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Wednesday, Jul 10 2019, 6AM
Songwriter Roland Orzabal, then 19 years old, wrote the song on an acoustic guitar after hearing Duran Duran's "Girls On Film." He explained: "I just thought: 'I'm going to have a crack at something like that.' I did and ended up with 'Mad World.' It sounded pretty awful on guitar, though, with just me singing. However, we were fortunate enough to be given an opportunity by a guy called Ian Stanley to go to his very big house and muck about on his synthesizer. Ian became our keyboard player and he had a drum machine, too. All we needed was someone who knew how to work it. Eventually, we made the first demo of 'Mad World' still with me singing. But I didn't like it. So I said to Curt (Smith): 'Look, you sing it.' And suddenly it sounded fabulous."
In 1988, Kim Deal of the Pixies became friends with Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses when their respective bands undertook a joint tour of Europe. Deal and Donelly spent time together playing guitar, drinking beer and sharing musical ideas. They often went clubbing together in the bands' hometown of Boston. While attending a Sugarcubes concert, the two drunkenly decided to write and record dance songs. Thus, Breeders.
Stef will be at Barboza on Wednesday, July 31st.
“For most people who create art I would assume there is some kind of deep unanswerable hole in your soul as to why you're making it…” So says Stef Chura ahead of the release of Midnight, her gritty, vehement new album - recorded and produced by Will Toledo of Car Seat Headrest -and her first new collection of songs for the Saddle Creek label.
Remember that time when Lord Horn did this song here at KEXP? That...was...AWESOME. www.youtube.com
Kishi Bashi will be at Showbox SoDo on Sun, Oct 6th and if they bring their instruments, well, that will make it quite a night. Otherwise it's just hangin' and drinkin'.
Regarding the lyrics: "...Sir Thomas Moore we've got another failed attempt cause if it makes them money they might just give you life this time,"
Thomas Moore was an Italian humanist during the renaissance who said that we were born greedy and that if our parents devalued gold and wealth then we would be less selfish and greedy.
In the November 2003 issue of Blender magazine, Robert Smith said: "The song is about hyperventilating - kissing and fainting to the floor. (His girlfriend, soon to be wife) Mary (Poole) dances with me in the video because she was the girl, so it had to be her. The idea is that one night like that is worth 1,000 hours of drudgery."
vimeo.com
The band will be at Marymoor Park~
on Thursday, AUG 29, which is pretty exciting...but it's sold out. Wah wah.
With his roots in Assam, northeast India, and his hustle now based in Brooklyn, the psychedelic soul-savant known as jitwam dropped his second album on the Copenhagen-based label Tartelet Records in May 2019. To mark its release, a music video to the album’s opener “busstop” was shot in the exhilarating city of Mumbai across three days.
HONEYCOMB hits the sweet spot between jitwam’s work in dance music and efforts as a bandleader, connecting people in-studio and on-stage. The record encapsulates his diverse upbringing in India and Australia, before living in monasteries in Thailand, orphanages in South Africa, and finally the US, where he currently resides.
"Jungle Love" was initially written by Jesse Johnson, with later contributions by Morris Day. Prince, under the pseudonym Jamie Starr, wrote the lyrics and came up with the melody.
White funk became prominent in London during the early 1980s with bands like The Jam, Spandau Ballet, and Haircut One Hundred. "Overpowered by Funk" was originally recorded at Ear Studios (also known as The People's Hall of Frestonia) in London in September 1981 by the four members of the band jointly with the rest of Combat Rock, using a mobile recording studio taken on loan from The Rolling Stones. This Clash tune features rapping vocals by graffiti artist Futura 2000.
Aldous Harding will be back in Seattle this fall, playing two nights at the Tractor Tavern - October 15th & 16th!
7:49 AM
17th spin
Julien Baker said about this song and event on twitter: "Last year I was given the opportunity to cover a song by one of my favorite artists, @FRabbits, celebrating a decade of their record Midnight Organ Fight. Their music has moved me, comforted me, and inspired me; and it is an immense honor to be a part of this."
Japanese Breakfast shared this cover of Tears for Fears’ 1985 classic “Head Over Heels” to benefit the ACLU.
Japanese Breakfast will play THING Festival on Saturday, August 24th & Sunday, August 25th! Info here: thingnw.org
KEXP just announced INTERNATIONAL Mixtape Week this August 26-30. Check out kexp.org/mixtape to find out more information and enter your submissions to win a trip to Seattle!
