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Friday, Mar 9 2018, 6AM
Good morning, everyone....and a very happy Friday. U2 released the "brash and high-minded" "The Joshua Tree" on this date in 1987. Read The New York Time's enthusiastic review of the band's 30th anniversary album tour in Seattle last year: www.nytimes.com
Ohhh! The National's live performance in the KEXP studio last November was exceptional: www.youtube.com
There's some discussion about how close The Verve's "The Rolling People" is to Funkadelic's "I Got a Thing.": www.thevervelive.com
The jury is no longer out. Kiss’ Gene Simmons says, ‘Thom Yorke has one of the greatest voices.": www.nme.com
"I build my canopy of steel...
It fulfills my sense of real...
A chrome protection..." Here are the lyrics to this haunted song: songmeanings.com
Lord Huron will perform at Seattle's Moore Theatre on Thursday, June 7th, and Friday, June 8th, 2018.
Do you know what a "xylimba" is? You'll find out in this article about the making of "Uncertain Smile": stereosociety.com
Django Django will perform songs from "Marble Skies" at Neumos on Monday, April 23rd, 2018.: www.neumos.com
"Diamond days cut and dry..." Didn't that Django Django song make you think of Love And Rockets?: www.youtube.com
In this interview, Franz Ferdinand breaks down their new album, "Always Ascending": www.rollingstone.com
You can order "Liberty Belle" on 7' vinyl right here: fontainesband.com
According to the book "Bowie: An illustrated Record" by Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray, this song heralds "the impending obsolescence of the human race in favor of an alliance between arriving aliens and the youth of the present society." Oh, and happy youthful birthday, Quinn.
The Decemberists will be at The Paramount Theatre on Thursday, June 21st, 2018. "I'll Be Your Girl," the band's eighth album will be released next Friday, March 16th, 2018.
"Wow!" is an exclamation of wonder, often tinged with other emotions such as sorrow, excitement, admiration or pleasure. The word is of Scottish origin and has been around since the 16th century. Other artists that have recorded songs titled "Wow" include Kate Bush, Kylie Minogue, The Stylistics and Prince. For you "grammarphiles," here's the amazing history of "Wow": www.grammarphobia.com
Speaking of "wow" (as we were), did you know that you can visit TV On The Radio's website (and maybe purchase some merch)?: www.tvontheradio.com
Speaking of U2 (as we were),here's "Trip Through Your Wires." (At Last!!). Bono played the harmonica on this track, an instrument he first started playing when the band was just starting out and attempting to cover the Neil Young song, "Heart Of Gold."
This is the opening track of The Decemberists' new album. The second edition of The Decemberists' Travelers' Rest festival is coming back on Aug. 4-5 in singer Colin Meloy's hometown of Missoula, Montana, with a packed lineup featuring headlining sets on both nights from the hosts, as well as appearances by Death Cab For Cutie, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, Mavis Staples, tUnE-yArDs, Whitney, Parquet Courts and Tinariwen.
"Jorge Elbrecht, the fervent collaborator and scatterbrained mastermind behind an eclectic roster of bands including Lansing-Dreiden, has just released the title track from his upcoming concept album, Here Lies. The song, a synthpop soundscape featuring his frequent collaborator Tamaryn, creeps with a kind of hopeful gloom.": www.stereogum.com
Learn more about Debora Iyall, the captivating voice behind San Francisco art collective Romeo Void: www.rockerzine.com
Here's how they describe themselves: "Part pop, art, electronica, world, dance, and dub (think Grace Jones, Blondie, Sugar Cubes, and Astrud Gilberto having a party)": www.facebook.com
Ahhhh....the Friday song. KEXP's spring drive begins tonight, Friday, March 9th, at 6:00 p.m. and continues through next week.
"Cia Berg, we’re not quite sure what slobo means, but here are some other terms we will use to describe you: coy, playful, braces-wearing, armpit-licking, trashy, Courtney Love-like, sexy, picky, girlish, sorta-scaring-the-hell-out-of-us-with-your-gigantic-white-underpants." Read more and see the video: www.stereogum.com
Do you like hearing this song on Friday? "Fidlar" is in the urban dictionary. It means "F**k it, dog, life's a risk": www.urbandictionary.com
See KEXP's video premiere of "You Push, I'll Go": www.kexp.org
Producer Steve Albini used some unusual recording techniques on Surfer Rosa as he was desperate to avoid "the studio sound." For instance he moved all the studio equipment to its bathroom in the hope of achieving a real rather than studio echo on bassist Kim Deal's backing vocals for this and her lead vocals on Gigantic. Albini later admitted that the record could have been completed in a week were if not for the time wasted experimenting on projects like this.
