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Chris Forsyth :: Solar Motel

Chris ForsythPosted on

Say hello to you new favorite guitar anti-hero. Granted, Chris Forsyth has been making music for quite some time now, but if there's any justice in this world, Solar Motel  will bring a legion of fresh followers into the fold. The album is some kind of masterpiece, a four-part suite of ecstatic, spiritual psychedelia that . . .

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Diversions :: Chris Forsyth (Bootleg Mix)

Chris Forsyth DiversionsPosted on

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

2013 isn't quite done, but it's safe to say that the most glorious electric guitar record of the year is Chris Forsyth's stupendous Solar Motel. The album calls to mind a dream team of six-string mavericks -- Garcia, Verlaine/Lloyd, Thompson, Quine and plenty more. As one might expect, Forsyth is a connoisseur of guitar anti-heroism, so we asked him to put together a "bootleg mix" of jams that inspired the new record. Forsyth's selections, and words, below...

Tetuzi Akiyama: Short Piece Dedicated to Blind Willie Johnson and Blind Joe Death

I did nine dates in Europe with Tetuzi Akiyama back in the autumn of 2010. We'd met before and played together, even put out a CD (Phantom Limb & Akiyama, Hot Ginger  [Archive, 2006]), always playing electric. On this tour, during which we played solos and sometimes duos, he played acoustic. These gigs left me convinced that he's one of the most incredible and underrated acoustic guitar stylists I've ever heard up close. In London, we did two nights at Cafe Oto and on the second night, we played with other people. I did a first/only time duo with Rick Tomlinson of Voice of the Seven Thunders (which was very pleasing to do and is up on the Free Music Archive) and Tetuzi did a trio in a very reductionist mode with Seymour Wright and Ross Lambert. He then did an encore that nearly made my heart stop. On display was not only his devastating vision of the blues, but his sense of humor - he wore an airline sleeping blindfold and dedicated it to Blind Willie Johnson and Blind Joe Death. Lo and behold, someone taped it and it showed up on YouTube some months later. It has about 1000 hits as I write this and I'm sure I must be responsible for at least half of them.

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Posted on Chris Forsyth Diversions

Daniel Bachman :: Jesus I’m A Sinner

Daniel BachmanPosted on

Is Daniel Bachman the Robert Pollard of the American Primitive set? In terms of pure unstoppable output levels, it's starting to look that way. Since about 2010 he's been releasing music at a furious clip, including singles, cassettes compilation tracks, collaborations, and tour CDRs. Jesus I'm A Sinner is his third full-length album in less than two years, coming hot on the heels of 2012's Oh Be Joyful and Seven Pines. The good news is that the law . . .

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SIRIUS/XMU :: Aquarium Drunkard Show (Noon EST, Channel 35)

SIRIUSPosted on

Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35, can be heard twice every Friday — Noon EST with an encore broadcast at Midnight EST.

SIRIUS 315: Jean Michel Bernard — Générique Stephane ++  Jacques Dutronc - On Nous Cache Tout, On Nous Dit Rien ++ The Accent - Red Sky At Night ++ The Five Americans - Don't Blame Me ++ The Galaxies IV - Don't Lose Your Mind ++ The Hard Times - They Said No ++ The Rationals - Feelin' Lost ++ Beverley - Where . . .

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Tal National : Kaani

Tal NationalPosted on

Tal National is one of Niamey, Niger's chief party bands, a powerhouse team of musicians who stage nightly marathon shows and summon a rich, cosmopolitan cipher of West African styles. Elaborate melodies blossom into intricate latticeworks of many guitars and eventually settle into a mesmerizing, repetitive groove.   That groove is a maximalist representation full of sonic cues to the traditional styles of many Saharan peoples: the Tuareg, Hausa, Songhai et. al. This big sound is quite literally reflected by the band's bulging talent pool and intense performance ethic. Tal National's international press release tells of a . . .

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Trick Or Treat, Volume 9 (A Vintage Halloween Mixtape)

Halloween MixtapesPosted on

Trick or treat. Another 32 vintage spookers from the Grey Haas spanning 1958-1977. Download/tracklisting after the jump. For more undead, last year’s Halloween mixtape is still available, here, as well as volume seven, volume six and volume five.

