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Lissie :: The AD Interview

Lissie The AD InterviewPosted on

Aquarium Drunkard caught up with Lissie, the best pipes at SXSW, before her set at Mess With Texas in the midst of her whirlwind week in Austin. The following discussion veers from Throat Coat tea to Hulu faves...with a little music talk thrown in for the hell of it. Lissie is set to embark on a European tour this Spring. Don't miss her live.
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AD: You’ve played five shows already, you’re about to play to five more — how are you saving your voice?

Lissie: Well, the first night, Wednesday, we played two shows and around the second one I was beginning to feel a strain so afterwards I went back to the house we’re renting, drank a bunch of Throat-Coat Tea with honey and lemon, watched some Hulu, got in my pajamas and stayed in, even though I wanted to go out and see bands. I came here to work, not to party. So Wednesday night I took it easy, went to bed early. I played two shows yesterday and surprisingly, my voice didn’t feel that good talking but once I started singing it was fine. And this morning, I was surprised again, I feel hoarse, but once I started singing it was doing what I wanted it to do. I smoke and I drink too much — the best things for my voice are sleep, tea and just being able to rest it — but I haven’t had the luxury to rest it. I’m just crossing my fingers and hoping for the best — I should probably get some tea in a bit here. I don’t know when we’re playing, our shows been pushed back, so I might go back to the house and make some tea and clean my contacts cause they hurt my eyes, change my clothes — just get comfortable. I warm up and I warm down, I’m just hoping I make it through the next two days. I just did this radio thing where I had to sing, I’m talking a lot doing interviews, doing filming.

There was one time when I was in London when I had to sing on the radio after five days of doing show, show, show, show show. I woke up and I couldn’t talk - opened my mouth and nothing came out. I ended up getting injected with cortisone — it felt illegal. It felt self-serving, to have a doctor show up in your hotel and take this big needle and inject you in the butt. “Give me your butt!” and he gave me a cortisone shot and a B-12 shot which was supposed to give me energy. It was amazing how quickly my voice came back and how good it sounded. But, it also makes you fat and I don’t want to get fat. I also had to take Prednisone, cause I get allergy induced asthma…

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Posted on Lissie The AD Interview

Melanie & The Edwin Hawkins Singers :: Lay Down (Candles…)

MelaniePosted on

Barn-folk-revival. A 'real' genre? Well no, but that's what comes to mind whenever Melanie's "Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)" pops up on an old mixtape of the same name. Aided by The Edwin Hawkins Singers, "Lay Down" adds a muscular oomph to Melanie's gruff trademark purr. Highly recc'd.

MP3: Melanie & The Edwin Hawkins Singers :: Lay Down (Candles In The Rain . . .

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Turquoise Wisdom :: A Mixtape

Mixtapes Turquoise WisdomPosted on

Welcome to the   third installment of an irregular series in which I highlight some of my favorite voices online and beyond. Today we catch up with DJ Turquoise Wisdom. Wisdom (Zach Cowie) has worked in the record business his entire adult life-- at labels (Touch & Go, Sub Pop, Drag City, Rhino), as a tour manager (Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, Vetiver, Vashti Bunyan, etc), and as a touring DJ. He's currently living in LA and trying his hand at music supervision/consultation for . . .

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Futurebirds :: The AD Interview (SXSW 2010) 48 Hours/Five Shows

FuturebirdsPosted on

In the span of 48 hours I managed to catch five Futurebirds shows during SXSW: the band's official showcase, several day parties and a crazed, impromptu, house party somewhere off South Congress. These guys are, in a word, the truth. As I mentioned last Fall, Futurebirds inhabit a space somewhere in between Tennessee Fire era MMJ, a cornbread-fed Spiritualized and Goose Creek Symphony. And as for the lo-fi aesthetic of the EP? It did nothing to prepare me for the live show.

After the jump, AD catches up with Futurebirds' Daniel Womack, Thomas Johnson, Dennis Love, Brannen Miles, Payton Bradford and Carter King   just prior to the band's performance at the 40 Watt day party.

