A selection of rad bootlegs + other music. Come fly with me.
Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard - August 2026 Coming rrrrrrright up this Sunday at 4pm PST — another edition of Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard ! Freeform transmissions to soundtrack the end of your weekend. Airing every third Sunday of the month, RFAD on dublab features the pairing of Tyler Wilcox’s Doom and Gloom from the Tomb (that’s me) and Chad DePasquale’s New Happy Gathering. This month,…
The Go-Betweens - Baroona Hall, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, December 6, 1983 The Go-Betweens catalog always seems to drift in and out of print. But Beggars Banquet is reissuing a few of the band’s records in a couple months, so hopefully a whole new audience will find these gems. Along with the reissues, there’s also a live double LP from 1987 which (as far as I know) has…
Bob Dylan - Get Your Mind Off Winter Time (Bennyboy’s Best of The ‘26 Summer Tour) The Long, Hot Summer Tour is over — go ahead, Bob, you deserve that chardonnay! Dylan certainly kept things interesting for us poor souls who continue to be obsessed with him. Bizarro Basement Tapes bust-outs, intra-band controversy, an unheard-of revolving door guitarist situation, a hoodie that seems…
Harry Dean Stanton - SNAP/KCRW, Santa Monica, California, June 24, 1987 I watched Partly Fiction , Sophie Huber’s Harry Dean Stanton documentary, last week and it was a beautiful, intimate portrait of the late/great character actor, who would’ve turned 100 a few weeks back. Even if he was appearing in a cruddy movie, Harry Dean was always worth watching, finding moments within moments,…
Ayami Suzuki & Rob Noyes - Classic Fevers and Chills Recorded and released in limited quantities a few years back, this excellent collab between vocalist Ayami Suzuki and guitarist Rob Noyes recently got a vinyl edition via Feeding Tube Records. Well deserved — Classic Fevers and Chills is a captivating listen, with Suzuki’s (often wordless) voice meshing wonderfully with Noyes’ acoustic…
Lyres - The Grotto, New Haven, Connecticut, August 18, 1984 RIP to Lyres frontman Jeff “Monoman” Conolly, who passed away last week. As his nickname tells us, this guy was indeed monomaniacal in his quest for garage rock perfection over the decades. Is “garage rock perfection” a contradiction in terms? I don’t know — but I do know that this tape of Lyres way back in…
The Beatles - Rubber Soul Sessions Will the powers that be ever stop finding new ways to sell old Beatles albums to us? Probably not. To wit: there’s a Rubber Soul “special edition” coming out in early October, boasting one of those semi-questionable remixes, a disc of outtakes, and so forth and so on. I’m sure there will be some interesting stuff — hey, a previously…
Nico & Kevin Ayers - Arènes d'Arles, Arles, France, August 6, 1975 We mentioned that forthcoming Can live release a couple weeks back — and we noted that the lineup for that 1975 night in Arles also featured everyone’s favorite former Velvet Underground chanteuse Nico! Is there a tape of Nico’s set? Oh yeah, there is. And it even features a special guest appearance from her old ACNE…
Richard Hell & the Voidoids + The Feelies - CBGB, New York City, July 1 / July 2, 1978 We’ve been hanging out a lot at CBGB lately — and why not? It’s a cool place to hang out. Today, we’ve got audience tapes recorded during a thrilling double bill in the summer of ‘78: Richard Hell & the Voidoids and the Feelies! It doesn’t get much better than that. Hell’s old…
Absolute Grey - CBGB’s 1985 A very cool archival release from the undersung 1980s band Absolute Grey, capturing a particularly fiery set from the Rochester, NY quartet at the legendary CBGB. Front and center are Beth Brown’s powerful vocals, which call to mind a winning blend of Michael Stipe and Grace Slick — and hey, Absolute Grey encore with a killer rendition of “White…
Barry Walker Unit - 13th Moon Gravity Well, Portland, Oregon, July 25, 2026 The Pacific Northwest’s finest pedal steel-led free jazz country rock experimental collective is back! The Barry Walker Unit’s debut LP from last year was a complete stunner (you can learn more about it from my conversation with Barry on Aquarium Drunkard ) — but it definitely left you wanting more. Well,…
Tom Verlaine - The Ritz, New York City, December 21 / December 22 , 1984 Uhh, who’s that creepy dude in the parking lot? Nosferatu? Slender Man?!! Oh wait, it’s just Tom Verlaine being Tom Verlaine. Yeah, we’re going to hang out with Tom a little while longer this week after listening to him at CBGB in 1976 yesterday. Hey, I’m in charge here. Today’s tapes are from…
Talking Heads + Television - CBGB, New York City, July 29-31, 1976 A little expanded 50th anniversary repost! I first shared these recordings … 15 years ago?! Let’s take a trip back in time, shall we? Not too long a trip, just 35 50 summers ago, to NYC’s Bowery, where great rock ‘n’ roll was being created on a frighteningly regular basis. This particular run featured two sets apiece each…
Pavement - The Cat’s Cradle, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, July 28, 1996 Pavement is stomping out the footlights at the Ryman tonight — but 30 years ago this summer, the band was holed up in Mitch Easter’s Piedmont Triad Studio, recording what would become the band’s fourth studio album, Brighten the Corners . To blow off steam during the sessions, Malkmus and Co. booked a one-off gig at The Cat’s…
Tara Clerkin Trio - Somewhere Good A blissfully dubbed-out Broadcast? A trip hop-infused Young Marble Giants?! Whatever! The Bristol-based group was one of the best totally-new-to-me things I saw at Big Ears this past spring. I don’t think I’d ever heard of them, but enough trusted heads told me to check ‘em out and those trusted heads were absolutely right. The TCT’s set…
Sonic Youth - Complex, Washington, DC, July 25, 1986 What the world needs now is EVOL , sweet EVOL . Right? Just about 40 years ago, Sonic Youth was touring all over in support of their classic third LP, which had been unleashed earlier that spring. A lotta good tapes from this era, some officially released , some unofficially circulated. This Washington, DC, show falls in the latter category —…
Can - Palais de Chaillot, Paris, France, September 4, 1975 Can you dig it?! After a little break, the Can live series is revving back up again with Live in Arles , a tape from August 1975 recorded in a crumbling Roman amphitheatre on a bill with Nico and Kevin Ayers. Apparently, it’s “regarded as one of their finest performances, even by the band members themselves”! And yeah, it…
Styrofoam Winos :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview Earlier this summer, I chatted with Joe Kenkel, Trevor Nikrant and Lou Turner — AKA Styrofoam Winos! And now, you can read the (condensed) results of our talk over on Aquarium Drunkard . I’ve loved the Winos since I first heard ‘em a few years back, and the Nashville-based trio just seems to be getting better and better. In my AD…
DIY Festivals, Coast to Coast :: Ghost Canyon, Fly Around Fest & Open Melody When we think of music festivals these days, it’s often the big ones that come to mind — your Coachellas, Lollapaloozas or Bonnaroos. Sweltering heat, fields full of fans, lineups that feel increasingly algorithmic and boring. Such events can be fun, of course, but hardly anyone would argue that they’re really about…
Bulayo - Guitar Songs From Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia and DR Congo During a very brief visit to Portland, OR, a few weeks back, I finally made it to Mississippi Records. As expected, it was a delight — I could’ve spent several hours just browsing the Sun Ra section. One thing I grabbed was Mississippi’s recent Bulayo compilation, and I’ve been spinning it daily since then. These…