Aquarium Drunkard: Sidecar/March 25, 2019
Welcome to Sidecar, Aquarium Drunkard's weekly dispatch of audio esoterica, interviews, mixtapes, and cultural ephemera. As always, we're presented by Gold Diggers boutique hotel, bar, and recording studios in East Hollywood, Calif. Want to support AD? Here's how: Patreon. Pledge, get cool stuff, and support independent media.
Tokyo Flashback: P.S.F. – Psychedelic Speed Freaks
For about a quarter century, P.S.F. Records was an amazingly reliable source for Japan’s wildest underground sounds. The label’s founder, Hideo Ikeezumi, passed away in 2017, but he’s paid fitting tribute to on Black Editions’ new volume in the supremely heady Tokyo Flashback series, Psychedelic Speed Freaks. A lavishly packaged four-LP set made up entirely of previously unreleased material, it showcases the awesome breadth of the P.S.F. discography, ranging from Fillmore East-ready jams (Ghost, White Heaven) to hair-raising free jazz (Masayoshi Urabe, Maher Shalal Hash Baz). There’s even room for unclassifiable excursions, like the positively wonderfully spacey solo accordion offering from á qui avec Gabriel. This isn’t just a compilation—it’s an odyssey.
X: Los Angeles/Wild Gift
Fat Possum recently reissued the first two X records, their 1980 debut, Los Angeles and its follow-up, 1981’s incendiary Wild Gift—both produced by Ray Manzarek. Good timing (!) too, as we’ve been listening to the audio version of Under The Big Black Sun, Tom DeSavia’s oral history of nascent LA punk, co-authored with X’s John Doe. Beyond authoritative, the audio version benefits as a number of the scene’s key players are still around to recount their stories themselves.
The Decline of Western Civilization
PSA: Some news you can use. Filmmaker Penelope Spheeris’s definitive late '70s LA punk doc, 1981’s The Decline of Western Civilization, is available free via something called TubiTV...which we recently stumbled upon one night while unable to sleep. Seen it? Time to re-watch as Spheeris’s survey of the scene has only gotten better (and, actually, more bizarre/subversive) as time has p̶r̶o̶g̶r̶e̶s̶s̶e̶d̶ marched forward. (Bonus read: Spheeris recently sat down with the AV Club for a fantastic interview.)
T Bone Burnett: SXSW Keynote
There is a lot to unpack in T Bone Burnett's keynote speech from SXSW 2019, but if you're in the market for some apocalyptic preaching, his wide-ranging talk from South By Southwest—on surveillance capitalism, the value of art, and the truth decay of modern digital culture—offers plenty of fire and brimstone to consider.
Bill Callahan: Have Fun With God
Perhaps you missed this collection of dubbed out reconfigurations the songs from Callahan's 2013 album Dream River. Untethered and floating. Cut up lyrics, snatches of melody, a blurry drift.
The Great Lost Dead Archive
Over at Gentlemen's Quarterly, Jesse Jarnow (author of Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America and Wasn’t That A Time: The Weavers, the Blacklist, and the Battle or the Soul of America) takes readers into the Marin archive of Dead sound engineer Dan Healy, uncovering a trove of tour tees, but also much more: a certain sonic philosophy.
LA Marathon Soundtrack
Over at Satisfy, Aquarium Drunkard has contributed a playlist maximalized for running. Flow, tempo, and mood all accounted for. Make sure your crossfade settings are enabled...
Joseph Shabason: 1517
“1517” is the first taste from the forthcoming Anne EP, a set of songs left of Destroyer saxophonist and ambient journeyman Joseph Shabason's last full-lenth. The song describes “the feeling of lying in a park and watching kids play on the first real day of spring. It’s knowing that life is gonna fuck you down, but consciously giving yourself permission to get lost in an afternoon…”
1970s Japanese Jazz Mixtape // Jazz-funk, Soul Jazz, Rare Groove & Beyond
バイブon this from 2017: the first entry of Osaka-based (French) DJ and record collector, Dckne’s three-part series digging 1970s Japanese jazz/funk/groove.
Our weekly two-hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35, can be heard every Wednesday at 7pm PST with encore broadcasts on-demand via the SIRIUS/XM app.
SIRIUS 558 (March 20): Broadcast – Echo’s Answer (Black Session) ++ Broadcast – Dead The Long Year (Black Session) ++ Broadcast – Look Outside (Black Session) ++ Arnold Dreyblatt & Megafaun – Home Hat Placement ++ Brightblack Morning Light – Fry Bread ++ Lower Dens – Tea Light ++ Brigitte Fontaine et Areski – C’est Normal ++ Pierre Bensusan Le conseil de guerre (AD edit) ++ Jessica Pratt – Opening Night > As The World Turns ++ William Tyler – Cadillac Desert ++ Harold Budd – Afar ++ John Grant – I Wanna Go To Marz ++ Happy Rhodes – Oh The Drears (excerpt) ++ Arc Iris – Honor of the Rainbows I ++ Radiohead – Daydreaming ++ Circuit des Yeux – Paper Bag ++ Helado Negro – Running ++ Juana Molina – Cosoco ++ Charlotte Gainsbourg – IRM ++ Broadcast – Long Was The Year (Black Session) ++ Broadcast – Where Youth And Laughter Go (Black Session) ++ Broadcast – Message From Home (Black Session) ++ Cate Le Bon – Rock Pool ++ Parquet Courts – Before The Water Gets Too High ++ Amen Dunes – Intro > Satudarah ++ Mountain Goats – Blood Bank (Aquarium Drunkard Session) ++ Mountain Goats – Bridge of Sighs (Aquarium Drunkard Session) ++ Mountain Goats – Save The People (Aquarium Drunkard Session) ++ Linda Smith – So I Liked Spring ++ Cocteau Twins – Lazy Calm ++ Golden Daze – Blue Bell ++ Scott Seskind – I Remember ++ John Andrews & The Yawns – Relax ++ 75 Dollar Bill – Beni Said
*You can listen, for free, online with the SIRIUS three day trial — just submit an email address and they will send you a password.
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