4,992Shows
249,891Spins
Friday, Jun 25 2021, 7AM
Finding a guest vocalist for tracks required lots of decision making.
In the case of 'Oh the Sunn!' (whose title may refer to the Sunn amplifier brand), Avalanches bandmember Robbie Chater said that, out of nowhere, someone suggested Perry Farrell, comparing the sudden revelation to "finding the perfect sample." To complement Farrell's vocals, the group decided to include a snippet from Farrell's band, Jane's Addiction.
LA duo Filip Nikolic and Jeffrey Paradise (aka Poolside) are covering Neil Young, who originally wrote the song as a tribute to his wife, Pegi Young.
--
Here's Mr. Young's original: www.youtube.com
Isn't Jane Dunphe's voice great?
Olympia, WA "supergroup" CCFX gave their first live radio performance (It included "The One to Wait") on The Morning Show in 2018: www.youtube.com
"I'm the destroyer of everything..."
The video for this song, featuring famed choreographer Ryan Heffington, is fantastic. Do not miss it!: www.youtube.com
--
Robert Alfons AKA TR/ST stopped by KEXP after the release of The Destroyer - Part 1 early in 2019 and spoke with KEXP DJ Abbie. Watch this dark, intimate session here: www.youtube.com
SAULT have released their new album called NINE. It has ten songs. The album is going to be available to stream, download, and purchase for only the next 99 days.
saultglobal.bandcamp.com
Happy birthday to "Purple Rain," released on this date in 1984!
"...for the 24 weeks Purple Rain spent atop the charts in 1984, the black kid from the midwest ... managed to become the most accurate expression we had of young America’s overabundance of angst, love, horniness, recklessness, idealism, and hope.": pitchfork.com
"Kylie Minogue is the most charming and unassuming pop superstar of all. She’s never been as provocative as Madonna or a vocal marvel to rival Mariah Carey, but her career has proven equally fascinating and enduring. The performer who was dismissively dubbed ‘the singing budgie’ when she broke through with The Loco-Motion in the late 1980s is now a gold-plated icon whose first name alone stands for joyous dance-pop brilliance."
Read a tribute to Australian's best-selling female artist who released her fifteenth album, "DISCO," last year: bbc.in
After Chad uses his forearm to sweep his desk clean, he'll have room to order the album "Ashamed" from Mad Foxes (You can, too!): madfoxes1.bandcamp.com
Hi John,
I love the digital world we live in where we can listen to any song at any time, but it makes those rare songs that don't make it to streaming platforms even more meaningful. One of which is a song you introduced the world to ~10 years ago.
Would you please play Thoughts of Rena by The Voom Blooms?
I saw the band in LA not long before they broke up, and there's just something about that song that is so good, it sticks with me!
Thanks for all you do, and you are not alone! ---Shea
--
Watch The Voom Blooms performing for KEXP at Bowery Electric in NYC in 2008 here: www.youtube.com
"...Whether we deny climate change is happening, accept it theoretically but don’t change our habits, or do choose to do something about it, one thing is for sure: it’s the end of the world as we know it. To commemorate this aggressively warm reminder of this, I request that you play REM’s “It’s the end of the world as we know it.” ---Ravi
--
Watch a live version from Cologne in 2001: www.youtube.com
Watch an "amateur video" of Pela's live performance for KEXP at Gibson Studios in NYC Oct 15th, 2007. (John is sitting on a stool in a corner). The photographer writes, "Excuse the audio quality but still fun to watch Billy go nuts.": www.youtube.com
Nation of Language will perform at The Crocodile on Thursday, October 14th.
--
John selected "Rush & Fever" as the KEXP Song of the Day. Download it for free here: www.kexp.org
What a band name! Here's a biography of this theatrical industrial/dance group out of Chicago: www.allmusic.com
--
Someone wrote, "I remember I was listening to this in high school back in like 1996 and these younger kids who were into Marilyn Manson asked me if I was listening to Michael Jackson.": www.youtube.com
Canadian musician Dan Snaith dropped this album 11 years ago! His wife gave him swimming lessons as a Christmas present, prompting him to take it up as a new hobby. This partially led to the eventual ideology behind "Swim", which is awash with aquatic sonics.