MP3: Futurebirds :: Dirty D

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Joanna Newsom :: Montréal, (QC) March 14th

Joanna NewsomPosted on

To say that Have One On Me, Joanna Newsom’s new two-hour triple-disc, is a challenging listen is an understatement. It’s a well-wrought record to be sure, and Newsom’s songwriting–both lyrically and structurally–are more ambitious than ever, and she’s inched just close enough to the borders of indie-folk to keep the untrained listener happy. But it’s these same leaps forward that keep the listener at bay: the sprawling songs, intricately . . .

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SIRIUS/XMU :: Aquarium Drunkard Show

SIRIUSPosted on

Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 26 (SIRIUS), and channel 43 (XM), can now be heard twice, every Friday - Noon EST with an encore broadcast at Midnight EST.

SIRIUS 134: Jean Michel Bernard - Generique Stephane ++ Robert Pollard - Waved Out ++ Turbo Fruits - Trouble! ++ Surfer Blood - Catholic Pagans ++ Twin Sister - Ginger ++ Ganglians - Blood On The Sand ++ Moon Duo - Stumbling 22nd St ++ PoPo - Knife Iz Young ++ Deerhunter - Fluorescent Grey ++ Lotus Plaza - What Grows ++ The Sandwitches - Back To The . . .

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SXSW is Decadent and Depraved…

UncategorizedPosted on

(We brought Aquarium Drunkard's J. Crosby with us to Austin last week---his first sojourn into the four-day romp that is SXSW. We traveled by car from L.A. to Austin. I asked Joe to keep a loose diary of events. Below are his notes. An homage to HST. Loosely based on facts, soaked in Lone Star and salsa, covered in tex-mex and BBQ.   - AD)

After speeding across the desert from L.A. we had crashed in El Paso, a wretched border hive evolved into faux-society after generations of midnight crossings, dusty trade post quarreling and unapologetic inbreeding. We drank piss-warm beer till 5 a.m., speculating on the days to come. The next eve, seventeen hours of wandering and 600 miles later, two of our cohort--myself and a mustachioed "businessman"--were dropped at a roadside watering hole in Austin, bags in tow. "Sleep be damned," the businessman said, and I cringed at the thought of excess. We walked inside. There, we met an albino Venezuelan woman and a tall, elastically built man who rambled about ghost sightings, corporate America and prostitutes. The four of us delighted in innocent revelry, telling stories, laughing and patting each other on the back when a certain anecdote saw fit to it. This interpersonal play had all the ostensible makeup of normalcy, despite the players.

The following morning looked more like an afternoon, and indeed it was. My eyes felt like stones, their lids tufts of unrefined cotton. My mouth was as parched as the cracks in my hands, but I otherwise felt fine. And in any case, I had business to do, so I gathered myself and prepared to make a few calls.

The businessman--a loose description, I'd soon find out--meanwhile headed toward the Convention Center, which for all intents and purposes is a bland structure of massive proportions serving bland appointments of benign futility. But on this day it would be the last jumping off point of the River Styx, where you pick up your registration accoutrements.

At the 11th hour, the businessman had arranged for me to receive a wristband. In most stretches of the world, wristbands are reserved for hopeless, swollen and jaundiced hospital patients roaming moribund halogen halls. Here in Austin, the wristband is a badge of honor, an access key, your mark flashed cooly at gatekeepers to gain entrance into the orgy of music, industry networking and Lone Star, into the darkest corners of South by Southwest. As though there were any difference.

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Silver Apples :: S/T 1968

Rising Storm Silver ApplesPosted on

Of all the records that are considered "ahead of their time," this may be the most en vogue contender. There are thousands of albums from the sixties that didn't jive with the times, and many that are still too ahead of their time (what happens in the evolution of music since then ultimately ends up determining what we consider to be the most influential). In terms of popular electronic music, nothing really touches what the Silver Apples started up in '68.

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Robert Pollard :: We All Got Out of The Army

Robert PollardPosted on

Consider the following mush the requisite/obligatory, by-the-numbers, opening paragraph concerning the level of recent Robert Pollard ouput: A gnbhjn ghm kskeh a hgjj hfgrgs. Mg ghjed xffjj hknk wfjhbasd kedkcn kckjnz kjnd   kjbkjsdc qcdbuha nhjn sc ibjk?   A fe kqwlkxd yrn aiebjc kbjsdc. Eneuhc kjb oijba yrun kjbds. bjedcoijb. A hberc, ibsdc hbowbv dje qyrbj jsdcb ohrt ashreidh kjb ntrugh! Nufgh kecsd. Prolific.

