*OUTER REGIONS* Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy podcast

1:06:23

LONER LEGENDS IV brings us to the end of SEASON SIX with a new installment of the central music pillar of the cast.⛲️ I'd been saving covering one of the greatest songwriters of all time for a few years now so its a relief to finally get to tell the story of the great RAMASES... check out his record 'Space Hymns' immediately!. The second genius on the list for today is Gary Davenport... check out his record 'Scattered Thoughts' immediately! And then for a special feature I flew out to Portland and interviewed the great Jed Bindeman who runs a killer record store called 'Little Axe' and two different labels called "Freedom to Spend" and "Concentric Circles". Jed is one of the deepest cassette diggers in the world and has uncovered vast amounts of private tapes, found the artists and issued these records for the first time on LP. He's put in a very special kind of work, a labor of love similar to this podcast, that will help people slowly realize there's a massive universe of art thriving fully outside of the central capitalist stream. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

1
NICK DRAKE II 1:09:30

14 weeks ago1:09:30

1:09:30

This will probably be the only sequel episode Drifter's will ever do on one artist... solely because Nick Drake has such a dense story that had never fully been told until this new book arrived ("Nick Drake: The Life by Richard Morton Jack"). Pat Sansone (Wilco, Autumn Defense) joins Emil again to hash out the more difficult, back half of Nick's story and provide some light on just how quickly Nick had become mentally ill by the time he recorded Pink Moon. Joe Boyd fittingly gets the last word on Drake's legacy and helps us understand how his disappearance inadvertently set up the autonomy of the space we meet these timeless records in. Important footnote!:: the super legend that Pat refers to in his intense story at the end of this cast is Ahmet Ertegun :: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmet_Ertegun Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

1
NICK DRAKE 1:03:13

16 weeks ago1:03:13

1:03:13

If something has changed you irrevocably in the past, its a kind of betrayal of yourself to not re-visit it and try to understand why. For this one I wanted to pull in one of the most sensitive and present people I know to help me out (Pat Sansone of Wilco & Autumn Defense) and he really rose to the test. I think we were able to bring Nick Drake's day to day world into focus with the excitement we felt over this new, unprecedented book in hand called 'Nick Drake : The Life' by Richard Morton Jack. This episode could function as a new kind of category I could roll out every once and awhile that's basically a full-on 'Existential History' deep-dive into someone who's true nature has been hiding in plain sight while they've been somewhat misunderstood. I feel strongly that musicians themselves should be the ones exploring the emotional terrain of the great fallen musicians because we're part of a kind of family who's given everything to be sacrificed on this altar... a beautiful but heavy gamble for sure. Maybe its a bit of the overall mission statement of this podcast to try and re-define how we see the actual humanity that lies behind art instead of just kicking back and being entertained by it. And this kind of study can also function as an expose of what it is to be a human in general. Hustling, sweating, dreaming, failing miserably and worrying endlessly... We can see ourselves in Nick Drake in many ways.. for better or worse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

1
THE TERRORISTS II 1:00:30

18 weeks ago1:00:30

1:00:30

"The Terrorists II" arrives to balance out the Mellow Soldiers of Season Six with a bit of history on resistance music and the avant-garde. It appears to be a natural part of evolution that there are dead spots and valleys in growth, where we just have to WAIT for better ideas while people take urine baths and try out experimental blood-letting procedures. So it's an important task to sweep through culture every now and again to point out that there's some massive amounts of bullshit in our bloodstream that seem to be there voluntarily. The central concept of this cast needed a name & that term ended up being "NECRO-NESIA"... an idea that means when a culture starts hitting an evolutionary dead end, it tends to turn back & consume "classic" moments of itself... forgetting to move forward at all, while having too much fun enjoying the fruits of its most obvious arrival points. So its a kind of opium addiction to GREAT MOMENTS of capitalism... and the cyclical bastardizing of art into entertainment. Does Sabrina Carpenter bring anything that wasn't already a basic tenet of the Britney Spears product 25 years ago?... 'The Terrorists II' proposes that we are living in an era where we've become unaware that all culture is becoming THROWBACK culture with no conscience of it's self-consumption. It follows that the 'Ranger' of culture becomes extremely bored of being surrounded by a lackluster celebration of things that have already happened before... and must take to the farther edges of the earth to seek out new & less stale information. This cast is in GREAT appreciation of those types... while trying to point out that just because the rides at the carnival are FUN, it doesn't mean there isn't a world of depth out there that still needs our attention to keep paving an evolutionary path. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

