Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

In the late 60's new advances in recording technology collided up against the rise of the flower children and a new genre of insincere bohemian music was pushed into the wake of a new youth market. Some of it was QUITE GOOD as a few very genuine artists got mixed up into this relatively hollow campaign that tried its best to commodify dissent. These songs can be judged as peripheral artifacts or beautiful time capsules that say more than they might've meant to say between the lines. Our next episode will be the new beginning of another 6 month season of Drifter's Sympathy...⚡ Thanks for listening and check out Emil's brand new record produced by John Agnello (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr.) : http://shop.partisanrecords.com/products/holy-sons-in-the-garden

This is the 'season finale' of the first 6 month run of Drifter's Sympathy. We've already covered that there's inevitably a moment in the 'hero's journey' where one doesn't know what they're doing anymore and has lost all sense of safety and direction. This cast is about the stage beyond that where the joke goes too far and one isn't taking death or life seriously. Its a void that a lot of people don't return from. Something needs to eventually peel away the callousness, alleviate the pain and/or cease the addictions that fuel our urge to swim down to the bottom of a very viscous and dangerous swamp where we test fate by living without any of the elements that actually sustain life. A new sensitivity and reason for being need to finally emerge. Until that alleviation, this realm offers a dare symbolized in some mythologies as a kind of Satanic contract... ...to live on the other side of sanity and health for as long as you can while laughing at the imminent destruction that's coming straight at you.

Rare Soundtracks is back. ⚡ This episode digs back into the folds of Grails' influences by focusing on the great 'British Crime' film composer Roy Budd, pointing out the cancerous effect of Tubular Bells on modern horror films and including a small section on MF Doom sampling the composer of Hair. ...Emil's instrumental band Grails has just announced their first record in 6 years. It's called "Chalice Hymnal" and will be out on 2/17 on Temporary Residence LTD. https://www.temporaryresidence.com/products/trr279

Fantasies eventually have to turn to sour to reveal the true way forward. Transgression, Adventurism and pushing the boundaries of one's own psychology are a central piece of the hero's journey. So this episode dives deep into the gutter where one becomes unsure if they belong there or will make it back to tell a decent story. In the beginning, we experiment on the way towards knowledge and then the lust for adventure can consume us. The cast is named after the great Fugs song "I Want to Know" and preaches the exploratory gospel of those like Baudelaire, Burroughs and Buddha who wanted to use themselves like a Petri dish to achieve the higher benefits of alchemy.

This week's episode dives deep into forgotten European songwriting and record production. Several shadowy heroes are covered here with a special section on Laurence Vanay and the Château d'Hérouville, the legendary studio in the French countryside where Bowie's 'Low', Chris Bell's 'I am the Cosmos' and Floyd's 'Obscured by Clouds' were recorded. Vincent Van Gogh is rumored to have painted the Château, the Grateful Dead supposedly dosed the French police there and the studio's owner, an infamous library composer, killed himself when he ran out of money to keep the lights on. Behind all of that, the recordings of Laurence Vanay were buried for decades... Dark and beautiful compositions by Jacqueline Thibault, the wife of Magma's bassist, released under a pseudonym because she was deemed 'not marketable enough' to record under her own name!🔦

The tide turns as a new Guru comes to town. This episode sits at the crux of 'Drifter's Sympathy' as it visits the ultimate transformative moment when a young kid is inducted into underground culture and falls in love with the pursuit of making art in the mold of their heroes. "My Best Friend" functions as a deep love letter to growing up in a small town; in this case Chapel Hill, where Emil's life begins to take a spiritual left-turn after seeing Sebadoh open for Fugazi in 1991. Its a time-capsule of the groundfloor era when the 90's began and the underground was still a completely open-ended, boiling pot of potential. In the same spirit of the great mythological figures that left home for adventure on a spiritual mission, we're pulled towards the Faustian trade before our minds can really understand the same pitfalls our heroes fell into. So we naively push forward into those dangers and pull back from them or walk straight into an unknowable transformation.

This Episode goes back to the era of the Beatles reign, focusing on lesser known British geniuses in songwriting and contrasting their early work with what became of them down the line. Emil's band Holy Sons are also setting off on tour to support "In the Garden" this week. Here's a link to the brand new record :: http://smarturl.it/HolyGardenCDLP

Pink Floyd comes to North Carolina in 1994 and Emil accidentally takes 9 hits of acid in the back of a station wagon alongside Ron, the gay deadhead who'd previously inducted him into the cult of LSD. Sadly, this is the final episode of 'the Ron Trilogy' as Emil eventually begins to drift towards a new Guru who shows up in town. In order to rigorously encapsulate the Era of Ron, a few more stories from the summer of 1994 are covered here like walking across the graduation stage in high school on BLUE SUNSHINE, the inevitable self-hate that comes from clearing a 6-foot bong and ruining a stranger's wedding in the middle of a deadly car chase.

Episode 4 dives into the history of lesser known American record production and songwriting, uncovers various Neil Young imitators and features a mini-section on the significance and extreme depression of Del Shannon. Under the same spell of classic American records, Holy Sons has just announced a new collaborative record with legendary producer John Agnello (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr. Kurt Vile). "In the Garden" sets Emil's songwriting into the atmosphere of the kind of early 70's records you'd pull out while slamming whiskeys by the fireplace late into the night (out Oct. 21st on Partisan Records). So, while getting wasted and going deep in the search for a classicism that truly satisfies, Drifter's Sympathy dusts off lost curiosities left by some of the original 'American Trailblazers'.

In 1994 Emil was kidnapped briefly while on LSD, taken to a shack out in the woods and greeted by a teen dressed as Michael Jackson who attempted to coerce him into a three-way along with another boy who appeared to be in witness protection. As this podcast unfurls the anthropological setting for such a tale, it's an interesting side note that the film 'Blue Velvet' was set only two hours away from the small town in North Carolina where this occurred. The implicit metaphor is that places like One Eyed Jacks (Twin Peaks) or any various shack out in the woods double as off-track meeting zones for those interested in transformation or a quick Faustian trade. This episode also explores the nature of one's early gurus and the late-night ritualism that comes along with being inducted into the cult of LSD.

The storytelling/audio-book aspect of the podcast will return on the 1st of every month. For this episode Emil performs the honorable late-night ritual of drinking heavily and going through the rare soundtrack section of records he's accumulated while traveling to the far corners of the world with his band Grails. Grails is inching closer to announcing their first full length record of all new material in 5 years very soon. This episode delves into the world of freedom granted to composers through the window of film music and exposes some of Grails' influences and touchstones along the way.

To introduce some of the various characters that will be involved in the podcast, Emil tells the story of when Duncan Trussell called him up in 1999 to inform him that he'd arranged for Emil to start managing the legendary Comedy Store in LA if he could drive across the country in under 3 days. After arriving, Emil quickly demotes himself and unexpectedly begins to be stalked by one of the stars of Revenge of the Nerds II.