Transmissions

• Transmissions :: Bret McKenzie (Flight of the Conchords)

  Welcome to the kick off of Transmissions' new season with your host, Jason P. Woodbury, after a wonderful summer mini-series from Tyler Wilcox, All One Song: A Neil Young Podcast. We first encountered this week’s guest, New Zealand songwriter, actor, and composer Bret McKenzie, as one half of the indie pop/comedy duo Flight of the Conchords in the mid-2000s. But did you know that before that, he was a member of one of New Zealand’s most popular reggae party bands? "Just for context, reggae music in New Zealand is kind of rock music in America or maybe even country," McKenzie says. "Outside Jamaica, New Zealand has the highest sales of Bob Marley records in the world. And it's the music you hear playing in the background when you're out." Since then, he’s gone onto composer for film and TV projects like The Simpsons, The Muppets, Spongebob Squarepants, and more, and in 2022, he released Songs Without Jokes via Sub Pop Records. Inspired by vintage Los Angeles pop, the record showcased McKenzie sans obvious jokes, but not without levity and good humor. His new album, Freak Out City came out on August 15. Bolstered by vintage electric piano and groovy and psychedelic touches, it finds McKenzie expanding his Nilsson-esque palette with touches of Steely Dan, JJ Cale, and Todd Rundgren. McKenzie joins us on Transmissions to discuss the rabbit holes of modern life, cutting the record with studio legends like Leland Sklar, the Conchords specific brand of comedy, and shares details about his proposed Emmet Otter reboot with Ed Helms. We’re brought to you by Aquarium Drunkard, an independent music media crew headed by Justin Gage. Over at Aquarium Drunkard, you’ll gain access to 20 years of music writing, playlist, essays, mixtapes, radio special, podcasts, videos and more.

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• All One Song :: Jason P. Woodbury on "When Your Lonely Heart Breaks"

  Welcome back to All One Song, a Neil Young podcast presented by Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. We’ve spent the summer talking with some great musicians and writers about the strange and wonderful Neil Young universe. And we’ve had a good time. But all good things must come to an end! After today’s episode, we are handing the keys back to Jason P. Woodbury, the host of Transmissions and editor of Aquarium Drunkard. — he’s got an incredible season of interviews coming your way as summer turns to fall. And hey, our final guest on All One Song is none other than Jason P. Woodbury! Jason is the guy who has been running a lot of the behind the scenes action for All One Song over the past couple months. Transmissions is a consistently fantastic listen, packed with insight, wit and wisdom. The fact that Jason juggles about 50 other cool projects, from his music as JPW to his expanding WASTOIDS empire, makes it even more impressive. We're already talking about more All One Song, but before that … we’ve got one more episode. All One Song has gone all over the place when it comes to Neil eras. But we haven’t delved too much into the 1980s. Jason is righting that wrong. He selected a tune from the generally un-loved 1987 LP with Crazy Horse, Life — “When Your Lonely Heart Breaks.” This aching ballad was played a lot in 1986 and 1987, briefly revived in the mid 1990s and then pretty much forgotten by its author. But maybe Neil will bring it back … just this past weekend, he just played “Long Walk Home” from Life for the first time since 1989 on his current North American tour. Anything can happen in Shakeyland!  Neil’s producer David Briggs called “When Your Lonely Heart Breaks” “a monster song—it should’ve been the ‘I Believe In You’ of the eighties for Crazy Horse—so pure, so simple. But they had no desire to make anything out of it, never played it good, never put anything special into it. It was a shame.” We’ll have to agree to disagree, David! Anyway, we use “When Your Lonely Heart Breaks” to drift back into a lot of different zones, from David Lynch to Michelob Lite. It’s always fun and provocative to chat with him. So without further ado, here’s Jason P. Woodbury on All One Song …  Looking for a digital music platform that feels more like a record shop? ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Qobuz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is the high quality music streaming & download platform for music enthusiasts and audiophiles, offering unique editorial, exclusive artist interviews, expertly curated playlists, liner notes, and more. With Qobuz Club, subscribers can connect and share music discoveries with a community of fellow music lovers. And for those who like to own their music, the Qobuz Download Store lets you browse and download albums in Hi-Res and CD quality. Give ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Qobuz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ a try now with an extended 30-day free trial.

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• All One Song :: Ethan Miller on "Music Arcade"

  Welcome back to All One Song, a Neil Young podcast presented by Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. All summer long, we’re talking to some of our favorite musicians and writers about their favorite Neil Young song. Or at least one of their favorite Neil Young songs. This week, our All One Song guest is Ethan Miller. Ethan has been a longtime fixture in the underground, first coming to my attention back in the early aughts as the co-founder of the psych noise pioneers Comets on Fire. But Ethan is nothing if not prolific — he’s played with an array of awesome bands over the years, from Howlin Rain to Feral Ohms to Odyssey Cult. Ethan was also one-fourth of Heron Oblivion with our previous guests Meg Baird and Charlie Saufley … and he’s one-third of the Orcutt Shelley Miller trio, with another previous guest Steve Shelley. It’s all a rich tapestry, right? At least when it comes to Neil Young. The upcoming — and totally amazing — Orcutt Shelley Miller record is being released on Ethan’s own label Silver Current, which is one the most reliable purveyors of sweet sounds both new and old. In recent years, Silver Current has brought us excellent, bootleg-styled archival hauls from Sonic Youth, Galaxie 500 and Earthless, alongside fresh tunes from Magic Fig, Julie Beth Napolin, Growing and many more. Suffice it to say, the Silver Current insignia is a true trademark of quality. For his All One Song appearance, Ethan selected a terrific mid-90s deep cut — “Music Arcade.” This ghostly solo acoustic number showed up on the otherwise Crazy Horse-fueled Broken Arrow in 1996. It’s an enigmatic meditation on loneliness that doesn’t offer the listener any easy answers, like a comet in the sky. Looking for a digital music platform that feels more like a record shop? ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Qobuz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is the high quality music streaming & download platform for music enthusiasts and audiophiles, offering unique editorial, exclusive artist interviews, expertly curated playlists, liner notes, and more. With Qobuz Club, subscribers can connect and share music discoveries with a community of fellow music lovers. And for those who like to own their music, the Qobuz Download Store lets you browse and download albums in Hi-Res and CD quality. Give ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Qobuz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ a try now with an extended 30-day free trial.

