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Tuesday, Apr 5 2022, 7AM
Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain passed away on this day in 1994.
This song was written by R.E.M. about Kurt Cobain. Michael Stipe and Kurt Cobain were close - Stipe was godfather to Cobain and Courtney Love's daughter, Frances Bean. In honor of 'Monster' turning 25, REM remixed the song - called an "elegy and a eulogy" by Stipe. More info: bbc.in.
"Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam" is a song originally recorded by Scottish alternative band The Vaselines for their EP 'Dying for It'. It is a parody on the Christian children's hymn, "I'll Be a Sunbeam," which has the opening line "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam."
Here's Nirvana performing it live at the Paramount: www.youtube.com
Layne Staley passed away on this day in 2002.
This EP was produced by Alice in Chains and Rick Parashar and features guest vocals by Ann Wilson of the band Heart, Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Mark Arm of Mudhoney, hence 'Alice Mudgarden!' It was recorded over the course of five days at London Bridge Studios.
Following the tour for Facelift, Alice in Chains entered the studio to record a song for the Cameron Crowe movie Singles, but decided to turn the engagement to their advantage. As the guitarist Jerry Cantrell recalled: "So in the session that was meant for recording that one song ['Would?'], we ended up demoing about 10 songs, which included all the stuff that ended up on the Sap EP, and a couple of others from Dirt.”
Happy birthday to Mike McCready, born on this day in 1966!
The song title "Yellow Ledbetter" is derived from the actual name of an old friend of Vedder's from Chicago, named Tim Ledbetter. Although many fans have made their own interpretations of the song's meaning, a common theory has been that the song is about someone receiving a letter saying that his or her brother had died overseas in war.
pearljam.com
Led Zeppelin Cover for the soundtrack of the 1992 film, Singles.
The Lovemongers were a side project of singer-songwriting-musicians, and sisters, Ann and Nancy Wilson, better known as the frontwomen of the rock band Heart.
Initially, this song was titled "Many, Many Times."
Jimmy Page and Robert Plant wrote this song in 1970 at Bron-Yr-Aur, a small, privately owned 18th-century cottage in Wales where they stayed after completing an extensive North American concert tour.
Though the cottage had no running water or electricity, they used it as a retreat to write and record some of their third album, Led Zeppelin III.
Fontaines D.C. will be playing in Seattle at Showbox SoDo with Just Mustard on May 14th. bit.ly
"It’s like the most normal title ever," singer Grian Chatten said. "I wanted to write a song called 'I Love You' because I thought that it was a challenge that interested me to write a song about so kind of an ostensibly cliché topic and attempt to make it interesting and my own, unique. It just turned out to be another song about Ireland, of course.
"Spiritually, there are two parts to it. I’m in a position there where I’ve made something of a career from trying to connect with and render the culture and country that I come from and try and express it and in turn and in doing so, understand it myself and help other people understand it. That’s what I think I’m doing." bit.ly
We have been blessed with new music from Wet Leg!
Ur Mum is "a mixture of a pissed-off-at-an-ex track and a goodbye to a dead-end hometown." bit.ly
The new song is accompanied by a rather dynamic music video:
youtu.be
Wet Leg will be among many great artists performing at Thing! Festival at Fort Worden in Port Townsend, August 26 - 28th.
thingnw.org
www.wetlegband.com
Enumclaw shared a live performance recorded exclusively for KEXP and chatted with Larry Mizell, Jr. in 2021.
youtu.be
New single from Tacoma band Enumclaw.
“When we were about to shoot the ‘Fast N All’ video someone called me a narcissist and it made me have a panic attack,” band leader Aramis Johnson said in a statement. “Once I calmed down I wrote ‘2002’ kinda trying to be sarcastic about how I wake up everyday and try to be the worst possible human. Then when I talked to John the director, I wanted to communicate in the video a chaotic feel and how I wanted to take that narcissist perspective and put it into the spirit of the visual and song.”
bit.ly
youtu.be
enumclaw6.bandcamp.com
Hi John,
Can you please play April 5 by Talk Talk (or any Talk Talk) in honor of my husband Georg's 50th birthday today?
He is a Seattle native, but now we live in Michigan and are happy supporters of KEXP.
Thank you for all you do. These years are hard, and I am thankful for this community.
Sincerely,
Erin
Good morning John - my amazing daughter Nelle turns 13 today. I can't verify this but I think she's the world's biggest Deep Sea Diver fan. If it fits the mix can you please play DSD's version of Hand in my Pocket? Thank you and I hope you have the best day.
- Jay in PDX
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Deep Sea Diver covering this Alanis Morissette classic! Damien Jurado guest stars on backing vocals for this track.
