'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 ...
Dec 04, 2017•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 28
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....
Nov 20, 2017•57 min•Ep. 27
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...
Nov 06, 2017•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 26
'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 a...
Oct 23, 2017•47 min•Ep. 25
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...
Jun 26, 2017•55 min•Ep. 24
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 t...
Jun 13, 2017•54 min•Ep. 23
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
May 29, 2017•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 22
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. Lear...
May 16, 2017•51 min•Ep. 21
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 availab...
May 01, 2017•55 min•Ep. 20
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 wa...
Apr 17, 2017•57 min•Ep. 19
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 SOUND...
Apr 04, 2017•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 18
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 depres...
Mar 20, 2017•48 min•Ep. 17
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 ...
Mar 06, 2017•56 min•Ep. 16
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/adchoice...
Feb 20, 2017•47 min•Ep. 15
American Trailblazers returns and seeps into all new cracks of our abandoned history. In a half-drunken fit of mispronunciation, Emil calls up producer John Agnello to set the record straight on the various producers of the Eagles, uncovers various home tapes by forgotten garage bands and rolls out a few unparalleled epics by would've-been-giants from the genesis of the folk-rock boiling pot. Listen to the new Holy Sons record Emil and John Agnello made together here :: https://holysons.bandcamp...
Feb 06, 2017•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 14
Episode 13 kicks off the second season of Drifter's Sympathy.💐 Like an archaeologist going over the same prehistoric site twice, we go back to High School in an attempt to return to more optimistic times. That strategy backfires completely as we dive fully into the experience of finding a dead body, the extremely faint footprint we leave on earth and the confusion of watching a peer get destroyed by authoritarian figures right in front of your eyes. This season is dedicated to Don Clarke-Pearso...
Jan 23, 2017•53 min•Ep. 13
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 epi...
Jan 09, 2017•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 12
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/o...
Dec 19, 2016•59 min•Ep. 11
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/...
Dec 06, 2016•55 min•Ep. 10
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" a...
Nov 21, 2016•45 min•Ep. 9
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 ...
Nov 07, 2016•56 min•Ep. 8
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-caps...
Oct 24, 2016•51 min•Ep. 7
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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 10, 2016•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 6
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...
Sep 26, 2016•54 min•Ep. 5
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 ...
Sep 12, 2016•58 min•Ep. 4
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 On...
Aug 29, 2016•56 min•Ep. 3
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 throu...
Aug 15, 2016•1 hr•Ep. 2
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 31, 2016•42 min•Ep. 1
