All One Song: A Neil Young Podcast

• All One Song :: Steve Gunn on "Will To Love"

  Welcome to the very first episode of All One Song: A Neil Young podcast, presented by Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. Join liner notes author, musician, and Shakey historian Tyler Wilcox and an array of great musicians and writers discussing their favorite Neil Young song, diving deep into Shakey lore and getting personal about this amazing body of work. It’s a series for Neil heads by Neil heads. Our first guest on All One Song should need no introduction for long time Aquarium Drunkard readers. But let’s give him one anyway! For the past 15 years or so, Steve Gunn has built up one of the strongest, most wide-ranging catalogs in independent music. He’s released classic albums on such labels as Three Lobed, Paradise of Bachelors, Matador and more. Steve is a singer-songwriter-guitarist triple threat with a powerful sense of adventure and imagination that’s always worth paying attention to, whether he’s collaborating with drummer John Truscinski in the Gunn-Truscinski Duo, creating beautiful soundscapes with David Moore, or playing all on his own. Steve’s latest album, Music For Writers, falls into the latter category. Coming out on August 15 on Three Lobed, this is his first completely solo instrumental record — he played all the instruments, building luminous, hypnotic pieces that encourage the listener to slow down and really listen. The songs here aren’t just ambient background sounds. They’re sonic meditations that take you to some other place.   The solo aspect of Music For Writers dovetails nicely with the Neil Young song that Steve chose for us to discuss: “Will To Love.” This is a unique one in Neil’s catalog and a song that’s prized by die-hard Shakey fans. Accompanied only by a crackling fire, Neil recorded the basic track at his ranch in the spring of 1976, somewhere in between his European tour with Crazy Horse and the ill-fated Stills-Young Band trip that summer. Then he put it aside, for a few months, only returning to it in December of 76, when he went into Indigo Studios in Malibu to overdub vocals, keyboards, guitars, drums, even vibes, aided and abetted by producer David Briggs. By the time it was released on American Stars n Bars in 1977, “Will To Love” was a ghostly, seven-minute piece of music that’s unlike almost anything else he’d done before or anything he’s done since. Let's dive in. 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: A Neil Young Podcast (Trailer)

  All One Song: A Neil Young Podcast is coming this summer from the people who bring you Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. In this deep dive audio experience, liner notes author, musician, and Shakey historian Tyler Wilcox (Pitchfork, Uncut, host of Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard’s Doom and Gloom from the Tomb on dublab) invites musicians/artists/writers to discuss…one single song by Neil Young. Join guests like Steve Gunn, Jeff Parker, Ilyas Ahmed, Meg Baird, Rosali, Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth, author Jesse Jarnow, Ethan Miller (Howlin’ Rain, Comets on Fire), Transmissions host Jason P. Woodbury, and Chris Forsyth, whose Coca Leaves and Pearls musical combo provide the show with original Young-inspired music.  “With this show, Tyler explores Neil’s work in ways that feel revelatory, as if each song is indeed just coming into existence. That’s what Young’s best music does— communicate the freshness of a single musical moment distilled down to its rawest form. With this show, Wilcox offers a glimpse into the history and lore with sensitivity and care.” —Jason P. Woodbury, host of Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions  Sponsored exclusively by hi-fi streaming service ⁠Qobuz,⁠ All One Song episodes will explore Shakey lore, lyrics, chords, gear, etc, offering historical context and context personal to each guest.  Like Neil famously decreed, “It’s all one song.” This summer, Tyler Wilcox takes you deep into that song with All One Song: A Neil Young Podcast from Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions, coming June 25th in the Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions feed. Listen wherever you get podcasts via the ⁠Talkhouse Podcast Network.⁠

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• Transmissions :: Justin Gage (2025)

  We close out the 10th season of Transmissions with a special look under the hood with Justin Gage, who founded Aquarium Drunkard 20 years ago in 2005. Initially envisioned as just a place to share cultural recommendations with friends, Aquarium Drunkard blew up as the blog rush began. Suddenly, Gage found himself running a respected media outlet. 20 years later, he joins host Jason P. Woodbury to discuss how Aquarium Drunkard has stayed true to the maxim of only the good shit. In this frank back and forth, the two colleagues share how an ethos that puts music and deep engagement with it at the forefront feels like a counter-cultural endeavour in this day and age, and how they’ve managed to keep in touch with the love of art that initially inspired Aquarium Drunkard. You can read a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠full transcript⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ of this conversation at Aquarium Drunkard, where you’ll find 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here’s to another decade. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Stream a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠playlist of bumper music featured on Transmissions⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, as well as selections from our guests. Transmissions is a part of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Talkhouse Podcast Network⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts.

