Kevin Cole

"This song was originally recorded by the Jamaican group Danny Ray and the Revolutioneers in 1976. Danny Ray sampled the Jackie Edwards song 'Get Up' on the track, so Edwards and Ray are the credited songwriters of 'Revolution Rock.' When The Clash recorded the song, lead singer Joe Strummer changed some of the original lyrics, inserting a reference to Bobby Darin's 'Mack The Knife' ('Careful how you move, Mac, you dig me in me back') and to the Punk craze of smashing/ripping up seats in venues with seating instead of standing room ('Everybody smash up your seats, and rock to this brand new beat'). First recorded at Wessex in July 1979, an instrumental version of this song features over the end credits of the Rude Boy movie taken from these early sessions. The song was then re-recorded with Guy Stevens for London Calling, with new instrumental parts by the Irish Horns." bit.ly

"There are kids coming to our shows now that were three years old when Funeral came out and so you get really different energy depending on where people come into your back catalog. Every record we put out, there's been some people who have been like Oh no, they've lost it, they suck now... I remember playing Wake Up for the first time and seeing people leave the room because they were so disappointed in the song and the new direction of the band. I kind of knew early on that those people were not correct and that you're not trying to make music to please everyone, you have to just make it to please yourself." ~ Win Butler | bit.ly

Jackson's fifth studio album, his nineteenth album in total since Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5 (1969), "as well as his first album released through Epic Records, the label he would record on until his death roughly 30 years later. It was released following Jackson's critically well-received film performance in The Wiz. While working on that project, Jackson and Quincy Jones had become friends, and Jones agreed to work with Jackson on his next studio album. Recording sessions took place between December 1978 and June 1979 at Allen Zentz Recording, Westlake Recording Studios, and Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles, California. Jackson collaborated with a number of writers and performers, such as Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder and Rod Temperton. The record was a departure from Jackson's previous work for Motown Records. Its lyrical themes on the record relate to escapism, liberation, loneliness, hedonism and romance. Several critics observed that Off the Wall was crafted from funk, disco, soft rock, jazz, Broadway and pop ballads. Jackson received positive reviews for his vocal performance on the record. The record gained critical acclaim and recognition, and won the singer his first Grammy Award. With Off the Wall, Jackson became the first solo artist to have four singles from the same album peak inside the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100." bit.ly

"Their first album was The Fabulous Sounds of the Pacific Northwest (1984) after which Jim Sangster joined the group on bass and McCaughey switched from bass to guitar. Carroll left the group in 1988, and was replaced by Kurt Bloch from The Fastbacks. The song 'Amy Grant', a comical song about Contemporary Christian music and pop music artist Amy Grant, from the album The Men Who Loved Music, was a huge success on college radio and arguably their biggest hit. The band are still together, although after 1996's A Tribute To Music they released no new material until Because We Hate You (2001), a split release with McCaughey's other band, the Minus 5. McCaughey has given more attention to the Minus 5 since then, while Bloch and Sangster have formed the band Sgt. Major, and Hutchison is working more on visual art and design, as well as performing/recording as Chris & Tad with Chris Ballew of The Presidents of the United States of America. However, the Fellows released I Think This Is in 2009 and embarked on a tour of Spain that October. From 1994 to 2011, McCaughey was a sort of "fifth member" of R.E.M., working with the band both onstage and in the studio." bit.ly

"Before founding the Screaming Blue Messiahs, its three members had played together as The Small Brothers. Chris Thompson and Bill Carter had been part of the Captain Beefheart-influenced band Motor Boys Motor; together with Tony Moon on vocals, they recorded several tracks under that name on 24 August 1981 for John Peel's show on BBC Radio 1 and released a self-titled album. Initially, after Kenny Harris joined Carter and Thompson, the band briefly continued to perform under the name 'Motor Boys Motor'. According to Carter, the final name was chosen upon the suggestion of Ace/Big Beat's Ted Caroll, who was concerned that the band's initial proposal of 'The Blues Messiahs' sounded too pub rock." bit.ly

"The Three O'Clock is an American alternative rock group associated with the Los Angeles 1980s Paisley Underground scene. Lead singer and bassist Michael Quercio is credited with coining the term 'Paisley Underground' to describe a subset of the 1980s L.A. music scene which included bands such as Dream Syndicate, Rain Parade, Green on Red, and the Bangles. The Three O'Clock originally formed under the name The Salvation Army in 1981." bit.ly

“There are so many different influences and experiences that go into our band; there’s almost too many to define. I’m not trying to avoid the question: I might have a conversation with you at dinner and that might influence something that goes into a song, or we might be talking about Turkish psych music of the Sixties, or Cambodian psych… but as far as direct influences, it’s kind of hard to say.” ~ Alex Maas http://bit.ly/2vAChPk | Watch The Black Angels hypnotize with their groovy psych-drone here at KEXP: www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_bE3QII8qk

Also known as Christianne (Christy) Karefa-Johnson. In part because she lost her father as a child, Christy’s history and heritage are sacred to her, a vital part of how she understands her roots. It’s her family roots, she says, that spark much of her creativity. “I do have a lot of ancestors that were musicians and griots and storytellers. They don’t get to connect with this world as much,” Christy says, referencing the music scene, “except for through me…. I feel like I’m special because of my family, because of my blood. They’re real infiltrators, my whole family, ya’ know. Like, black excellence.” Christy shares her family pictures, a source of inspiration for the music she creates. Christy shares her family pictures, a source of inspiration for the music she creates. Christy’s grandpa is from Sierra Leone. He was a doctor in the World Health Organization, a foreign minister of Sierra Leone, and even ran for president there. Her dad was also born and raised in Sierra Leone. Her great-grampa on her mom's side is from Jamaica, and her mom was born and raised in West Africa. “Kind of going back to the ancestral thing, I kind of have an accent when I do my music,” she says. “It’s like a… weird pidgin, Caribbean-type thing.” bit.ly

