I love how "Austin Powers-core" is a legitimately great musical subgenre. Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach, Broadcast, Cardigans, Nancy Sinatra, The Flaming Lips, Quincy Jones, Wondermints, Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66, this killer electro psych-pop cut from Madonna.
By all accounts, the late David Crosby shouldn't even have been alive in 2023. But having lost so many years to illness & self-destruction, Croz spent the last decade on a creative tear, making as much music and art as he could. Dude loved tunes! An inspiration.
''The bottom line is that we were light-years ahead of everyone else."
RIP Rita Lee, one of the founding members of Os Mutantes (December 31, 1947 –May 8, 2023)
RIP to the late David Sanborn, who navigated the avant-garde underground & smooth jazz mainstream alike. He hosted Hal Willner's late night NBC music show Night Music. Here's one of my favorites, a take on "Thembi" with Pharoah Sanders.
Full vid:
It's important to separate the art from the artist. I don't condone the rampant hooliganism of the Riverbottom Nightmare Band, but can't deny how much I dig their Blue Öyster Cult-meets-Beefheart styled songcraft.
Bob Dylan has announced a massive new 431-song (!) box set collecting every single surviving soundboard recording from his legendary 1974 tour with The Band →
"This is going on the radio, might as well strike a bolt for freedom. This is dedicated to the South African government, the Israeli government, & those brothers that are gonna get your ass on the way home."
Sonny Sharrock Quartet, "Stupid Fuck" (1988)
Happy birthday to my Scorpio forefather & icon Neil Young. Here’s a quick cut of four dudes losing it while he plays “Powderfinger”with Crazy Horse. I have deep affection for each one of them.
Pee-Wee's Playhouse was one of the first examples I ever saw of how weird, anarchic, and wonderful art could be. Paul Reubens was a genius who got dealt a raw deal for so many years. I'm so bummed out at this terrible news.
Before he murdered Lana Clarkson, pop genius Phil Spector waved firearms at collaborators & tortured pop genius Ronnie Spector, keeping a gold coffin with a glass top in the basement, threatening to display her dead body if she ever left him. I’m glad Ronnie is alive today.
I love vinyl but when I started collecting, I was into LPs because they were cool but also 𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙥. The best deals in record stores these days are on humble compact discs. Lots of sounds that never made it to vinyl or streaming and extremely inexpensive.
Sending love to the whole Low family in the wake of Mimi Parker's passing. In her music, she sounded connected to some pure & immense force which sustained & also terrified her.
So many amazing songs, but I'm drawn to "Laser Beam" right now:
"The enemy is not the capitalists, or the Republicans, or even Donald Trump. The enemy is my own cynicism. My own apathy. My own laziness. That’s the enemy."
Sending one out for the late, great Wayne Kramer, a preacher of a certain sort & a genuine hero.
Not only do we need music shows as adventurous as Night Music to make a return, but on top of that I'd like to see a proper box set of the original Sunday Night/Night Music episodes too.
Very difficult to pick a favorite bass line by the late Andy Rourke—but I gotta go with The Smith’s “Hand In Glove,” where he essentially leads the entire song. Salute!
ive become so intense and convinced about music, i want to build temples for, to pray and decree my musical saints. i want my students to discover electronic music spiritually
Sad to see Michael Nesmith's passed, but what a body of enduring pop art work: The Monkees, ace country rock with First National Band, production on my favorite Bert Jansch LP (L.A. Turnaround), contributions to some of the best rock movies ever including Head & Repo Man, & more.
"If you're angry then you can't surrender, no
Your unwilling surrender's just a show
And unwillingly sweet means certain defeat
Better a fighter than a soft-spoken contender
To win in love you must surrender"
Happy 73rd to that guileless poet Jonathan Richman.
RIP Dwight Twilley, one of the best to ever do it. Pure pop through & through, creator of songs that'll be in my head forever.
I like to imagine he and Phil Seymour, Tom Petty, and Bill Pitcock IV are back at it on the other side.
Impossibly propulsive strum. Miles wide voice. Most of all, a deeply sensitive songwriter who exposed the very heart of things. RIP Gordon Lightfoot, one of the greats.
André 3000's new record is something else. Love to see artists swerve into a new lane, especially in an age that places such a premium on telling people (and algos) exactly what to expect from you at all times.
My contribution to the Big Thief discourse: I’m glad Eve ate the apple, big ups to Eve for chomping that apple, I grew up in a culture that shamed Eve’s decision re: the apple, but in middle age I respect & affirm Eve’s snacking on the apple.
Harlan Ellison wrote the best episode of Star Trek, raged when he felt it was mucked up; annoyed Frank Sinatra; got fired by Disney on his first day; & fought Hollywood at every turn. RIP.
"The only thing worth writing about is people. People. Human beings."
How did you first hear the VU? My intro was "Rock N' Roll" on the SLC Punk! soundtrack, which I have to admit didn't sound too radical to my pop-punk trained ears. But I liked it well enough to grab the 20th Century Masters CD & the opening five song salvo did my head right in.
