John Richards

While writing songs for Disintegration, Robert Smith devised contingency plans to record a solo album if his bandmates rejected the morose new material he’d composed. “I would have been quite happy to have made these songs on my own,” Smith said. “If the group hadn’t thought it was right, that would have been fine.”

TR/ST, aka Robert Alfons, calls this single, "a trepidatious push through murky waters, searching for shore.”

To commemorate the release of the new Say Hi record Diamonds & Donuts, Eric Elbogen will be embarking on an intimate, solo acoustic tour in March & April. He's looking for living rooms to perform in... find out more here: bit.ly

On its release, "Not Enough Time" reached No. 2 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, and stayed there for five consecutive weeks.

7 Facts About 'Tom's Diner' While You're Waiting for Your Coffee: bit.ly

FKA twigs on Vulnerability and the Magical Powers of Women - read the KEXP interview here: bit.ly

Torres is playing The Tractor on March 31st. Tickets & info here: bit.ly

In The Dave Stewart Songbook, Stewart explains that he and Lennox wrote this song when they were staying at the Mayflower Hotel in New York City. Writes Stewart: "I'd been out on 46th Street and bought an early Casio keyboard, about 20 inches long with very small keys. It was an overcast day. Annie was sitting in my room, and I was playing some little riff on the keyboard sitting on the window ledge, and I was playing these little melancholy A minor-ish chords with the B note in it. I kept on playing this riff, and Annie was looking out the window at the slate grey sky above the New York skyline and just sang spontaneously, 'Here Comes The Rain Again.' And that was all we needed. you see, like with a lot of our songs, you only need to start with that one line, and that one atmosphere, that one note, or that intro melody. And the rest of it was like a puzzle where we needed to just fill in the missing pieces."

Black Belt Eagle Scout plays the Sgowbox on February 25th with Death Cab For Cutie... and is also playing other local shows you can still get tickets for. Feb 26th in Bellingham and the 27th in Anacortes. Find all the dates here: www.blackbelteaglescout.com And check out the live in-studio from August here: bit.ly

Karen O said of making Lux Prima that “when you create from a blurry place you can go places further than you’ve ever been”

Broadcast's Trish Keenan explains the inspiration behind the song: "The lyrics to “America’s Boy” were generated by my reactions to a tabloid cryptic crossword. The clues were topically about the war in Iraq, and in general, their stance was one of anti-American occupation. In my frustration at not being able to decipher the clues, I began to react to them, make up my own answers, mimicking back the language of the clues. I was interested then in possible answers. I got on a roll arguing with the clues, asking questions back, taking offence to them and deliberately misreading them. What came back was a sort of celebration of the American soldier. Snap shots of the heroics of American Imperialism, the all out impressiveness of its big achievements. Also something that the British do not have in their culture, a self celebratory nature of Americans towards their own country."

Find more from local duo MYXA here: myxa.band

This began life as a new song by The xx before ending up as a Jamie 'xx' Smith solo track. Smith told Mojo it was the most challenging track on In Colour as it went through a lot of different versions

Samples on this track include Carly Simon’s “Why,” Fresh 4’s “Wishing on a Star” cover, Blur’s “Tender,” and Karen Dalton’s “It Hurts Me Too."

Sinead O'Connor is playing a sold out show at The Neptune on February 4th. The entire US tour is sold out with the exceptions of Nashville and NYC. But give them time...

Catch Cartalk at The Sunset on January 19th with Moon Palace. Tickets & info: bit.ly

First Aid Kit performed "Waitress Song" live in the KEXP studio on November 15, 2014. See it here: bit.ly

"Cafe Joli" showed up at #608 on the KEXP listener's favorite songs of all time countdown: www.kexp.org

Nada Surf performing "Blonde on Blonde" live on KEXP in May 2018: www.youtube.com

"Black Metallic" misheards: "...your skin is like a tire"

You can see Foals in Portland on May 23rd or in Vancouver BC on May 24th. No Seattle date...

Avalanche Party performed live at Studio 9294 in Hackney Wick, London, during KEXP's International Clash Day broadcast, February 4, 2019. See it here: bit.ly

Wolf Parade is playing The Showbox on February 11th. Tickets & info: bit.ly

The name for the Seattle-based Low Hums came from a dream that band-guru Jonas Haskins (vocals/guitar/bass) had. “I heard wolves howling in a canyon in my head when I woke up one morning,” he explains. “I had gotten lost in the desert and been surrounded by wolves, so I climbed a tree, which is odd to find in the desert, but there they were. A small grove of pine trees. I waited it out till the sun came up and then I woke up.”

