Troy Nelson

When Angelo Badalamenti died at age 85 in 2022, this NY Times critic wrote that the Twin Peaks Theme ("Falling") "Isn’t Just a Song. It’s a Portal.": nyti.ms

Go here to watch the official video for "Shadow": vehlinggo.com

This is Tears for Fears' cover of the classic Hot Chip song. -- Here's the video of the original: www.youtube.com

Gorillaz' new album, "Cracker Island," is out today! The Guardian calls it a "trim album that is one of the band's best": bit.ly -- "Silent Running" features Gorillaz’ long-time band member Omotayo stepping up to lead vocals, Damon Albarn said it concerns “that sort of mesmerizing dreamlike state you get in when you’re just following some train of thought.” -- Gorillaz frontman 2D added: “Sometimes I get well lost and end up in the wrong place but then it turns out that’s where I was meant to be going anyway.”

Miguel re-recorded the song in 2019 with Mexican Mariachi girl band Flor de Toloache as the title track of Te Lo Dije, the singer's first ever Spanish-language project. The EP is a compilation of five Spanish /Spanglish-language versions of his songs from War & Leisure album. "Te Lo Dije" (Spanish for "told you so") has a double meaning: it is not only the name of one of this song, but it is also a proper "told you so" to Miguel's fans because he has been saying he would release a Spanish-language project. ---

"Electric Feel" was released in 2008 by MGMT as the second single from their debut studio album Oracular Spectacular. - whoismgmt.com Here's a live performance of "Electric Feel" in San Francisco in 2018: www.youtube.com

“You can trace it back to Africa. Back to the source.” --That’s Alloysious Massaquoi, one-third of the Edinburgh music group Young Fathers, explaining the universal thread the trio was tugging on while creating their just-released new album "Heavy Heavy." Enjoy this review of the album that delves into the band's rich experience: www.stereogum.com

Debby Friday will play Barboza on Thursday, April 13th, 2023. -- 'Good Luck," out on March 24th, is the Nigerian-born, Canada-based artist Debby Friday's debut album. You can pre-order it here: debbyfriday.bandcamp.com

Kali Uchis will be at the WaMu Theater on Wednesday, May 24th. -- This track features Uchis' frequent collaborator Tyler, The Creator and funk legend, Bootsy Collins. It was produced by BADBADNOTGOOD -- You must not miss the video for "After the Storm": www.youtube.com

This song sampled the drums in Funkadelics' "Good Old Music." -- MC Lyte released her second LP in 1989 - she began rapping at the age of twelve and is widely regarded as ushering in the era of women in hip-hop and rap. www.mclytenow.com

This song was performed live for the first time at the Teragram Ballroom in L.A. on May 30th, 2022. Here's that first live performance: www.youtube.com

Bassist Deborah, percussionist Marie, guitarist Renee, and drummer Valerie, known to their South Bronx neighbors as the Scroggins sisters, formed a band with the support of their mother, who bought instruments to keep her daughters away from trouble. The sisters went through a number of name changes before finally settling on ESG. "E" stood for emerald, Valerie's birthstone; "S" stood for sapphire, Renee's birthstone; the birthstone of neither Deborah nor Marie was garnet, but they did want their records to go gold. -- Watch a raucous live version of "Moody," recorded in Australia in 2013: www.youtube.com

"Sometimes I'm thinking that I love you But I know it's only lust..." -- “Damaged Goods” was the 1978 debut single from Leeds-based post-punk innovators Gang Of Four. See a live performance: www.youtube.com

This song contains one of rock's most famous basslines. Written and performed by John Gustafson, it's cited by Nile Rodgers as one of the main inspirations behind Chic's "Good Times" (which in turn inspired Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust"). "They'd start clanking away, or Bryan [Ferry] would start clanging away on his Fender keyboard. He was just banging away on D minor and I stood there to see what the rest of them would do," Gustafson recalled. "The drums joined in and I waited for about five minutes thinking, and just hit it straight away. It was slightly different from the rhythm they were doing and it sort of jolted them out of it into this poppy funky thing, and we carried on like that."

