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Monday, Jul 8 2019, 6AM
Good morning and happy Monday. The National will perform at Marymoor Park in Redmond, Washington on Thursday, August 29th, 2019. "I Am Easy To Find" features a number of extraordinary female vocalists: pitchfork.com
Some of the lyrics were inspired by a conversation Thom Yorke had with R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe where Stipe suggested he deal with his issues by pulling the shutters down and saying, "I'm not here, this is not happening." Here are the lyrics: genius.com
Watch a very thin Richard Ashcroft and his mates playing this song live in Glastonbury in 1993: www.youtube.com
The title comes from Jewish poet Paul Celan, who wrote: "Poetry is a sort of homecoming." Celan drowned himself in the Seine river in 1970. Learn more about this German-speaking Holocaust survivor: www.poetryfoundation.org
6:20 AM
17th spin
This month, Frightened Rabbit will release Tiny Changes: A Celebration Of The Midnight Organ Fight, a reimagining of their 2008 album, recorded last year by friends of the band to celebrate its 10th anniversary. This single by Julien Baker is part of that album. Scott Hutchison, who died last year, played a big role in piecing together the compilation. “This is a celebration of a record that connected thousands of people to Scott and connected thousands of people to each other and ten years on is still managing to do it,” the band wrote in the album announcement. A portion of the proceeds from album sales will benefit Tiny Changes, the mental health charity launched in Hutchison’s honor.
"It’s combination of Baker’s weary voice and Frightened Rabbit’s strum-and-stomp sound that makes this one particularly effective. The contrast between the two is like stepping out of a dark movie theater, and adjusting your eyes to the sunlight of the world outside." Read a review of this wonderfully sad song: pitchfork.com
Watch a 2018 live performance for KEXP listeners by boygenius (Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus): www.youtube.com
In this video interview, Tori Amos discusses the story behind "Cornflake Girl": www.youtube.com
Sinead O'Connor was 20 years old and seven months pregnant when she made this debut album. Read the lyrics in this video and marvel at the passion and power in her voice: www.youtube.com
Haelos were live in the KEXP studio for a great session in March of this year: www.youtube.com
The rhythm track is based on the bells found in the 1975 song "Take Me To The Mardi Gras" by Bob James, a jazz composer known for combining elements of dance, funk and pop. Another song that is sampled on this track is Run-D.M.C.'s "Peter Piper."
The male vocal is a sample of John McLaughlin from his 1975 song "Planetary Citizen." McLaughlin is a fusion guitarist who led the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Watch vocalist Shara Nelson walk through an L.A. neighborhood in the video: www.youtube.com
This song was a big hit for Martika. Here, she explains how Prince crafted the song: prince.org
Michael Kiwanuka and Tom Misch have shared a fun new video for their recent disco-pop collaboration, ‘Money’. In the Louis Bhose-directed video, Kiwanuka plays a supermarket worker who is shortly revealed to be an undercover millionaire. He and Misch dance through the store, doling out piles of cash before the shot switches to one of the two musicians dancing around luxury cars.: /www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJjn03K0JsQ
Mavis Staples (and Caspar Babypants and The Black Tones) will perform at King County's free CHOMP! Festival at Marymoor Park on Saturday, August 17th, 2019.: www.chomplocal.org
The great Aretha Franklin sang this song live during the 25th anniversary concert for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2009.: www.youtube.com
Here's the live version from the KEXP studio in 2011: www.youtube.com
Star Slinger is the stage name of Darren Williams, a British hip hop, house and electronic DJ and producer, hailing from Manchester, UK. He says, "the words spoken in 'Choose Yourself' are from the James Altucher book 'Choose Yourself,' sage practical advise from a guy who had it all and lost it all. He got back up & repeated that cycle several times and eventually found peace in the middle."
Lily was an inexperienced songwriter when she sat down with pop hitmakers Iyiola Babalola and Darren Lewis to write this. She explained in Daniel Rachel's "The Art of Noise: Conversations with Great Songwriters": "I remember writing the verse and the chorus and then them going, 'OK, we just need a middle eight,' and I was like, 'I don't know what that is.' So I had to run out of the studio and call my manager. I was so embarrassed."
After her manager explained the middle eight was "that piddly bit in the middle that's not the verse and not the chorus but kind of links the two," she came up with a series of la, la, la's to fill the space.
Youryoungbody will play the Holocene in Portland on Thursday, September 5th, 2019. Purchase their album "Devotion" at their Bandcamp page: youryoungbody.bandcamp.com
See a live KEXP in-studio performance that included "Higher Ground": www.youtube.com
Happy birthday, Andrew "Fletch" Fletcher, keyboard player and bassist for Depeche Mode, born on this date in 1961 (That makes him...er...58 years old, John.): www.facebook.com
Hatchie will be in Seattle, playing Barboza on Saturday, September 28th, 2019. Under the Radar featured "Keepsake" by Hatchie (Australian Harriette Pilbeam) as their album of the week: www.undertheradarmag.com
There are lots of trees (Surprise!) in the official video for this classic song: www.youtube.com
No, you're not "fever dreaming." They will actually be at the WaMu Theater on Thursday, September 26th, 2019.
