Arizona indie pop duo @theformat.com return with their long awaited third album this week—20 years after the last one. I wrote about the surprising urgency behind the album, their long history, and trace my time coming up in record stores in a new essay for Range & Basin.

Jennifer Kelly (@aquariumdrunkard.com, Dusted) needs our help. Underground music heads, please join me in chipping in.

i wrote an afterword about bobby weir for @pitchfork.com, but probably could've kept going for a few more days. pitchfork.com/features/bob...

Easy to focus on the Christofascist side of things, but let's not forget those whose faith moves them in different ways.

"I learned about Mitochondria...It’s the first living cell and it’s been dividing ever since. Therefore, every single living thing contains a version of the original mother cell." What a fascinating @grantmorrison.bsky.social interview over at @comicsjournal.bsky.social: tcj.com/grant-morris...

Love the first 2 tracks released from the new @jasonpwoodbury.bsky.social album Jason P. Woodbury & The Night Bird Singing Quartet alwayshappeningrecords.bandcamp.com/album/jason-...

Happy to writer, musician, and audio archivist Tyler Wilcox, who also just so happens to be a genuinely great dude.

When she was young, Sinéad O’Connor spoke to her grandparents’ piano. The ancient instrument, its keys “yellowed like her grandpa’s teeth,” spoke back in haunted tones. I’ve got a new essay up, complete with a voiceover narration, about ghosts, the Divine Feminine, and spiritual protest.

Swiping the old Vintage Contemporary paperback cover design for an album cover design is unfettered genius.

One of my absolute favorites, pairs well with the Walker Bros Nite Flights.

👇👇👇

Love love love this cover

Co-sign! [This is good.]

I’ve occasionally thought that Vintage Contemporaries would be a great name for the right band, but this is pretty cool too

Ben Chasny of @6organs.bsky.social: “A really cool combo of late night desert driving music with a Rockpile vibe...There’s a sparseness to the production that recalls Tom Verlaine’s Warm and Cool or something by a vocal group like The Platters.” alwayshappeningrecords.bandcamp.com/album/jason-...

Today, @selfportraitgospel.bsky.social suggests my new album with the Night Bird Singing Quartet approaches "the tonal threshold where land meets the sky during one of Rod Serling’s infamous nightcaps" while evoking Tom Petty, James, & The Feelies. www.theselfportraitgospel.com/reviews-prem...

Chris O’Leary on David Bowie's embrace of jazz, complete with "further listening" guides to the players who brought Blackstar to life.

remember when we were driving in the van through the desert & we were both kinda crying when we finally picked up a signal? this is what we heard

My new LP with The Night Bird Singing Quartet is out March 13. Pre-order @hellomerch.com: www.hellomerch.com/products/jas... Listen to "Get To Meet Them" & "When I Get Lonesome (Again)" wherever but I recommend @bandcamp.com above all: alwayshappeningrecords.bandcamp.com/album/jason-...

Hey hey, it's a crucial snapshot of the Velvet Underground live in Provincetown, MA, 9/66. Peel slowly! 🍌

Out this Friday on @orindal.bsky.social !!!

Big thanks to Jason P. Woodbury for reviewing Robert Stillman's new album 10,000 Rivers for Aquarium Drunkard! 10,000 Rivers is out Friday! Grab your copy here: archaicfuturerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/10000-...

My first favorite record of 2026 is out this later this week: Robert Stillman's 10,000 Rivers, a techno-organic concept album about Steve Jobs and "The California Ideology" blending jazz, pop, & ambient. My review at @aquariumdrunkard.com: aquariumdrunkard.com/2026/01/06/r...

I'm back on the 'Stack in the new year. I've just shared this ode to Judee Sill, which includes an audio embed of me reading the piece, as I intend to do more often with my newsletter. I hope you enjoy reading and/or listening: jasonpwoodbury.substack.com/p/a-prayer-f...

“I do so dearly believe that no half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.” JRR Tolkien (January 3, 1892 – September 2, 1973)

Thomas Merton 1961

"Writing this story in the early fifties, 1997 was to me the distant future." — writer Richard Matheson on the setting of Twilight Zone's "Death Ship"

“Hanging on/You're all that's left to hold on to/I'm still waiting”

Born this Day: Rod Serling (born December 25, 1924) Best known as the creator and primary writer of The Twilight Zone, he won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1960, 1961, and 1962. His written works include the original screenplay for Planet of the Apes.

Happy Doug Yule-tide to all who celebrate!

Dig up my old words, and you apparently find me referring to Charlie Brown simply as "Charlie" once, for which I should be forced to suffer a slow death from a thousand cookies and similar treats.

One more Christmas missive before I log off for a long winter’s nap: a reprint of my 2012 interview with comics historian @nat.gertler.com about A Charlie Brown Christmas and @fantagraphics.bsky.social's Charlie Brown's Christmas Stocking.

In this 1999 oversized prestige edition, Paul Dini & Alex Ross portray Superman attempting to end world hunger—if only for a day. Poignant, beautiful & more than a little heartbreaking, it made for a good Christmastime read last night.

Chasing that yonder star with a Cosmic Christmas mixtape, featuring the gnostic grooves of David Bowie, Saturnalian jazz from Sun Ra, metaphysical funk from Earth, Wind & Fire, and more.

Jason is one of those music lovers who makes you hear revelatory things in songs you would never have noticed otherwise. I loved this talk!

Pleased to join @samdingman.bsky.social on @kjzz.org's morning show to build out a Comic Christmas playlist centered around the psychedelic Revelation of the Magi. How do I weave David Bowie, Sun Ra, Red Red Meat & others into the holiday? Listen in as all is revealed! www.kjzz.org/the-show/202...

Another Wednesday, another fantastic conversation on the @aquariumdrunkard.com Transmissions podcast with host @jasonpwoodbury.bsky.social and this week’s guest Cochemea Gastelum.

"A shape-shifting 5-string bass that chameleons among the reeds, emerges as a slippery monosynth, and weaves through the ambient murk like a searchlight." aquariumdrunkard.com/2025/12/15/e...

Lage rules.

New @aquariumdrunkard.com Transmissions: Andrew Horton & I welcome @themikeayers.bsky.social, author of ⁠Sharing in the Groove: The Untold Story of the ’90s Jam Band Explosion, on to talk all things jam. Perhaps the only time you'll hear us discuss Blues Traveler & Sonic Youth in the same episode!

Today marks the birth of the late great poet #JamesTate. To celebrate, his estate put together this collection of fan art, which includes my reading of "Uneasy About the Sounds of Some Night-Wandering Animal." I hope you enjoy it. www.jamestate.net/instances-oc...

If you’re a huge fan of The Dream Syndicate (yes) or a music history fanatic (also yes), do yourself a solid and check out this episode of Transmissions on @aquariumdrunkard.com A fantastic conversation between Jason and Steve Wynn. Very cool, engaging, and entertaining. Loved every minute of it.👊🎶

Steve is at or near the peak of People Whose Incredible Talent Is Matched By How Cool And Nice They Are. Looking forward to listening to this and seeing the Syndicate when they play here.

Jason & Steve - Go together perfectly like Peanut butter & jelly ! Love these guys

Steve Wynn is on @aquariumdrunkard.com Transmissions today to talk about the 40th anniversary of The Dream Syndicate's Medicine Show, early tours with R.E.M. & U2, record store lore, & more. I adore talking with this dude, listen wherever you get podcasts via @talkhouse.bsky.social.

“Music can make unimaginable things possible.” —Werner Herzog

Love this record so much. Swampy and spaaaaaaaccccceeeed out.