katie had secretly wanted to cover for a long time - this is closer to my concept than hers - the lyric is so angry, and I was interested in feeling that anger but also finding a steady, repetitive rhythm that would give it a calm, uncanny, creepy feeling. A violence under the surface that you could only barely see, rather than a straight up sneer.

The original is also so strum heavy that i thought it would be cool to reimagine it without any chugging guitars. Me and Sean tracked the piano and first drum track live and then we all slowly layered things over it, including Adam Brisbin's beautiful guitar arpeggio part. We spent a lot of time making editing choices and removing parts to keep it feeling clean and minimal.

Wilder Maker :: Back, Baby (Jessica Pratt)

Katie took the production lead on this one. This is such a beautiful song that we just wanted to augment it, create an alternate version where it was recorded with a full band. We used a drum part very close to the part for a Wilder Maker song called “Infinite Shift” that got cut from Zion, but which I hope we can release soon, and added just enough to make it feel full, trying to avoid any kind of heaviness that would weigh it down. Katie’s piano part is one of my favorite moments, and the watery weird guitar that me and Adam added to the refrain that closes it out. Oh, and Nick’s hilarious baroque bass melody in the part where the drums drop out, that cracks me up still.

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Did It! :: A Jerry Rubin Player

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In the last years of the 1960s, pop culture and revolution felt synonymous. "The late 1960s-early 1970s were an era when on a college kid’s dorm room, there would be a poster of both Mick Jagger and Angela Davis," said author Pat Thomas last week when we spoke with him about his book covering the rise of political provocateur Jerry Rubin,  Did It! From Yippie To Yuppie: Jerry Rubin, An American Revolutionary.

In his own way, Jerry Rubin was a rock star. The revolution may not have been televised, but it was certainly soundtracked. Following our long-form interview, Thomas offered up this Rubin-themed mixtape, featuring songs the defined an era, and Rubin's renegade spirit:

It was pure coincidence yet simply part of the synergy of the 1960s, that during the week of late August riots on the streets of Chicago, the Beatles released “Revolution” as a single (at the beginning of that tumultuous week) and the Rolling Stones released “Street Fighting Man” as a ‘45 as the protests wound down five days later. Talk about iconic bookends!

While just shouting out the slogan, “Yippie!” was part of the soundtrack of the era, Jerry Rubin was closely aligned with many of the musicians of the day. Protest singer Phil Ochs become a friend early on, while an unknown Rubin was still marching across the UC Berkeley campus in 1965. Ed Sanders, co-leader of the infamous Fugs was part of the Yippie conclave when they started up in ‘67. Rubin encountered Bob Dylan in ’65 and again in ‘72 trying to rope the legendary bard into street-level political activism without success, and most infamously, it was Rubin who introduced the band Elephant’s Memory to John and Yoko which resulted in the Lennon’s double-album of protest songs Some Time In New York City,  in which Rubin is mentioned twice in various song lyrics and was responsible for some of the subject matter, such as the song “John Sinclair,” about the manager of the MC5.

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Diversions :: Nathan Salsburg / Beyond ‘Third’

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Diversions, a recurring feature on Aquarium Drunkard, catches up with our favorite artists as they wax on subjects other than recording and performing.

The first time I heard "Impossible Air," the third track from Kentucky guitarist Nathan Salsburg's third lp Third, I was overwhelmed. Though like the other nine songs that accompany it, "Impossible Air" features nothing more than the sound of Salsburg's unaccompanied acoustic guitar, each low string buzz and striking string bend captured simply and cleanly. Like the best guitar soli, Salsburg's songs offer a gift to the listener: the gift of space. His songs, formed from elements of ancient American traditons and elegant Celtic ballads, create room to feel, articulating that weird middle ground between melancholy and sweetness. Like Salsburg's previous works, it's wonderful, but there's something new at work here, on his finest album yet, a new sense of lightness and grace.

“The songs that came out – and the songs that are still coming out – there’s an ease," Salsburg says over the phone from his home in Kentucky, nursing his first cup of morning coffee following a string of West Coast shows with his musical partner Joan Shelley. The years between Third and his last solo record, 2013's Hard For To Win And Can't Be Won have found Salsburg on the road and collaborating in the studio with Shelley, James Elkington, Wooden Wand, Bonnie Prince Billy, and others. Working with friends has opened his approach up, and made "the joy of playing more acute and more readily available."

