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Tuesday, Jun 11 2019, 6AM
Originally played by Hal Blaine, the drum intro was borrowed from "Be My Baby," a 1963 hit by The Ronettes.
The song's concept regarding the irresponsibility of today's baby boomer generation isn't purely abstract. Philippakis explained to The Independent:
"I'm getting to that age now where I'm thinking about being a father - not imminently - but I'm closer to the age at which my father made a decision to not be with his kids, and I'm like, well how am I going to respond to that responsibility? How am I going to behave?"
This was dropped from the set list of the Joshua Tree tour when they discovered during rehearsals that Bono could not hit the high notes consistently. As a result, it was not performed live until U2's 30th anniversary tour. Bono explained in an interview with BBC Radio 2:
"I used to write songs that I couldn't sing. And sometimes that was OK because the strains of the notes I couldn't reach was part of the drama, but occasionally they would really just wreck the next show," he said. "So I just left 'Red Hill Mining Town' off. But since then, I sing a bit better - or at least I've learned how to sing."
For Currency, the band has partnered with non-profit label Share It Music to do their part in fighting the growing homeless epidemic in Seattle.
The model is simple, Share It Music donates 25% of every release to a charity of the artist’s choice. The trio wisely chose Mary’s Place, a fantastic Seattle-based organization that provides safe, inclusive shelter and services for women, children and families on their journey out of homelessness. Read more: bit.ly
Wooden Shjips performed "These Shadows" live in the KEXP studio on November 3, 2013. See it here: bit.ly
"From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea" wasn't a single, but it's become a fan favorite over the years. The lyrics were likely inspired by Smith's wife Mary, who he's been with since he was fourteen. "And all I want is to keep it like this ," Smith sings. "You and me alone, a secret kiss/And don't go home, don't go away/Don't let this end, please stay."
CCFX performed live on The Morning Show in April 2018. They played The One to Wait, Venetian Screens, Ode, and 2Tru. See the full set here: bit.ly
The hook samples the line, "I've been downhearted baby, ever since the day we met" from a live performance of B.B. King singing "How Blue Can You Get?," which can be heard on his 1971 album Live in Cook County Jail.
TR/ST was live on KEXP on May 15th. Watch for that performance to be posted on the KEXP YouTube channel
Phantogram are playing the Capitol Hill Block Party on July 19th! Tickets & info: found.ee
DJ Cheryl Waters hosted Film School for an in-studio last November: bit.ly
After recording a 12" of "Sunshine Smile" ("I'll Be Your Saint" and "Breathless" on the B-side) that was pressed up to be released on record producer Pat Collier's 'Money To Burn' record label, the band received a positive review in the NME. However, the single was never released. They signed to Creation Records in 1992, and after a UK tour supporting Curve, they released their first single, a re-recording of "Sunshine Smile", in April of that year.
This was The Stone Roses first UK Top 40 hit, reaching #36 in July 1989. A reissue in March 1990 improved by 2 places.
Seattle’s Dude York will release new album Falling on July 26 via Hardly Art and it continues to find them putting influences into a blender. “We all have very different reference points for music and then when we swap them in it becomes something totally different,” says singer/guitarist Peter Richards.
Mal Blum are playing the Vera Gallery on August 22nd! Tickets & info: bit.ly
Frank Black (from Select, October 1997 on "Where Is My Mind?"): "That came from me snorkeling in the Caribbean and having this very small fish trying to chase me. I don't know why - I don't know too much about fish behavior."
On May 30, 1971, David Bowie's wife Angie gave birth to a young baby boy, who they nicknamed Zowie. Bowie was listening to a Neil Young record at home when he heard the news he'd become a father. Zowie's birth gave him the inspiration to write this song to his son in the style of early 1970s Neil Young.
Bass player Jared Followill explained how the band got the song's unique sound in State Magazine: "That was really quickly, off the cuff. We were sitting around the studio and as far as the bassline goes, I had a bassline that me and Nathan were working together on. But as we don't use a clicktrack, it was like a repeat pedal that we couldn't get down so we thought about not even doing it. Right before we started, I clicked on an octave pedal and started playing with, had some reverb on it. All the guys liked it and it's the thing that starts off the record which most people think is a keyboard. We came in and put a lot of reverb on everything, Matthew found out his pick-up on his guitar picked up his voice so a lot of those really atmospheric sounds, that's Matthew screaming into his guitar."
Stef Chura will be at Barboza on Wednesday, July 31st! Tickets & info: www.thebarboza.com
Tunde Adebimpe and David Andrew Sitek were the only TV on the Radio members to play on this track, with guest appearances from Nick Zinner of Yeah Yeah Yeahs on guitar and Katrina Ford of Celebration on backing vocals.
According to Fat White Family's Lias Saoudi, "I Believe In Something Better is about Ted Kaczynski as if he were some modern day green environmentalist. "
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.”
Beyoncé explained to Billboard magazine that she felt a powerful connection to this song. "It's definitely riskier than something a bit more... simple. I just heard the track and loved that it was so different: it felt a bit African, a bit electronic and futuristic," Beyoncé said. "It reminded me of what I love, which is mixing different cultures and eras - things that typically don't go together - to create a new sound. I can never be safe; I always try and go against the grain. As soon as I accomplish one thing, I just set a higher goal. That's how I've gotten to where I am."