1
MOVING TO PORTLAND II 1:00:45

20 weeks ago1:00:45

1:00:45

This cast ties together the 90's era of our story to the current ERA.💫 (if you want some XTRA background you can re-listen to the episodes 'Moving to LA' & 'Moving to Portland' as those two set this one UP.) The opening catches listeners up to Portland, Oregon in 1999 and the emotional STATE of things... but this cast could ultimately be called "The beginning of GRAILS". The bottom line is that one often has to throw everything out the window to open up a new horizon of possibilities. And that horizon, by definition, can often begin with a pathetic and destitute situation by LAW. But from that desert floor,, grow the WEEDS that become the terrain in every hero's journey rite? This cast features a couple very special guests... Alex Hall (Grails co-founder, who's living out in Malmo, Sweden) weighs in on the frame by frame situation from his perspective. And then Emil & Alex realize that they didn't so much 'start' Grails but that their mutual friend Brad Adkins (who introduced them) forced them to start the band against their WILL. So not only do you often begin the dream out in the desert with no food or water,, but sometimes there's a GUN to yr back too.🔥🚣‍♂️🔥 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

1
MELLOW SOLDIERS 1:20:46

22 weeks ago1:20:46

1:20:46

For the first episode of SEASON SIX, we have the LONGEST Drifter's episode of all time! ...this may have something to do with the fact that Emil gets drunk at the end in a quest to fully articulate his true feelings about one of his favorite underdogs. "Mellow Soldiers" had to be born to explore the dark & often unintentional side of the soft rock we've all grown up with. ...The SOLDIERS at hand for this episode are largely : *Art Garfunkel - the reigning king of insincerity.. *Rupert Holmes - the nasa scientist that might've guided pop music to entirely new geographies of deeper & subtler content... *Country - an obscure folk-rock band who's two songwriters came from fascinating chess-piece positions and then suffered two drastically different fates.. *Charles Manson - the reigning king of candlelit, acoustic guitar crooning andddddd murder.. *Christie - the power pop band that nearly united the continents under one banner of sick azzz choruses... >> HAPPY NEW YEAR & welcome to SEASON SIX✨🔦✨ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

1
BONUS EPISODE - "STEPHEN MALKMUS" 1:09:51

3 years ago1:09:51

1:09:51

Ever since he heard the Trigger Cut 7" in high school, Emil has been a big fan of Stephen Malkmus' contributions to the American underground. Emil stopped by Stephen's house while visiting Portland a few years ago and had a rare conversation about his younger years and early experiences in Pavement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

1
BONUS EPISODE - "RON GETS FAN MAIL!" 52:05

3 years ago52:05

52:05

Ron & Emil recently began a ritual of Sunday brunching at the same family restaurant they worked at back in 1992. After a pleasant brunch Ron is granted his customary 'hard cider' and the mics are fired up. Questions were posed by listeners on Patreon and, while Ron is initially shocked that he's gotten fan mail, his storied wisdom comes rolling out just the same. It begins with the unwrapping of some rare 8-track tapes Emil's just added to his collection, which to Ron's astonishment and inevitable arousal, contains the entire Bob Dylan discography. And then when the cider eventually starts hitting, Ron regales the true, unknown story behind his friendship with the, now un-locatable, "Ecstasy Damaged Chef". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

1
LONER LEGENDS III 1:14:27

3 years ago1:14:27

1:14:27

"LONER LEGENDS III" is the final episode of Season Five & features:: *an overview of Eden Ahbez & the writing of Nature Boy* *a difficult dive into the dastardly world of John Phillips* *an overview of Alan Hull's work with Lindisfarne and his solo LPs* *a section on Basil Kirchin and his pioneering of 'ambient music'* Thanks so much for listening Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

1
FOUR WALLS 55:04

3 years ago55:04

55:04

Emil has a mid-life crisis... and records it. This episode is a sequel to "The Outsider", the other purely philosophical episode that anchored Drifter's Sympathy into a hardcore existentialist stance. This cast uses the holy trinity of American Country Music, Taoism and the Twilight Zone to illustrate our fruitless attempt to resolve the perpetually unfinished nature of consciousness itself. In the form of a classic Existentialist thesis, 'Four Walls' puts forward that escapism only erodes what integrity and strength we have... and that the only way forward is straight through the murk & confusion directly. At the very least, you'll never hear the song "Hello Walls" the same again... and at the very best, this cast helps demonstrate why Kurtz's last words in 'Heart of Darkness' are "The horror, The horror." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

