Transmissions Podcast :: Voyager Golden Record/Tim Heidecker/Jesus People Music

Welcome to the January installment of Aquarium Drunkard’s recurring Transmissions podcast, a series of interviews and audio esoterica from Aquarium Drunkard. For our first episode of 2018, we explore three unique stories. First, we dive into the story of Ozma Records’ new reissue of the Voyager Golden Record. Launched into outer space in 1977 onboard the Voyager space probes, the Golden Record was a sort of cosmic mixtape, designed by a team led by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan as a representation of life, arts, and culture on Earth. We spoke to co-producer David Pescovitz of Boing Boing from his office at the Institute For the Future about how this new reissue allows us to more fully understand the scope of the Golden Record —and what it has to say to listeners today. Then, we sit down with comedian, writer, and musician Tim Heidecker. Best know for his work on Tim and Eric Awesome Show — Great Job, Decker, and films like The Comedy, Heidecker is an extraordinarily busy guy: he recently finished The Trial of Tim Heidecker, a part of his meta-comedy saga On Cinema with Gregg Turkington — AKA Neil Hamburger. He’s also got a recent album out, Too Dumb for Suicide, a collection of songs about the president. We dive into his strange, sometimes confusing world. And finally, we close out the show by shining a light on some of our favorite mixtapes from the Aquarium Drunkard archives, The End is at Hand collections, a four-volume series of super-obscure, often private press, outsider psychedelic guitar and folk music from the ‘60s and ‘70s centered around the Jesus People Movement. We’re joined by BlackForrestry — Josh Swartwood and Doug Cooper — who put these mixes together, to investigate the roots and feral faith of these “Jesus Freaks,” whose apocalyptic visions shimmer throughout these mixtapes — and whose faith still speaks to Josh and Doug.