--
He sampled Bernard Bonnier's 1984 "I Can't Sing" for "Sun.": www.youtube.com
It's all David Bowie's fault!!
--
On the surface, this song is about dancing with a lover, but according to producer Nile Rodgers, there's a deeper meaning. He said: "When David wrote those lyrics, he was talking about the dance that people do in life; the conceptual dance of not being honest. He sings, 'put on your red shoes and dance the blues.' Like you're pretending to be happy but you're sad."
--
Ahhh...the Friday song. KEXP is celebrating Pride by highlighting LGBTQIA+ artists throughout the month of June. DJs Michele, Reverend Dollars and Marco Collins curated sets of some of their essential Pride picks for an upbeat, celebratory playlist just for [all of] you.: bit.ly
Happy birthday (1963) to Georgios Panayiotou (George Michael). Here's the video for this great song: www.youtube.com
--
In recent news----
"We are aware that many people are making a connection between Freedom '90 by George Michael and Solar Power by
@lorde
which George would have been flattered to hear, so on behalf of one great artist to another, we wish her every success with the single." - George Michael Estate : bit.ly
Robert Smith said, " “I remember driving home one Friday afternoon to have the weekend off. And I started to think of this really great chord sequence. I was about 20 minutes away from the studio. So I turned around, went back to the studio and everyone was still there.”
“We actually recorded it that Friday night. So from then on it was always just called ‘Friday’. Then, when I came to do the words for it, I thought, why don’t I do a song about that Friday feeling? It’s a thing you have at school, and lots of people work at jobs they don’t really enjoy. So that Friday afternoon feeling is something you look forward to.”: faroutmagazine.co.uk
What an appropriate song! John selected it for you as a free KEXP Song of the Day: www.kexp.org
SAULT have released their new album called NINE. It has ten songs. The album is going to be available to stream, download, and purchase for only the next 99 days.: saultglobal.bandcamp.com
--
(Stereogum reports that "Nine" is available for free download at SAULT's website: www.sault.global): www.stereogum.com
Hi John, can you play Under Pressure for all the parents in my daughter's daycare in West Seattle who are home with their kids for the 5th straight day due to a couple COVID cases at the school? We return on Monday but have to get through this apocalyptic heat wave first! If that's not being under pressure, I don't know what is.
Thanks! --Mike from West Seattle
--
Listen to Freddie Mercury and David Bowie's isolated vocals for "Under Pressure": bit.ly
You don't want to miss Arcade Fire's live performance of "Wake Up" at Coachella in 2011: www.youtube.com
--
"Arcade Fire in concert is probably the closest to a religious experience as I have ever had.": 25yearslatersite.com
See the wonderful views from Iceland in this trailer as you listen to "Step Out," written for "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty": vimeo.com
According to the book "The Last Party: Britpop, Blair and the Demise of English Rock" by John Harris, this song was written about the fall of the Iron Curtain.
---
Band leader Mike Edwards wrote this song. He told the Guardian newspaper August 9, 2003: "With hits around the world we became famous for a few years. At the start of 1990 I wrote a song called 'Right Here, Right Now,' a title I disliked but intended to change before the final recording. Thirteen years later, I'm still making a living from that title, even if Fatboy Slim's identically titled song may have eaten into my action."
On their only American tour, EMF played this multiple times at every show. It was the only song most of the audience had heard of.
Tom Jones played this at some of his live shows, to the delight of the band. Jones performed the song with EMF on a British TV show where he told them about how he sang it in Vegas. According to the band, Jones got them really drunk that night. Watch that duet: www.youtube.com
Hmmm.....New Order? New Order and Pet Shop Boys will be at Climate Pledge Arena on Friday, October 14th.
