Stevie Zoom

If you're a fan of their live shows and wonder why they tend to be a little extra special, here might be why: “We change the set list every night. We kind of do things a little bit differently than most bands in the sense that we actually every day, before we get to the show, we tend to have a pretty long-winded, sometimes heated conversation about the music we’re going to play the next night, kind of rewriting our set list from scratch each night as we go. But what we find is that this sort of gets everybody engaged into the music that we’re about to play. Everybody has their mind on the music... It kind of helps everybody, all the different collaborators in the group, to keep finding their voices, keep the music interesting for everybody. I mean, the most important thing for a band of super-creative individuals like this is kind of keeping everybody interested and entertained. It’s not just about going out and playing our hits. It’s about creating new music each night and staying vital to the music, staying with it and trying to push things forward.” bit.ly

“Everyone on a daily basis tells me I could be Madonna if I shut up. When I get offstage, promoters and big people in the industry come back and they always go: ‘Oh, Maya, you could be Madonna! Or you could be Johnny Rotten! We don’t know! It’s a thin line!’ [She flashes her teeth.] I’m like: ‘I’m Matangi, bitches! I’m both.’” bit.ly

This new album, a collaboration with Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, is set for release on November 17th. "I try to stay neutral when it comes to campaigning for politicians. I’ll sing at an inauguration, but it has to be the right person. This guy, they couldn’t get anyone to sing for him. People are laughing at us. It’s really sad. I have talked to my father. I’ve said, “Daddy, you wouldn’t believe what kind of president we have right now.” I’m going to be singing my songs. I’m 78 years old. I’m healthy and strong and energetic. People say, 'Mavis, when are you going to retire?' Retire! I’ve got work to do. I’ve got to continue what we started, as long as I can. I tell people that my father, he laid the foundation, and I’m still here, I’m still working on the building. Now I’m really happy to see these younger people. Chance The Rapper. Common; he does message songs. Kendrick Lamar. I’m so grateful because for years, no young people would touch what I’m doing. They realize now that they’re needed." bit.ly

After Lisa Díaz of Ibeyi was stopped and searched on the Paris Metro at the age of 16, she felt violated, especially as it transpired to be a clear case of racial profiling. She repressed the memory and tried to minimize its impact on her psyche. "I felt like I couldn’t write a song about it because compared to what I would hear on the news and what I would see in videos that people are filming, my story was not as brutal or disturbing. Then [my twin sister and co-songwriter] Naomi said something incredible, she said, 'You don’t have to be raped or killed or pushed in order to say something, what happened to you is already wrong and enough.'" bit.ly

James Braddell and Keir Fraser spent a big chunk of the '80s playing in industrial bands throughout Europe and the United States before settling to Rome in 1992. By forming 9 Lazy 9 that same year, the two of them scrapped the dark, metal riffs for more of a jazzier, funkier, dance production. Resulting in a deal with Ninja Tune, 9 Lazy 9 released the single "Monk's Dream" in 1993 followed by the full-lengths Paradise Blown (1994) and Herb (1995). Their second single "Take Nine" came out three years later. An eight-year hiatus preceded the release of 2003's Sweet Jones. bit.ly

KEXP's Dusty Henry writes, "Amongst the fervent Seattle soul scene, The Dip stands out as one of the most exciting and joyous acts to emerge in recent years. The seven-piece act fronted by Beat Connection‘s Tom Eddy emerged in 2015 with their decadent self-titled debut LP and have kept the momentum going with last year’s Won’t Be Coming Back EP and a slew of upbeat shows that practically compel you to get up from your seat and embrace the groove. But one of the keys that make The Dip work so well is the level of introspection they infuse in their music, emphasizing the soul in soul-searching. Their latest single, 'Atlas', may be one of their most thoughtful and inspiring cuts yet." Read on, and enjoy the track again (and again) here: bit.ly

Raised in Wellington, New Zealand, indie songwriter Amelia Murray began releasing her lackadaisical, echo-bathed pop songs under the name Fazerdaze in 2014. Frustrated with various false starts at starting up bands while attending the University of Auckland, Murray adopted the Fazerdaze moniker and began self-recording and self-releasing her music, and eventually performing local shows. bit.ly | Explore more of Murray's dreamy work here: fazerdaze.bandcamp.com