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• All One Song :: Jesse Jarnow on "Sedan Delivery"

  This week’s All One Song guest is the definition of a multi-hyphenate — your friend and ours, Jesse Jarnow. Jesse is an incredible writer, having penned such essential books as Big Day Coming: Yo La Tengo and the Rise of Indie Rock, Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America,  Wasn’t That a Time: The Weavers, the Blacklist, and the Battle for the American Soul, and the forthcoming epic, The Invisible Hit Parade: A People’s History of Recorded Music. You’re probably going to recognize Jesse’s voice. He’s a longtime DJ over at WFMU, the world’s greatest free-form independent radio station, hosting the Frow Show every Tuesday night, bringing strange and wonderful sounds to the masses. He’s also a podcaster, writing and co-producing the amazing Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast, which recently kicked off its 12th season. The Deadcast’s depth of research, insight and sweet vibes puts pretty much every other podcast to shame—including this one. Finally, Jesse is one-third of Sloppy Heads, a long-running Brooklyn-based band with two excellent albums, Useless Smile and Sometimes Just One Second under their belt. Now that we’ve gotten Jesse’s bona fides out of the way … which Neil Young song did he select to talk about with us on All One Song? Well, Jesse dug way down in the rust bucket for “Sedan Delivery,” a raucous number that first appeared on the classic 1979 Crazy Horse LP Rust Never Sleeps.  “Sedan Delivery”’s history stretches back several years, though — Neil and the Horse first tried it out during the Zuma sessions in 1975, giving it a somewhat lumbering lope. You can hear that version these days on Chrome Dreams. But with the subsequent dawning of punk, Neil and the crew injected this weird, semi-sci-fi with a dose of pure, demonic energy. Though it was hard to find in setlists for a little while there, by the mid-'90s, it became a mainstay in Crazy Horse’s live repertoire, giving the band a chance to gleefully drive 90 miles an hour down a dead-end street. Looking for a digital music platform that feels more like a record shop? ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Qobuz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is the high quality music streaming & download platform for music enthusiasts and audiophiles, offering unique editorial, exclusive artist interviews, expertly curated playlists, liner notes, and more. With Qobuz Club, subscribers can connect and share music discoveries with a community of fellow music lovers. And for those who like to own their music, the Qobuz Download Store lets you browse and download albums in Hi-Res and CD quality. Give ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Qobuz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ a try now with an extended 30-day free trial.

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• All One Song :: Rosali on "I Don't Want To Talk About It"

  Welcome back to All One Song, a Neil Young podcast presented by Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. This week is going to be slightly different. This week, we’re talking about a song that was not written by Neil Young. Nevertheless, it’s a song that is very much a part of the Shakey multiverse: Danny Whitten’s “I Don’t Want To Talk About It,” which appeared on Crazy Horse’s debut LP in 1970. Danny Whitten, of course, was one of Neil’s key collaborators and musical soul mates before his untimely death in late 1972. A little while later that decade, Rod Stewart took “I Don’t Want To Talk About It” to the top of the charts. But it’s Whitten’s version that remains definitive. Here to guide us through the impossibly lonesome landscapes of “I Don’t Want To Talk About It” is singer-songwriter Rosali Middleman—or just Rosali if you prefer. She’s been a longtime fixture over at Aquarium Drunkard. But even though we've loved pretty much everything she’s done, she somehow seems to get better with each new album. Her latest release, Bite Down on Merge Records, may well be her best effort yet. And that’s saying something! It’s packed with exceptionally well-crafted songs that feel as if you’ve known them your whole life. An instant classic, as they say.   Bite Down is Rosali’s second album with the Omaha-based Mowed Sound, which features David Nance, James Schroeder and Kevin Donahue. As we speak here in August 2025, Rosali and Mowed Sound are touring the USA, and I strongly encourage you to go see them. They’re a terrific live act … and there are definitely plenty of Crazy Horse vibes, as we discuss. Looking for a digital music platform that feels more like a record shop? ⁠⁠⁠⁠Qobuz⁠⁠⁠⁠ is the high quality music streaming & download platform for music enthusiasts and audiophiles, offering unique editorial, exclusive artist interviews, expertly curated playlists, liner notes, and more. With Qobuz Club, subscribers can connect and share music discoveries with a community of fellow music lovers. And for those who like to own their music, the Qobuz Download Store lets you browse and download albums in Hi-Res and CD quality. Give ⁠⁠⁠⁠Qobuz⁠⁠⁠⁠ a try now with an extended 30-day free trial.

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