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Monday, Dec 16 2019, 6AM
"The song describes a time in everybody’s life that make you lose faith in yourself, in someone else, or in life itself and you just need to hear from someone that one day everything will be OK again. That no matter what, with time and patience we all will be OK.” Read more from our interview with them, over on the KEXP blog: www.kexp.org
Amazing mandolin performance. Monroe is commonly referred to as the "Father of Bluegrass".
Low's Zak Sally describes 'Sunflower' as "really a happy song. I wouldn't describe the lyrics as dark or morose. Alan likes to use the word 'sober,' -- not in a drinking sense -- to describe them. They're serious lyrics about pretty serious things, not girls and cars. I don't think we're gloomy or sad. There's as much joy in our music as sorrow."
Playing a sold out show at the Showbox on January 29th in support of the new album. www.michaelkiwanuka.com
Check out the in-studio performance by The Jayhawks here at KEXP over on our blog: www.kexp.org
Perkins wrote a series of songs about family and loss, informed by the passing of his parents and titled "Ash Wednesday". Perkins turned this into his first album, which he released independently in 2006. This song alludes to Perkins' father Anthony's untimely death in 1992: “I made a death soup for life/For my father’s ill-widowed wife.”
Driving on the freeway on Christmas Day, Strand of Oaks's Timothy Showalter and his wife hit a patch of black ice and crashed their car head on into a semi-truck. They were very fortunate to walk away with their lives, but Showalter suffered a, “pretty severe,” head trauma, “which affected me much more than I realized at the time.” The mixing session for this album went ahead. “Being on the verge of death, and my thoughts being so closely tied to that, changed the album’s direction,” Showalter claims. “Together, we pushed it toward a much more cathartic sound that forces the listener to where I was at that exact moment, somewhere between almost dying and being absolutely fearless.”
Bono: "I had read Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song and Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. '‘Exit' was my attempt at writing a story in the mind of a killer. It is all very well to address America and the violence that is in an aggressive foreign policy, but to really understand that you have to get under the skin of your own darkness, the violence that we all contain within us.”
Eddie Vedder's wrote this song for the 1995 Pearl Jam/Neil Young collaborative album 'Mirror Ball', which was later released on the companion EP 'Merkin Ball'. Vedder wrote the song as a tribute to his high school drama teacher Clayton Liggett.
Big Thief broke down this track on an episode of Song Exploder just a few months ago - Lead singer and songwriter Adrianne Lenker discussed writing the chord progression while the band was in the studio recording U.F.O.F., after everyone else had gone to bed. She also described how the song’s lyrics reflect elements of her childhood in Minnesota. Lenker claims the “Violet” in the song is a reference to her great-grandmother, who played music throughout her life and picked up electric bass when she was in her 80s. You can listen to the full Song Exploder episode here: songexploder.net
Cartalk will be playing the Sunset Tavern on January 19. cartalk.bandcamp.com
Live performances of the song were sometimes prefaced with Stevie Nicks saying, "This song's about an old Welsh witch." 🧙♀️
In an April 1988 interview, O'Connor said: "Mandinkas are an African tribe. They're mentioned in a book called Roots by Alex Haley, which is what the song is about. In order to understand it you must read the book." Well, what are you waiting for? Get reading!
The band's Sam J. Nicholson says "I think it is the most power pop sounding we've been — we wanted the guitars to sort of glow in the dark. It's got a chorus that we shout live. The song is sort of about how we are invincible and live forever until we don't. As Springsteen said "everything dies/ baby that's a fact/ maybe everything that dies someday comes back." Me and my best friend both had cancer when we were kids and maybe in a strange way this song is about that. I'd prefer to think it isn't though and it is another pop song about love and being afraid of the dark until you aren't." quiversss.bandcamp.com
“‘You and I’ was one of the first tracks on the album that I started, and one of the last tracks I finished,” Snaith said in a statement. “It existed in some form or other throughout the whole arc of making the record. It also captures a lot of what the record, and the title of the album, are about – the track changes suddenly and unpredictably, and it is about a change in my life that happened out of the blue.” www.caribou.fm
Written by the band's bass player, John Deacon, who wrote it for and about his wife.
New from the Madrid band. “We don’t follow too many rules about music in general,” the band's Carlotta Cosials says. “We know the vocals are pretty fucking loud. We know sometimes it can even sound disturbing. But we like that.” hinds.bandcamp.com
The band revealed that Daft Punk’s “Robot Rock” was one of the primary influences on the opening moments of “Young Folks.” “We wanted to do that [song’s opening drum fill] in a nerdy, uncool way.”
The band says the video for this new track is about “finding hope, safety and comfort during times of despair, when everything is seemingly crumbling all around you” and “finding light in the dark, and the cathartic role that music can play in bleak situations”. Watch here: youtu.be
TR/ST will be playing a show at the Regent Theater in LA on Dec 31 if that's in your neck of the woods!
New MGMT! They're releasing the new album on their own album, and have put out a video for the new track as well. Watch here: youtu.be
On Rolling Stone's list of "25 Songs That Are Truly Terrifying" - it checks out. 😱
Mmm, desserta... 🍰 Oh, wait ... deserta. 🌵 Anyway, excellent new track from the LA shoegazers. desertamusic.com
Citrus Clouds are a 3 piece dreampop band based out of Phoenix, AZ who write "music to daydream to". citrusclouds.bandcamp.com
By request! From the band's 2nd album. lcdsoundsystem.com
Thanks Stag for joining us in the KEXP Studio today for a great set from their new album. Keep an eye on KEXP's YouTube channel - this session will be posted soon, but in the meantime there's lots of other great stuff up there, too! www.youtube.com
Stag's new album, Electric Mistress, is out now! www.themightystag.com
When Charly Bliss entered Sunset Studios to begin work on their second album, the Brooklyn quartet already knew they had way too many songs for one album. So, the band has collected five of those songs together for a surprise EP, Supermoon. charlybliss.bandcamp.com
Belgian band Sons performed at this summer's Iceland Airwaves a few months ago - "From the moment they first played their guttural notes, it felt like a shockwave hit the room with some of the loudest, most bombastic, unfuckwithable rock music I’ve personally heard in years." you can read more over on the KEXP blog: www.kexp.org
Wolf Parade will be playing the Showbox February 11th. wolfparade.com
In INXS's official autobiography, Andrew Farriss said that the riff in this song appeared suddenly in his head while waiting for a cab to go to the airport to fly to Hong Kong. He asked the cab driver to wait a couple of minutes while he grabbed something from his motel room. In fact, he went up to record the riff and came back down an hour later with a tape to a very annoyed driver.
Lead singer Matt Johnson of The The explains "I’ve been in the unfortunate position of losing a very close family member to Alzheimer’s. I’ve lost a close friend. When your memories start to go, then who are you? What are we, but a sum of our memories? I happen to think there is a greater consciousness outside of the brain, but that’s a whole other story. That’s a whole other thing. It’s not a sad song for me to sing. I feel it quite comforting, and I’m happy that I can sing it with conviction." Great interview here: www.dazeddigital.com
