Transmissions

This week on Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions: ambient country trio Suss. On their own, Suss members Jonathan Gregg, Bob Holmes, and Pat Irwin have been involved in musical projects, with artists like k.d. Lang, the B-52s, John Cale, David Bowie, Norah Jones, the War on Drugs and Wilco—Irwin even contributed music to Nickelodeon's Rocko’s Modern Life. 

Since 2018, they—along with the their departed bandmate, the late cartoonist and musician Gary Lieb—have created spectral, moody soundscapes they’ve dubbed “Ambient Country,” which is also the name of a podcast Holmes hosts, where he highlights “the roots of the high and lonesome sound,” weaving together strands of instrumental folk, Americana, ambient, electronic, soundscapes and psychedelia.

The group’s latest is Suss, a self-titled collection that assembles four EPs—Night Suite, Heat Haze, Winter Was Hard, and Across the Horizon—into a majestic double album, full of slow motion twang, suspended synth drones, and gorgeous swells of pedal steel. This is country music mutated and stretched along a vast horizon, open music for open souls. It was a pleasure to host these three for a loose hang-out episode. 

Support Aquarium Drunkard on Patreon. Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network.

Next week on Transmissions? Next week on the show, Bruce Licher of Independent Project Press and Records, who joins us to reflect on a life of indie rock letter pressing and much, much more.

This episode of Transmissions is brought to you by Dad Grass. Go to Dadgrass.com/Transmissions to try it out.

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Today on the show, we’re joined by Allyson McCabe, author of the new book: Why Sinéad O’Connor Matters. McCabe is a writer, broadcaster and producer, whose work has appeared in the New York Times, BBC Culture, Wired and on NPR. 

Writing about the book for an installment of Aquarium Drunkard Book Club, JJ Toth of Wooden Wand states, “Though McCabe’s impassioned defense of O’Connor in the wake of her many controversies is both heartfelt and persuasive, Why Sinéad O’Connor Matters is no hagiography: O’Connor’s noble desire—some might say compulsion—to express herself authentically could be messy, and the author reckons with O’Connor’s own gaffes and errors in judgment…” 

Few artists have created a body of work as intense, as spiritually volatile, and as personal as O’Connor. In the book’s prologue, McCabe writes : “Insofar as O’Connor’s talents are inseparable from her struggles and triumphs, so are mine and yours.” That's the spirit that fuels this conversation: one of personal honesty and a believe that truth and beauty are ideas to be prized.

Support Aquarium Drunkard on Patreon. Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network.

Next week on Transmissions? Next week on the show, ambient country pioneers Suss.

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We're pleased to welcome Alex Pappademas and artist Joan LeMay on today's episode. Together, they have created a tremendous and deeply entertaining new book about one of Aquarium Drunkard's favorite bands: Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors From The Songs of Steely Dan. 

The Danaissance is in full swing, and in Quantum Criminals, Pappademas writes that Steely Dan is the most 2020s of ‘70s bands. But what makes the book so great is its sidewise angle into the situation—this is no boring history or staid rock bio. With LeMay’s vivid illustrations leading the way, the duo welcomes us into the world of Becker and Fagen through their strange characters: Dr Wu, Napoleon, Peg, The Expanding Man. Like the band’s songs, it’s funny, wonky, and given over to wonderful digressions and detours. Ready your scotch whisky and fine Columbian, here’s Alex and Joan on Steely Dan.

Support Aquarium Drunkard on Patreon. Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network.

Next week on Transmissions? Another University of Texas press author, Allyson McCabe, joins us to discuss Why Sinead O’Connor Matters.

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Our guest this week is mystic poet, writer, publisher, and performance artist Janaka Stucky, who’s been hailed as “extraordinary" and "riveting” by no less an occult authority than Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. We were first introduced to Stucky through his work with Third Man Books, the literary division of Jack White’s Third Man empire, which released his 2015 collection The Truth is We Are Perfect and 2019’s epic poem, Ascend, Ascend.

Rooted in horrific imagery and Kabbalistic prose and written over the course of twenty days as its author came in and out of trance states, Ascend Ascend is beautiful and horrifying—a meditation on decay and transcendence. Now, Stucky is presenting a musical version of the text. Recorded at the All Pilgrims Church in Seattle as part of a 7-city tour in 2019, the album finds Stucky joined by cellist Lori Goldston, known for her work with Nirvana, Earth, and Cat Power.

This week on Transmissions, he connects with host Jason P. Woodbury to discuss the poem, his musical journey, and touch on the ineffable and dread-soaked nature of reality.

Support Aquarium Drunkard on Patreon. Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network.

Next week on Transmissions? Alex Pappademas and Joan LeMay join us to discuss their new book, Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan. 

This episode of Transmissions is brought to you by Dad Grass. Go to Dadgrass.com/Transmissions to try it out.

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Today on Transmissions: Vashti Bunyan. Though her 1970 Joy Boyd-produced Just Another Diamond Day album was barely heard upon original release, its rediscovery by key members of the burgeoning freak folk scene in the mid-2000s helped make it a cult classic, a tender work of imagination and melody.

Recently, Bunyan published her first book, Wayward: Just Another Life. It charts her youth in the orbit of the Rolling Stones, her musical and mental struggles, and details the horse-drawn cart journey across the countryside where the songs of Just Another Diamond Day came into shape. It is a vivid and touching read, sly, understated and emotionally expansive. Its quiet melancholy and endearing jokes feel a piece with her musical work. She joined us to discuss the book, that journey, and what it felt like to have her work rediscovered—and why she hates being called a “folk” singer. 