1
THE DAWN OF SELFISH MUSIC II 1:14:28

3 years ago1:14:28

1:14:28

The sequel of "THE DAWN OF SELFISH MUSIC" goes a little darker into the consequences of gaining total freedom. On the other side of this new frontier, Dylan finds people breaking into his house to find their leader, Miles Davis tries to shake off imitators chasing his every aesthetic move and a never-ending supply of drugs causes David Crosby's life to fully crash and burn. Gene Clark is the patron saint of this episode, while managing to commit various sins no saint has ever conceived of. If this particular cast ever seems overly negative, its really just an attempt to grapple with the true ugliness that went on behind the making of some of our favorite music. Because treating that music as a product alone doesn't really honor the spiritual confusion that came alongside the "me generation" and selfish music's announcement that anything was now fair game. When does being too selfish cause total destruction...? - All of the characters in this episode flirt with total freedom and some don't make it out.🔥 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

1
THE LECTURER II 1:07:04

3 years ago1:07:04

1:07:04

Duncan Trussell returns to Drifter's Sympathy for the continuation of "The Lecturer". Emil and Duncan get into the archaeology of their friendship, their early development and how they were molded by completely different forms of trauma to come to a similar internal place. The second half dives into their artistic process and how Taoist methods have helped lead them towards creating their body of work over the years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

1
THE DAWN OF SELFISH MUSIC 1:12:10

3 years ago1:12:10

1:12:10

Tracing back to the beginnings of when music on the radio began to slowly fracture and morph in the late 50's, Emil returns to a small fleet of songwriters in the Teen Heartthrob era that began to dream of a coming world of freedom and evolution in the art of songform. Driven by the seizing of a personal power outside of the need to please the crowd, these writers leaked actual emotions into their recordings which set the stage for bands like the Beatles to flex an intellectualism that couldn't have been hypothesized a few years before. This setting is established by the epic meeting of Bobby Vee and Bob Dylan in a record store in Fargo, North Dakota in 1959. Dylan lasts two weeks in Vee's band after greatly misrepresenting his skill set and then Bobby Vee goes on to become an international superstar without him, showing Dylan that the dream is really possible. Then when Dylan makes his return to the market with a fully developed image, he ends up eviscerating Bobby Vee's entire genre and the world would never be the same. This is part one of "the Dawn of Selfishness". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

1
MOVING TO PORTLAND 1:01:23

3 years ago1:01:23

1:01:23

The new season of Drifter's Sympathy picks back up at the end of the last episode. 'I Want to Live a Peaceful Life' was about the sudden malaise that can descend on you at the end of college. Emil moved in with Duncan Trussell in LA and only lasted a summer before he realized that it wasn't the right place to start a music career based on hyper-honesty. This episode approaches the emotional field of getting to Portland in 1999 and experiencing cultural confusion after having spent four years recording up in the mountains of North Carolina. The cast wades in what it feels like to be 22 years old... simultaneously out of your depth, while also having something to offer that no one wants any part of. There will be a part two of 'Moving to Portland' next season that gets into the beginnings of starting to play music in front of people, but this episode is centered around the sensation of arriving in a foreign land. Its a meditation on the true deflation one feels when they grasp how ridiculous scaling the vertical wall that trying to make art in public can be... and the harsh reality of trying to achieve what you think your heroes did. There are important references in here to the earlier episodes : 'Moving to LA',, 'The Satan Seller' and 'I Want to Live A Peaceful Life'... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

1
Q&A and 5th Season Announcement 26:01

3 years ago26:01

26:01

Season Five of Drifter's Sympathy will be dropping on March 8th! - This is a special mini-episode meant to announce the new Season, but it includes a section of last season's special Q&A episode where Patreon listeners were essentially able to guide their own episode. Emil dives back into the 90's and navigates the difficulties artists face from an extremely personal perspective. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
I WANT TO LIVE A PEACEFUL LIFE 56:50

6 years ago56:50

56:50

We've reached the Final Hour of this season... for now... Emil went out to his mother's farm and recorded the finale of these 6 episodes in the middle of the night while drinking a significant amount of moonshine. He enters a strange and dazed state of mind, temporarily entering a flashback of the 'religious episode' he experienced in 1998. After several years of being held captive inside an extreme and crippling depression, he had a dream where God came to him and said that it was finally time to experience what actual happiness is. This cast is about the epic struggle to appreciate life itself, and how, if we are lucky enough to achieve any kind of peak experience of what enlightenment is, we have no idea how long that insight will stay before releasing us back into the world as it is generally seen. The cast ends in 1999 with Emil moving up to Portland where his artistic life began all over again. Because of the eerie quiet and meditative quality of this cast, its best listened to while alone, late at night. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
RARE SOUNDTRACKS III 1:06:44

