John Richards

Good morning, happy Friday (and happy September), and welcome to The Morning Show with John Richards! We're so glad you're here! -- Yes, it's "September again." Ian Devaney says about this song from the band's debut album: [It's] about struggling with the feeling that with each passing year you’re only becoming a worse version of yourself—less capable of wonder or grand ambition, less sure of your footing in your own life.... The song comes out of this war within myself where one part of me is desperately wanting to get back there while another part is only looking to what lays ahead in the life I’ve made for myself."

Happy birthday to Michael Benjamin Lerner (Telekinesis), born on September 1st, 1986. -- "Ghosts and Creatures" was selected as a free KEXP Song of the Day: www.kexp.org -- Here's birthday boy Michael Lerner performing the song solo in West Seattle at our Hood to Hood Day in 2015: www.youtube.com

Happy release date! LCD Soundsystem released this album on September 1st, 2017. -- This album marked the band's reunion after they stopped in 2010. James Murphy had sought the advice of David Bowie before the reunion. Bowie told him if the idea of reuniting the band made him uncomfortable, then he should do it because being uncomfortable would make him work hard. : www.theguardian.com

Fontaines D.C. will be here in Seattle at Climate Pledge Arena (with Arctic Monkeys) on Friday, September 22nd. -- This is their great cover of Nick Drake's "Cello Song." It's part of a just-released collection, "The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs of Nick Drake." The collection features covers from Feist, Liz Phair, Let’s Eat Grandma, Philip Selway of Radiohead, Skullcrusher, and many many more.: wildfiremusic.net

Hey, Patrick in New Milford CT here checking in. Can you play The Killing Moon by Echo & the Bunnymen? Up here in New England, we got to wake up to 53 degrees and it instantly put me in fall mode. -- The distinctive, vaguely Spanish-sounding guitar intro on The Killing Moon was a happy accident, Will Sergeant reveals. “It was just something I did when we were tuning up. Then we went out for a curry and when we came back, producer David Lord had looped it up and punched it back in. We all thought it sounded great. I spent the next 20-odd years trying to remember how I did it.” Read the story behind this song: www.loudersound.com

Drummer Matt Cameron said that this is his favorite track on "Ten." He explained: "When I was in Soundgarden and we were making "Badmotorfinger," Eddie brought up the mixes to "Ten" and I distinctly remember hearing the chorus for "Even Flow" and thinking that's HUGE. So hooky, it's got a really rad Zeppelin huge rock feel to it. Although we've played it a couple of thousand times since I've been in the group I think that's the quintessential Pearl Jam song. Even though it gets played out, the nuts and bolts of that song are just amazing." -- Go back to 1992 to see a youthful Pearl Jam performing this one live on "MTV Unplugged": www.youtube.com

Hi John, Travelling back from London after seeing The Walkmen and Wilco over the past few days. Had an amazing summer which was topped off by meeting Joe Talbot from IDLES in a petrol station. I was a little starstruck and blabbered on about how IDLES are one of the bands that I'm writing about for my PhD. He was very kind and didn't seem too scared by my blabbering! Myself and my partner are going back to our teaching jobs on Monday and I would like to thank you for soundtracking our summer. --From Jake -- IDLES frontman Joe Talbot shared: "I promised Danny [Nedelko, member of Bristol band Heavy Lungs and a Ukrainian immigrant] I’d write a song for him and him me; the tone comes from Danny, and the lyrics came as I thought of his exuberance and how important people like Danny are. I think of this one more as a humane portrait than a political song, but I wanted the two notions to be inseparable." -- Here's a great live version from the KEXP studio: tinyurl.com

For Dennis and sons Finn and Calvin... --- Jett first heard the song “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” while watching The Arrows perform it on TV in 1976, and had been playing it for years in her live performances before she put it on the band’s first album. The song, about a girl picking up a guy “by the record machine,” became a female empowerment anthem. It further solidified Jett as a feminist role model. She once said, “At a very young age, I decided I was not going to follow women’s rules.”

Hey Morning Show Team, I wanted to give a special shoutout to my Dad, John (solid name), on his 70th birthday as we celebrate him in the Adirondack Mountains. If you can squeeze in the Aretha cover of "Love the One you are with" on this busy Friday that would be awesome! Take Care,---Dukes -- This is Aretha covering the 1970 Stephen Stills classic. -- Check out video of this live performance at Fillmore West in 1971 here: www.youtube.com

This is The Brothers Johnson's famous cover of the Shuggie Otis song. George Johnson, of The Brothers Johnson, was dating one of Otis's cousins when he came across Otis' 1971 album "Freedom Flight." The group then recorded "Strawberry Letter 23" for their 1977 album Right on Time, which was produced by Quincy Jones, and the album went platinum. The 12" single was pressed on red strawberry-scented vinyl.