Beck: "Originally, the lyrics to Girl were really upbeat, and then it didn't work for me somehow. You need the dichotomy. If you're doing something happy and light, you need the shadows. That was something that the Pixies did so well. Frank Black is a genius at these happy songs, and then you listen to the lyrics and they're based on (Spanish film director Luis) Bunuel films of cows' eyes getting cut."

In addition the the Steve Mason project, King Biscuit Time is also the longest-running daily American radio broadcast in history. The first broadcast was on November 21, 1941

I will now sell five copies of The Three EPs by The Beta Band. bit.ly

Here’s what Champion had to say about the process of covering Weezer’s landmark debut album: "I knew i wanted to take a synth heavy approach to this album and in my mind the blue album was pretty straight forward indie power pop. But as i was deconstructing all the parts and putting the songs back together i realized how much nuance there is to Cuomo’s songwriting style. It’s a testament to his talent that he can make an entire record of songs we want to sing along to and don’t realize just how weird those songs are. I will say it was a challenge, a really fun challenge ! to keep true to what makes these songs so great while putting them through an electronic lens."

See Sudan Archives at Barboza on February 21st. Tickets & info: bit.ly

This was released as the first single from the album. In an interview with Pitchfork Media, the interviewer commented that it was an uncompromising comeback single. Geoff Barrow replied that "when you come back you don't want to tickle people under the chin."

Algiers are coming back to Seattle on March 29th. Catch them at The Crocodile. Tickets and info: bit.ly

Black Pumas were just live on KEXP in October. If you missed it, here is the full set, including "Colors": bit.ly

Dennis Brown's recording career started when he was 11 and he recorded more than 75 albums before he passed in 1999. 75 albums!

Michael Kiwanuka is playing The Showbox January 29th. Many of his shows are sold out, including that one.

The drums on this track are sampled from "1-2-3" by Len Barry (1965): bit.ly

Sweet recorded this song in 1990 as he was going through a brutal divorce. Around the same time, he met someone new, giving "Girlfriend" layers of emotional turmoil.

Nada Surf are playing The Neptune on the 14th. bit.ly

Here's a short clip of Bombay Bicycle Club working out the riff for "I Can Hardly Speak" in the studio: bit.ly

Best Coast are playing The Showbox on March 4th. Tickets & info: bit.ly

Learning to Crawl, the third album by The Pretenders, was released on this day in 1984. That's 36 years ago.

Here is your one month warning for International Clash Day! Only 31 shopping days left!

There's an "official video" with some great vintage live footage: bit.ly

Caribou is heading out on a North American tour in March but there are no west coast dates. See all the stops here: www.caribou.fm

"4ÆM" will appear in the upcoming videogame "Cyberpunk 2077" In the game, the song belongs to character Lizzy Wizzy – a cyborg-esque pop megastar who is voiced by Grimes.

See Holy Fuck at Neumos on March 3st. Tickets & info: bit.ly

Morrissey and Marr receive 25% of the royalties for the Soho hit, "Hippychick"

Soho songwriter Tim London on what this song is about: "Hippychick was written as a short blues based pop song, written from the perspective of a young woman arrested by her boyfriend (who is a policeman) on a demonstration. She is basically telling him it's over, because, as a cop, he supports an establishment she wants to get rid of. And if that sounds a bit pretentious now then it probably sounded less pretentious in the late '80s when it was written, when young people in the UK had been politicized by the very real threat of nuclear war, the miners strike, (which was practically a small scale war between the massed ranks of government forces - including the army, and the miners and their supporters in 1984), the anti-apartheid movement (against the evil fascists who controlled South Africa back then) and the defiance against the much hated Poll Tax."

The beat is based on the 1987 Eric B. & Rakim song "Paid In Full." Soul II Soul used it on this and their previous hit, "Keep On Movin'"

"What if Solange and Joy Division collaborated on a James Bond soundtrack?" hotels.bandcamp.com

This was Nirvana's first single.It is a cover of a song by the Dutch band Shocking Blue, whose version released in 1967 didn't make the charts. bit.ly

Text "Surf" to 206-903-5397 to win tickets to the show January 14th!