6 years ago1:06:44

1:06:44

Emil and Alex recently got off a massive Grails tour that took them to places as disparate as Poland, Turkey, Estonia and Lithuania, ending up in Copenhagen where they recorded this cast at Alex's apartment. It begins with the two reflecting on how traveling as a band can reach heavy emotional impasses that require a kind of comedic release and Grails have established a dense list of guilty pleasures that've eased their morning hangovers after touring Europe for over 15 years. The conversation eventually moves into their love of British and Italian library music and ends with record shopping in Greece underneath the Parthenon. Because this season has been consistently thematically 'heavy', "Rare Soundtracks III" serves as a necessarily lighthearted entry for this run of 6 episodes. The next episode will return to Emil's breakdown, gradual breakthrough and eventual move up to Portland, Oregon to begin the next chapter of his life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
LOST DECADE 1:02:29

6 years ago1:02:29

1:02:29

This episode dives completely into the field of extreme, paralyzing alienation and the hovering spectre of the failure of your childhood dreams. It also features a tribute to the healing power of the music of Daniel Johnston... a singer that has the power to build a profound bridge out to you when you are in the most debilitating pain. Although this cast unrelentingly focuses on the sensation of floating in the space of a certain kind of loneliness, it posits a central wager that if you follow that Alone-ness ALL the way through to its logical conclusion, being alone can eventually transform into a kind of superpower... and point the way towards a crucial kind of inner redemption and spiritual understanding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
THE RENAISSANCE OF HOME RECORDING 1:11:26

6 years ago1:11:26

1:11:26

This episode brings the Drifter's documentary-style series on the history of Home Recording to a close for now...🍏 The sheer amount of info in this one could've easily gone into a 300 page book, given that the 'lo-fi'-era has barely been acknowledged as existing as a legitimate form of expression at all. As home-recording has historically only been seen as a stepping stone towards more traditional forms of music industry careerism, Emil tries to re-frame the impulse and phenomenon as its own real and beautiful sub-world of vital documentation in itself. Whereas the previous episode "The Dawn of Home Recording" examines the impulse of Les Paul's initial invention of the overdub, this cast investigates what happens when you hand that technology over to tomorrow's freaks to make their own private, warped fantasies undeniably real. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
THE ODYSSEY 59:59

6 years ago59:59

59:59

Emil has a nervous breakdown in New York, packs everything into his car and starts driving south. He takes a sabbatical in his childhood home in North Carolina thinking it will offer some perspective, but it only brings on a full mid-life crisis which he realizes he's been needing and fully embraces. While cleaning his mom's old house and looking at baby pictures, he has a revelation about what truly carves a person into their eventual individuality. On a lark, he begins to fantasize about reconnecting with his very first guru Ron... the gay deadhead who initially got him into LSD 25 years beforehand. Luckily, Ron is quickly located and ends up being exactly as forthcoming, sweet and helpful as he always was. This episode features special spots on two other Chapel Hill gurus Dexter Romweber and Mac McCaughan, ...thank you for inspiring younger kids like Emil in their small towns to try and think bigger than their regular programming. And apologies to Link Wray, Max Roach and many more for not remembering that you were from North Carolina... ALSO... WTF!! 💥 >.....WE FUCKING FOUND RON!! 🍻 [for timeline clarification, this episode jumps out of the lineage of previous episodes about the 90's into our current time and looks back on our development & our earliest decisions...] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
THE DAWN OF HOME RECORDING 52:29

6 years ago52:29

52:29

Season 4 opens with a historical dig into the culture of home recording, beginning with Les Paul's initial invention of the overdub and then down the winding path of loner practitioners who seized his technology to exorcise their demons. Les Paul couldn't get electronic companies to listen to his ideas on multi-tracking for a couple decades so out of pure frustration, he assembled the ability to overdub in his garage using his father's old car parts and two lathe-cutting machines. After scoring 7 number one hits from his garage using the power of the overdub, he innovated a new way to add extra heads to mono-recorders and forced the Ampex Tape Machine company to accept that a new era had arrived. This changed music production forever and eventually put the power of recording entire records and exploring one's own imagination into the hands of the lone individual. The focus and frustration that pushes someone towards invention parallels the same dynamic we experience when pushed to a breakthrough during spiritual struggle, which this season's odd-numbered story episodes will discuss. The advent of home recording opened up new channels and possibilities in private expression while inadvertently creating an 'underground' in-itself. This episode explores the beauty of this new free, independent world with R. Stevie Moore as its core underdog hero, someone who exemplifies the ceaseless searching and private alchemy of the home recorder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