Once described as "the next Bob Dylan" by Ryan Adams, Bridgers shares some incredible advice he once gave her: "When I first met him, I was having trouble with a song, and he said, 'Just write your life. Don’t question it. It doesn’t matter if it’s stupid. I guarantee you won’t make it sound stupid. If it does sound stupid, you write it out. You write your life. You don’t have to be Bruce Springsteen or a character. Just write your life, and it’ll come out cool.' We were talking about songs to record, and I played him a bunch of songs. He said, 'Let’s cut ‘Killer’ and that one and that one.' He was like, 'Write more songs—we’re going to put out your best songs. If it’s good, people will listen to it. If it’s okay, it’ll get buried.'” bit.ly

James McNew on creating music for film soundtracks: "It’s very challenging because when we’re working on a Yo La Tengo record, we’re working for ourselves and trying to make ourselves happy, but when we’re scoring these movies, we’re ultimately trying to meet the demands of someone else, someone whose mind we unfortunately can’t read. Several years ago, we composed some music for a couple of TV spots, and that was really the first time we did anything as far as going back and forth with, like, an agency—you know, the people who like to call themselves 'The Creatives.' It was maddening. It drove me nuts. We were working really hard and coming up with these concepts that we thought were totally cool, and we would send them out and then have a discussion a few days later that was, like, 'Yeah, we loved what you came up with, but could you go back and change everything?' That experience prepared us for the fact that there’s always a lot of back and forth when you’re working for someone else. We wrote music for both movies that got excised completely—finished pieces that we slaved over, driving ourselves completely insane, only to find that they weren’t used at all." bit.ly

"I was like, 'I don’t know if people are gonna like this, it’s a much darker record.' And Michael, who’s been the art director at DFA forever, was like, 'With the bands I like, I’ve always waited for the dark record…' But I don’t know if we’re the best target market, late forties music nerds… I was a goth band in the ’80s, and it’s a big part of my youth. In some ways, it was just letting myself have the questionable taste of my ’80s, not just the quite obviously approved tastes of my childhood, but the dubious stuff too, which still means a lot to me. Letting that out a bit, without reserve, was a big part of it. It’s also kind of a weird time... a weird time to be a human. It’s always a weird time to be a human, but particularly, for me, now." bit.ly

"With previous Cut Copy records they’d be really concept heavy and we’d build the music around the concept, but this time we let the music dictate what direction the record was going in and the concept evolved from that. Dan wrote all the lyrics but something he spoke about was this idea of being constantly bombarded with information and imagery in the digital world and at times it’s overwhelming and not aesthetically pleasing. Like you’re on the internet and there’s stuff popping up at you all the time and a constant barrage of images and you’re not really taking it in, it’s just washing over you." bit.ly

"I get kind of nerdy, but I think part of [effective Dj'ing] is you shouldn’t placate your listener, by trying to just make your track super dynamic because you think that everyone’s really ADD and that they need to hear sort of major, like, tone shifts all the time throughout the song. Part of it is learning how to build and create a narrative using only a few elements instead of a million. Part of it is trying to create some sort of human moments within the song, even though you’re often working with an electronic palette. Trying to insert some kind of humanity. A lot of it’s just about sort of creating your own sort of boundaries and limitations. And a lot of that stuff just comes with time, I think." bit.ly

Before they met (at a Thames riverboat party organized by Felix Buxton), Simon Ratcliffe grooved to the deep Latin funk of War and George Duke, while Buxton was turned on to Chicago house. Ratcliffe and Buxton formed Atlantic Jaxx Records in 1994 and were undoubtedly honored to count among fans of their first release none other than DJ legend and Basement Jaxx influence Tony Humphries, who played "Da Underground" from the EP on his New York mix show consistently during 1994-1995. For their second release, the duo recruited vocalist Corrina Josephs, who later became practically a member of the team herself. bit.ly

Performing at the Sunset Tavern on Sunday, November 12th at 7pm. In case you were wondering: "I'm named after my father, who is exponentially older [at 88-years-old] than Curtis Mayfield. I wouldn't be mad if that was the case [though]. If you listen to the whole record I think you'll come away with an understanding that I am invoking the spirit or that music and those people from that era, but it's definitely Curtis Harding. I feel like even with the album title, Face Your Fear. It's needed right now. It seems like there's a lot of fear going on in the world and that's where a lot of the hatred and anger comes from." bit.ly

