Transmissions
Weekly interviews with musicians, artists, authors, and filmmakers presented by Aquarium Drunkard.
Episodes
April 24, 2024 • 50 mins
Hello, welcome back to Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions.
On Saturday, April 20th, Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions returned to the esoteric grounds of the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles for a living taping with guest host Will Sheff (Okkervil River) in conversation author Sean Howe, discussing Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s, book on High Times founder, provocateur, ...
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April 17, 2024 • 56 mins
This week on Transmissions: Camae Ayewa, better known as Moor Mother. As one-half of the Black Quantum Futurism collective, a creative project she founded with Rasheedah Philips, Ayewa has focused her considerable energies on “the manipulation of space-time in order to see into possible futures, and/or collapse space-time into a desired future in order to bring about that future’s reality.” As the front-person of the incendiary jaz...
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April 10, 2024 • 74 mins
This week on Transmissions, author, producer, archivist, and musician Pat Thomas. In the late '80s, he helped take the Paisley Underground overground with his label Heyday Records. Later, he helped bring out reissues by artists like Judee Sill, Sandy Bull, PiL, and more. And as if all that wasn't enough, he's the author of a number of essential counterculture histories, including 2012's Listen, Whitey! The Sights & Sounds of Black ...
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April 3, 2024 • 47 mins
This week on Transmissions, Aquarium Drunkard founder Justin Gage joins host Jason P. Woodbury to discuss big changes coming to Aquarium Drunkard: AD is transitioning to a membership-based model subscription model on April 8th.
Transmissions has a very smart audience and one that’s tapped in—so we likely don’t need to explain to you how much the online landscape has changed, but this decision wasn’t reached lightly, and this conve...
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March 27, 2024 • 72 mins
Incoming transmission from Roger Eno. This week on the show, he joins us for a freewheeling, friendly chat about art, place, and Dune (1984).
Eno began his recording life in 1983, when he joined his brother Brian and Daniel Lanois at the latter’s studio in Hamilton, Ontario, to cut one of our favorite albums of all-time, Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks. Imbued with country and western ambiance, it suggests the vastness of spac...
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March 20, 2024 • 71 mins
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 J...
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March 13, 2024 • 67 mins
This week on the show, we’re so pleased to welcome John Lurie. Perhaps you know him from his work in films like Stranger Than Paradise, Down By Law, Paris Texas, or The Last Temptation of Christ; or maybe you know him better for his music—groups like The Lounge Lizards, his trailblazing avant-garde jazz unit, or his fictional bluesman persona Marvin Pontiac, or the John Lurie National Orchestra. Or maybe you know him from his pion...
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March 6, 2024 • 54 mins
This week on the show, a conversation with pianist, composer, bandleader, and writer, Vijay Iyer. He’s been at it since 1995, recording for labels like Savoy, Pi, and ECM, and he’s collaborated with a diverse and inspiring roster along the way including Amiri Baraka, Matana Roberts, Das Racist, previous Transmissions guest Wadada Leo Smith, and many more. His records have incorporated electronic music and spoken word, chamber jazz ...
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February 28, 2024 • 68 mins
This week on the show: a conversation with Laetitia Sadier. As the main vocalist of Stereolab, her spacey voice shines as the human core in that project’s motorik and dense avant-pop, a blend of electronic music, krautrock, space age lounge sounds, and much more.
Outside of that legendary band, Sadier has been an active force on her own. She’s appeared in a variety of contexts on albums by Common, Tyler the Creator, Atlas Sound, a...
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February 21, 2024 • 67 mins
Incoming transmission from Hopeton Overton Brown, better known as Scientist. As a protege of dub pioneer King Tubby, Scientist represents dub’s third generation—at least that’s how his 1981 collaboration with Tubby and Prince Jammy, First Second, and Third Generation, puts it. Originating in Kingston, Hopeton earned his nickname from Bunny Lee due to his highly complex mixing skills, who famously opined, "Damn, this little boy must...
