Posts

Sathima Bea Benjamin :: Windsong

Her voice comes from far, far away. From Saint Helena, her grandmother’s home, a tiny island thousands of miles off West Africa, Napoleon’s grave. It comes from the Philippines, where her mother was born. It found a home in Cape Town, where she met her future husband, Abdullah Ibrahim, and became a foundational mother of one of the most vibrant jazz scenes in the world . . .

Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.

To continue reading, become a member or log in.

Transmissions :: The Paranoid Style

This week we're welcoming Elizabeth Nelson of The Paranoid Style to the show for a conversation about music, writing, ZZ Top, and her new album, The Interrogator. Packed with pub rock charm, punk verve, and rootsy, wide-eyed songwriting, the album finds Nelson and her collaborators, including partner Timothy Bracy and Peter Holsapple of The dB's, cranking the amps in service of sharp, literary rock & roll. Sitting down with host Jason P. Woodbury, Nelson explores her dual roles as a writer and artist, details her unique and optimistic approach to posting on X (formerly Twitter), and generally indulges . . .

Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.

To continue reading, become a member or log in.

Patti Smith Group / John Cale / Television :: The Palladium, New York City, December 31, 1976

As mentioned in a recent Aquarium Drunkard Book Club, some of the most entertaining parts of Thurston Moore’s Sonic Life memoir come during his teenage years, way before Sonic Youth was even a twinkle in his eye. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Fan? From the suburbs of Connecticut, Moore made countless trips into NYC to soak in the punk/CBGB/Max’s Kansas City worlds, catching shows by The Ramones, Suicide, the Dead Boys, Sid Vicious … and Patti Smith, of course. Thurston paints an evocative portrait of this New Year’s Eve blowout, which doubled as . . .

Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.

To continue reading, become a member or log in.

Late Cold War Style in Songwriting: 1978-1984

As the Cold War cooled into something like an uneasy truce, songwriters like Warren Zevon, David Bowie, John Cale, Bob Dylan, and Steely Dan's Donald Fagen addressed world events and the cultural malaise of the period, constituting Late Cold War style in their vivid songs . . .

Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.

To continue reading, become a member or log in.

Truckload Of Art: The Life and Work of Terry Allen

For more than fifty years, Terry Allen has navigated an artistic path that bears little resemblance to the flat straightaways of his Lubbock youth. There’s a good chance he’s your favorite artist’s favorite country singer, or your favorite country singer’s favorite artist. Enter Truckload Of Art: The Life and Work of Terry Allen, Brendan Greaves’ 500+ page epic released on Hachette Books on March 19th. We sat down with Greaves to discuss this exhilarating investigation of a life spent in the act of constant creation . . .

Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.

To continue reading, become a member or log in.

Rosali :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Rosali joins us for a discussion about her fourth full-length, Bite Down. It's her best record yet and it embodies the healing power of art: “Music and songwriting have always been a spiritual healing practices for me. I think it’s trying to help people feel something, to have a connectedness in our humanity . . .

Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.

To continue reading, become a member or log in.

Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard :: March 2024

Freeform transmissions from Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard on dublab. Airing every third Sunday of the month, RFAD on dublab features the pairing of Tyler Wilcox’s Doom and Gloom from the Tomb and Chad DePasquale’s New Happy Gathering. This month, Chad offers up a misty portal into spring — orchestral pop, psychedelic folk & earthy jazz; then, Tyler delivers some Stereolab-ish situations, from solo efforts and side projects to similarly styled space age bachelor pad music. 4-6pm PT . . .

Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.

To continue reading, become a member or log in.

Morris Belknap :: My Lost Friends

Morris Belknap's lone 1976 LP Jesus Saves was reissued last year by the dedicated crate diggers at cult Arizona label Skull Valley Records. It oozes honesty and earnest, faithful fervor. Though the album is informed predominately by the sounds of blues, country, and folk, "My Lost Friends" carries in it some nascent Velvets-like quality . . .

Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.

To continue reading, become a member or log in.

Ryan Power :: World of Wonder

Four years after the brilliant Mind the Neighbors and seven after the highly-praised They Sell Doomsday, World of Wonder brings back Ryan Power's multi-genre kaleidoscope of kosmische sensibility, toy aesthetics, and chamber pop sublime. It closely follows Fievel is Glauque's now-famed brand of indie jazz psychedelia, with broken and demented (and yet perfectly refined) melodies going through unexpected harmonic progressions, modulating right before the phrases can find a conclusive stage . . .

Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.

To continue reading, become a member or log in.

Oisin Leech :: Cold Sea

Oisin Leech is an Irish singer-songwriter who had his brush with commerce with the 1990s band 747s and a more ruminative sort of acclaim with the Lost Brothers, his folk duo with Mark McCausland “October Sun.” Cold Sea is his first solo album, and while you might miss the Lost Brothers’ shadowy harmonies on it, he is not exactly alone.

Indeed, on the translucent opener “Cold Sea,” both producer Steve Gunn and long-time collaborator M. Ward lend a hand, and later, Dylan bassist Tony Garnier turns up for some lovely acoustic low-end . . .

Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.

To continue reading, become a member or log in.

Waxahatchee :: Tigers Blood

Katie Crutchfield hit an artistic and commercial high water mark in 2020 with the full-throttle country rocking St. Cloud, an album which doubled her audience and established her as a significant force in Americana music. Tigers Blood comes four years later, past a global music industry shutdown, a world health crisis and Crutchfield’s own battle to get sober. If anything, it’s a bigger, brighter album, its rough, confessional poetry charged with triumph, its instrumental sound bolstered by a full complement of collaborators . . .

Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.

To continue reading, become a member or log in.

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

Come down easy. 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 . . .

Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.

To continue reading, become a member or log in.

Corey Madden :: Taste The Hour

Reeling off the success of Color Green’s last few years, guitarist Corey Madden has set aside the time to assemble a record that embodies the freewheelin’ ethos of the former while propagating a singer-songwriter persona of his own design. Released on the peripatetic Worried Songs, Taste the Hour finds camaraderie in the label’s ever-expanding ilk of freaks, heady rockers, and ardent songcrafters. Sure to stand above the fray in a growing world of blissed-out jammers, Madden has founded a realm where folk-rock grit is further refined in fuzz and adorned with sparks of power . . .

Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.

To continue reading, become a member or log in.

Transmissions :: John Lurie

This week on our Transmissions podcast, a freewheeling conversation about television, Martin Scorsese, Anthony Bourdain, his book The History of Bones and Music From Painting With John . . .

Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.

To continue reading, become a member or log in.

Harold Land Quintet :: The Peace-Maker

Like many great collaborations, Harold Land joining forces with Bobby Hutcherson was the fruitful artistic spark needed to elevate his career. Beginning in late 1967, The Peace-Maker was recorded in two sessions and offers the perfect, lively synergy of Land's collaboration with Hutcherson. Transcending the tradition of hard bop standards, Land had also taken a five year hiatus as a bandleader, making this offering all the more dazzling . . .

Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support.

To continue reading, become a member or log in.