This episode of Transmissions is brought to you by Dad Grass. Go to Dadgrass.com/Transmissions to try it out.

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This week on Transmissions, Jesse Sheppard and Drew Gardner, the psychedelic folk duo Elkhorn. Their new album, On the Universe In All Directions, finds Jesse once again at his familiar 12-string acoustic guitar, but instead of Drew joining with his trademark Telecaster, he’s moved over to vibraphone and drums for this outing.

Have no fear: the familiar Elkhorn magic is here in spades, but in brand new ways. The songs were born out of collaboration with New York consciousness group Psychedelic Sangha, and as JJ Toth puts it in his excellent liner notes, the sounds traverse “the valleys between fried cosmic psychedelia and American Primitive… splitting the difference between Popol Vuh’s devotional drift and the outer reaches of deep-cut classic rock while constantly keeping one foot in the river of the Ever-Weird America; call it Six Degrees of Uncle Dave Macon.” 

From Buddhism to Fahey, from time slips to Aquarium Drunkard itself, this conversation unfolds and wanders, we hope you enjoy it.

Support Aquarium Drunkard on Patreon. Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network.

Next week on Transmissions? The incredible Vashti Bunyan, who joins us to discuss her vivid and deep book Wayward.

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This week on Transmissions, we’re joined by writer and musician Jana Horn. Her new album The Window is the Dream is out now on No Quarter Records. Writing about it, Andy French at Raven Sings The Blues calls it a “delicate exfoliation of dream and reality.” When she’s not penning oracular folk rock songs, Horn teaches fiction at the University of Virginia and writes short fiction. 

The Window is the Dream is a gem. It follows Optimism, which contains a song called “Jordan." Sometimes a song suggests something mysterious, something ineffable—nearly impossible to put into words, and that’s the case with “Jordan.”

The song, as you’ll hear, is something of a mystery even to its author, a term Horn isn’t especially keen to apply to herself in the case of that song. If the notion of music or art working like a doorway into radical mystery appeals to you, you’ll find a lot of power and beauty in this chat, which centers on what we don’t know, what we don’t hear, and sometimes, what we don’t attempt to say. 

Support Aquarium Drunkard on Patreon. Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network.

Next week on Transmissions? Psychedelic folk duo Elkhorn join us for a head spinning conversation about underground music, spirituality, collaboration and much more. I hope you will join us. Until then, this Transmission is concluded. 

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This week on Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions: spiritual avant-garde jazz keyboardist Surya Botofasina. His new album is called Everyone’s Children and it was created in collaboration with previous Transmissions guest Carlos Niño, members of Botofasina's family, and other collaborators.

Listening to his blissful synth meditations, listeners are treated to an open, cosmically vulnerable sound. This spiritual approach comes naturally to Botofasina. He grew up at Alice Coltrane’s Sai Anantam Ashram in the Santa Monica Mountains. Being there, and studying at the foot of Swamini Turiyasangitananda herself, profoundly shaped his musical worldview, which echoes in his present day compositions: "At this point, I feel that the music I want to be a part of at least, is a music, a sound, a frequency that advocates and promotes some sort of introspection, back to the here and now."

Botofasina discusses his upbringing, connecting to the divine, growing up on hip-hop, and much more this week on Transmissions.

Support Aquarium Drunkard on Patreon. Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network.

Next week on Transmissions? Jana Horn discusses her oracular folk rock and short story writing. This Transmission is concluded. 

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In 1992, Eddie Chacon broke out as one-half of Charles & Eddie, his soul music duo with Charles Pettigrew. Their single "Would I Lie to You?” was a major international hit. Chacon was just a kid growing up in Castro Valley, California, when he decided he would be a music star. Before meeting Pettigrew, Eddie had played in a teenage band with Cliff Burton and Mike Bordin, later of Metallica and Faith No More. He had an alliance with Luther Campbell of the infamous 2 Live Crew, worked with the Dust Brothers. These days, he’s making oracular, synth driven soul music that draws equally on the mile deep grooves of Sly Stone’s drum machine and the cosmic synth hymns of Alice Coltrane. His latest album is called Sundown, out now from Stones Throw.

This week on Transmissions, Eddie joins host Jason P. Woodbury to discuss his partnership with producer John Carroll Kirby, his fascinating years in the music industry, and his collaborative work with his wife, Sissy Chacon. 

Support Aquarium Drunkard on Patreon.

Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network.

Next week on Transmissions? A conversation with Surya Botofasina about his incredible synth meditations and growing up on Alice Coltrane’s Ashram.

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Of all the ways to discover a song, there are few more inviting and experiential than driving down a desert highway and hearing something come in over the radio—a real life transmission. That was the case for host Jason P. Woodbury driving to Tucson, Arizona, in 2022, when “Puedas Decir De Mi,” by Adrian Quesada featuring Gaby Moreno came over the airwaves of KCXI Tucson community radio.

Quesada is best known as one-half of The Black Pumas, his duo with singer/songwriter Eric Burton. But Quesada’s musical output is varied: he’s worked with Brownout, a Latin hard rock-tinged outfit, Grupo Fantasma, Adrian Younge, and many more. In 2022, he released his debut solo album, Boleros Psicodélicos, followed that same year by Jaguar Sound. He joined us to discuss his trajectory, his worldwide success, his roots in hip-hop, and much more.

Transmissions is produced in partnership with Talkhouse Podcast Network. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its Patreon supporters. Next week on Transmissions? Future soul singer Eddie Chacon takes us back in time and to Ibiza for a conversation focused around his incredible new album Sundown. Subscribe to Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions so you don’t miss it. This transmission is concluded.

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