John Richards

Good morning, happy Friday, and welcome to The Morning Show with John Richards! John, Owen, Henry, and Ken in the booth...waiting for your requests on an all-request show! So glad you're here!! -- "Shout, shout, let it all out!" Tears for Fears were followers of psychologist Arthur Janov's school of Primal Therapy. This song was inspired by his primal therapy treatment, which worked by getting people to resolve traumatic experiences and confront their fears by shouting and screaming. The name of the group came from Janov's book "Prisoners Of Pain."

Pigeonhed was a collaboration between the late and beloved local musician Shawn Smith and Steve Fisk. -- Watch a great live performance by Shawn Smith at KEXP in 2016: www.youtube.com

The instrumental track for “Mexican Radio” was built up from a foundation of two different rhythm machines: a Roland 808 and a Kalamazoo Rhythm Ace, a primitive box that had once been owned by Daws Butler, the voice of Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound. Read about the making of "Mexican Radio": www.mixonline.com

Happy Friday. :-)It's my son, Remy's, 7th birthday. (7!!!!). Would you consider playing Mandinka by Sinead O'Connor for him?-- Donya -- Of course, Donya!! Happy birthday, Remy! -- She was "proud to be a troublemaker." Read an obituary of Sinead O'Connor, who died in July at age 56: www.irishtimes.com

This Middle Kids request may have come from inside the booth. The band's heavily-anticipated third album will be out on February 16th, and we can't stop playing the singles from it. -- Here's the official video for "Terrible News": www.youtube.com

Go-Go's bass player Kathy Valentine wrote this song in 1980 when she was a member of a Los Angeles band called The Textones. The original Textones version of this song runs just 1:45 and starts with the line, "I've thought a lot of things about you." Jane Wiedlin came up with the idea of changing that line to "Can't seem to get my mind off of you." -- Watch these Go-Go's water skiing in the iconic video:www.youtube.com

John was the host when Lost Under heaven gave this wonderful in-studio performance in 2018. It included "I&I": www.youtube.com

This song was originally a gospel spiritual, "This May Be the Last Time." The Staple Singers recorded it in in 1954, the Stones turned it into "The Last Time," and Richard Ashcroft heard it, too.: www.theringer.com -- This was the only American hit for The Verve, but they were far more popular in their native UK, where their next single, "The Drugs Don't Work," went to #1. The band broke up in 1999 and reformed in 2007,

R.I.P., co-founder and drummer Jeremiah Green, who died in December, 2022 at age 45: www.thestranger.com

That great harmony is from MJ Lenderman, North Carolina musician from the band Wednesday. -- Watch the video for Katie Crutchfield's new song: www.youtube.com

In 2013, Frightened Rabbit performed for KEXP donors at Seattle's Triple Door: www.youtube.com

Let Me Come Over is the third album by Boston band Buffalo Tom. Its principal members are guitarist Bill Janovitz, bassist Chris Colbourn, and drummer Tom Maginnis. The band's name is derived from the band Buffalo Springfield and the first name of the drummer. www.buffalotom.com -- "Climb aboard my velvet roof And smile showing me one golden tooth..." Here are the lyrics: genius.com

Tunde Adebimpe tells the story of becoming a werewolf as an allegory for the uncontrollable desire that he has for the recipient of the song. -- This song, produced by Dave Sitek, was the lead single from TV on the Radio's major label debut.

At the time of its release, one review called "The House That Heaven Built" "a rapturous head-banger, requiring only one, oft-repeated hook of clearheaded subversiveness: 'And if they try to slow you down/ Tell them all, to go to hell.'" bit.ly japandroids.bandcamp.com

Like that guitar? Stevie Ray Vaughan played lead guitar on this song. Bowie was impressed when he saw Vaughan perform at the Montreaux Jazz festival a year earlier. When Vaughan received the call from Bowie to play on the record, he was (although not literally) in the middle of recording his own album, "Texas Flood."

Ahhh....the Friday song. (Excellent introductory work, Henry!) Black History Is now. KEXP honors Black music and Black stories year-round, including this February, with all-day special programming to kick off the month, on Thursday, February 1st.: www.kexp.org

The song took a while to evolve, but it all started with a tiny sample of a bass drum beat and snare beat from Jimmy "Bo" Horne's 1978 tune "Let Me (Let Me Be Your Lover)." Birch looped the sample and created the bass groove that holds "Connected" together. The DJ was heading out to catch a bus when he spotted another record before he left the house: Totally Connected by the disco-funk group T-Connection. That gave Birch the vague idea for a song about some kind of connection. -- Here's an eight minute and fifty second live version of "Connected": www.youtube.com

