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Friday, Mar 23 2018, 6AM
"what started as a whisper
slowly turned into a scream..." Here are the lyrics to this fine song: www.benharper.com
"Junip’s videos are always delicious spine-tingling, dark creations that take on a life of their own. Their video for “Line of Fire” directed by Swedish filmmaker Mikel Cee Karlsson honors the tradition. Visually unnerving, it fits perfectly into the grooves of Junip’s music, itself also hypnotically unsettling, yet delicately beautiful.": www.youtube.com
"Turn! Turn! Turn!" is a song written by Pete Seeger in the late 1950s; it became an international hit in late 1965 when it was adapted by the American folk rock group the Byrds.The lyrics are taken almost verbatim from the book of Ecclesiastes, as found in the King James Version (1611) of the Bible (Ecc. 3:1-8).
Listen to how good they sound during a live performance in the KEXP studio in 2016: www.youtube.com
These guys are touring world-wide this spring, first in Australia, back to the the good ol' USA, then to Russia and Europe:www.facebook.com
Speaking of Europe, this Dublin band will be here in the KEXP studio, Monday, May 14th, 2018 at 9:30 a.m.: www.stereogum.com
"If Time Was On My Side," is off of a new, self-titled EP from the London/Berlin connection that’s coming out in April. Read more about this "piece of manic beauty": nbhap.com
We've been waiting for this Olympia band to get into the studio. They'll be here on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2018 at 9:30 a.m. That performance is open to the public. Purchase the band's excellent EP at their Bandcamp page: ccfx.bandcamp.com
This is probably the most popular song featuring a marimba as a lead instrument. The "Forever Now" album was produced by Todd Rundgren and recorded at his studio, Utopia Sound. It was his idea to use the marimba on this track, and he played it. The demo of the song had a different instrument for those sections, but Rundgren had a marimba in the studio and thought it would be worth a shot. "It turned out that the little musical theme just sounded perfect with the marimbas, and became a signature element of the song," he said in an interview. "So it just was a question of availability. It's not like I had to go rent some marimbas. I happened to have them."
"Dive" is the second single from Beach House's album, "7," due out this spring.: pitchfork.com They are touring and t will be Portland's Keller Auditorium on Friday, August 10th, 2018.
UK artpop group Ladytron have released “The Animals,” their first new music since 2011’s "Gravity The Seducer." A dark, synth-driven track, the song’s lyrics describe the animalistic, base nature of humanity: “There is no law / There is no god.": www.spin.com
Charles Watson of Slow Club will be releasing his debut solo album, "Now That I'm a River," on May 18th, 2018.: www.facebook.com
You can watch this Sydney band perform in the official video for "Is This How You Feel?": www.youtube.com
Read John Richards' interview with Sarah Barthel about the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention as part of KEXP's Music Heals program: blog.kexp.org
Ahhh......the Friday song. Thanks to all who donated during KEXP's spring fundraising drive last week. You'll listen to the music differently, I promise. It's not too late to donate.: donate.kexp.org
"Sooner or later, your legs give way...you hit the ground...": www.youtube.com
Happy 50th birthday, Barb. Like many of Springsteen's early songs, these lyrics hint at a perspective beyond his years: "So you're scared and you're thinking maybe we ain't that young anymore." "The songs were written immediately after the Vietnam War, and you forget everybody felt like that then," Springsteen says. "There's quite a sense of dread and uncertainty about the future and who you were, where you were going, where the whole country was going, so that found its way into the record.": www.rollingstone.com
Paul Westerberg wrote: ''Left of the Dial'' [from Tim] is the story of this girl, a guitar player, Lynn Blakey, who toured with Mitch Easter's Let's Active. We got to be friends. She wanted me to write her a letter, but I never write letters. I figured the only way I'd hear her voice was with her band on the radio, left of the dial on a college station. And one night we did. We were passing through a town somewhere, and she was doing an interview on the radio, left of the dial. I heard her voice for the first time in six months for about a minute. Then the station faded out."
Wax Idols will perform at Barboza on Thursday, June 7th, 2018, in support of their album "Happy Ending.": waxidols.bandcamp.com
We had a huge crowd in the old KEXP studio when the 23 (?) person Seattle Rock Orchestra covered Arcade Fire tunes: www.youtube.com
"All you studs and you duds and you ladies, let's fly..." Are you sure you know all the lyrics to "Go!"?: genius.com
It's hard to believe that this is more than 30 years old.:thequietus.com
The band formed in 1993 after Japanese art students Kazu Makino and Maki Takahashi randomly met Italian twin brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace at an Italian restaurant in New York. (The name was taken from a song by the '80s band DNA.) Learn more about this eclectic New York City band: www.allmusic.com
Enjoy a "fangasm" about Sterolab's "Mars Audiac Quintet": drownedinsound.com
Mr. Byrne will be at Seattle's Paramount Theatre on Thursday, May 24th, 2018 as part of the "American Utopia" tour.
