John Richards

Kate Bush was born on this day in 1958! Kate Bush told the NME: "It was written for John Hughes' film She's Having A Baby. Really light comedy about this young guy who gets married, very much a kid. His wife is pregnant and it's alright until they get to the hospital and the baby's in the breach position. That's the sequence I have to write the songs about and it's really very moving, him in the waiting room, having flashbacks of his wife and him going for walks, decoration... It's exploring his sadness and guilt, suddenly it's the point where he has to grow up. He'd been such a wally up to this point." - www.songfacts.com - www.katebush.com

gracecummings.bandcamp.com --- "Time rolls by Again Today By and by The old, it waves And I don’t know why I come back each time, just a little more grey..." - genius.com

New from Hana Vu. "Romanticism" focuses on themes of youth and it's embedded grief. “Being young, there's so much that I experience for the first time, all the time. But as I experience more things, I become more desensitized to those things,” Vu explains. “You get wiser–– I feel quite wiser–– but less fervent, less hopeful.” - hanavu.bandcamp.com

Dear Gift, we love you. -The Morning Show == New music from GIFT - their debut full-length drops on August 23rd! They say the song is about "...the endless cycle of a relationship, the back and forth in both euphoria and doubt. The chorus “I never told you why’ is about never being able to say how you really feel, not having closure and the cycle continuing.” giftbandnyc.bandcamp.com

The Psychedelic Furs released "World Outside" on this day in 1991. The seventh album from The Psychedelic Furs. "Until She Comes" was the album's first single, produced by the band with Stephen Street. The track tackles themes of addiction. Celebrating 50 years of KEXP with a journey back to 1991! kexp.org

Real Life is the ninth studio album by Scottish rock band Simple Minds, released in April 1991. This was the first Simple Minds album recorded without keyboardist and original bandmember Mick MacNeil, who left the band shortly after the previous tour completed in 1990.

Dehd will be playing the Neptune Theatre in Seattle on Nov. 6! Album review from KEXP's Chris Sanley: The fifth studio album from Chicago trio Dehd finds the outfit leveling up their fusion of indie-pop, post-punk and garage rock. Poetry boasts impeccable hooks, bright melodies and Emily Kempf and Jason Balla sharing lead vocalist duties with sing along choruses. Nearly ten years into their career, this confident trifecta just keeps getting tighter with their potent, multifaceted indie-pop/rock with no signs of slowing.

This is the thirteenth track from Modest Mouse's debut album, released on April 16th, 1996. Modest Mouse's first two albums were re-released in 2014 by Isaac Brock's Glacial Pace imprint. Calling them "best new reissue," Pitchfork said "they are a reminder of the group's insular, visionary oddness.": bit.ly

Fontaines D.C. will be playing: Seattle, WA on Friday, September 20 at The Showbox. San Francisco, CA on Tuesday, September 24 at The Warfield. 'Romance' is forthcoming August 23! fontainesdc.bandcamp.com Check out their Live on KEXP session from 2022: www.youtube.com

New music from Brooklyn based band Rubblebucket. Check out more of their music here: rubblebucket.bandcamp.com

The sophomore solo album from Jamie xx (originally of xx fame) is due out September 20th! In Waves follows up the artist's 2013 solo debut, In Colour. jamiexx.bandcamp.com

Since I Left You is the debut studio album by Australian electronic music group the Avalanches, released on 27 November 2000 by Modular Recordings. It was produced by group members Robbie Chater and Darren Seltmann, and samples extensively from various genres. This track samples of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Club Med, the Main Attraction, and more. www.whosampled.com www.theavalanches.com

"Sending those signals..." -- The song "Radio" features nine samples, including Mandrill, Laurie Anderson, and comedians Wayne and Shuster, See the complete list here: www.whosampled.com

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

This song from the film "Desperately Seeking Susan" was Madonna's first UK #1 hit. It was never released as a single in the US, however, where it remains one of the best-known B-sides of the '80s, since radio stations played the song anyway. In America, it was issued as the B-side of "Angel," which many folks bought to get "Into The Groove." As a result, "Angel" went to #5 in the US despite a lackluster reception.

Instrumental music from Ohio band Parlo Greens. Check out more of their music here: parlorgreens.bandcamp.com

Jimmy Cliff was born on this day in 1944. He is a Jamaican ska, rocksteady, reggae and soul musician, multi-instrumentalist, singer, and actor. He is the only living reggae musician to hold the Order of Merit, the highest honour that can be granted by the Jamaican government for achievements in the arts and sciences.

Yes, you could... -- Wailers guitarist Junior Marvin originated the song in London. He was fooling around on his guitar and came up with the opening guitar riff. Marvin recalled : "Bob said, 'What's that?' I said it was just something I was messing around with, and he said, 'Can I use it?' Then we went to Brazil together with Jacob Miller from Inner Circle, and we completed the song together. We never got any official credit or compensation, but from time to time Bob would quietly give me some money to keep me sweet!"

The Equals, led by Eddy Grant, were a ground-breaking, racially mixed bands in London when they started in 1965. This song was originally released on the The Equals' Baby, Come Back album in 1968. The song then enjoyed a revival when UK punk band The Clash recorded a cover of the song in 1980 for their Sandinista! album. "The reason for the Equals’ initial lack of success in their home country is a matter of speculation, but one thing is for sure: The band stood out. They were the first major interracial rock group in the UK, predating the Foundations (“Build Me Up Buttercup”) and Hot Chocolate (“You Sexy Thing”), and even getting the jump on America’s first conspicuously mixed-race band, Sly and the Family Stone (not counting forerunners like Booker T. & the M.G.’s, whose status as an interracial band wasn’t played up). On top of that, the black members of the Equals—Grant and the Gordon twins—were immigrants in England at a time when it was absorbing a large influx of people from its former colonies." Read more about The Equals here: tinyurl.com The Clash covered “Police on My Back” on their 1980 album, Sandinista!