"When Will We Land?" is the debut album from Edinburgh-born, London-based producer Barry Can't Swim (real name Joshua Mannie). : barrycantswim.com

Next Friday, September 8th, The Chemical Brothers are releasing their tenth album, "For That Beautiful Feeling." This single, "Skipping Like a Stone," features Beck on vocals, reuniting the two artists after their 2015 collaboration "Wide Open." "The Chemical Brothers have a great predilection for exploration," Beck said of his experience collaborating with the duo. "They kind of sit in an unusual place between different eras of electronic music and DJ culture. It’s like they have one foot in multiple decades at the same time in a way that is utterly unique among their peers." tinyurl.com

Ride will be performing at Bumbershoot here in Seattle tomorrow, Saturday, September 2nd, 2023! -- Get ready by watching this live performance of "Leave Them All Behind" in the KEXP studio in 2017: www.youtube.com

Cold War Kids' self-titled tenth album will drop on November 3rd. It was inspired by everything from Sly and the Family Stone and Curtis Mayfield to the Pretenders and Elton John to Happy Mondays and Gang Of Four. -- “The band started out with four guys who have very specific tastes and styles, and now it’s mostly me making the records in a way I love and have always envisioned,” singer Nathan Willett explained. “The sound of Cold War Kids has always been there, and I wanted this record to be the ideal, best version of all those things we’ve always been.” -- Here's the lyric video for this latest single, "Run Away With Me": www.youtube.com

Say "Hello" to Grouplove at the Tacoma Dome on Tuesday, October 17th, and Wednesday, October 18th. -- Check out the group tuxedo in the video for "Hello": www.youtube.com

Palehound will perform @ Madame Lou's in Seattle on Monday, November 6, 2023! -- Don't miss the opportunity to see El Kempner performing this song so powerfully in the video: www.youtube.com

On the road, heading to family reunion in Ohio. It’s my husband, Jay’s 36th birthday, and I’d love it if you could work in “Thirstier” by Torres for him! Thanks for the road-trip soundtrack! ---Britney, traveling through Michigan -- Don't miss Mackenzie Scott's (Torres) live performance in KEXP's Gathering Space in 2021 (It included "Thirstier."): www.youtube.com

On this issue of KEXP's Sound & Vision podcast, Shamir discusses this new album, Sinead O'Connor, and how they've managed their bipolar illness and anxiety: www.kexp.org

Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band is a Hamburg, Germany funk music ensemble founded by members of the Mighty Mocambos. -- This is their cover of the Game and 50 Cent's "How We Do."

ODESZA explained that the new EP, "Flaws in Our Design," dates all the way back to 2019 when Yellow House made the trip from South Africa to Seattle for a weeklong studio session. They clicked immediately, resulting in a six-track EP that was only originally planned to be one or two collaborations. : dancingastronaut.com

Teenage Sequence will be LIVE on KEXP on Wednesday, September 13 at noon. -- Teenage Sequence is Dewan-Dean Soomary, a London musician who used to be in bands King Blues and Bleach Blood. The debut self titled album will be out on September 29th.: teenagesequence.bandcamp.com

There are bits of classical music flowing through this song. Rachmaninoff's "Prelude C-sharp Minor," sampled from a recording by Les Baxter played on a synthesizer, is blended into the verses. The piece of classical music at the beginning of the song is "Night on Bald Mountain" by Modest Mussorgsky. Also sampled is "Love is Blue" by The Jazz Crusaders. -- Beastie Boys sampled themselves on this one, which they were wont to do. The word "drop" in the line, "Beastie Boys known to let the beat drop" comes from their track "The New Style" from the 1986 "Licensed To Ill" album.

SIPHO was born in Birmingham, England to Zimbabwean parents. Here's a 2022 feature on the "rising star with a voice that can heal souls": www.complex.com

This incredible duo finds Cypress Hill’s pioneering percussionist Eric Bobo, also the son of Latin Jazz legend Willie Bobo, known for his work with the likes of the Beastie Boys, collaborating with Chilean DJ Bitman an acclaimed and celebrated DJ/ producer who holds the unspoken record for the most consecutive performances at Lollapalooza Chile.: ritmomachine.bandcamp.com

Ahhh....the Friday song. Calling all listeners who DON'T use our mobile app, we need your help. Please take this survey: docs.google.com

"Wake up, kids We got the dreamers disease..." -- “You Get What You Give” became the signature song of the New Radicals, released as the lead single from their only album Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too. The song received critical acclaim, with Rolling Stone calling it one of the greatest One Hit Wonder songs and later calling it one of the best songs of the 90s. In an interview, U2 lead guitarist the Edge is quoted saying "You Get What You Give" is the song he is "most jealous of. I really would love to have written that."