"Ain't Got No/I Got Life" is a 1968 single by American singer-songwriter Nina Simone, from her album 'Nuff Said. It is a medley of two songs, "Ain't Got No" and "I Got Life", from the musical Hair
Lizzo is performing at the Capitol Hill Block Party on Saturday, July 20th! www.capitolhillblockparty.com
Sampa Tembo was born in Zambia and raised in Botswana. She was based in Sydney from 2014 to 2018, originally coming to Australia to pursue a degree in audio production. As of 2018, she is based in Melbourne. Before going to Australia, she studied in San Francisco for two years and Los Angeles for a year.
Wu-Tang Clan are at the WaMu Theater on Friday June 21st. If you don't win tickets you can find them here: www.showboxpresents.com
Fugazi’s anti-rape anthem “Suggestion” gets diced into MacKaye’s live-wire guitar flicker and Canty’s echoey snare bang as backup for Inspectah Deck’s “R.E.C. Room.” This is the way they crash the party.
A couple in-studio performances from Future Islands... 2017: www.youtube.com and 2014: www.youtube.com
In an interview with Mike Score, the Flock frontman revealed the meaning behind this song. "'Space Age' was just about intimacy, if you'd like. When you meet somebody there is an instant eye contact if the chemistry is right. If everything is right, you catch their eye... that whole 'across the crowded room/caught your eye' thing. The lyrics explain that: 'I saw your eyes and you made me smile.'"
Hatchie is back in Seattle for a show at Barboza on September 28th! In the meantime check out last September's in-studio: bit.ly
This song was originally recorded during the sessions for Peal Jam's debut album Ten, featuring the band's original drummer Dave Krusen. That version is included as a bonus track on 2009's re-issue of Ten. Pearl Jam bassist and co-founder Jeff Ament told Billboard magazine that he feels the original that Dave Krusen played on is "vastly superior to the one that's on Singles." He added: "I don't think I fully appreciated what Krusen brought to the band at that point. He really plays that song in the spirit it was written in. It's has a much trashier, Crazy Horse feel to it. It's awesome."
From vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter Jay Beach:
“’Workin” was a poem written while having a nervous breakdown in a 3rd floor walk up in Brooklyn, NY. My inward turmoil became the outward predicament of all of us workin’ stiffs. The ground actually did turn over and the floorboards were shifted. It must have been a manifestation of something going on inside my brain, and all the visions were coming at me in stop motion waves. The band played this track in one take and it was so good that we had to keep it and adjust the vocals slightly to fit the contours, which is how the chorus came about. The chorus being more or less the macro view of what was going in inside of my micro consciousness. From the personal out into the universal, but only because of that great guitar line!”
Ought performing "Beautiful Blue Sky" live in the KEXP studio on October 15, 2015: bit.ly
On May 26th Lo! Peninsula posted on their Facebook page "Keep your eyes and ears peeled. New music will make its way soon."
See Snapped Ankles full performance from Studio 9294 in Hackney Wick, London, during KEXP's International Clash Day broadcast February 5th here: bit.ly
This song, which is about walking the streets on nights when it's too hot to sleep, was originally known as "Bearhug."
Radiohead has officially released 18 hours of demos and outtakes recorded between 1995 and 1998 during the band's OK Computer sessions, after the tapes were reportedly stolen and leaked online. In a statement on the group's website, guitarist Jonny Greenwood says "We got hacked last week – someone stole Thom [Yorke's] minidisk archive from around the time of OK Computer and reportedly demanded $150,000 on threat of releasing it. So instead of complaining – much – or ignoring it, we're releasing all 18 hours on Bandcamp in aid of Extinction Rebellion." Stream it here: n.pr
The 18 tracks of raw audio are identified only by numbers "MD111" through "MD128," so discovering what songs are actually on the discs will be an Easter egg hunt, though some fans have been cataloging it on a shared Google doc. Here's that doc: bit.ly
Here's the in-studio version of Rylan that The National performed in November 2017: bit.ly
Nick Cave explained the inspiration for this song and how he's updated the Biblical story of Lazarus: "Ever since I can remember hearing the Lazarus story, when I was a kid, you know, back in church, I was disturbed and worried by it. Traumatized, actually. We are all, of course, in awe of the greatest of Christ's miracles - raising a man from the dead - but I couldn't help but wonder how Lazarus felt about it. As a child it gave me the creeps, to be honest. I've taken Lazarus and stuck him in New York City, in order to give the song, a hip, contemporary feel. I was also thinking about Harry Houdini, who spent a lot of his life trying to debunk the spiritualists who were cashing in on the bereaved. He believed there was nothing going on beyond the grave. He was the second greatest escapologist, Harry was, Lazarus, of course, being the greatest. I wanted to create a kind of vehicle, a medium, for Houdini to speak to us if he so desires, you know, from beyond the grave." He added: "It is, most of all, an elegy to the New York City of the 70's."
Fontaines D.C. were just here but they're coming back soon! They'll be at the Thing Festival in Pt. Townsend on August 25th. bit.ly
WU-TANG at WaMu on June 21st! We're giving away tickets all day long!
Maybe this will be one of the songs we include on KEXP's Longest Song Day, Friday June 21st. We won't play anything shorter than six minutes and thirty-one seconds (the length of Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone").