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Tuesday, Aug 13 2019, 6AM
José González performed "Every Age" live in the KEXP studio back on March 4, 2016. Find it here: bit.ly
Devotchka are playing September 17th with Cave Singers at the McMenamins Elks Temple in Tacoma. Tickets & info: bit.ly
During the performance, the guys in Temple left McCready a moment to address the audience and pay tribute to his departed Mad Season bandmates: “It’s with a heavy heart sometimes to hear this music,” he admitted. “But I know that it means many things to a lot of people.”
Here's a great video of Shawn Smith performing Purple Rain/Crown of Thorns at The High Dive: bit.ly
Pearl Jam, which includes former Mother Love Bone members Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard, has performed the song "Crown of Thorns" in concert many times. They also included it on their concert DVD Live at the Garden, in which Eddie Vedder, in tribute to the late Andy Wood, said, "I think Jeff and Stone will back me up on this, Andy would have loved it here."
Angel Olsen: "I chose All Mirrors as the title of this upcoming record because I liked the theme; the theme of how we are all mirrors to and for each other." She's playing The Moore on December 11th!
"Cherry" was the KEXP Song of the Day for March 1st, 2013. Subscribe to the podcast and get a new song every day! You can find "Cherry" here: www.kexp.org
Lou Reed could be particularly grumpy about interpretations of his music, especially the many takes on his "Sweet Jane." There was one, however, that he actually liked: This swoon-worthy take by the Cowboy Junkies.
According to the BBC, Reed himself called the Canadian band's 1988 version "the best and most authentic version I have ever heard."
You can see The Lumineers at Bumbershoot August 31st! That's soon for those of you keeping track.
Death Cab are playing Marymoor Park with Car Seat Headrest September 7th and 8th. The 7th is sold out so hurry and get your tickets for the 8th! bit.ly
Thom Yorke: "Karma is important. The idea that something like karma exists makes me happy. It makes me smile. 'Karma Police' is dedicated to everyone who works for a big firm. It's a song against bosses."
The National are playing Marymoor Park on August 29th! How are there still tickets?!! bit.ly
Anthony Gonzalez cited Tears for Fears and Cocteau Twins, as well as John Hughes teen films The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles, as inspirations for Saturdays = Youth. "I wanted to have the feeling of a teenager mixed with this period of the Eighties," Gonzalez said. "Graveyard Girl" tells the story of a goth girl Gonzalez once knew who "worships Satan" but "dreams of a sister like Molly Ringwald."
This Is Not A Safe Place, Ride's new album is out on the 16th and you can catch them at The Crocodile on October 8th with The Spirit of the Beehive! www.thecrocodile.com
Singer and bassist Kim Gordon explained that the song is about "using passiveness as a form of rebellion—like, I'm not going to participate in your male-dominated culture, so I'm just going to be passive."
In a glowing five-star review, NME said of this track: “By far the most violent, conflicted and urgent thing they’ve recorded, it seems Foals have finally managed in capturing the mindless abandon of their live shows. For the first time on record they have no inhibitions. The beast is well and truly out of the cage.”
If you can't make it to Chomp! this weekend to see Mavis you can catch her at the Edmonds Center for the Arts January 16th!
Last year, Brittany Howard called a meeting with her bandmates and told them some news they probably didn’t want to hear. Alabama Shakes — who met in high school, broke through with 2012’s “Hold On” and went on to win four Grammys — would not be recording a follow-up to 2015’s Sound & Color anytime soon. Instead, Howard would be making a solo album. “It was like, ‘I’m going to do this record by myself,’ ” she says. “I knew that I needed to be in control of everything: the music, the arrangements, all that stuff. And when am I going to do it if not now?”
Geowulf will be at Barboza on November 15th. Tickets & info: bit.ly
The Independent newspaper May 9, 2008 asked Guy Garvey which were his favorite lyrics of all the ones that he had written. The Elbow frontman replied: "My favorite lyrics either describe a familiar feeling in a new way or describe a specific feeling that you've never heard described before - an emotion that's too complex to be put into words usually, ways of getting to specific feelings. In 'Station Approach,' that's a very particular civic pride, which is a very specific civic feeling. I love Manchester. I have a complicated love affair with Manchester because 'Grounds for Divorce' is slating Manchester."
Of the track, Gedge says “Danielle came up with the solo bass part after I said I wanted to do a song that was ‘bass-driven’ and it just got fatter and heavier! We also now have three vocalists in the band so we used the opportunity to experiment with some a cappella singing, too,”
Acknowledged influences on the band included Joy Division, The Gun Club, Nick Cave and The Birthday Party. 16 Horsepower would eventually share the same management as Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and tour together.