"The song is somehow incredibly busy sounding but features very few chord changes. Synthesizers meddle with the more traditionally folky Hammond organ, rhythms overlap, reggae-like guitar playing meets with funkadelic bass and dubby drums all creating a wall of sound that is somehow like nothing you’ve ever heard before but unmistakably Talking Heads. No doubt a central protagonist to this unique genre-blending sound was producer Brian Eno. Eno introduced the band to Africa’s most challenging musical export Fela Kuti, which explains the Afrobeat undertones. Singer-songwriter Robert Palmer was also present at the recording sessions, lending his musical talents to rolling jams. It was this mixed-up world of instrumentation and energies that, ultimately, results in the song's cacophonous sound." Here's the story behind this Talking Heads classic; faroutmagazine.co.uk

"Everything's going to be okay...." In the video for this song, frontman Tunde Adebimpe encourages and consoles strangers he meets on the street. “I just happen to like looking at people and wondering what’s up,” Adebimpe said of the clip’s inspiration. “We got some people together, some of whom we ran into on the street while we were shooting, and did that. We asked if they could quietly (or not) go to brighter or darker places inside themselves [and] let us be there with them for a little while. Everyone’s sifting through something, right?” www.youtube.com

The Mountain Goats will be at The Fox Theater in Spokane (Spoke-vegas) on Monday, October 9th. -- "Next year in Jerusalem", is a phrase that is often sung at the end of the Passover Seder and at the end of the Ne'ila service on Yom Kippur.

In February, Empire of the Sun (Luke Steele and Nick Littlemore) announced their comeback. “I feel like this is the perfect time for Empire Of The Sun to come back,” Steele says. “I think there’s always been tremendous love for this band,” Steele continues, recalling the moments during lockdowns, “I had so many calls, emails, messages and requests from people yearning for the songs and the music. There were a lot of testimonies about what they’d been through, you know, from people getting over cancer to getting married to giving them hope during moments of deep depression. It became quite evident that we had become conduits or ambassadors and we have to honour that. This is the new era of Empire Of The Sun.”: themusic.com.au

"Dancing on My Own" starts with one of the most visceral, propelling four-to-the-floor beats of the past few decades. The tempo is perfectly situated right around 118 beats per minute, pretty close to what scientists say is the preferred walking tempo for humans. The one-five-four chord progression is immediately familiar, like it's been around since the beginning of time. Everything about it is meant to make you smile and move and dance." "The legacy ‘Dancing On My Own’ would leave was undeniable from the start and is now set firmly in stone. Rolling Stone named the song #20 on their 2021 list of ‘the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time’, which regularly hosts music legends such as The Beatles, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, and Nirvana, to name a few. The song was even named the most excellent song of the 2010s by as many as 16 news outlets, including Esquire, Insider, Rolling Stone, NPR, and Time Magazine.": nexus.radio

Wow! "Ray of Light" is twenty-five years old. Enjoy this retrospective: www.popmatters.com -- Did you know that this title track from "Ray of Light' was based on an obscure folk oldie, the song "Sepheryn" from English singer Christine Leach? -- Did you know that the video for "Ray of Light" was nominated for a Grammy?: www.youtube.com

Described by Rolling Stone as "the most fascinating, retro-maniac and genuine thing that has happened to Italy in the past few years", Calibro 35 enjoy a reputation as one of the coolest bands around.: calibro35rk.bandcamp.com

Director Vicky Lawton described the video as "very '70s rock 'n' roll, but with a pinch of the occult thrown in. Knowing I’d want to make the tone provocative, I needed to ensure there was the class and sophistication in the visuals to keep it chic. That meant keeping mystery and intrigue at the forefront, using references of decadence, silhouettes to tease and a heavenly glow throughout.": www.youtube.com

"Like Sugar" heavily samples The Fatback Band's "Bus Stop." This 2018 single was released on Chaka Khan's 2019 album "Hello Happiness," her first album since 2007. -- Born Yvette Marie Stevens, she adopted the African name Chaka Khan while working on the Black Panthers' breakfast program. Khan released "Hello Happiness" after recovering from the anguish of Prince's death -- and overcoming her addiction to prescription drugs. Read more about Chaka Khan's first release i after a long hiatus: tinyurl.com