Ikebe Shakedown, the self-titled album from the Brooklyn-based band, plays with elements of cinematic soul, Afro-funk, deep disco, and boogaloo in all the right ways. After spending a few years together the group, named after a favorite Nigerian boogie record (and pronounced “ee-KAY-bay”), delivers a driving set of tunes featuring a mighty horn section anchored by tight, deep-pocketed grooves. bit.ly

"That was a wild scene for me to see, to go from washing dishes to signing with a label with that kind of history. It all happened so fast, it's still hard to wrap my mind around it... There will definitely be some surprises for people as I move on. I'm a soul artist, but I like to incorporate country music — I'm talking about the 'good' country. You don't see revival people doing that. There's the Daptone (soul label) thing, which is beautiful and great, but I want to do something different. I'm not a big shouting preacher man on stage, I'm a songwriter, and I want to keep going in that direction. I'm excited for people to hear my next album. Truthfully I'm not a deep thinker, I'm a simple person, but I'm pushing myself to go deeper." trib.in

"Stevie Wonder was a huge influence [on putting this record together]. Because he was at Motown at a time when they were in the singles industry and everything was under three minutes, Berry Gordy was really trying to push for singles. But [Stevie] saw the benefit of doing an album, a creative album. And his album has influenced us so much, that I would pick having an incredible album that's influencing and [one that] people [are] moved by over having a huge single or creating something just for the radio. That was what my goal and objective was to do - to make sure that the album would remain classic and timeless like that of a Stevie wonder album. That was my goal." bit.ly

Featuring Chaz Bundick (aka Toro y Moi) with identical twin brothers Jared Mattson (guitars) and Jonathan (percussion), who says, "I wouldn’t really call what we do jazz, but inspired by jazz. We studied jazz and classical music in college – harmonic theory and whatnot and we know a lot to create a progression but we don’t really rely on that. But one thing I love about 60’s jazz is that it was coming from an era that required a deep understanding of the repertoire, of say the Great American Songbook that was created during the Tin Pan Alley era with swing and all that. It was relateable moreso to the public back then than it is now because they weren’t regurgitating old songs but recreating their own that had a personal touch to it that people love, and that’s what we’re doing. We’re not trying to uphold this historical legacy of jazz. We don’t think it needs to be because it will never die, just like rock & roll will never die." Check out the glorious, Tarantino-esque video for this track: http://bit.ly/2hFe3uJ | www.youtube.com/watch?v=blz2IpGR1Sg

“When I wrote the lyrics for the Fever Ray album… It was six months in my life when I had been at home with a screaming baby – it’s a lot about that time of course. In Sweden, you are very isolated when you become a mother, it’s like, now must stay at home. Then, after six or seven months I went to my studio, and when I look back on it, it’s about that paranoia you get from being at home all of a sudden – you’ve had all the people around you, your friends, just disappear. In Sweden it’s not such a social life, it’s cold most of the year, you don’t meet people outside, you’re outside just to run to your car or run into the supermarket or something, and the summer is so short, about two weeks, and the other fifty weeks are cold. I think people are very lonely. And the second kind of isolation, when you become a mother, you’re just thrown into some kind of biological mess all of a sudden. As a feminist, everything is about gender construction, and then you meet people from these mothers healthcare institutions, and they deeply believe that all female humans are born just to raise and breastfeed children! And that was a huge shock the first time, I had lived a very free life before then, I had been playing music, but you’re not expected to go back to work, and most women don’t. All these well-educated women all of a sudden lose half their identity, and that was really frightening for me. [Heavy, thoughtful pause, then laughs,] Yeah, so the album is about that time!” bit.ly