In case you were wondering, the motorbike noise on this record was created by looping a snare drum roll and distorting it! www.theguardian.com

Our House was written by Madness bass player/vocalist Carl Smyth and guitarist Christopher Foreman. The house where Smyth grew up inspired the lyric. The song's video features the band as a cloth-cap wearing family squashed into a terraced house. Drummer Dan "Woody" Woodgate recalls, "The knocking-on-the-door bit where somebody comes out, goes, 'Where are they?' and the others sneak in and close the door... That's The Flintstones. We stole lots of ideas from the Keystone Kops and Benny Hill." tinyurl.com

Men at Work are an Australian rock band formed in Melbourne in 1978 and best known for breakthrough hits such as "Down Under", "Who Can It Be Now?", "Be Good Johnny", "Overkill", and "It's a Mistake". Its founding member and frontman is Colin Hay, who performs on lead vocals and guitar.

New music from Sydney based singer Jerome Blazé. Find more of his music here: jeromeblaze.bandcamp.com

Alternate version of "Half Asleep" from New York band School of Seven Bells often referred to as SVIIB

The song Porcelain was based on an emotional breakup. Moby recalled: "I was involved with this really, really wonderful woman, and I loved her very much. But I knew deep in my heart of hearts that we had no business being romantically involved. So, it’s sort of about being in love with someone but knowing you shouldn’t be with them."

Robert Smith of The Cure cited the song as an influence on their 1992 album, Wish. "For every album we do, I assemble a bunch of songs that have something that I'm trying to capture. For Wish, I would listen to "Mesmerise" by Chapterhouse for its feeling of abandon and "Human" by The Human League. You couldn't spot anything sonically or structurally that would influence anything we did, but there's an indefinable something that I'm trying to capture. One night I must have played "Mesmerise" 20 times, drinking and turning it louder and louder, putting myself into a trance" Smith said in 1993.

Andy Bell reveals, "I remember writing the riff in a hotel room on a very early Ride tour....People seem to be quite interested with the guitar sound on this record, if there are fades or effects, but there’s not; it’s just two 12-strings. It’s just one of those magical songs. That’s the one that everyone talks about on the album in my experience...It came out so easily and it has that effortless feel to it. I guess it is the one I’m most proud of from that era." bit.ly Ride came to the KEXP studio in 2017 for a sublime performance that included this glorious track: bit.ly Fun fact: Did you know that Ride was the final band to play live in the old KEXP Dexter & Denny studio? Check out that historic event: bit.ly

This track features Robert Smith playing all the guitar parts. In an interview with Guitar Player magazine in September 1992, he mentioned that after recording "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea", the band needed to re-record some of the songs on the album after realizing that they weren't up to standard that this track set

UK-based Crows have announced their third studio album, 'Reason Enough,' and are celebrating their return with the release of the brand new single, "Bored". www.thelineofbestfit.com crowsband.co.uk

"This is it" was released on this day in 2001. Speaking about his band’s enduring popularity in a 2014 Rolling Stone interview, Casablancas shook off the plaudits. "It feels humbling and validating that you’re doing some things right," he said. "But it’s the same thing with an actor: If a movie does really well at the box office, they make 10 of those afterward because that’s what they think people like...  If something has commercial value, it doesn’t mean it’s good." bit.ly

The "Jacked" video is directed by a longtime collaborator of Heartworms, Gilbert Trejo, who said of it: “To me, ‘Jacked’ is the soundtrack to a paranoid fever dream....": www.youtube.com Watch a great live performance by Heartworms in the KEXP studio from March of this year: www.youtube.com

"March Of The Pigs" is the fourth track on 1994's "The Downward Spiral." It has one of the most unusual meters of any song to enjoy popular radio play, alternating three measures of 7/8 time with one measure of 4/4 time in the verses (in effect, a 29/8 time signature). The chorus is in the common 4/4 time signature. As a result, with eighth notes getting the count, the song has a BPM rate of 269.: www.nin.wiki

This was the first song that IDLES played in our studio when John hosted them in 2018: www.youtube.com

Ministry is a Chicago industrial metal band that started out doing synth-pop

Toro y Moi will play the THING! Festival in Carnation on August 10th. They'll play the Greek Theatre in Berkeley on October 25th (rescheduled from August 13th). "Hole Erth" is set to release in September. "Tuesday" is the lead single. toroymoi.bandcamp.com toroymoi.com

KEXP hosted Oscar for a performance of Beautiful Words in 2015, check it out here: www.youtube.com

Leisure Seizure is the second studio album by Tom Vek, released on this day in 2011. Tom Vek is an English self-taught multi-instrumentalist musician. He signed to the small label Tummy Touch Records in 2001, having spent the previous eight years writing and recording in his parents' garage. -- tomvek.com

Music from local country rock Seattle band Massy Ferguson. Check out more of their music here: massyferguson.bandcamp.com

Good morning, happy Tuesday, and welcome to The Midday Show with the enchanting Cheryl Waters! Thank you very much for being here with us! -- The opening track on Out of Time, "Radio Song" features the influential rapper KRS-One. R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck explained in 1991: "When we wrote it out, we only had acoustic guitar, bongos, bass, organ, and a 12-string over the chorus. When we got to the studio we added drums, and I put down some funk guitars and we thought, 'Well, gee, now it's kind of a funk song.' And Michael suggested bringing in KRS, since he'd worked with him before. -- KRS-One was originally only supposed to sing "hey, hey, hey" on the song, but was inspired to write a rap that helped sum up the message.: genius.com