Hi John! It's my dad's 12th death anniversary (and his dad's 40th too... Awkward they both died on the same day).
Can you please play The Day Brings by the great Shawn Smith and Brad?
Many thanks and lots of love from Mexico City.
Carolina
Porridge Radio have announced new album 'Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To The Sky,' which will be out May 20.
“’Back To The Radio’ feels like a huge introductory hello or a big ceremonial goodbye." Singer and songwriter Dana Margolin Dana said, "I wrote it at the end of 2019 when we were gearing up for the release of Every Bad and I felt like a lot of things were coming that I wasn’t sure I knew how to handle. The song grew out of a feeling of intense loneliness and being unprepared for what everybody was promising me was about to happen – and a strong desire to escape without knowing what I wanted to escape to. To me there’s a huge feeling of catharsis in this song, of letting go and letting it sweep you away.”
bit.ly
youtu.be
porridgeradio.bandcamp.com
Dublin's Pillow Queens released Leave The Light On on April 1st!
"This song is about the mechanisms that are used to hide your vulnerabilities and carry on," explains singer / bassist Pamela Connolly. "But also, the feeling of being about to burst and how cathartic it could be to allow yourself to let your emotions out and feel the world around you. This was one of the first songs we finished on the album as it was the quickest to become fully realised by all of us."
Pillow Queens performed live at KEX Hostel in Reykjavik for KEXP during Iceland Airwaves 2019, which you can watch here: bit.ly
Follow more from the band here: pillowqueens.bandcamp.com pillowqueens.com
Bikini Kill released Reject All American on this day in 1996!
"Bikini Kill is an American punk rock band formed in Olympia, Washington, in October 1990. The group consists of singer and songwriter Kathleen Hanna, guitarist Billy Karren, bassist Kathi Wilcox, and drummer Tobi Vail. The band pioneered the riot grrrl movement, with radical feminist lyrics and fiery performances."
bikinikill.com
Nirvana had me thinking of the Vaselines - Son of a Gun, and I thought it would be good for a decidedly not sunny day in Nashville. Thanks!--
Austin
Hi John, hope you are doing well on this Tuesday. I would love to hear “Is She Weird” by the Pixies if you have time. Thanks for all that you guys are doing. You even got the Led out today….
Doug from Toronto
For Sheila.
"Hi guys. My brother passed away on Sunday evening after being diagnosed with stomach cancer only 10 days ago. I quickly drove 6 hours to see him last weekend, but his wife had to suddenly cancel my visit with him when I was only 5 minutes from his house. He died that night, before our 94 yr old dad could get there. I come from a very large family and we're not the most functional bunch, so it is a devastating loss for many reasons.
I was Pete's youngest sister and the one bond we have always had is music. He introduced me to KEXP, he introduced me to the Pixies, PJ Harvey, and anything meant to be played loudly, jut as he lived. If you could fit in some Pixies or PJ, I would be grateful.
Thank you all.
Sheila in Chicago
Arcade Fire have revealed 'WE,' the band’s first new album in five years. 'WE,' out May 6 via Columbia Records, was produced by longtime Radiohead collaborator Nigel Godrich along with Arcade Fire’s Win Butler and Régine Chassagne.
The LP was recorded at studios in New Orleans, El Paso and Mount Desert Island in mid-2021 following a pandemic period that marked “the longest we’ve ever spent writing, uninterrupted, probably ever,” Butler said in a statement.
The album borrows its title from Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin’s 1921 sci-fi novel "We," which would later inspire the dystopian works of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley.
The seven-song LP is split across two sides, “I” and “WE,” respectively, with the first half exploring loneliness and isolation and the latter part celebrating reconnection following, say, a lengthy pandemic.
bit.ly
youtu.be
www.arcadefire.com
Hey John! Good morning! Mike here tuning in from outside of Chicago. Went to see WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS and WEAKENED FRIENDS last night in Milwaukee and it was awesome. Would be great to hear something from either of these bands this morning. Thanks and have a great show! #morningfaithful
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Here is We Were Promised Jetpacks Live on KEXP back in 2019:
www.youtube.com
"Good morning John. I would appreciate it if you would play Hoover Dam by Sugar, because every day is a good time to play Bob Mould. Thanks!"
Stevie B from Seattle
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On that note...
Here's Bob Mould performing "Hoover Dam" live on KEXP in the Bumbershoot Music Lounge in 2013 - bit.ly
“PDA” is about a relationship gone sour. The song is one of the oldest songs by Interpol and appeared on many of their early demos and EPs such as the band's first demo tape.
Interpol and Spoon will be playing a show together at The Paramount Theatre in Seattle on September 16, 2022.