Yes, Yves Tumor will perform "Echolalia" at the Showbox SoDo on Saturday, May 20th!! -- Their new album will be released on March 17th and you can pre-order it right here: bit.ly

London's Ibibio Sound Machine was live in our studio last September, performing "Electricity," "Protection from Evil," and more: www.youtube.com

This cover version of Barrett Strong's "Money" by The Flying Lizards, featuring Deborah Evans-Stickland on lead vocals, reached the UK and US record charts in 1979. And yes, it was recorded for less than $30!

A Cyndi Lauper cover. See Ms. Lauper come home early in the morning to tell her mother that "girls just wanna have fun": www.youtube.com --

Hi Troy, my son Sam turned three years old today. Can you play Birthday by the Beatles? We’ll have a little dance party in the living room while getting dressed up in storm trooper costumes (his current obsession). 😉Thanks! --Darcy -- Tomorrow, February 25th, is George Harrison's 80th birthday (He was born in 1943.) George Harrison's widow Olivia Harrison was delighted that Yusuf/Cat Stevens has covered Here Comes the Sun to mark the late Beatles legend's 80th birthday.: www.rollingstone.com

Hi Troy, my son Sam turned three years old today. Can you play Birthday by the Beatles? We’ll have a little dance party in the living room while getting dressed up in storm trooper costumes (his current obsession). 😉Thanks! --Darcy -- Tomorrow, February 25th, is George Harrison's 80th birthday (He was born in 1943.) George Harrison's widow Olivia Harrison was delighted that Yusuf/Cat Stevens has covered Here Comes the Sun to mark the late Beatles legend's 80th birthday.: www.rollingstone.com

Lennon, McCartney and Harrison took turns doing guitar solos. If you listen closely, you can hear how the styles change from one to the other. This is the only time in the Beatles' history that they traded riffs.

"A world of never ending happiness You can always see the sun, day or night..." -- Of course, his guitar playing is "crazy" here. For you guitar buffs, "The core of his rig for this song was a Hohner/H.S. Anderson MadCat Telecaster copy, which varied from a traditional Tele design with its Strat-style single-coil pickups, Strat-style hardtail bridge and maple body. The bridge pickup is also placed closer to the bridge than the bridge pickups on traditional Strat and Tele designs, giving the MadCat a more aggressive treble bite." Want to know more?: www.guitarworld.com

“Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” is nominally about a cell phone conversation between two twentysomething males, ostensibly alter egos of Das Racist frontmen Victor Vazquez (Kool AD) and Himanshu Suri (Hima). They are looking for each other in a Yum! Brands franchise “combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” in Jamaica, Queens.

Ahhh....the Friday song. Go here to subscribe to KEXP's "50 Years of Hip-Hop" podcast, hosted by Larry Mizell, Jr.: www.kexp.org

The highly anticipated eighth album from Meg Remy (U.S. Girls) is out today! "Bless This Mess" was crafted in tandem with the conception and birth of Remy’s twin boys. : usgirls.bandcamp.com -- U.S. Girls performed live in the KEXP studio back in 2018: bit.ly

M is the British musician Robin Scott, who wrote, produced and sang lead on this track. He attended Croydon College Of Art, where he became good friends with Malcolm McLaren, the man who brought us the Sex Pistols. In 1969, he got a record deal and released a folk album called Woman From The Warm Grass. He walked away from this record deal and turned to electronic music. In 1977, he moved to Paris and worked with the female punk band The Slits. In 1978, he became "M" when he released the song "Moderne Man" on his own label: Do It Records.