"With In Colour, I'm not trying to ride a wave—I try and stay away from any cycles or anything that's going on at the moment or anything that I feel like might be happening soon. Because if you do any of that, it ends up not sounding timeless. There's some classic tracks that are classic because they are of an era, but I like trying to make things classic because you can listen to them at any time, and they could be from any time. Usually at the start of making something, I'm purposely being in solitude and feeling a bit sad and emotional for the sake of making music. But by the time that I've started making something that I like, that instantly turns to euphoria and joy. I'll be dancing in the studio, and maybe that comes out in the music. It's a shame that it doesn't happen very often—like, the eleven tracks on my record are the eleven times that happened in the last five years, essentially. There are other times when I think it's going well, and then I come back in and it's gone. A lot of the spoken word samples on the album came from watching very British things while I was away on tour because I missed home. I felt like I was missing out, like London was disappearing while I was away. London changes all the time, but I hate the way it's heading. Some of it's being destroyed and being replaced by nothing. It's like glass buildings that are half empty or a train line to allow more people to come to London to work. So I recorded little snippets [of things that reminded me of home], like Top Boy. That's where the sample at the beginning of 'Girl' comes from: The most beautiful girl in Hackney. Also stuff like [Mark Leckey's film] Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore and pirate radio. The 'Gosh' sample is from a pilot for a Radio 1 show called One in the Jungle that never made it." bit.ly

"The move we made from Jive to Columbia to Sony was all just part of business shake-ups really. The label thing was great. I think when you’re trying to break an artist or a market yourself labels have still got some skill in that area. It was quite fun in that first initial phase. When you’re a bit younger all that stuff impresses you more. All those big swanky offices and stuff. So that was all quite amazing in the early days. It eats you up a bit after a while because they have their own agenda and you’re just constantly going. If you’re not recording then you’re expected to be on the road or expected to do press. It became pretty relentless. This phase, the last five years, has been really nice because you feel in much more control of your life. We’re lucky to have had both experiences and I think we’re also lucky to have been selling records at a time when there was still a record industry to speak of in an old-fashioned way. We did actually sell, like, a million records at one point. That’s really nice to have had that and it’s really nice to now know that you’re never going to sell a million records. You might get a million likes on Facebook or YouTube. So both have been really interesting. There’s some chat about going back and signing with a major, which would just be madness. Utter madness at this point in our lives." ~ Tom Findlay bit.ly

“We don’t really use the word ‘punk’ because it puts us in a position where we’re required to defend or explain a term we didn’t put on ourselves.” ~ Joey DeFrancesco uproxx.it

"I used to look around at Seattle shows and I didn't see people sweating enough. It pissed me the fuck off. Drummer: not sweating. Front row audience: not even a hint of perspiration. Guitarists, vocalists, bassists—all wearing SWEATERS and STILL NOT fucking sweating! So Jeff and I decided the only option was to gain 40 pounds each, grow out our hair even more, and bring back sweating and loud to this fair city. I'm happy to say that decision was made about five years ago, and since inception of the Hobosexual to Seattle, we've seen a 42% increase in sweating, shirtlessness mid-set (both sexes), spontaneous high fives, high tens, and YES, I have seen a TRI-FIVE mid crowd-surf, between a dude, a lady, and the Corgi-Datsun hybrid she brought to a show at the Comet in 2013." bit.ly

"I feel awkward saying this in front of everybody so… I'm just gonna say it anyway. I don't like going out. I enjoy being social but if I'm around a lot of people that I'm not comfortable with I overthink things and get in weird funks so it's easier for me to stay at home. It feels safer. I'm gonna not have to deal with much of the emotional wave pool if I keep to myself. [pause] I was not in the best place when I was writing this record." bit.ly

Marrying glorious pop melodies, the chainsaw roar of a downstroked guitar, and the furious angst of a million confused teenagers, the Buzzcocks played punk rock that was physical, passionate, and emotionally compelling, but also joyously listenable (and danceable) in a way the Damned and the Clash could never dream of being. If you're looking for a single-disc package that covers the history of the band's first era, Operators Manual is just what you've been needing; it features 11 of Singles Going Steady's 16 tracks (including all the A-sides), and adds 14 superb songs from the group's three albums. And unlike Singles, Operators Manual features material from A Different Kind of Tension, and while the Buzzcocks were brilliant right out of the box, "You Say You Don't Love Me" and "I Don't Know What to Do With My Life" revealed a surprising maturity, and "I Believe" found Pete Shelley going past the perfect pop song into a moving (and heartbreaking) statement of purpose. Operators Manual is hardly everything you'd ever need from the Buzzcocks, but if you're looking for an introduction to their remarkable body of work, you could hardly do better. bit.ly

"They were the only band that could unify the disparate sub-subcultures and get all 200 of those people to fill a room. Anglophilic, dress-dark Goths; neo-psych MDA acolytes; skate punks who shit in bathtubs at parties; Mod vigilantes who tormented the homeless with pellet guns; college kids who thought college kids were lame; Industrial Artistes; some random guy with a moustache; and eccentrics who insisted that they couldn’t be pigeonholed: all coalesced around the U-Men." ~ Mark Arm (Mudhoney) bit.ly