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• Transmissions :: Damien Jurado

  This week on the show, something different: an extra-sized Transmission that’s been locked in the vault for years, a two-hour talk with singer/songwriter Damien Jurado.  Way back in 2022, host Jason P. Woodbury sat down with Jurado in the recording studio at Gold-Diggers in Los Angeles for a career spanning conversation, exploring the stories behind his oracular visions, his history, and his collaborators, including the late Richard Swift. The idea was that perhaps the talk would be chopped up for a mini-series, but the project never materialized—and instead this revealing talk was locked away on a hard drive, that is until now, as the time has come to share it via Transmissions. Woodbury been listening to Jurado’s music for about 25 years; first encountering his 2000 Sub Pop release Ghost of David, a haunted album of lo-fi folk songs. Years later, Jurado’s sound bloomed into psychedelia when he began collaborating with the late Richard Swift for 2010’s Saint Bartlett, which was followed by the Maraqopa Trilogy, a series of psychedelic epics. Jurado has been on a tear since—sharing a string of self-produced recordings that include 2021’s The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania, 2022’s Reggae Film Star, and three albums in 2023, Sometimes You Hurt the Ones You Hate, Motorcycle Madness, and Passing The Giraffes. Recently, he’s expanded the view of these albums with a series of demo collections shared also by his own label, Maraqopa Records.   Jurado’s songs are worlds meant to be lived in, full of strange characters in dream states, caught between the static on flickering TV channels, and with this episode, the penultimate, which is a fancy word for “second to last” of our 10th season, we explore those worlds with the man himself. You can read a ⁠⁠⁠⁠full transcript⁠⁠⁠⁠ of this conversation at Aquarium Drunkard, where you’ll find 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here’s to another decade. ⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard. ⁠⁠⁠⁠ Stream a ⁠⁠⁠⁠playlist of bumper music featured on Transmissions⁠⁠⁠⁠, as well as selections from our guests. Transmissions is a part of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠Talkhouse Podcast Network⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts.

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• Transmissions :: Deerfhoof

  On the cover of Deerhoof’s new album, Noble and Godlike in Ruin, is an image of the band’s lineup—Satomi Matsuzaki, Ed Rodriguez, John Dieterich, and Greg Saunier—collaged together into one strange visage. Given that the album’s title is drawn directly from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, this cobbled together assemblage makes sense, but it also doubles as a handy metaphor for Deerhoof’s identity as a band. Together, they equal more than the sum of their parts; working together in radical co-operation, they become  one art rock organism.  By the time most bands reach their third decade, they’ve settled into a groove, but Deerhoof seems custom built to resist static stasis or aesthetic complacency. Noble and Godlike in Ruin pulls from free jazz, prog rock, noise, and j-pop, resulting in a sound that is at once recognizable as Deerhoof, but nonetheless surprising, even to the band’s members themselves. Focusing in on sci-fi futurism and some of the most directly political songs of the band’s vast discography, it’s a triumphant work that illustrates what makes Deerhoof one of the most fascinating bands in all of indie rock.  This week on the show, Satomi Matsuzaki and Greg Saunier join Jason P. Woodbury for a winding discussion about the new album, the current political moment, haute cuisine, the function of art, and at the very end—some Star Trek discussion. You can read a ⁠⁠⁠full transcript⁠⁠⁠ of this conversation at Aquarium Drunkard, where you’ll find 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here’s to another decade. ⁠⁠⁠Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard. ⁠⁠⁠ Stream a ⁠⁠⁠playlist of bumper music featured on Transmissions⁠⁠⁠, as well as selections from our guests. Transmissions is a part of the ⁠⁠⁠Talkhouse Podcast Network⁠⁠⁠. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts.

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