OMG...er...D!! They'll be at The Showbox tomorrow night, Saturday, March 24th, 2018.
Watch these three Swedish rockers playing live in the kEXP studio in 2016: blog.kexp.org
Neil Diamond, who recently announced his retirement from touring due to Parkinson's Disease, will receive the Johnny Mercer Award at this year's Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards dinner.:people.com
You don't want to miss the machete and the baseball bat in the video for "This Year": www.youtube.com
The band's name is an acronym for F**k It Dog, Life's a Risk, a skate mantra gleaned from singer Zac Carper's former roommates. Originally, Fidlar went under the name 'F**k The Clock', as referenced in their song 'Cheap Beer'.
The Guardian calls "Don't Change" INXS' "first undeniable classic": www.theguardian.com
This article, with an excerpt from bassist Will Carruthers' memoir, is entitled "'Spacemen 3: 'A monkey could play one note. But could a stoned monkey?'": www.theguardian.com
The Stills were a Canadian rock band from Montreal, Quebec, formed in 2000 and disbanded in 2011.:www.youtube.com
Kevin Cole welcomed fellow Minnesotan Bob Mould into the KEXP studio for this special live performance: blog.kexp.org
Today (Yes, today.) is the birthday of Chaka Khan, born Yvette Marie Stevens, on this date in 1953. Her biggest hit,"I Feel for You," is a song written by Prince that originally appeared on his 1979 self-titled album.
Here's Prince (and significant others) honoring Chaka Khan at the BET awards several years ago: www.bet.com
"Do you wanna make love or what?" No, I want to dance: www.youtube.com
This song was a musical tour de force by the Motown genius, who was just turning 23 as he put the song together in double-quick time, playing every instrument on the final recording. He perfected the distinctive wah-wah groove of the song with a Mu-tron III pedal, further underpinned with a Moog bassline.: www.udiscovermusic.com
This song is about cocaine, urging listeners not to do it while making the case that drug laws in the US are racist and unjust, since poor black kids tend to get much harsher penalties for drug offenses than white businessmen. It was the first hit rap song about drugs.
Unfortunately, the group didn't heed their own advice and some members developed severe drug problems. Cowboy, who was a rapper in Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, died of complications from AIDS in 1990 after developing a crack addiction. Flash revealed in his autobiography that he heard the song while on his way to buy crack, stating that he felt like Melle Mel (the rapper on the song), was speaking to him personally.
You know, don't you, that you're hearing a shawm in this song? The shawm (/ʃɔːm/) is a conical bore, double-reed woodwind instrument made in Europe from the 12th century to the present day. It achieved its peak of popularity during the medieval and Renaissance periods, after which it was gradually eclipsed by the oboe family of descendant instruments in classical music.
Singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein remember how the band overcame the disco haters – including their own drummer – to transform one of their earliest songs into a worldwide hit:www.theguardian.com
Here's the official video for "Everything Now": www.youtube.com
Neil Tennant said, "We arrived in the studio and Bobby Orlando had programmed Michael Jackson's Billie Jean drum pattern. Chris Lowe started to play along and I started playing chords. In terms of the lyrics, the inspiration for West End Girls came from The Message by Grandmaster Flash. I remember once staying at my cousin's house in Nottingham and we were watching some kind of gangster film with James Cagney, and just as I was dropping off to sleep, the lines 'sometimes you're better off dead, there's a gun in your hand and it's pointing to your head' came into my head and I thought 'that's quite good' so I went off to find a pen."
Here's an interview with Nick Laird-Clowes of The Dream Academy: www.rhino.com
The Waterboys performed this great song live in Tel Aviv in 1986: www.youtube.com
The track starts out with the soft sound of a wind chime. I think this works as a separation from whatever you were listening to or doing before, allowing you to change your state of mind. The second you start to be intrigued, the booming synths crash in. It’s just so beautiful in its simplicity. The synths go on, playing both the bass line and the melody with some faraway drums, and are soon joined by a guitar line that echoes the synth melody. Robert Smith only starts singing 2 minutes and 37 seconds into the song: almost half way through. And his voice is softer than usual. It’s clear he wants to music to dominate this track, and it works.: neverletmedown.wordpress.com
Do you think it's a coincidence that Ric Ocasek and Chaka Khan have the same birthday? He was born on this date in 1949.
Sub Pop #108. As part of the famed Sub Pop Singles Club, in April of 1991 Shonen Knife was kind enough to share Neon Zebra on side A and Bear Up Bison (live)