Following in the tradition of the Black Keys and the White Stripes, the Pack A.D. play a blend of rock and electric blues. The female duo is comprised of drummer Maya Miller and vocalist/guitarist Becky Black, both of whom left their previous Pixies-styled band to focus on bluesier music. After emerging in 2006 as one of Vancouver's more buzzworthy bands, the Pack A.D. signed with Mint Records in 2007 and released their debut album, Tintype, the following January. Funeral Mixtape, the duo's second offering, was issued eight months later. bit.ly

"I don’t think people think of us as a festival band. My intention is to scare the bejesus out of these people, to pin these festival-goers to the wall. I don’t like the crowd mentality at festivals. Please. I’m a professional. I don’t want people singing along. We did one in Barcelona and there were these thousands and thousands of people singing along. I just thought: 'Oh God. Stop! Keep up with me.'” bit.ly

"I met Nick [Cave] the first day of Lollapalooza in Las Vegas. I was the only one in our dressing room and I was lying down on the couch. It was really hot. In walks Nick who didn’t see me lying on the couch. He was like ‘I’m just looking for imported beer.’ They only had Budweiser or something like that. I was like, ‘Our dressing room is your dressing room.’ For that moment on, we were pals. They hated playing in the daytime, they hated the Lollapalooza crowd because it was a lot of high school kids. And they’re much funnier than they come off. They come off as very serious guys and they’re actually dry but funny. He would fuck with people too. He saw Adam Horowitz from the Beastie Boys: ‘Are you the caterer?’" bit.ly

“A song that means something very specific to me, a song in which I might be obliquely or otherwise exploring some really dark things, is a song that another person might hear and go: ‘Wow, this one really puts a smile on my face.’ I’m thrilled by that. I’m thrilled that people might take my songs into their life and make whatever suits them out of it.” bit.ly

"I think if we'd gone into the studio and put like Chemical Brother type beats behind it, it would have made it probably much more instant to people, but... that's just not something... that's just not what we're about. And when we were recording, we were never thinking, 'Oh, let's make a record which the kids can dance to.' There was no kind of thought despite that. It was just, 'Make the music you want to make.' None of us were particularly great rhythm programmers anyway. It wasn't really what any of us were about. We could have got some producer to come in, but it just never occurred to us. Even if it had, we probably wouldn't have done a thing about it." bit.ly

Switzerland's Fai Baba performed live for KEXP listeners at the KEX Hostel stage at Iceland Airwaves just this morning, and their song, "Can't Stop Loving You," is today's Featured Song of the Day, which you can download here: bit.ly | "Formed by Swiss psych master Fabian Sigmund — and supported by an evolving four-piece band — Fai Baba produce a particularly Scandinavian-sounding brand of euphoric, kaleidoscopic psych-folk (think Life-era Cardigans), bedecked with twinkling instrumentals, smooth, buttery grooves, and warm, blissed-out lyrics. Their latest single 'Can’t Stop Loving You' is no exception, its ethereal vocal melody sitting atop shimmering garage-blues guitars and mystical string flourishes. And while its nostalgic touches mean it wouldn’t feel out of place soundtracking a whimsical French New Wave film, Sigmund has a lightness of touch that makes his songs sound beautifully fresh and revelatory."

“I felt like a lot of expectations had grown up around me that had not much to do with me. My goal was to just very carefully descend the ladder with dignity, and go back to the altitude that I can breathe at.” nyti.ms

"Mainly it's just the feeling of mortality [that's fuelling my drive to keep writing music]. I don't know, maybe the older you get you think, 'Fuck.' You know, you look around and someone says, '25 years ago this record was out' or, 'It's 40 years you've been making records.' And you're just like, wow, it goes by so quickly. So I think there's an element of that: I've just got to do as much as I can. Time's running out. And time goes so quickly. I've got to keep writing and keep trying to produce work. But then I think also in lots of ways the pressure is kind off really. I mean, apart from my own self-competitiveness, I'm not trying to compete with a market, you know. I'm not in competition with other artists. I suppose, because I've been doing it for such a long time, you kind of feel comfortable, this is what I do. And people either dig it, or not dig it. And that's fine. I think there's a pressure that gets taken off. I think without that pressure, it becomes a lot more enjoyable and there's more room to experiment and go places, whatever comes to me really. Whatever I sort of think it could be or want to try. Who knows what will happen in the future, but I think I've kind of earned the right to be able to do that. And I feel that's quite a fortunate position really. Unless I make really bad, shit records, man, then no one likes them. But, you know, if I can try and keep on making good, if not great, records, then great." bit.ly

"Well, to make an intentional [musical] progression over 12 years, you would have to be very foresighted! The only artist to have maybe planned his evolution in advance is David Bowie. He seems to have his shit together and probably has the ability to see the future Basically you change as a person over the years and the changes come through in the music. Our first record sounds the way it does because we were intoxicated by freakbeat and 60s pop yeah, but also because we were basically suburban kids. I hated it at the time when critics said the album sounded “innocent,” but looking back I guess they were right. As life happened and we grew, the music grew in parallel. How could you continue to sound the same? People who do that are either fully developed from day one, only like one kind of music or approach it superficially. Looking back, each album feels right and makes sense in progression, though people may not always see the connection or expect the direction. I hope we will get to do a compilation that ties all our of our work together. For me, there is a thread running through everything. All the influences you mention were there right from the start to some degree, but somehow people always hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest." bit.ly

Performing tonight at the Substation in Fremont/Ballard. "We Used To Be Hunters’ methodical alchemy was recorded in an old wooden church in the historic seaport of Anacortes by Nich Wilbur (Mount Eerie, Lake, Anacortes Unknown Festival). 'We used the church as an instrument, capturing the open acoustics of the building as we performed together in the space.' Mixed by Randall Dunn (Earth, Sunn O))), Marissa Nadler, Rose Windows), the album was finished at Avast!, illuminating the fiery urgency and magical realism of our new songs.” Explore more from this local band here: windburial.bandcamp.com

"Being a guy who was a geek with tape machines in the early days and really interested in how records get made, I was inspired in particular by how the Beatles were innovating when they were making those records late in their career, while using the studio in a maximal way. I've always wanted to make a record like that. Sonic Youth came close when we did the Ciccone Youth Whitey Album, because we started that record with no preexisting ideas. We went into the studio and started trying new things and developing things... Sonic Youth was a collective. There's something fantastic about the idea of making music is a social activity. That interaction is a big part of it, and we had a very strong thing going on that level. When I started to have to make my own records, it was a little bit more like, 'OK, now I'm the director, I'm in charge of everything. Even putting [previous group] Dust together was looking to have new collaborators around me to give me input and help shape everything. I think now with Raül and Jonathan, I found a little core group of people that I can move forward with and keep that kind of social nature of the process." rol.st

"I’ve been through a handful of humbling experiences the last few years, the passing of my Dad and making this record being two big ones. Both destroyed my best-laid plans and left me feeling like I really have no idea what I’m doing, so I may as well accept my ineptitude at life, be my irreverent self, do my best, and live with what comes. I’m definitely more relaxed as a result. It seems like when I enter a situation knowing how dumb I am I’m much more in tune with the reality of it as opposed to trying to make it something it can’t be. I think if we all acknowledged our idiotness we’d get along a lot better." bit.ly

"A lot of my strength comes from my faith. That’s where the majority of my strength comes from. And then the rest of the musicians and my love for the music, my love for my fans and the love the fans have for me. That’s where I get my drive. Just today, I had to call my preacher up and say, 'I really need to pray, I’m getting weak.' I don’t want to get weak right now because that’s a cop out. The medication and the affects of the medication on me is a little different this time. So, I’m just trying to see how long I can go before I say, 'I can’t do this,' and I really don’t want to say, 'I can’t do this.'" bit.ly | A new documentary, "Miss Sharon Jones!" is now streaming on Netflix.

"Earlier today I said a lot of things but those cocky-sounding statements just look better in black and white. That's why they always use them. And I always give it to them. That's why my interviews are so valued. That's why I should get paid. [giggles softly] That's perfect!" bit.ly

Impossible now to hear this song and not see Spike Jonze's now-iconic video in the mind's eye: www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ7z57qrZU8 | Christopher Walken: "It's a very catchy tune... It is good for tap because it has a deliberate almost drum-like beat. They say tap dancers are like drummers... The big thing about that for me was to work with Spike Jonze. He's terrific. And young. He asked me to do that based on my work on a movie twenty years ago, Pennies from Heaven. The best thing about that for me was I'm going to be 84 years old [kidding] and at this point [it's nifty] to be able to be in a music video and actually have kids think it's cool. I suppose musicals have always been my favorite thing— I'm talking about movie musicals. If somebody asks me if I want to go see a show, my choice is almost always musicals. I think if I was in the movies at an earlier time, I might have been in a lot of musical movies. But certainly MTV and music videos, some are brilliantly done, little movies." http://bit.ly/2iXGQxQ

“At the moment in Australia we’re having a massive issue with marriage equality, with huge huge roadblocks in the way of making that happen. It’s a very scary time for the LGBT community. I remember my mum called me - at the time I was in a relationship - and she told me my brother was getting married. He’d known this person not that long, which is totally cool, but I was like, ‘so you’re telling me, he’s known this girl for how long, and he can get married?!’ But my girlfriend and I, even if we wanted to get married, we couldn’t? She was like, ‘that’s a different conversation, Alexandra!’ [laughs] I remember when that happened, I was like, that is fucked! That is ridiculous. My brother’s married, his wife is awesome, but on principle it’s unethical and wrong, and I felt strongly about it. Maybe that’s a bit selfish, but I think it speaks volumes about where the world is at. Surely it will change soon. It’s all very dangerous to young queer people, and it’s very upsetting - especially as someone who is directly affected by the outcome of that.” bit.ly

“It's our most layered record to date and it was expensive as fuck for us to make as an unsigned band. It cost more than our van,” says the three-piece’s vocalist and guitar player, Dan Pantenburg. “We financed the entire record working full-time jobs between tours.” Explore more from the band here: autonomicspdx.com

"There have been women who have contacted me that thought they were the muse for certain songs, and the thing is that they're often wrong. They’ll ring me up and go, 'That was me, I remember that situation.' And I’ll go, 'It wasn’t you, it was someone else actually.' And sometimes, I just say, out of sympathy, 'Yeah, it was you in that song', and even if it wasn’t, they just seem to like it - they find it quite flattering." bit.ly

"Necessity is the mother of invention. I had all these songs that I really wanted to get out, but I didn't have any offers, so I just had to do it myself." www.copacetic-zine.com

“Even as a kid, I would play pretend and wish I was an adult, and now that I’m an adult I sometimes wish I was someone else. That phrase ["Visions of a Life," also the album title] just felt like a poetic way of expressing it. Then there’s the album artwork, a picture of a girl in a frock dancing around a podium with a horse’s head on it – she obviously had some vision of a life that she was playing out. It’s my auntie in the picture, and she actually did become a dancer, so that vision came true. It really resonated with me because I spent my whole childhood not playing with toys but playing inside my head and acting it out. That’s what our songs are, I suppose – visions and little bits of life that somehow get made into music.” bit.ly

Featuring Kurt Bloch on bass, along with guitarists and vocalists Bill Coury and Tom Cummings.

"I haven’t got a mobile phone. If you don’t have wires coming out of your head like Davros or have the latest bit of technology then people glare at you as if you are part of some evil sect. I can’t believe how people have fallen for it. You get these music luvvies and they go, ‘Mark, I’ll text you darling.’ And I say, ‘No you can’t, I haven’t got a phone’ and they are completely incredulous. I’ve got mates and if they don’t text the wife every hour, she is on the verge of calling the police. That’s why I write letters, and sometimes I even hand deliver them. Everybody has got to know about everybody else these days haven’t they. It is all about what he says, and what who says. But who cares? I did an interview at BBC6 and they didn’t even have a record player or a CD. But you go abroad, that’s when you really see how people fall to pieces. We played in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia a few years ago. We walked down the street and one of the band was moaning, ‘Maaark I can’t get no signal on me new NWZ 6733 phone. Are we are in Europe Maaaark?' I was looking up at building that had a gaping hole in it. An American laser-guided bomb had gone through it, but he didn’t even notice. Walked straight by. He was just looking at his phone, going, ‘Maaark I can’t get through to Dave in Didsbury.' It is destroying our interaction with each other and it is now starting to seriously impede on my life. It never used to be a problem, but it is becoming one." ~ Mark E. Smith bit.ly