"My first two records, I felt like they needed to be representatives of some inchoate yearning or the need to express myself in some big way," Salsburg says. "I say this with some sarcasm, because everyone who plays an instrument wants to do that. But [I was inspired by] the fun of playing with Jim and Joan, and when I came back to doing solo guitar music, I didn’t ask it to do so much, or really anything for me. The fun of playing with those two extended itself into playing solo."

Third by Nathan Salsburg

In this installment of Diversions, Salsburg opens up on the cultural ephemera at work in his life while conceiving and recording Third. When he's not releasing beautiful records, he spends his time working as the curator at the Alan Lomax Archive at the Association for Cultural Equity, and recently launched a podcast featuring recordings from the archives called Been All Around This World. Salsburg, in his own words, below.

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Carl Stone :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

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Listening to Carl Stone's second compilation for the excellent archival label Unseen Worlds, it's not uncommon to find yourself completely lost in a web of sounds. It's not necessarily a disorienting feeling. Instead, it's kind of like wading into a cool pool. It's only once you're all the way in that the temperature feels right. Utilizing samplers and armed with a keen ear, Stone's pieces, like 1993's languid and majestic "Banteay Srey" and 1988's sprightly "Sonali," fall together in surprising ways; the moods and sensations shift, but the expansive feeling always remains.

Electronic Music from the Eighties and Nineties is the sequel to the 2016 compilation Music from the Seventies and Eighties, and it documents Stone's shift into more tranquil waters. Recorded between 1983-1993, right as approaches similar to Stone's avant-garde layering and sampling were being explored in the mainstream via hip-hop, the collection presents a unified vision comprised of disparate sources – Mozart melodies, flutes, a Burundi children's song – brought together in a way that draws an elegant line connecting Steve Reich's chopped and looped epics to Robert Fripp's swelling Frippertronics suites to William Basinski's The Disintegration Loops. We caught up with Stone from his home in Japan to discuss the music gathered here and his ever-evolving process.

Electronic Music from the Eighties and Nineties by Carl Stone

Aquarium Drunkard: What initially brought you out to Japan? How long have you been out there full time?

Carl Stone: Since 2001. I first came to Japan in 1984 to perform a piece. I applied for and got a grant to live in Japan for about six months from the Asian Cultural Council. That was in 88-89, and that led to a lot of subsequent opportunities. In 2001, I was over and I got headhunted by a someone at [Chukyo University] who was looking to fill a slot they had vacant. I’d never really thought about teaching before. I’d visited many times and I liked Japan, but I never thought that I’d live there. But they made me a decent offer and provided the kind of stability and I said, "Why not, let’s do it." I’ve been here ever since.

AD: How often do you get back to the states?

Carl Stones: Two or three times a year, minimum. I haven’t cut my ties. I have a lot of friends and family and I keep an apartment in Los Angeles as a sort of pied-î -terre for me when I go back.

AD: You’ve made extensive field recordings of urban spaces in Japan. Have you done similar stuff in American cities?

Carl Stone:  I have some material I’ve recorded in the US that’s made it into a composition or two, but I haven’t for the most part. The Tokyo soundscape is really fascinating. It’s part of the reason I really enjoy living here. It’s a city with a lot of very characteristic sounds you can’t hear anywhere else. What’s the soundscape of New York really? If you were to take the sound of the traffic out, the whole thing would collapse. With a place like Tokyo, there’s so much more there.

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

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Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35, can now be heard every Wednesday at 7pm PST with an encore broadcasts on-demand via the SIRIUS/XM app.

SIRIUS 530: Sir Richard Bishop - Essaouira ++ Adanowsky - Me siento solo ++ Mind Over Mirrors - Lanterns on the Beach ++ Jack Logan - Shrunken Head ++ Vic Chesnutt & Liz Durrett - Somewhere ++ Brute - Morally Challenged ++ Smoke - The Trip ++ Leonard Cohen - Is This What You Wanted ++ Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Into My Arms ++ Ephram Carter & His Fife And Drum Band - Sorrow, Come . . .

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Tonight in Los Angeles: Talk Show / Aquarium Drunkard In Conversation With David Weinberg

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Los Angeles: Tonight, Aquarium Drunkard presents TALK SHOW, an intimate series of conversations centered around the worlds of music, art, film and beyond. Our third guest in the series is David Weinberg, host of KCRW’s Welcome To LA, in conversation with Justin. 8pm. Records and revelry to follow.