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🧛‍♂️4th SEASON DRIFTER'S PATREON ANNOUNCEMENT🧛‍♂️ 1:05

6 years ago1:05

1:05

There's only 2 weeks left now until the 4th Season starts ROLLING OUT🌊 Episode 36 is a very dense & detailed, historical cast called "THE DAWN OF HOME RECORDING" and will drop directly to Patreon users on Monday Feb. 25th >> as usual, the cast will hit Itunes on the following Monday (March 4th) and then on March 11th the first story episode will drop on Patreon that features a very SPECIAL guest interview💐 The 'I Want to Live a Peaceful Life' LP re-issue has been mastered and the art is complete while a KILLER new shirt design is being put together and all rewards are on track!🍏 Almost everyone on the Patreon has chosen their rewards for this season but there's still a couple people left who are signed up and free-floating from last season that haven't chosen a new tier... so choose one in the next 2 weeks when you have some time! - I should note that its really easy to CHANGE yr reward tier,, just click on the one you want & make sure you're allocated to receive whatever you prefer >> and don't worry,, if you're somehow not signed in correctly I'll figure it out and ship whatever you want regardless!💘 This season has been labored over to an obsessive degree! I moved back down to North Carolina to record these episodes & go all the way back to the BEGINNING 📖 >> Most of it was recorded solo so there's a very LATE NITE, one-on-one vibe that gets down to a level of DEPTH I wasn't quite able to achieve before. The content was GREATLY inspired by all the ideas that were sent in when we did the Q&A episode so thank you so MUCH for yr ideas💫 ...we can do another one of those as a bonus episode again this season if you'd like >> just lemme know if these next episodes provoke more IDEAS🌌🔦🌌10-4 https://www.patreon.com/drifterssympathy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

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THE SATAN SELLER 1:02:35

7 years ago1:02:35

1:02:35

✨🐍✨Episode 35... this is the finale of Season 3✨🐍✨ In 1998, Emil has been living deep in an alternate universe with the other campus leper 'Crazy Jeff' up in the mountains of North Carolina. Jeff is almost a decade older than all the other students at school and he's been ordered to go to prison on the weekends after getting one too many DUI's. Eventually spring break arrives and Duncan has become fixated on going up to Boston to see the Guru. Duncan and Emil hitch a ride to find the Guru knowing that they might be asking for trouble. When they finally meet, Duncan randomly hands the Guru a book on the Satanic Underworld which skews the entire light of their visit. While the boys are running around Boston during the day, the Guru reads the book at work trying to discern the true intention of their visit. At the end of the trip Emil and the Guru venture out into the woods on acid and the devil comes home to roost.🔥 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
OUTER REGIONS 59:22

7 years ago59:22

59:22

This cast opens up the vault exposing all of Grails' early International influences. Turkish, Polish, Greek, Brazilian, German, Japanese and Dutch records are dug through in an effort to overturn the most satisfying junctures of experimentalism and tradition in the 1970's. Somewhat coincidentally, Emil is posting this episode while on tour in Istanbul, Turkey with his band Grails.✨🌴✨ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

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WHAT HAPPENS TO A GURU 54:27

7 years ago54:27

54:27

...One of the most important chapters of our tale!📕 The towering myth of Ron's benevolence is put into perspective as his trust with Emil becomes fractured. Emil begins to see Ron as fallible and human just like the rest of us while his second guru begins to grow darker and darker. A new theory is posited... that the pull of the guru is fueled by a tension that comes from risk. And that putting one's trust in them can inevitably go very, very wrong... but the dare to follow them away from safety simultaneously functions as a life-affirming leap of faith. The end of this cast wrestles with the mentality of the second guru and admits that we can't understand someone who does not want to be known in this world where everything is about exhibition. Comparing him to Kafka won't do because Kafka is LEGENDARY. What great artist has successfully avoided being received entirely? Kafka wanted all of his work burned on his death... and he was defied by his best friend Max Brod, who decided to preserve his writings for future generations. This is such a complex 'betrayal'... but being able to look inside the mind of someone who existed without the most basic sustenance has created a small fire that the most alienated of us continually get warm by. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

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PLASTIC FLOWER PEOPLE II 56:57

