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About
Jason P. Woodbury is a writer, podcaster, musician, and producer in the Sonoran Desert. His aim is to explore the uncanny ways music expands, deepens, and alters consciousness.
Woodbury is an editor for Los Angeles online music magazine Aquarium Drunkard, where he also hosts the lauded Transmissions interview podcast, which has featured members of bands like Sonic Youth, The Feelies, and artists like Gillian Welch, Michael Shannon, Scientist, John Lurie, and more.
He serves as the creative director of WASTOIDS, the audio/video network from Hello Merch, which has collaborated with the Harry Nilsson Estate, Rough Trade New York, and cult film streamer Night Flight on a variety of projects.
Raised in small town rural Arizona and largely self-taught, Woodbury has at one time or another worked on nearly every angle in music culture: record store retailer, radio deejay, copywriter, and liner notes author. His writing has been published by Pitchfork, Desert Oracle, Stereogum, and elsewhere. He’s penned copy for a diverse slate of clients, including Numero Group, Third Man Records, Light in the Attic, Warner Records, Polyvinyl, In the Red Records, ORGMusic, Craft Recordings, The Playboy Jazz Festival, Jealous Butcher Records, Big Ego Records, and the Pickathon Music Festival.
Previously he worked as director of marketing for Zia Records, where he also oversaw limited-edition vinyl projects, including You Gotta Have Soul: Raw Sonoran R&B and Funk (1957-1971). He also served as the music editor of the longrunning alt-weekly Phoenix New Times.
A musician himself, his solo debut LP Something Happening/Always Happening was hailed by MTV News as "a desert broadcast from the past where remnants of space-age pop mingle with an undeniably easy (and breezy) feeling you might've found out in Topanga in 1972.” In the summer of 2024, Amassed Like a Rat King, his retro-pop collaboration with Zachary Toporek, aka Dadweed, will see release via Fort Lowell Records.
A lifelong Arizonan, he lives in Phoenix with his partner Becky Bartkowski, and their dogs: Watson, Dinah, and Georgina. He knows there is not a UFO buried under Dreamy Draw Dam, but likes to pretend there is. To commission work, get in touch, or ask a question, contact him at jasonpwoodbury at Gmail. Website design by Michael Burton, photo by Brandon Michel.