Holy moly the passing of Ric Ocasek of the Cars is a blow. Master of tight, melodic guitar pop; a through-line connecting Bad Brains, Billy Corgan, Suicide, Weezer, Hole, Guided By Voices, No Doubt & countless more. What a career, what a body of work.
Released 10 years ago on Halloween, Lou Reed & Metallica's Lulu remains confounding, revolting, & ecstatic. For
@stereogum
, I wrested with its complications & the open-hearted creative arrangement that united Loutallica. See if the ice will melt for you!
Happy
#PresidentsDay
—to Jimmy Carter at least, who saw a UFO in 1969 and campaigned on a promise to release whatever info about UFOs the government had gathered.
Hey there, not freaking out or anything but
@mountain_goats
recorded a set of covers for
@aquadrunkard
, including a beautiful version of
@boniver
's "Blood Bank." Again, not losing it, it's been no big deal keeping this to myself for a year, very chill.
Fantastic early footage of
@ginblossoms
live at the Sun Club in Tempe in 1989. Raw & looser than their eventual radio hits might suggest, but the undeniable hooks & melodies of the songs come through so clear.
Full video:
Five years ago today, Twin Peaks: The Return began. A horrifying and resplendent vision of grief, suffering, and hope in the Atomic Age. Also, very funny and cool to look at.
On the Beach is incredible. I think the reason it's so in vogue right now is because it articulates the "hopeless rage blues" as clearly as any record ever has.
But Morgan's right. Tonight's the Night is the best Neil album.
I spoke with
@JeffTweedy
about
@Wilco
’s Cruel Country, the forthcoming “alien art pop” album they’re also working on, the Grateful Dead, and returning to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Read it at
@aquadrunkard
.
Before too long we’ll know everything there is to know about the Utah Monolith but for just a few more goddamn minutes let’s all savor the mystery of it & reflect on how nice it feels for something strange and novel to exist.
Make a 20-track comp of your all-time fav tracks, each artist can only feature once. Not the 'best' songs, the ones that bring instant joy the second you hear the first note, the ones that give other people the best insight into what stirs your soul. Share when ready.
#20tracks
Justin Gage's
@aquadrunkard
turns 15 today. It was a different world in '05, but AD has not only kept going, it's stayed strong. In last few months, AD has launched a radio station, podcasted weekly, hosted a special on Adult Swim & is about to release another record. Thanks, JG!
Happy 86th birthday to the great Carol Kaye, bass queen. "We just kept going on coffee...you can’t let yourself get cooled off, you’ve got to be really hot, so that when you make a performance for the record, it’s hot."
The first single from my debut album of meditation pop/spiritual twang is coming May 6th, with a full LP/digital release in September, but the folks at
@FortLowellRecs
shared the mock up on IG so I’m gonna post it here too. If any writer friends want to hear early, let me know.
Safe passage to Steve Harwell. I know "All Star" is the generational anthem, but it's "Walkin' On the Sun" for me. Bowling shirt lounge revival moves paired with nasty fuzz, atom age sound effects, and a detached moralistic bounce.
Today at
@aquadrunkard
: Jon Brion on Meaningless, one of my favorite albums of all-time.
We discussed Jim Keltner, Greg Leisz,
@GrantLeeTweets
,
@aimeemann
, &
@benchten
, industry ins-and-outs, I Heart Huckabees & the elusive nature of meaning.
I’m sure some kids told their moms “I want to be
@ErikJLarsen
’s Savage Dragon for Halloween” and their moms said “that costume doesn’t exist,” but not Shelly Woodbury, who *made* it exist.
About a decade ago, I interviewed
@lurie_john
for
@aquadrunkard
. Tomorrow, he's our guest on Transmissions. It's one of my favorite episodes we've ever produced.
While you wait to hear it, here's that first one:
This is wholehearted & inspiring read. Mimi Parker &
@lowtheband
created some of the best albums of the last three decades. Her loss still seems impossible, but I'm excited to see where Alan Sparhawk goes next. A genuine artist.
None of my intelligent (130+ IQ) friends listen to music regularly. They only listen selectively and rarely e.g. at a business event or a classical piece, but almost never listen spontaneously in their own time. This has been a long term consistent observation, but today
Star Wars is an underrated
@Wilco
record. Currently enjoying "The Joke Explained," which sure feels like it sums up modernity nicely:
"Oh, but if I had known, if I had known
If I had known, I would've never believed"
I had a remarkable conversation with next level art hero Laetitia Sadier about her fantastic new record, working with the late Richard Swift, and the ever-increasing importance of reconnecting to ourselves, to each other and to our planet.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
This week on Transmissions: Laetitia Sadier of
@stereolabgroop
joins us to discuss the collective and the individual, hip-hop, and the radical potentialites of her new album, Rooting for Love.
Listen:
“I don’t like hypnotics. I’m doing a non-hypnotic music to break up the catatonic state. And I think there is one right now.”
Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart (January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010) interviewed by Paul Moyer, KABC Eyewitness News, 1980
Some of the performative & callous dunking I've seen on Texas from people on this site is gross and indicative of deep soul rot, but vicious dunking on Ted Cruz for peacing out to Cancun while his state suffers? That's great, fun, & restorative. He should be laughed at forever.