7 years ago56:57

56:57

Emil heads back down to the initial crossroads where we naively wander across the dividing lines of various sub-cultures and get sucked under their psychological tide. He sees a somewhat unfortunate Grateful Dead show with Ron at around age 15 which bores and frightens him in turn... and that experience begins a strange fascination with the dark side of the hippie movement. 'Plastic Flower People' has become a depository for speculation on the 60's and the rise of modern bohemia. This episode features a fascinating moment where Roger McGuinn talks with Hugh Hefner about the fact that long hair and hippie attitudes are ALREADY played out in 1968. Revealing a puritanical distrust that started to mount as the underground first began to be bought up and sold back to itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

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JOURNEY TO THE EAST 54:02

7 years ago54:02

54:02

In 1998 Duncan Trussell (comedian), David MacLean (writer) and Emil (musician) went to India and Sri Lanka together for 3 months. They lived in Dharamshala for a month with Tibetan Refugees and Buddhist monks and then traveled to Agra, New Delhi and Varanasi together. In Varanasi they took a semi-disastrous trip down the Ganges where Emil ingested too many religious drugs and his body evaporated after being locked inside a very small, hot room after the power had gone out across the city. This OD came on the heels of having experienced an entire year of constant & supreme happiness... an unexpected explosion of serotonin that occurred after a dream where God had come to him and said "Are you ready?". After the overdose shattered that state, Duncan and Emil came back to the US in various states of distress and David decided to go on to Southern India. Four years later, David returned to India as a Fulbright scholar and ended up having a catastrophic reaction to Larium (an anti-Malarial drug), consequently losing the entire memory of his identity. This cast is an explanation of both of these unfortunate events, a conversation between David and Emil about how they met at Warren Wilson College and more. Check out David's book "The Answer to the Riddle is Me" or read more about it in the NY Times here. :: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/18/health/the-answer-to-the-riddle-is-me-a-debut-takes-on-memory-loss.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

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THE CASE FOR POLVO 1:03:57

7 years ago1:03:57

1:03:57

EPISODE 30 ✨🔦✨ In this episode Emil travels back down to Chapel Hill to try and re-assess the landscape that gave birth to his musical outlook in the early nineties. He uses the flashpoint of Chapel Hill's underground music explosion to argue that its the people living in a town that truly define the psychological geography of a place before they disappear and that place's identity transforms. This will probably be the only Drifter's Sympathy cast that focuses on the atmosphere surrounding a 'modern band'. Polvo's era opens up a perfect gateway into the study of a fleeting uniqueness that explodes in unwatched environments before the sudden death of a culture's heyday and the rebuilding period that inevitably follows. In Episode 27 ('To Abraxas with Headaches') Emil dubbed Polvo as the band that quintessentially personifies the charm and underdog position of a local band for him. So we dive into the influence these older kids wielded and study a boiling kettle in its most unique moment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

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DRIFTER'S SYMPATHY PATREON 4:54

7 years ago4:54

4:54

On March 5th the next episodes of Drifter's Sympathy will start rolling out!💥 We've set up a Patreon for people to support the podcast so it can run ad free for the rest of the season. The 3rd Season has 6 more episodes to go, but if you want to support the show and join the Patreon you get all the episodes a week early and two of the Lost Episodes too. There's also a new Drifter's Sympathy shirt designed by Beholder Badges and a special Holy Sons hoodie you can order if you want to contribute more to the podcast too. After these next three months of episodes have run, Emil will cancel the Patreon and take some time off to create the 4th Season. Here's the link to the Patreon page... you can also find it on the Drifter's Sympathy Facebook, Emil's Instagram or Twitter (just search for 'Emil Amos'). Thank You SOOO much to everyone who's already helped out!💐 https://www.patreon.com/drifterssympathy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

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SACCHARINE TRUST 58:44

7 years ago58:44

58:44

Episode 29 tells the genesis tale behind the song 'Saccharine Trust' that was named after the classic SST band of the '80s. The first half of the cast meditates on the unstable period of life the song is about and then segues into a lesson on meeting your heroes when Emil ends up face to face with his early underground idol, J Mascis from Dinosaur Jr. The second half of the cast drifts into the minefield of trying to discern why the modern era seems less distinct and vital and mourns the loss of a central underground community. While the end devolves into solipsistic philosophical attempts to find a positive thread somewhere within our cultural wreckage while wrestling with an increasingly plastic world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