Nearly six years after his debut production album, his second album, The Private Press, was released in June 2002. In the same year, the movie Scratch (2001, Doug Pray) was released to DVD with DJ Shadow appearing several times throughout the movie
"It’s easy to get caught up in the constant chatter around you about how ‘you are not there yet’, how you ‘might not make it’” Sampa says. “Final Form is about expanding yourself and calling out any negativity towards that growth process. As an artist I now recognise my in-between stage; sometimes it drops and sometimes it rises, but I love that I get to level up each second. I might even final form tomorrow."
Love's debut album, Down To Earth, was released on November 6, 1990. It spawned the singles "Monie in the Middle" (a track dealing with a woman's right to determine what she wants out of a relationship) and "It's a Shame (My Sister)" (which sampled the (Detroit) Spinners' "It's a Shame", written for the band by Stevie Wonder) and featured house-music vocalist and then-labelmate Ultra Naté.
Happy birthday, Mavis!
You can see Mavis Staples for free on August 17th at Marymoor Park as part of the CHOMP! festival. More info here: www.chomplocal.org
Read about (and, then, see) "this beautiful nightmare": theundefeated.com
Check out the music video for "More" directed by Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop). www.youtube.com
In a 2016 interview with The Guardian, Iggy Pop spoke about how "The Passenger" was partly inspired by travelling with David Bowie on tour, "...I’d been riding around North America and Europe in David’s car ad infinitum. I didn’t have a driver’s licence or a vehicle." bit.ly
Speaking about ‘Wednesday’s Child’, the frontman James Cox has said: “This is one of the songs that got me into a really strange head space to write. When writing; I quite often go heavily into research worm-holes - going really deep into subjects I’m curious about until it’s so uncomfortable I’ll have to shelve it for a while."
Chapel Hill band that came into fruition in 1991. 'Icky Mettle' is the debut full-length from the band, composed of singer/guitarist Eric Bachmann, guitarist Eric Johnson, bassist Matt Gentling, and drummer Mark Price.
The full album will be released August 16. Sleater-Kinney will be playing at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle on November 23. Unfortunately, drummer Janet Weiss won't be playing with them any longer.
The terrific Beth Ditto says, "We're here. We're queer. We're weird." Watch the video for "We Could Run" from the former Gossip lead singer's fine new album, "Fake Sugar": www.youtube.com
From New Orleans, Preservation Hall Jazz Band will be at Benaroya Hall November 18! www.preservationhalljazzband.com
Here's their KEXP live performance: www.youtube.com
Enjoy the video for this Joy Division cover: www.youtube.com And, when you're in NOLA, visit the Howling Wolf to perhaps hear this fine band: www.hot8brassband.com
"One of the great things about group writing is how many different textures we can bring to a single song. In ‘Unqualified,’ you get a hard-charging horn melody for a lot of the tune, then this unexpectedly sparse, rhythm-driven bridge, before Eric’s organ solo takes back over. It’s definitely a fun one for us.” bit.ly
This was John Maus' first release after a six year hiatus. Two years were devoted to finishing his dissertation, while another two were spent learning how to build modular synthesizers. His 338-page thesis "Communication and Control", which discussed the influence of technology on control societies, was completed and submitted in 2014, and he was thereby awarded his PhD in political science from the University of Hawaii.
Chromatics have shared their new cover of Hole’s 1998 track “Petals.” Read more about it here: bit.ly
Lyrics Born relocated to the United States from his birthplace of Toyko, Japan right around the time Hip Hop was exploding on the East Coast.
From the moment he heard Sugar Hill Gang’s 1980 classic “Rapper’s Delight,” the Bay Area Hip Hop luminary knew he’d found his calling.
Twenty-five years later, LB has obliterated the stereotypes of what an MC is “supposed to” look like and captured the hearts of countless fans who gravitate to his distinctive voice. He’s now the only Asian-American MC to release 10 studios albums and the first to play major music festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza.
'Border Country' is the second collaboration with Londoner and DRIFT community member Ø [Phase]. Lithe and restless, it edges and darts through unmapped spaces into a place where grimy nocturnal electronics are driven hard by fizzing hi-hats and multiple voices rebound in from the peripheries. Listen here: bit.ly
We were honored to have our Odesza pals perform live on KEXP. www.youtube.com
Thom Yorke will be in town on Sunday, October 20th at The Paramount Theatre.