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Legion Of Mary :: December 14-15, 1974 – Northwest Tour

Jerry Garcia Legion Of MaryPosted on

As the popularity of the Grateful Dead grew in the early 1970's the band found themselves perpetual road dogs in an attempt to make up for lost ground after Mickey Hart's father, Lenny, absconded with $155,000 of the band's savings leaving the band financially in shambles. The Dead soon found themselves moving away from intimate theaters and halls to performing in large arenas and stadiums. With the added pressure of pleasing their amassing fanbase came the need to sound better in these larger spaces - a need which soon yielded the creation of the infamous Wall of Sound. The two separate 75-ton walls not only provided the band with a distortion free sound system, but also worked as its own monitoring system and came equipped with four semi-trailers and a 21 person crew. The endeavor was not only challenging logistically, but financially. It soon reached the point where the band could no longer earn enough to keep the behemoth afloat. So as 1974 came to a close the band quietly went on hiatus as Garcia slipped out the back door of the band's last show at Winterland to gig with a new set of musicians.

Garcia's desire to play music outside the context of the Grateful Dead began as early as 1969 with the creation of country-rock pioneers New Riders of the Purple Sage. Almost simultaneously, in the spring of 1970, he began to take part in loose jam sessions with organist Howard Wales at the San Francisco musician's clubhouse, The Matrix. Wales soon left the fold and was replaced by seasoned Bay Area jazz and R&B vet, Merl Saunders, who brought a funky repertoire to the table that paired well with various R&B and rock covers sung by Garcia. By early 1971 the group had an semi-official name - The Garcia-Saunders Group - and was rounded out with bassist John Kahn, drummer Bill Vitt and the later addition of tenor saxophonist Martin Fierro.

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Neil Young :: Pushed It Over The End (Live, 1974)

CSNY Neil YoungPosted on

"I'd like to start with a kind of a quiet song," Neil Young mutters, having popped up unannounced at a Leon Redbone/Ry Cooder gig at NYC's Bottom Line in May of 1974. "It's called, um ... it's called ... 'Citizen Kane Jr. Blues.'" So begins one of Young's most famous bootlegs, during which he debuts several tracks from the then-unreleased On The Beach, instructs the audience on how to make honey slides (a potent marijuana + honey combo . . .

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SIRIUS/XMU :: Aquarium Drunkard Show (Noon EST, Channel 35)

SIRIUSPosted on

Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35, can be heard twice every Friday — Noon EST with an encore broadcast at Midnight EST.

SIRIUS 314: Jean Michel Bernard — Générique Stephane ++ Mondo Boys-Theme from Weird Summer ++  Jacco Gardner - Clear The Air ++ Nashville Teens - Tobacco Road ++ Jack And The Rippers - Cathys Clown ++  The Beach Boys - Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder) (Mono) ++ Jacqueline Taieb-Heure Du Matin ++ Brenton Wood-Baby . . .

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The Lagniappe Sessions :: Of Montreal

Lagniappe Sessions Of MontrealPosted 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.

Tuesday saw the release of Lousy with Sylvianbriar, Of Montreal's twelfth LP. And things have changed, both sonically and personnel-wise, aside from the constant - Kevin Barnes. Conceived in San Francisco and recorded to 24 track tape back in Athens, GA, Sylvianbriar plays out like Barnes rediscovering . . .

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Gary Numan :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Gary Numan The AD InterviewPosted on

Gary Numan was 20 years old when Tubeway Army's self-titled record dropped in 1978 and launched a career that became very successful, very quickly. Over the past 35 years, Numan's influence on the shape of electronic music has only grown, casting a heavy shadow over 80s and 90s synth and industrial music. Carrying into the 90s and 00s with a sound influenced by and channeling his industrial descendents, Numan's latest album, Splinter (Songs from a Broken Mind) is due out on October 15th. We recently caught up with Numan by phone, from his new home in Los Angeles, about the seven years it took to bring the album to fruition, working with Nine Inch Nails' Robin Finck on the new album, the brutal honesty of fans and the simple joys of banging a lead pipe.