Jungle: ‘We can literally do whatever the f**k we want’ Read an interview with the duo about their album "Volcano": www.rollingstone.co.uk

For four-year-old Maverick... -- It's "only around 130 words, with a simple, accessible story. A woman ends up at the same club as her ex. She sees him across the floor, dancing with someone new. She's hurt, but she keeps dancing, over a floor full of stiletto heels and broken bottles. Drum break. Repeat." Nate Sloan, a musicologist at the University of Southern California,, says the miracle of those lyrics is their sparseness. "[There's] like six seconds of silence between each line in the verse," Sloan says. "Which is not a lot of time in the abstract, but on a pop song, that's like eons.": www.npr.org

"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.." : www.allmusic.com

We think that SAULT is an acronym for ‘Start A Universal Love Trend’. Here's a December, 2023, outlining all that we currently know about the SAULT collective: thebluesproject.co

Do not miss the video for this little ditty: www.youtube.com

Vague request here... The song about the guy that gets the mysterious invite to anything. I can't think of the name only that it's a kind song about being welcome anywhere--Jennifer (Portland) -- In 2013, The Dismemberment Plan performed live at Seattle's Triple Door in a concert for KEXP VIP Club members. It included "You Are Invited": www.youtube.com

Watch Bob Mould perform this one live for KEXP listeners at Bumbershoot in 2013: www.youtube.com

Here's the story of a demo that became an underground classic: www.washingtonpost.com

"Black Grease" is heard on the fictional radio station Vinewood Boulevard Radio in the 2013 action-adventure video game Grand Theft Auto V. -- Here's the official video: www.youtube.com

The title comes from Zoo Bahnhof, a train station in Berlin where the underground portion of the U2 line begins. Officially called Zoologischer Garten, the station is the stop for the Berlin Zoo. The band went to the Berlin Zoo after arriving in Berlin to record Achtung Baby."Bono got the idea there to use the zoo as a theme. The zoo image would reappear on their next album, "Zooropa,"and the subsequent Zoo TV tour.

Last year, The Chemical Brothers released "Paused in Cosmic Reflection." their definitive story.: www.thechemicalbrothers.com

We know you like this!! -- R.I.P., lyricist and drummer Neil Peart, who died in 2020: www.npr.org

To quote Henry, "Now we need a bigger dumpster." Here's the lyric video for this song: www.youtube.com -- Cheekface will play Madame Lou's on Sunday, April 21st.

Harvey Danger was an alternative rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington in 1992 and rose to prominence in 1997 with the iconic single “Flagpole Sitta” - www.harveydanger.com -- Watch a young Sean Nelson and compatriots performing this song on Letterman in 1998: www.youtube.com

The Pigeon Detectives are a five piece band from Rothwell, Leeds with influences such as The Beatles, The Kinks and The Velvet Underground. Pigeon Detectives, who formed in 2002, found acclaim among DJs and the musical press when they performed at 2006 Reading and Leeds festivals, being tagged as the “band most likely to leap to the main stage in 2007”.: thevogue.com -- "Wait for Me' was their debut platinum-selling album.: www.theguardian.com

Thom Mackie from Loughborough upstarts ‘The Voom Blooms’ woke one morning with the band’s name inexplicably etched in his mind. Frontman George Guildford recalls ” One night at about 3am [Thom] texted me to say ‘We are called The Voom Blooms’ . And so the pair had a name for a band, now all they had to do was find the missing members to make the dream a reality. Here's the story of this band: www.caughtinthecrossfire.com -- Watch this English band performing for KEXP at Bowery Electric in NYC in 2008 here: www.youtube.com

The video for the song begins with Michael Hutchence and Andrew Farriss "composing' the song.: www.youtube.com

Phantogram performed live on KEXP at the Triple Door as part of KEXP's VIP Club concert series in 2013. Watch here: www.youtube.com

Thanks, Angus! -- See Ned's Atomic Dustbin performing "Grey Cell Green" live in support of Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine at Brixton Academy in 2012: www.youtube.com

Thanks (?) again, Angus... -- Dramarama singer John Easdale talked about this one in 2017: "Couples often tell me it's "their" song, and I'm flattered that they feel the emotion and passion of it, but I am always a bit reluctant to mention that it is essentially an ode to a bitter break-up." Here's how a single song defined a band: www.vice.com

Ian Astbury, frontman of The Cult: "What's the song about? Sex. Plain and simple, it's about sex. I've had sex and I'm very proud of that fact."

"When you are alone You are the cat, you are the phone, you are an animal The words I'm singing now Mean nothing more than meow to an animal Wake up, smell the cat food in your bank account But don't try to stop the tail that wags the hound..." Their lyrics are so clever: tmbw.net