Transmissions

Tyler Wilcox has spent season two of All One Song conversing about Neil Young with musicians, writers, and artists. And now, we’ve reached the end of the road for this Neil journey, with a very special guest: Lee Ranaldo, dropping in to discuss “Down By The River.” Lee is a founding member of Sonic Youth. Along with Thurston Moore, Lee redefined how we hear the electric guitar in a rock setting. Sonic Youth is no more, but they just released a wild Plunderphonic collage from the archives: Diamond Seas. Ranaldo joins us to talk about a Neil classic, one that dips from muder ballad terror to cosmic life affirmation. When we had Micah Nelson on, we discussed how immense this song is. Lee offers a great ramble about, as well as hear about Lee’s own experiences on the road with Neil and Crazy Horse with Sonic Youth.

This week, we present a conversation with writer, rock & roller, and esoteric scholar Gary Lachman, author of a new memoir, Touched By the Presence: From Blondie’s Bowery and Rock and Roll to Magic and the Occult. In it, Lachman charts his journey from a young New Jersey misfit immersed in comic books and paperback fiction to his days playing bass in Blondie as the band rose to stardom from the New York City punk underground. Blondie would go on to have a top-ten hit with his composition, “(I’m Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear” penned about telepathic communication Lachman experienced with this then girlfriend, the film actress and rock writer Lisa Jane Persky. From there, the book details his days with Iggy Pop, fronting his own band, The Know, and eventually, his immersion in consciousness studies and the occult, which has informed the dozens of books he’s written since, including The Return of Holy Russia, Maurice Nicoll: Forgotten Teacher of The Fourth Way, Dark Star Rising, and Beyond the Robot: The Life and Work of Colin Wilson, written about his mentor and primary esoteric inspiration. Touched by the Presence is available now from Inner Traditions, and it was a treat to join Lachman to talk about the consciousness altering power of comic books, his time with Blondie and Iggy, and glean a little of his humor-filled and lowkey wisdom. Transmissions is created in partnership with the Talkhouse Podcast Network. 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.

Welcome back to Transmissions, a weekly interview podcast created and curated by Los Angeles online music magazine Aquarium Drunkard. This week on the show, host Jason P. Woodbury speaks with a living legend, and one of our all-time favorite vocalists and songsmiths: Emmylou Harris. On November 7th, New West Records will re-release an expanded edition of her 1998 live album Spyboy, back in print after 27 years. Recorded in the wake 1995’s Wrecking Ball, an LP that redefined Harris for a whole new generation, Spyboy finds Harris and her band—Buddy Miller, Brady Blade and Daryl Johnson—on the road and stretching out into feverish new territory for the storied singer. Harris released her first album in 1970, and along the way, she’s collaborated with artists like country rock pioneer Gram Parsons, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and countless more. But as she settled into the ‘90s, she felt that country radio no longer made space for voices like hers—prompting a shift into a new direction with producer Daniel Lanois, who crafted a spectral, haunted sound for Wrecking Ball, placing her voice at the dreamy center. The resulting era introduced Harris to new ears—and we were thrilled to speak with her about it for this episode. Transmissions is created in partnership with the Talkhouse Podcast Network. 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.

Subscribe to ⁠Fela Kuti: Fear No Man.⁠ In a world that’s on fire, what is the role of art? What can music actually…do? Can a song save a life? Change a law? Topple a president? Get you killed? In Fela Kuti: Fear No Man, Jad Abumrad—creator of Radiolab, More Perfect, and Dolly Parton’s America—tells the story of one of the great political awakenings in music: how a classically trained 'colonial boy’ traveled to America, in search of Africa, only to return to Nigeria and transform his sound into a battering ram against the state—creating a new musical language of resistance called Afrobeat. For years, the world’s biggest stars made pilgrimages to Nigeria to experience Fela’s Shrine, the epicenter of his musical revolution. But when the mix of art and activism got too hot, the state pulled out its guns, and literally opened fire. Fela Kuti: Fear No Man is an uncategorizable mix of oral history, musicology, deep dive journalism, and cutting edge sound design that takes listeners deep inside Fela’s life, music, and legacy. Drawing from over 200 interviews with Fela Kuti’s family, friends, as well as scholars, activists, and luminaries like Burna Boy, Paul McCartney, Questlove, Santigold, and former President Barack Obama (just to name a few), Fela Kuti: Fear No Man journeys deep into the soul of Afrobeat to explore the transformative power of art and the role artists can play in this current moment of global unrest. An Audible Original presented by Audible and Higher Ground. Produced by Western Sound and Talkhouse. ©2025 Higher Ground, LLC (P)2025 Audible Originals, LLC.

This week on Transmissions, we’re toasting harvest season with John Stirratt and Pat Sansone of The Autumn Defense, who release their first album in a decade this week. It’s called Here and Nowhere, out October 10 on Yep Roc Records. You might know John and Pat from their work in Wilco; Stirratt is a founding member, and Sansone joined in 2004. But the duo’s work in the Autumn Defense stretches all the way back to 1999, when they formed the Laurel Canyon-style folk rock band in New Orleans. Here and Nowhere features everything you like about the band; sterling vocals, beautiful ‘70s style orchestration, replete with shades of the baroque pop that Sansone plays on Baroque Down Palace, his radio show on WYXR. Think Todd Rundgren, Bread, Carole King, and even ELO at their most rustic. It’s a tender, funny, and warming record. We discuss the new record in the hour that follows, along with detours into other projects, some Wilco talk, and an extended reflection on the legacy of Big Star—a band that’s more than just influential to these two—as they actually play the Big Star catalog with drummer Jody Stephens live these days. Let's dive in with this all new episode of Tranmissions. 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.