Aquarium Drunkard: I don't expect you to remember this, but I met you once years ago. I went to your show at the Shepherd's Bush Empire right after 9/11. I hung around outside with a bunch of people I didn't know. You signed a picture vinyl single of "Are Friends Electric?" for me. You were very nice for someone who had just performed a big concert and two hours of people trying to talk to you.

Gary Numan: I used to do that all the time. I used to always go out and meet fans afterward, sometimes for a few hours, but then there were two incidents - one time a fan suddenly turned nasty and beat me up. And another time, this gang of people were walking by and again I nearly got beaten up. So I had to stop doing it. But I used to really enjoy it. It was the only time I really got to meet fans and get genuine face-to-face feedback. I used to love it and would do it for hours. But I had to stop doing that.

AD: The new album, Splinter (Songs from a Broken Mind) is your first new studio recording since 2006's Jagged, but in doing some research, I read an interview with you from 2010 where you said you had expected Splinter to be out in about a year. So can you walk me through what the process has been for getting this album out? It seems like it took a bit longer than you expected.

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Halloween II : Soundtrack (Death Waltz Records) 1981

Halloween IIPosted on

Trick or treat. I was trying to phonetically write out the sound the 'dark' synthesizers gracing the score of John Carpenter's Halloween II, but it just became too ridiculous. But, you know, feel free to give it a spin in the comments. Death Waltz Records specializes in vinyl reissues of classic soundtracks/scores from the realms of horror, sci-fi, and beyond. Their reissue of become a member or log in.

Posted on Halloween II

Parquet Courts :: Tally All the Things That You Broke (EP)

Parquet CourtsPosted on

Following the re-release of 2012’s stellar Light Up Gold on respectable mid-level indie What’s Your Rupture? earlier this year,   the quartet of Texans-cum-Brooklynites in Parquet Courts have ridden the critical wave to respectable mid-level success. They were the unofficial kings-in-the-making at Pitchfork Fest this summer; they played Chicago no less than three times that weekend, including a major-league taping of Sound Opinions with fellow post-punks Savages at a . . .

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Clover :: Harvest

CloverPosted on

We've previously mentioned Clover (along with Goose Creek Symphony) as part of the lost “Band Not Band” mixtape. Clover would later feature Huey Lewis on harmonica, back Elvis Costello, and emerge as part of the London pub rock scene. Following the band's dissolution, its members would spread across a disparate musical landscape, popping up in unexpected places (see: Toto, “867-5309/Jenny”).

But in 1971 there was no Huey, just a band of four dudes — lead vocalist/pianist/guitarist Alex Call, John McFee on organ, pedal steel, guitar, organ, and vocals, bassist/vocalist John Ciambotti, and Mitch Howie . . .

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Dead Notes #5 :: That’s It For The Other One (9/2/68 Seattle, WA)

Dead Notes Grateful DeadPosted on

Welcome to the fifth installment of Dead Notes where once again we find ourselves in the great Northwest, at the Sky River Rock Festival, on the outskirts of Seattle in Sultan, WA. Oddly enough the inspiration for this festival goes back to May 1968, at the annual Duvall Piano Drop, where Country Joe & The Fish played to an enthusiastic crowd of 3,000 after a piano dropped from a helicopter into a rural pasture. With a crash of wood, keys and strings, Paul Dorpat, of Seattle's historic underground newspaper Helix, began assembling a who's who of psychedelic West Coast musicians for the three day festival. The short list included the Flamin' Groovies, Santana, John Fahey, Kaleidoscope and our heroes of the "thick air" - the Grateful Dead...who showed up unannounced to perform on the festival's final day.

Grateful Dead :: That's It For The Other One

"That's It For The Other One" made its live debut in late 1967, prior to being reworked during the Anthem of the Sun sessions that yielded the Bob Weir beatnik Alice in Wonderland tale as we know it today. According to band lore the lyrics detail the persecution of the band's benefactor (and notorious acid king) Owsley Stanley, aka the Bear, who at the time was serving a three year sentence for possession of 350,000 doses of LSD.

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Posted on Dead Notes Grateful Dead