Cymbals Eat Guitars frontman Joseph D’Agostino now has a new project called Empty Country, and he just announced that he’ll release his debut album on Tiny Engines in 2020. Ahead of that though, he just shared his debut two-song single, “Ultrasound” / “Jets.” “Ultrasound” features Charles Bissell of The Wrens,and also features Joe’s wife Rachel. When talking about the track “Ultrasound” Joe says, “My sister-in-law Robin was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer in the summer of 2015. She is now NED (No Evidence of Disease!) and has been for more than three years. But whenever my wife Rachel goes in for her biannual examination and has imaging done, we are always pretty on-edge, to say the least. This song is about a bleak and scary week in January 2018 while we were waiting on a biopsy report following a suspicious-looking ultrasound. It features two of my heroes: Rachel on the high harmony and Charles Bissell of The Wrens on the low harmony.”
As for “Jets” Dagostino says, “It’s about tripping acid on Block Island in the summer of 2018, and about the end of civilized society. FDT!”
Although he was born in the UK, the Furs' frontman Richard Butler considers himself a bona-fide New Yorker and often finds inspiration from the Big Apple. With the Midnight to Midnight album, he hoped to capture the "very urban, very nighttime" feeling of the city after dark. He told Winner magazine in 1986: "It's my interpretation of being in a place. There's a song called 'Heartbreak Beat,' and it's about that feeling when you walk through Washington Square Park and you've got all the boxes going and it sounds like this huge phase-shifter. New York has definitely affected the feel of the songs. I very much pick up on what's around me, steal things, phrases, the feeling of being out at night in New York."
"Falling Down the Stairs of Your Smile" is the first single from The New Pornographers' new album, In the Morse Code of Brake Lights, which will be out September 27
Yesterday Sault posted "Vinyl?" to their twitter with what looks to be an album sleeve for 5... twitter.com
Manu Chao, born José-Manuel Thomas Arthur Chao is a French musician of Spanish descent. He sings in French, Spanish, English, Italian, Arabic, Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, Greek and occasionally in other languages.
In May 2010 Thom Yorke advised his listeners to listen to "1977", on a list he created of his favorite bands and songs. Yorke introduced the song as one of his favorite ones of the summer.
Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló has announced that he will leave his office on Aug. 2. This brings an end to a political stand-off with tens of thousands of Puerto Rican protesters who demanded he leave after sexist, homophobic and offensive text messages that he exchanged with his inner circle were made public.
For almost two weeks, some of the largest demonstrations in the island's history clogged the capital's street and stood outside of the governor's residence expressing anger not only about this crisis, but pretty much over 100 years of a troubled relationship with the governments on the U.S. mainland. Some of those demonstrations were led by well-known Puerto Rican musicians.
Residente, iLe and Bad Bunny released "Afilando Los Chuchillos" reflecting the spirit of the social movement against Rosselló, fueling the people on the streets. "Afilando Los Chuchillos (Sharpening the Knives)" is a shard-edged takedown that falls squarely in the tradition of protest songs from Latin America, but with a twist. Read more: n.pr
Arrested Development lead vocalist Speech wrote this song. He told us: "The song is not based on a person named Mr. Wendal at all, but it is based on some experiences that I have had in Atlanta, which is where I live, and sung to the homeless people that I had become friends with here, and just their way of looking at it. Some of them were more like hobos where they purposely were wanting to be homeless, they didn't want to play to the way society was going, and they just decided to go off another beaten path. Others were hungry, had a run of bad luck, and just couldn't survive with the competition of the real world. So they were out there. One of the people that I look to the most as the real Mr. Wendal, to me, died the year that that song came out. So he never got to hear the song and the tribute to him. We gave half of the proceeds of that song to the National Coalition For the Homeless in the United States, because of how closely all of us felt to the cause of the homeless, and the fact that everybody, whether they're homeless or not, there's some times in all of our lives when we need some help, we need a boost."
If you’ve been missing Cymbals Eat Guitars, there is good news for you! Lead singer/songwriter, Joseph D’Agostino has a new project called Empty Country who are preparing to release their debut album next year on Tiny Engines. For now, they have a digital single called “Ultrasound.” Behind a wall-of-sound, the screamy vocals blend into the mix. D’Agostino said of the track, “My sister-in-law Robin was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer in the summer of 2015. She is now NED (No Evidence of Disease!) and has been for more than three years. But whenever my wife Rachel goes in for her biannual examination and has imaging done, we are always pretty on-edge, to say the least. This song is about a bleak and scary week in January 2018 while we were waiting on a biopsy report following a suspicious-looking ultrasound. It features two of my heroes: Rachel on the high harmony and Charles Bissell of The Wrens on the low harmony.”
Bossanova is 29 years old today! Pixies started recording material for Bossanova at Cherokee Studios in February 1990, where the sessions ran into problems. Norton said that nothing could be recorded after six P.M. because the recording desk would pick up pirate radio stations.