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THE TERRORISTS 1:02:40

8 years ago1:02:40

1:02:40

'The Terrorists' digs down into the music that shapes our minds when we first become indoctrinated in the language of the punk spirit. Another version of the loner/outsider, The TERRORIST anticipates their marginalization and amps up the aggression for a preemptive attack. Twisting the knife back into the gatekeepers and mutating the artistic frontier before others can theorize on what's coming next... This cast features special spots on :: * Captain Beefheart * Sun City Girls * The messy birth of Sebadoh * Truman's Water * The Mothers of Invention * Gong & Tomorrow's Gift... The Terrorist movement rolls on forever in newer forms,, but this is a brief reminder of some of its most fertile periods,, always necessary to re-visit again or pass down to the Youth of Today.🌷 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
TO ABRAXAS WITH HEADACHES 57:20

8 years ago57:20

57:20

This is the story of how the first song on the first Holy Sons record was channeled during a precarious bender and super-faded viewing of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1997. This bender eventually leads to a semi-disastrous conclusion at a party that Emil has some trouble owning up to. The second half of the cast gets into the initial elation we feel when canonizing our early heroes... and then the complex horizon that opens up when we meet the spectre of depression for the first time. Emil meets Gator Rogowski right before he shocks the skateboarding world by committing the most notorious crime in its history (documented in the excellent film "Stoked"). And then Emil experiences the death of his love for the act of skating as depression takes over and music offers the only way out. This cast is soundtracked by the great Chapel Hill band POLVO. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
LONER LEGENDS II 1:02:43

8 years ago1:02:43

1:02:43

Loner Legends returns for a second round to help define the impetus behind Drifter's Sympathy. The 'loser' is an archetype that still needs a good bit of ironing out... and for this episode we're presented with classically wayward examples like Arch Hall Jr., Gary Stewart, Bobb Trimble and Jimmy Campbell. Underdogs who crashed up against their time with a particular fearlessness and were then trapped like a fly in amber for us to mythologize later on. Support Drifter's Sympathy by visiting https://holysons.bandcamp.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
DAWN OF INDIVIDUATION 47:05

8 years ago47:05

47:05

'Dawn of Individuation' launches Season 3 of Drifter's Sympathy by grappling with the etymology of nostalgia as an 'acute form of homesickness'. Its a mellow opening that digs into the initial chance you get to invent yourself at age 13, the mating rituals of junior high school and the vanity that drives one to flip a penny into a water fountain and pray to god earnestly for popularity and affirmation. Turning more serious at the end, we address the moment you become truly molded as a teenager and the initial set of decisions one makes that will damn them towards their future self forever. Hearing Dinosaur Jr.'s first record begins to change Emil’s mind completely by confronting him with the idea that art 'might actually be about what your really going through, rather than what you want people to think'. This is the moment we perceive the power of art as it radicalizes the child mind that was previously being trained to manipulate their appearance for other's affirmation. By the end, Dawn of Individuation becomes a love letter to the power and beauty of what skateboarding and underground music can present to a kid by positing the idea of total independence to their mind. Like the previous seasons of Drifter's Sympathy, the first episodes roll back the clock to early life and then crawl up closer to current times, winding thru the stories of Emil's 3 guru's and the various upsets that were alchemically turned into pieces of the puzzle of his huge body of artwork over the last few decades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
LONER LEGENDS 54:54

8 years ago54:54

54:54

LONER LEGENDS brings the second season of Drifter's Sympathy to a close with special spotlights on Pete Hamm, Roger Rodier, Moondog and the great Skip Spence, who might've unknowingly kicked off this entire genre. Spence's story is used as a jumping off point as he embodied the classic tragedy of someone who was impossibly talented, taken off the path towards happiness by schizophrenia and addiction. A pure source of loner wisdom & confusion, Spence embodied the true spirit of 'private music' on his record "Oar", transmitting his idiosyncratic frequency from his own planet alone. Drifter's Sympathy will be forced to take a 2 month break to prepare for Season 3 and allow Emil the time to mix records again!... >> we'll be posting some updates on the Drifter's Sympathy Facebook page soon.✨🔦✨ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
THE LECTURER 53:48

8 years ago53:48

53:48

To bring Season 2 to its thematic close, Duncan guest-hosts with Emil and they try to sum up their thoughts on the light and dark sides of the nature of the Guru. The episode is named after a Universal voice that Duncan dubbed 'The Lecturer'... an entity that might visit you when you've ingested too much and the rudder of your mind leaves you floating directionless. In that moment of vulnerability, the universe may deliver this intrinsic voice to you... and when that fragile moment comes, pray that you'll be visited by a benevolent Lecturer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
BRITISH MASTERS II 1:00:31