Read about David Byrne's "cheerful dystopia" in this New York Times article, published on Wednesday: www.nytimes.com
This article calls "Doing the Right Thing" a "survey of tasteful and thoughtful living": www.nytimes.com
Brian Eno, along with Daniel Lanois, were co-producers of U2's "The Joshua Tree," released on this date in 1987. Read some fascinating facts about the album: www.rollingstone.com
Brian Eno and My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields have announced a new song, "Only Once Away My Son," which will be released on Record Store Day, April 2lst. Read all about it: pitchfork.com
The lyrics were inspired by Bono's trip to Central America in 1985 with Amnesty International. He visited El Salvador, where he stayed with a group of guerillas in the middle of the mountains in the north of the country, which is where he got the idea for this song. Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen, and The Edge came up with the music, and Bono wrote the lyrics around the track. For the guitar solo, Bono did his best to convey his feelings to The Edge. "When I explained to Edge what I'd been through in El Salvador, he was able to, with nod to Jimi Hendrix, try and put some of that fear and loathing into his guitar solo," Bono said. "We strapped my feelings to the song 'Bullets the Blue Sky.'"
Ride's "Going Blank Again" came out on this date in 1992. Ride songwriters Andy Bell and Mark Gardener played a live acoustic set in the KEXP studio in 2015: www.kexp.org
You like-a this song? Parquet Courts will play the Travelers Rest Festival in Missoula, Montana, Saturday, August 4th -Sunday, August 5th, 2018. Worth a road trip!
Watch an animated live performance in KEXP's Gathering Space last August: www.youtube.com
"Fontaines D.C. are a UK quintet that got together in Dublin Ireland and took on the modern indie-punk scene with their own brand of street punk – back alley, radio loud, smoking a joint and not giving a f**k what anyone else thinks while you work it out. It’s punk.": sonicmag.com
The Breeders will play the Showbox SoDo on Friday, April 13th, 2018.
Actors will perform at The Back Bar at The Crocodile on Thursday, March 22nd, 2018.: www.thecrocodile.com
You're probably wondering "whatever happened to The Fixx?" Perhaps this article with that title may help you.: www.axs.com
The Chemical Brothers are a multi award winning electronic dance music duo hailing from Manchester, England, consisting of Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands.
The successful double act, often grouped with other dance music stars of the 90’s such as Fatboy Slim and The Progidy, are considered innovators of the Big Beat sound and have achieved commercial and critical success.
The “flute loop” that we hear throughout the track comes from Jeremy Steig’s “Howling For Judy” originally released in 1969. This original track is incredible swinging jazz music, led by the great punctuation of Steig’s wind instrument. Steig’s dad, by the way, is William Steig, best known for writing the Shrek books.
Don't miss the slap fight that begins the official video for New Order's "True Faith": www.youtube.com
This song is included in this list of "the 15 best Built to Spill songs": www.pastemagazine.com
Yes, they will be at the Travelers' Rest Festival in Missoula, Montana on Saturday and Sunday, August 4th and 5th, 2018.: www.relix.com
Buffalo Tom was live on KEXP on Thursday, March 1st, at 9:00 a.m. You can listen to that performance on KEXP's streaming archive.: www.kexp.org
Here's live video of Phosphorescent performing this song and others during their visit to the KEXP studio in 2013: www.kexp.org
This was the last song on "The Seldom Seen Kid" to be written. Guy Garvey explained to the Manchester Evening News: "We were buzzing, we'd just got our new deal and it was like a breath of fresh air. It was like 'thank God that's happened at last, let's chuck this song together'. It was dead simple. We wanted to do something very uplifting and very positive. That's where the line 'One day a year like this will see me right' comes from. It's very northern, and that's maybe why it's not done as well abroad. Maybe they can't get their head around it."
Watch two videos, including one for "Make Me Feel," from Janelle Monae's "Dirty Computer," due for release on April 27th, 2018: www.npr.org
Sylvan Esso will be at Marymoor Park in Redmond, Washington on Saturday, July 14th, 2018.: www.axs.com
This is a reworking of the traditional slavery-era song, "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child." Moby's rendition features guest vocalist Raquel Rodriguez. Watch the video: www.youtube.com
John's pretty sure that there are references to chewing gum in this song: genius.com
The True Loves are playing an album release party at The Crocodile on Thursday, March 22nd, 2018.