Wussy performed "Muscle Cars" live in the KEXP studio on February 19, 2016. bit.ly
Paolo Conte has a new double album coming out November 9th titled LIVE IN CARACALLA 50 Years Of Blue. It includes a new track, "Lavavetri"
Guitarist Mick Harvey told Uncut magazine the story of the song: "'Red Right Hand' is an odd one, 'cos it came out of a jam during some demo-recording in Melbourne. I think Nick, myself, and Thomas Wyndler (drums) were there. Nick was sick of always playing C minor or G minor. His fingers always would go to the same chords on the piano. It's a common problem. He said, 'Ah, play something in a key I don't know.' So I started playing that in B. I thought, 'He won't be able to find that, he won't be able to, you know, dictate.'
About two decades ago, Dead Can Dance’s Brendan Perry had one of the most transcendent experiences of his life. He and his brother traveled to Calanda, Spain where they picked up drums and joined in on some local festivities, Rompida de la Hora, that date back to the Inquisition. From 8 p.m. on Good Friday until 6 in the morning, they drummed without stopping, drinking wine and eating olives that people fed them. “You just get into a trance after a few hours of playing and you wander around the streets and you meet other drum groups and realize there’s thousands of them playing throughout these little towns, and they’re covered in blood,” he says. “Our hands split open. We didn’t feel anything. We were completely oblivious to the pain.”
To celebrate the announcement of The Talkies, their upcoming sophomore record (out September 27th via Rough Trade), Girl Band has shared a dread-filled new single titled ‘Shoulderblades' and paired it with a "nightmarishly choreographed video that will haunt your thoughts for the foreseeable future." Here it is: youtu.be
Watch an extraordinary live performance from Studio 9294 in Hackney Wick, London, during KEXP's International Clash Day broadcast in February, 2019.: www.youtube.com
Need more Husky Loops? They performed live on KEXP at the Halle de la Courrouze in Rennes, France, during Trans Musicales 2017. www.youtube.com
The lyrics of this song are a sarcastic parody of "the popstar posing that accompanied those [Live Aid style] charitable events" and mentions a range of things about which the band sarcastically claims 'we care a lot', such as the LAPD, the "food that Live Aid bought", the Garbage Pail Kids and even The Transformers. The original version, released in 1985, mentions Madonna and Mr. T. This was altered for social relevance in the 1987 re-release. When asked about the song's meaning, Chuck Mosley replied
Well, ah Roddy wrote all the things that he cared about and I just wrote the part that says, "it's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it" 'cause I figured that's just the feeling I got. That's the only thing I submitted. That, and the newer lyrics in the updated version.
Here is what Young Guv singer Ben Cook said about this song: "The track is a love letter written by my collaborator Aurora Shields, but dissolved into a song. As long as the patterns in the colours of a rainy summer sky mash together with a glowing streetlight continue to prevail in a bittersweet tangerine tone, so do the patterns in the musical notes of yearning and infatuation, of tenderness and chaos, rapture and combustion. Complimentary patterns of the night and day will always prevail. We are all experiencing sadness and happiness through love, and that’s the balance of it. That’s life, I suppose."
Istanbul (Not Constantinople) was covered by They Might Be Giants, but over 30 years before that, it peaked at #10 on the Billboard chart in 1953, sung by The Four Lads. Here's the original version: www.youtube.com
In a statement, DJ Shadow said “Rocket Fuel” is a solid indication of the “pretty exciting” new material he has coming down the line,
“It’s been awhile since my last album The Mountain Will Fall, and the corresponding tour…and since the tour ended, I’ve been mostly silent. This is because I’ve been focused and working on a ton of music. I usually try to avoid hyperbole, and I’m not super-comfortable hyping up my own stuff, but things are about to get pretty exciting. My heroes De La Soul were kind enough to join me on the debut single, “Rocket Fuel,” and the collab encapsulates so much of what I love about hip-hop…energy, beats, and fun.”
This album is regarded as Phife Dawg's breakout and is credited for helping launch rapper Busta Rhymes's successful solo career. The album's influence on artists in hip hop, R&B and other genres has been attributed to the group's lyricism and Q-Tip's production, which bridged the gap between jazz and hip hop.
Sampa the Great: "As an artist, I recognise my potential and recognise the growth it takes to get to the final form, but it’s easy to get caught up in the constant chatter around you (how you aren't there yet, you might not make it, time is nearly up). True gold takes time and final form is about moving past negativity that doesn’t understand the growth process. I now recognise my in-between stage; sometimes it drops and sometimes it rises. I love that I get to level up each second. I might even final form tomorrow."
The new album is named Bandanna and is out now. Anderson .Paak is just one of a few stellar features on Bandana—Pusha T and Killer Mike show up on “Palmolive,” while Yasiin Bey / Mos Def and Black Thought make appearances on “Education.”
Clinton admitted to being in an "enhanced" state when he recorded this, entering the studio "blind as a bat and out of my head." For most earthly beings, this would result in nothing more than cosmic slop, but Clinton was used to working under these conditions - he created much of his Funkadelic material on acid.
Snoop's solo debut! Now his crew includes Martha Stewart.