According to Pixies frontman and songwriter Black Francis, this classic song was "a bad Talking Heads imitation." Watch the band play it in Brazil in 2010: www.youtube.com
--
And then, watch the Pixies performing at KEXP in 2014! www.youtube.com
In this episode of "Song Exploder," Stephin Merritt breaks down the song “Andrew in Drag” from the band’s tenth album, Love at the Bottom of the Sea, even though he doesn’t actually remember writing it.: songexploder.net
When one hears the harpsichord-tinged strains of “Quick!,” The Magnetic Fields’ portrait of a relationship on the brink of ending, sung by Shirley Simms and Claudia Gonson, one automatically thinks of personified trashcans. Right? Right. Totally. : www.youtube.com
Morgan, this one is, as always, for you!
---
According to science, "Mr. Blue Sky" is the happiest song on earth! Want to know more?: groovyhistory.com
Richie Havens developed a unique playing style, which led him to be very creative in his music. Havens taught himself an “open-tuning” guitar-playing style. By re-tuning the strings on his guitar, he was able to play a number of chords just by strumming the guitar and sliding his thumb up and down the neck of his instrument.
One result was that Havens’ music is almost never a direct copy of another tune. He brought a thoughtful and intriguing character to virtually every one of his songs.
Here is Richie Havens in a live performance of Here Comes The Sun.
www.youtube.com
--
Enjoy this story of George Harrison's song and some of its great covers: bit.ly
Speaking of covers...and sun...
"California Sun" was originally credited as written by Henry Glover and Morris Levy. Glover was a producer for an independent record label King Records; Levy was the founder and owner of Roulette Records.: www.songfacts.com
"3 Strange Days" was the lone hit by School Of Fish, reaching #6 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart. Many critics and fans feel that the band's talent was much greater than that of a "one-hit wonder."
--
Josh Clayton-Felt, a co-founder and lead singer of the band School of Fish who went on to become a solo recording artist, died of testicular cancer on January 19, 2000 at the age of 32.: www.nytimes.com
Of course the words "Bizarre Love Triangle" never appear in the song's lyrics, but the title ties "the song's delirious sonics and dumbfounded lyrics together in a three-word summation of simultaneously thrilling and terrifying romantic confusion."
Here are 10 reasons why the song may be one of the greatest songs of all time: www.billboard.com
R.I.P., Timothy J. Parker (Gift of Gab), who died on Friday, June 18th, at age 50.: www.rollingstone.com
---
"Everything's alright now
When ya living in the Light now...": www.youtube.com
"Hey World" is a call to roll up your sleeves, to shake off apathy: "I didn't come here to chill, I came here to rock ... You got to let go of the remote control." Watch an inspiring music video about civic participation, set to the backdrop of Jamaican reggae rhythms of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare.: www.youtube.com
Earlier this year, reggae musician Finley Quaye admitted criminal damage after he threw a metal road sign through a glass bus door during a row over fare: londonnewstime.com
This reviewer says that this "song of praise, thanking Jah for the sunshine and for another day," changed his life.: nadiromowale.com
Watch Brandi Carlile, Soundgarden (Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron, Ben Shepherd), Peter Frampton, and Tim and Phil Hanseroth play "Black Hole Sun" to end the absolutely stunning "I am the Highway" Chris Cornell tribute at the Forum in Inglewood, Ca January 16, 2019.: www.youtube.com
N.A.S.A is the musical project of LA-based producer Sam Spiegal and Ze Gonzales, with N.A.S.A. standing for North America/South America. David Byrne is singing here alongside rhymes by Chali 2na, Gift Of Gab & Z-Trip. One interesting thing about the song is the visual treatment by Canadian artist Marcel Dzama, who’s done art for a bunch of albums and McSweeney’s pubs, outside of his gallery shows. As usual, there’s something magical about his imagery (the man has a knack for anthropomorphic trees): youtu.be