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Diversions :: Dean Wareham/10 Albums That Inspired Galaxie 500

Diversions Galaxie 500Posted on

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

Being that Galaxie 500 were (for me) a key gateway band into a number of underground artists, I was especially interested in this weeks Diversions entry: Dean Wareham on 10 albums that inspired Galaxie 500. Not unlike the Velvet Underground before them, Galaxie 500's own influence has gone on to inspire countless artists since their split in 1991. Listening to their records now, two decades after the height of their career, the group were practically their own genre at the time. Hushed, crystalline, vaguely psychedelic post-punk that gave up next to nothing upon the first listen, only slowly unveiling itself to the patient.

March 30th sees the release of the deluxe reissues of Galaxie 500's Today, On Fire, and This is Our Music, which have been bundled with Uncollected, their legendary Peel Sessions, and their lone live record, Copenhagen. For Galaxie 500 fans this is a long time coming. Now how about the early LUNA catalog.

1. Rockin' and Romance by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers.

2. Easter Everywhere by the 13th Floor Elevators

3. Music to Strip By - by Half Japanese. I loved Kramer's production on this Half-Jap album, surely one of the reasons we sought him out as a producer for Galaxie 500.

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The Radio Dept. :: Clinging To A Scheme

The Radio Dept.Posted on

Swedes The Radio Dept. return after four long years with Clinging to a Scheme. Like their previous two albums and countless EPs of textural electronic-guitar pop, Scheme focuses on layers, atmosphere, minor chord moodiness and subtle rhythmic shifts. If you have yet to be exposed to the group -- they're not the most celebrated batch from the region . . .

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WAVED OUT :: Los Angeles, March 27th @ The Echo/Echoplex (More Bands Added!)

Aquarium Drunkard Presents WAVED OUTPosted on

It's here, Los Angeles. This Saturday, March 27th Aquarium Drunkard, in conjunction with the Echo, is holding its inaugural all ages festival here in L.A. in Echo Park. Dubbed WAVED OUT, after my favorite Robert Pollard solo album, this is the first of what will be a recurring event featuring emerging national, local and international artists. For this, the kickoff, we are beginning in the afternoon at both clubs (the Echo and Echoplex) and going until two a.m. All ages + 12 bucks. Food trucks, t-shirts, ice cream (!) and more.... Sixteen bands, two stages - Beginning at 3 p.m. I'm giving away 10 pairs of tickets. Leave you name and email below - winners drawn at random.

Hosts/comedic stylings: The MATTs -- Matt Dwyer and Matt Braunger.

Confirmed: Surfer Blood, Best Coast, Turbo Fruits, The Sandwitches, Dirt Dress, The Coathangers, Active Child, PoPo, Moon Duo, Gamble House, Family Portrait, Tape Deck Mountain, Apes of Wrath, Pizza!, Giant Cloud, Superhumanoids. Grab your tickets early as we're very much expecting a full house post-SXSW.

Purchase Tickets: WAVED OUT :: Los Angeles, March 27th @ The Echo/Echoplex

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Roadside Graves :: You Won’t Be Happy With Me (EP)

Autumn Tone Roadside GravesPosted on

When a piano silhouette sparkles through the first moments of "Demons," you might think you'd reached for the wrong CD. The uptempo percussion sequence that immediately follows would only embolden this belief--that is, until John Gleason's familiar rasp comes brimming into focus. And, as with its opener, so it goes throughout much of the Roadside Graves EP You Won't Be Happy With Me

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WOXY Goes Off The Air…

WOXYPosted on

Just heard the news that, as of today, we have lost yet another independent voice in music. The recently relocated WOXY (from Cincinnati, OH to Austin, TX) announced they are ceasing operations until further notice. After leaving its terrestrial FM roots in 2004 WOXY reemerged as the preeminent leader in online independent radio. The combination of the station's programming, knowledgeable DJs and original sessions will be sorely missed. This news serves as another reminder to appreciate the independently run radio stations, blogs, magazines, music venues, etc still existing outside an increasingly . . .

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Posted on WOXY