Aquarium Drunkard

Nashville’s Lambchop return to retail shelves next month with their eleventh full-length studio album OH (Ohio). Over the years the country-soul collective has employed as may as 16 sixteen members, rotating in and out of the fold, but for this go-round the lineup is slim (relatively speaking) with a core of eight musicians tapped for […]

Now a decade into their career, Tucson’s Calexico continue to cull their sound from the surrounding deserts. Just as their name implies, that sound is equally rooted in California and Mexico - border-hopping back and forth - absorbing whichever styles that happen to be pulled in by their ever-widening wake. 2006’s Garden Ruin […]

It’s Labor Day weekend; somehow the summer has already come and gone..damn that was fast. So, before we roll out the next set of AD Interviews, let’s recap the ones we’ve posted over the past three months. Turn on, catch up, or re-read the highlights. Oh, and that photo above is of my man […]

Fear not, Howe Gelb is back, and is once again picking up the reins of the Giant Sand moniker for his new LP proVISIONS. Gelb’s last album, the gospel heavy ‘Sno Angel Like You was one of our favorite album of 2006. Now with a new label home, at Yep Roc, Aquarium Drunkard phoned Gelb […]

Aquarium Drunkard: Rook is far more thematic than its predecessor Palo Santo. While those songs felt like they could be cohesive, Rook’s ongoing chromatic descents seem to hint at a central theme? Is that the case?
Jonathan Meiburg: There’s no hidden ‘plot’ to Rook (as there was, in a way, for Palo Santo), but there’s […]

…and now, even more coverage from last week’s Newport Folk Festival. Prior to their performance, AD sat down and caught up with Over The Rhine’s Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist. Among other things, they give a shout out to, literally, my favorite burger in the U.S.

Aquarium Drunkard: You named the band after your neighborhood […]

New York’s Felice Brothers – whose excellent self-titled record was released this year by Conor Oberst’s Team Love label – were one of the highlights of this year’s Newport Folk Festival. The group, which consists of Ian, Simone, and James Felice along with their friends Farley and Christmas (seriously), played foot-stompin’ country music, knee-deep […]

I took the bus to work today because my car broke down, and I found myself in downtown Los Angeles, hemmed in on all sides by skyscrapers, alone with my bag and the headphones that covered my ears like an electric bulletin. Most artists milk the dusty landscapes of the open road or the […]

Poet…musician…troubadour…survivor, Alejandro Escovedo is all of those and more. Decades into a career that has spanned various styles and genres (all the while arguably creating his own), Escovedo has just released his 9th solo album, Real Animal, one that is being hailed by many as his some of his strongest work to date. […]

A strong, if hefty, follow up to 2006’s excellent Fort Recovery, Will Johnson and company lay it all out on Dual Hawks, the new two disc affair that stables Centro-matic on disc one, and their softer side project, South San Gabriel, on disc two. With a total of 23 songs it’s admittedly a lot […]

Hayden has come a long way from his introduction to the U.S. as the heir to the folky mope-rock throne over a decade ago. His new album, In Field & Town, is instrumentally his most fully realized to date. He sat down earlier this month with Aquarium Drunkard prior to his show at […]

This is part II of II of Marty Garner’s AD Interview with The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn. You can find part I HERE….

Craig Finn is a normal dude. He may be “gettin’ a lot of double takes when he’s comin’ around the corners,” (as he sings on the title track of the Hold Steady’s excellent […]

Craig Finn is a normal dude. He may be “gettin’ a lot of double takes when he’s comin’ around the corners,” (as he sings on the title track of the Hold Steady’s excellent new record, Stay Positive) but at his core, Craig Finn is a genuinely, refreshingly normal dude. That may explain the […]

Earlier this month AD caught up with Julie Ocean’s Terry Banks to discuss (among other things) the band’s new LP, Long Gone And Nearly There, the Velocity Girl days, The Undertones, the local scene in Washington D.C., and an open-ended invitation to Teenage Fanclub.
Aquarium Drunkard: So tell me about where the band’s name comes from.
Terry […]