8 years ago1:00:31

1:00:31

British Masters returns for a second volume to mine early Bowie obscurities, classically-influenced prog-folk, private press demos of failed songwriting teams and a short spotlight on Andrew Loog Oldham (producer of the Stones, Del Shannon and Billy Nicholls). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
THE OUTSIDER 50:51

8 years ago50:51

50:51

This cast is about the slow attempt we make to repair ourselves while staring into the heart of absurdity. Its about the family of people who've inadvertently helped each other through death and re-birth... the writers, thinkers and artists who have recorded their attempt to appreciate life throughout history. Taking its name from Colin Wilson's book 'The Outsider', the cast eventually devolves into metaphor and a drunken tribute to Emil and Duncan's Taoist teacher who died a few weeks ago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
LIBRARY MUSIC 55:00

8 years ago55:00

55:00

Emil's bandmate Alex Hall from Grails and Lilacs & Champagne is in town from Berlin and they deliver an introduction to "Library Music"... The term goes back as far as the twenties when stock music began to be composed to accompany the first films that included sound. Television companies were able to avoid copyright issues by sourcing music from 'music libraries' and the anonymous players who provided the music were often some of the best in the world. Because the records were never available to the public, Library Music looms large as one of the secret troves of great composition and execution in the world of record digging and sampling. Holy Sons continue their tour with the Japanese band Mono at the Music Hall of Williamsburg tonight! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
INSIDIOUS MIND CONTROL 56:41

8 years ago56:41

56:41

Duncan Trussell & Emil Amos have been sitting on an archive of prank calls they did in college & talking about releasing them for 2 DECADES now. Some of Emil's favorites have been cleaned up for this exclusive episode of Drifter's Sympathy.✨🌺✨ It serves as a frozen photograph of a strange moment up in the mountains of North Carolina in the 90's, the bizarre personalities of that region and Duncan's spur-of-the-moment Genius that leads people's minds into places they didn't originally want to go. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
CARAVAN & KALEIDOSCOPE 1:10:11

8 years ago1:10:11

1:10:11

Drifting deep into our UK roots on many drinks, Emil dedicates an entire episode to two unheralded pioneers that got lost in the initial flurry of British invasion-isms. Caravan hid behind the shadow of Pink Floyd without ever truly stepping out into the larger public's mind. Kaleidoscope also burst off that initial spark of Syd's imagination into their own obtuse world and then faded away into obscurity. Today the first ever record under Emil's name was announced. If you are into the RARE SOUNDTRACKS episodes, check out his new album FILMMUSIK, which was made in that same dark, paranoid mold. It comes out June 2nd on Pelagic Records in Berlin. More info here :: http://pelagic-records.com/product/emil-amos-filmmusik-lp-download/ And the new Album Trailer :: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNHJFNRIamw Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
RECKLESS LIBERATION 48:10

8 years ago48:10

48:10

This episode details the story behind the song "Reckless Liberation" from the Holy Sons' record 'Survivalist Tales'. Emil enters college and immediately descends into an inner-storm of disassociation and profound confusion; ...existing up in trees, on rooftops or gazing down upon normal human life from the rafters of the church. Until he eventually sees a girl from across campus that he decides has to fall in love with him. The uncomfortable relationship between falling in love and morbid depression is explored and Emil inadvertently casts a black magic spell on an enemy who would have him destroyed for a moment's entertainment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
SLEAZY LISTENING 55:44

8 years ago55:44

55:44

Re-visiting the entry point at which we all encounter the idea of sex and the mystique/power it holds at a distance, we dive into some of the geniuses behind the music that soundtracked the classic softcore porn films. The centerpiece is on the Emmanuelle films and the three composers that brought to life the darkness and tension those films asked for. But a few moments of dirty disco are hauled out to illustrate the contrast between the virtues of low-brow and hi-brow approaches. The cast ends with a special spot on two icons of Gay porn, one who soundtracked it and another who acted in it... both dying tragically of Aids in the mid 80's before really making a mark in the larger culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
BACK TO BOSTON 47:13

8 years ago47:13

47:13

This cast is about the absolute peak of recklessness... when you spin the wheel just to see where everything lands. It picks up the thread left off in "Center of the Cyclone", the darkest chapter of Drifter's Sympathy, where Emil had a classical guitar broken over his head and 17 staples put in to rectify the situation. In this episode he accidentally gets into college and then travels up to Boston to live with his guru one last time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Emil Amos' Drifter's Sympathy

1
AMERICAN TRAILBLAZERS II 1:01:50

8 years ago1:01:50