This song was inspired by the high-wattage, unregulated AM border-blaster Mexican radio stations with signals that traveled well into America, and the occasional interjections in Spanish in the song were recorded off a real Mexican radio station. -- The quirky video got a lot of airplay on MTV, which launched in 1981 and didn't have many to choose from at the time. Regarding the video, Stan Ridgway said: "We went down to Tijuana and did it in about a day and a half on very little money.": www.youtube.com

Ladytron will be at The Neptune Theatre on Wednesday, May 10th. -- Ladytron will be part of the great lineup at the Just Like Heaven Fest at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA on Saturday, May 13th.: www.justlikeheavenfest.com

First released in 1984 on Nigeria’s EMI Records, Steve Monite’s pop record “Only You” lay dormant for several decades before being re-released and finding commercial success nearly thirty years later....“I was the first Nigerian musician to play electronic disco,” Monite says. -- Read a feature about the artist and the song: daily.bandcamp.com

The band consisted of three brothers: Charlie, Ronnie, and Robert Wilson, along with other members. The Wilson brothers grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma and their band name is an abbreviation for Greenwood, Archer, and Pine—prominent streets in the Black Tulsa neighborhood targeted by a white mob in the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. -- Did you know that elements of this song were sampled by The Clash in "Rock the Casbah"? -- Watch the Wilson brothers (in camo) performing this song.: www.youtube.com

M83 will be in Seattle at Showbox SoDo playing two all-ages shows, Wednesday, May 10th and Thursday, May 11th! -- "Oceans Niagara" is the first single to be released from M83's upcoming album, "Fantasy," which comes out March 17th! Anthony Gonzalez said of the track, “I wanted to create this sense of friendship. Listening to that song, I imagine people running, driving fast, or riding spaceships together. It’s this sense of going forward. Like a magic potion that you take to discover new worlds.”

Both this song and the previous Nightmares on Wax tune sampled 1973's "Summer in the City" from Seattle's Quincy Jones (feat. Valerie Simpson). -- See the official music video for "Passing Me By": www.youtube.com

Urban Dance Squad was formed in Amsterdam, originally as an informal side project, but once their live performances received rave reviews, they toured and recorded their first album, Mental Floss for the Globe. On it was “Deeper Shade of Soul”, which would go on to be a Top 30 hit in the U.S. UDS would go on to release 3 more albums throughout the 90’s, but none received the same critical or commercial success. -- Someone described this song as "a more melodic version of early Red Hot Chili Peppers melded with the Beastie Boys." See the delightful video: www.youtube.com

Cults is the duo of Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion. They achieved prominence with the song "Go Outside.": www.allmusic.com -- "Static" was Cults' second full-length album, released in 2013. Regarding the album title, band member Brian Oblivion once said: "There's a feeling our generation has. The feeling there's always something better around the corner, that everyone is born to be a star. The feeling that life is waiting for you, and yet it’s not happening. All of that is static."

Did you know that the album name "Spring Session M" is "Missing Persons" rearranged? Missing Persons was founded in 1980 in Los Angeles by guitarist Warren Cuccurullo, vocalist Dale Bozzio, and drummer Terry Bozzio. Dale and Terry Bozzio met while working with Frank Zappa, and they married in 1979. Cuccurullo encountered the pair while contributing to the Zappa album, Joe's Garage (1979). Last year, Dale Bozzio released an autobiography in which she talked about a marriage proposal from Prince: bit.ly

Although she put out an album-length cover of The Cure’s "Seventeen Seconds" in 2019 and dropped an LP as Fine Place with Matthew Hord in 2021, it’s been six years since Frankie Rose of Vivian Girls/Crystal Stilts/Dum Dum Girls fame released a new original solo album. That will change on March 10th when Rose returns with "Love As Projection."

Austin-based producer, DJ, pianist and activist LP Giobbi is fully trained in jazz and classical piano with a degree in Jazz Piano Performance from UC Berkeley.: lpgiobbi.bandcamp.com

Temples will release a new fourth album, Exotico, on April 14th.: templesofficialuk.bandcamp.com The single ‘Cicada’ is produced by Sean Ono Lennon.