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February 14, 2024 • 60 mins
For the last decade-and-a-half, Ty Segall has reliably cranked out records that show off his range, ping-ponging from scuzzed out glam rock to chiming folk ballads. With his latest, Three Bells, he dips his toes into prog territory, tapping into King Crimson-like zones while detailing the exploration of inner zones. It's a personal record, but in typical Ty fashion, it evokes grandiose and grotesque drama to accompany its revelator...
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February 7, 2024 • 77 mins
This week on the show, return guests Jason Stern and Don Fleming of the Lou Reed Archive join us to discuss Lou's 2007 ambient album Hudson River Wind Meditations, recently reissued by Light in the Attic, and share a bevy of Lou stories and insights. Plus, resident Lou fanatic Tyler Wilcox of Doom and Gloom from the Tomb drops by to discuss Lou's kung fu fascinations, love of comics, mindfulness, and a few of his favorite Lou piece...
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January 31, 2024 • 67 mins
Welcome back to Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions with Jason P. Woodbury. We're kicking off our 2024 season with two very special guests: Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy, discussing their love of and tribute to R.E.M.’s Murmur, which they are taking on tour in February.
You no doubt know Shannon from his movies and shows, including some of our favorites like Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Midnight Special, The Shape of W...
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November 29, 2023 • 66 mins
Welcome back to Transmissions. This week on the show, which brings our 2023 season to a close, we are joined by Matt Werth of RVNG to discuss the life and multi-dimensional sound worlds of Pauline Anna Strom. This month, the label released Echoes, Spaces, Lines, which collects the first three albums from the Bay Area synthesist and composer, including Trans-Millenia Consort, Plot Zero, and Spectre, as well as Oceans of Time, an unr...
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November 22, 2023 • 41 mins
This week on the show, Transmissions host Jason P. Woodbury joins Penelope Spheeris, director of The Decline of Western Civilization trilogy, The Beverly Hillbillies, Little Rascals, Suburbia, and Wayne’s World. Spheeris is the host of Peter and the Acid King, a true crime podcast set in the Los Angeles punk scene of the early ‘80s concerning the unsolved murder of Peter Ivers.
A pop culture wunderkind, Ivers was many things at onc...
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November 15, 2023 • 95 mins
This week on Transmissions: Conner Habib. He's the author of the Pen/Faulkner award longlisted horror novel, Hawk Mountain, and the host of the weekly podcast Against Everyone with Conner Habib. Informed by his practice of Anthroposophy and Christian mysticism, AEWCH focuses on the esoteric and ventures into strange and unusual places, touching frequently on Habib's spiritual views while also exploring his views on sex work, his in...
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November 8, 2023 • 55 mins
Make yourself comfortable and relax, on this all-new episode of Transmissions, we’re focusing on the fantastic tunes crafted by John Caroll Kirby.
You’ve heard a lot about him in our previous episode with Eddie Chacon. John’s music exemplifies the current zone where jazz, fusion, new age, soul, R&B, and electronic composition all mingle; in addition to Eddie, he’s worked with artists like Blood Orange, Solange, Frank Ocean, and man...
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November 1, 2023 • 75 mins
Welcome back to Transmissions. This week on the program, we’re joined by electronic musician Moby and Lindsay Hicks. Together, they run Little Walnut, a production company responsible for documentaries like Punk Rock Vegan, music videos, and Moby Pod—a podcast dedicated to offering unique perspectives on music, animal activism, climate change, and beyond.
This conversation with host Jason P. Woodbury demonstrates the way Moby and ...
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October 25, 2023 • 54 mins
You know Buck from Big Thief and his solo albums, like this year’s Haunted Mountain. Full of near-death experiences and tender but insistent roots-inspired songwriting, it’s an album that finds inspiration in the mysterious Mount Shasta, long a site of high strangeness—and a place that plays a pivotal role in Buck's own origin story.
Cut live to 2”-inch tape, it’s a personal and open-hearted record and we're so glad to have Buck he...
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October 18, 2023 • 73 mins
Welcome back to Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. Here's hoping your autumnal drift toward Halloween is rolling along nicely. This week on the show, we’re chatting once again with Mitch Horowitz, occult scholar, practitioner, and historian. We’ve had Mitch on a number of times—once a year or so for the last few years. What can we say? We just love listening to the guy riff.
His latest is book is Modern Occultism: History, Theory, an...
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