Free and open to the public at Gold Diggers in East Hollywood. 5632 Santa Monica Blvd . . .

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Beverly Glenn-Copeland :: Keyboard Fantasies

Beverly Copeland Beverly Glenn-CopelandPosted on

In 1970, Canada via Philadelphia singer / songwriter Beverly Glenn-Copeland cut his first two records. One self-titled, the other just called Beverly Copeland, on both discs he creates an intense and intimate dialogue amongst backdrops of desolate blues, rambling folk, serpentine jazz, and luminescent classical rhapsodies. With a powerfully earnest and transfixing androgynous vocal spectrum, his three-octave range reaches through despairing lows, spirited outsider-pop affirmations, and soaring operatic dramas.

It was at the age of three that Beverly Glenn-Copeland announced he was a boy, a proclamation met with immediate dismissal by his parents. It wasn’t until sixteen years ago — at the age of 58 — that Glenn-Copeland fully transitioned into a man. His artistry was to endure. “I have always loved to be able to sing in a feminine way, in a sound that was very feminine, as well as a sound that was very masculine," Glenn-Copeland told the CBC last year. “And I refuse to give that up because otherwise, I can't completely express the total spectrum of emotion, from my perspective.”

Nonetheless, he seemingly wouldn’t record again for sixteen years. Instead, he wrote for Sesame Street. Appeared regularly on the Canadian children’s show Mr. Dressup. He infused love and positivity into the world, and in 1986, re-emerged with Keyboard Fantasies, a minimalist electronic masterpiece that finds Glenn-Copeland conquering a brave new world in an assuredly singular ambient expression.

Beverly Glenn-Copeland :: Sunset Village

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Various Artists :: Freedom of the Press

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New label Kith & Kin comes storming out of the gate with a downright dazzling compilation of fresh cosmic American sounds, featuring stellar work from many of the scene's leading lights and upcoming talents. It's pretty safe to say that if you're a reader of this website, you're going to find a lot to like here.

Freedom of the Press  is . . .

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Bomboclat! Island Soak 8 :: Jamaican Vintage (A Mixtape)

Bomboclat! Mixtapes Reggae/DubPosted on

It's July, which means it's time to check in with the third largest of the four Greater Antilles. Enter Bomboclat! Island Soak, Volume 8 - another batch of seasoned sides from the private collection of John Mascarenhas.

1) The Hamlins - Everyone Got To Be There
2) Larry Marshall - I've Got To Make It
3) The Classics - Stick Together
4) Gladstone Anderson - Rockers
5) The Overtakers - Girl You Ruff
6. The Jamaicans - Slow and Easy
7) Johnny Clarke - Jump Back
8) The Hamboys - Harder On The Rock
9) Horace Andy . . .

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The Lagniappe Sessions :: Sam Evian

Lagniappe Sessions Sam EvianPosted on

Lagniappe (la ·gniappe) noun ‘lan-ˌyap,’ — 1. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. 2. Something given or obtained as a gratuity or bonus.

Celestial Shore veteran Sam Owens returned last month via, You, Forever - his second lp under the nom de tune Sam Evian. Like his 2016 debut, the record is another slice of elegant 70s leaning rock and pop, as evidenced by his Lagniappe selections. Paying tribute to  circa '74 John Cale and Neil Young's "Unknown Legend", Evian's north American tour lifts off later this week at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Owens in his own words, below.

Sam Evian :: You Know More Than I Know (John Cale)

I love songs that feel like circles. This song just keeps going. It probably has too many verses, but who cares. The first time I hung out with my partner Hannah, we drove around NYC listening to Fear, John Cale’s fourth solo record. I was pretty taken with her. So a week later I had a late night in the studio with some friends, and I convinced them to play through this tune. I’ve lost the multitrack to this recording. All I have is this stereo bounce that I made late late that night.

Sam Evian :: Unknown Legend (Neil Young)

Hannah and I learned this tune on our road trip across the country last Fall. We had Neil’s tape in the car, and we put it in right as we were coming down into this long flat desert valley. There was a big dust cloud in the distance. As "Unknown Legend" came in to its second chorus, we realized the dust was being kicked up by a handful of cowboys, herding a few hundred cattle through the desert. They were the first people we had seen for at least a hundred miles.

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