Speaking of artists who are coming to town, Alex Lahey will be here for the Bumbershoot Festival, Friday, August 30th- Sunday, September 1st, 2019.: bumbershoot.com
R.I.P., Joao Gilberto, architect of Bossa Nova, who died on Saturday at the age of 88. Here's a New York Times obituary: www.nytimes.com
Here's an English translation of "Most Beautiful Thing": www.letras.mus.br
You can listen to 15 versions of this classic song: www.billboard.com
Dave Brubeck (1920-2012), designated a “Living Legend" during his lifetime by the Library of Congress, was one of the most active and popular musicians in both the jazz and classical worlds. With a career that spanned over six decades, his experiments in odd time signatures, improvised counterpoint, polyrhythm and polytonality remain hallmarks of innovation.: davebrubeck.com
With a name that means "new wave" in English and "bossa nova" in Portuguese, Nouvelle Vague's moniker neatly sums up the group's concept: remaking classic new wave singles with a Brazilian pop twist: www.allmusic.com This is, of course, a Clash cover.
Brazilian musician Jorge Mário da Silva, more commonly known by his stage name Seu Jorge, was live in the KEXP studio for a session that include the song, "Life on Mars" (Wouldn't that be a good name for a bar?): www.youtube.com
Bowie played the sax on this track, and his guitarist, Mick Ronson, arranged the strings. Rick Wakeman, who would later became a member of the prog rock band, Yes, played the piano parts at the beginning and end. Bowie gave Wakeman a lot of freedom, telling him to play the song like it was a piano piece. The piano Wakeman played was the famous 100-year old Bechstein at Trident Studios in London, where the album was recorded; the same piano used by Elton John, The Beatles and Genesis.
Thanks, Dan, for this request. We've moved up to the roof so we can blast it! This song premiered on The Morning Show in April. Hear it again and read n interview with Berlin-based duo Lea Porcelain: www.kexp.org
John Richards welcomed Quivers to the KEXP studio for a great live session in March: www.kexp.org
The lead vocal on the chorus contains just one word: "Fire," which Michael Stipe draws out into a long wail. In the background, you can hear bass player Mike Mills singing, "She's comin' down on her own, now."
The Lumineers will be here in Seattle for this year's Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival. They'll be playing on Saturday, August 31st, 2019.: bumbershoot.com
This was one of the first songs that David Byrne ever wrote; it convinced him that he could write more. He told Mojo: "Chris [Frantz] and Tina ]Weymouth] helped me with some of the French stuff. I realized, 'That holds up. That's a song.' I may have been inspired by other things when I was writing it, but I hadn't heard anything quite like it before. I was also writing completely from the character's point of view. We played it. People liked it. I thought, 'Oh, I can do more.'"
Stef Chura will play Barboza on Wednesday, July 31st, 2019.: www.thebarboza.com “Sweet Sweet Midnight,” which is something of a duet between Chura and the album’s producer Will Toledo (Car Seat Headrest), is a song that directly explores the unexpected death of a close friend. Learn more here: www.stereogum.com
Spoon will be out at the Gorge (with Beck and Cage the Elephant) this Saturday, July 13th, 2019.
Sting wrote the lyrics while he was in his previous band, Last Exit, then "grafted them shamelessly onto the chords from Bob Marley's 'No Woman No Cry,'" he explained in Lyrics By Sting. "This kind of musical juxtaposition - the lilting rhythm of the verses separated by monolithic slabs of straight rock and roll - pleased the hell out of me. That we could achieve it effortlessly just added to the irony of a song about misery being sung so joyously."
Happy birthday, Beck David Campbell, born on JUly 8th, 1970. Learn some of the history of this "birthday boy": www.liveabout.com
Pixies' new album, "Beneath the Eyrie," will be out on September 13th. You can pre-order it here: www.pixiesmusic.com
Skating Polly will be at Marymoor Park in Redmond, Washington on Saturday, August 10th, 2019.
This is the anniversary of this album's release. The Go-Go's released their debut album, "Beauty and the Beat." on this date in 1981. It went on to peak at #1 on the US charts are remained there for six consecutive weeks.
On 'LEGACY! LEGACY!,' Woods celebrates 12 of her heroes, along with the cultural lineage they have created for her. This song is a nod to Betty Davis, the pioneering funk musician who was also briefly married to Miles Davis in the late ’60s. In this interview, Jamila Woods discusses each of the songs on the album: pitchfork.com
Another anniversary! Ministry released the album "Twitch" on July 8th, 1986.
Underworld describe “Listen To Their No” as “just over five and a half minutes of superlative sunset techno; a lucid dream built around an insistent analogue riff and a rush of pure positivity.": www.stereogum.com
"Years of room, yearn to moon, you were right..." You may have wondered what Robert Alfons is singing here: genius.com
Here's the official video: www.youtube.com
Drab Majesty is the solo project of Deb DeMure, the androgynous alter-ego of L.A.-based musician Andrew Clinco. See DeMure at Neumos on Monday, August 26th, 2019.: www.ticketfly.com
The New Yorker calls Thom Yorke's recent "ANIMA" his "best solo album": www.newyorker.com
Is Tom Vek skating in a velodrome in the video for "Nothing But Green Lights"?: www.youtube.com