The recording sessions for Live Through This began in October of 1993, at Triclops Sound Studios in , Georgia.
Guitarist Eric Erlandson recalled that the band continued to write material throughout the recording sessions over the ensuing weeks: "We never finished writing; we were writing the whole time, trying to come up with more and more songs because even though it looked like we had a good, solid album, we knew we were missing some pieces. We were still writing intensely and frantically putting songs together. It wasn't like, "Oh we have these 12 songs, they're done, and we're going to go in and record now."
New music from the Swedish group, Hater, as they prepare for the release of their upcoming full-length album "Sincere."
It’s tempting to call “Hopes High” a shoegaze song, but that might be underselling just how direct and catchy those melodies are.
bit.ly
haterfire.bandcamp.com
"Great sets everybody. In the kitchen while my younger watches My Little Pony next to puke bucket!
Post pandemic- we get sick again!! I’ll take it.
INXS falling down the mountain if it pleases the DJ"
--Will in Boston.
“My band’s better than me, that’s syner-gyyyy"
“Synergy is the combined power of a group of things when they are working together that is greater than the total power achieved by each working separately” -Cambridge dictionary and the band’s Instagram.
bit.ly
"After battling a brutal bout of writer’s block for a couple of years, David Le’aupepe suddenly had a deeply personal story that he wanted to share with the world. “Oral tradition is so vital and important to our people,” he said. “It does feel nice to have a continuation of that storytelling tradition, including my brothers and my sister and my father within that framework.”
The end result became Gang of Youths’ latest record; a 77-minute maximalist rock opus titled Angels in Realtime."
Full story behind the new record here:
bit.ly
Okkervil River released Black Sheep Boy on this day in 2005!
Here's Okkervil River performing live in the KEXP studio in 2018: www.youtube.com
Spoon "On the Radio" on the radio.....
Interpol and Spoon will be playing a show together at The Paramount Theatre in Seattle on September 16, 2022!
Maybe they will play this song there.
Produced by John Hill (and featuring co-production by Miles James and additional production by A.K. Paul), ‘Looking High’, Philippakis explains, “is looking back to a more hedonistic time in my life, and a more innocent time in society in general, pre-pandemic and before the existential threat of climate change”.
bit.ly
Check out the accompanying music video here: www.youtube.com
Here is Foals performing Live on KEXP in 2013:
www.youtube.com
Until they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this was the last song The Police played together; after breaking up in 1986, they performed it at Sting's wedding to Trudie Styler in 1992.
"Dunno if Sault's Wildfires fits into the mix... Cleo Sol's vocal range makes my heart warm."
Chris
saultglobal.bandcamp.com
In this track, Q-Tip describes how music's influence spans the ages, from jazz coming through to hip hop, to Bobby Brown copying Michael Jackson. The track pays homage to Afrika Bambaataa and also samples from Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers.
atribecalledquest.com
Phife Dawg with Busta Rhymes and Redman for his posthumous single “Nutshell Part 2,” a remix of a track that was released one month after the A Tribe Called Quest rapper’s March 2016 death.
bit.ly
"May The Funk Be With You" follows London-based Ezra Collective's December Novelist collaboration "More Than A Hustler," marking their first new material of 2022.
Bandleader Femi Koleoso says of the release, "One of the blessings in the storm of lockdown was the opportunity to have jam sessions in the studio. No theme, no preparation, no plan - just let the funk happen organically. The magic of improvisation and spontaneity will always be part of Ezra Collective and "May The Funk Be With You" perfectly encapsulates that." bit.ly
New single from Arre! Arre!. Taken from the new LP "We Ride the Universe" out April 8 2022 via PNKSLM Recordings.
Listen/buy: pnkslm.com/arre-universe
"We Ride the Universe" is the third LP from Malmö's Arre! Arre!. Working again with long time collaborator Joakim Lindberg as producer, the band have maintained their core inspiration from the 90s Riot Grrrl scene, but also broadening their sound to include a wider range of influences - from post-punk and 60’s ballads, to James Brown, to the Spice Girls.
Arre! Arre! Soundcloud:
bit.ly
Whimsical is a Shoegaze/Dream
Pop band from Indiana, originally around from 1999-2005, now reformed in 2015.
whimsical1.bandcamp.com
The song, written about being an underachiever, received positive critical reviews. However, it also prompted a lawsuit from the publishers of The Stranglers, who claimed that Elastica took the song's riff from The Stranglers' "No More Heroes". The case was settled out of court.
Nirvana performing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" Live at Reading in 1992. www.youtube.com
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We are thinking of you today, Kurt. ❤️
Thanks for tuning into The Morning Show!