Performing tonight at The Neptune at 8pm; doors at 7pm. Ticket info here: www.stgpresents.org/tickets/eventdetail/3455/-/cloud-cult | Watch Cloud Cult at the Arts in Nature Consortium in West Seattle in 2013: www.youtube.com/watch?v=loTe2ep0OQ4 | "Early on, [writing music to deal with the loss of our young son] was a personal medicine, but then people started coming to shows that had similar loss. Initially, it was people that had lost children as well. They found comfort in that music. And as time went on, then there’s more people that were coming with different — for different reasons. Struggling with addiction, or depression, things like that. And that’s where I realized that, flash back to when I was in college and trying to decide what I was going to do for a major, and I remembered being in the woods and feeling like I need to decide between music composition and environmental science. And sitting out there meditating, waiting, and ultimately feeling I want to leave this place better. Music feels kind of too self-y, and I could do good with the environmental science. So at this point, now flashing ahead, where people are finding something good in it, and I feel like I could do good with this. I could continue to do this. And that’s where things started to shift. But it was also very important at that time to realize that I needed to continue the humility and understand that when people are coming with those stories of struggles that they’ve overcome, and sharing it in a way where they are honoring the band and the music, I recognize wholeheartedly that has very little to do with us, and that we’re a reflection. There’s something in this that they’re able to see deeper parts of themselves. And all of that energy and power of healing and overcoming and hope is coming out of them." ~ Craig Minowa http://bit.ly/2vyiGOE

Roger Daltrey sings most of the song, with Pete Townshend singing the middle eight: "Don't cry/don't raise your eye/it's only teenage wasteland". The song's title is a combination of the names of two of Townshend's philosophical and musical influences, Meher Baba and Terry Riley. Townshend originally wrote "Baba O'Riley" for his Lifehouse project, a rock opera that was to be the follow-up to the Who's 1969 opera, Tommy. In Lifehouse, the song would be sung at the beginning by a Scottish farmer named Ray, as he gathers his wife Sally and his two children to begin their exodus to London. When Lifehouse was scrapped, eight of the songs were salvaged and recorded for The Who's 1971 album Who's Next, with "Baba O'Riley" as the lead-off track. Townshend stated in an interview that "'Baba O'Riley' is about the absolute desolation of teenagers at Woodstock, where audience members were strung out on acid and 20 people had brain damage. The irony was that some listeners took the song to be a teenage celebration: 'Teenage Wasteland, yes! We're all wasted!'" The song is often mistakenly called "Teenage Wasteland", after the phrase repeated in the song. "Teenage Wasteland" was in fact a working title for the song in its early incarnations as part of the Lifehouse project, but eventually became the title for a different but related song by Townshend, which is slower and features different lyrics. A demo of "Teenage Wasteland" is featured on Lifehouse Chronicles, a six disc set of music related to the Lifehouse project, and on several Townshend compilations and videos. bit.ly

"There’s no two ways about it: Wussy is criminally underappreciated," asserts KEXP's Jim Beckmann. "The Cincinnati band, which formed over a dozen years ago when then Ass Ponys frontman Chuck Cleaver convinced current Wussy co-leader Lisa Walker to join him on stage for a 'solo' show, write and perform songs so good that critics no less than the Village Voice’s esteemed Robert Christgau declare them to be 'the best band in America'. Yet, the rocking 5-piece are still a working class band whose members take what time they can away from their jobs to record and tour — or take what jobs they can so they can take time to record and tour." Read on, and download your own copy of this anthemic track, a featured KEXP Song of the Day: blog.kexp.org

One of the best known songs by Ramones, its lyrics regard a teenager who underwent a lobotomy because of the brain damage caused by overexposure to DDT.

Rachel Flotard on travelling to Laos in 2008 after the death of her father, for whom she had been caring with her sister for seven years prior: "I had the opportunity to go with a friend who’s from there, so I got the local’s-eye view. I was kind of out of my mind at the time. When the thing that you’re caring for for seven years is gone, you’re just lost. You don’t know what to do with yourself. This is before I’d really finished the record. Everything had taken a back seat. So this trip came about at kind of a perfect time. We stayed in the village where his cousins and aunt live, with no indoor plumbing, where they were literally catching and killing the food they eat. I was terrified. I’d never really been to a Third World country, and I went with the intention to scare the fuck out of myself. But in a good way. I never felt unsafe. You feel kind of more safe. The people were amazing to me. It just gives you another perspective and another way to look at life, to look at the race we keep up with, that keeping up with the Joneses mentality. I really connected with the women, the aunt and nieces, who were my age, and their daily life is so much different. Everyone’s got their own boat, you can’t walk around constantly thinking about your problems." bit.ly

Performing tonight at 5:30pm at the Mural Stage here at Seattle Center, kicking off KEXP's Concerts at the Mural 2017 series and opening with Summer Cannibals for Helio Sequence! Full details here: blog.kexp.org

"[F]reedom of expression is something very close to me. In one of my songs I changed the lyrics of the Mexican national anthem, which maybe in the past I would have gone to jail for it because there is a law that prohibits it. I did it with the risk of ending up in jail. I think with the issue of freedom of expression, is more than fearing to break the law, but it’s the power of violence. I think that violence definitely controls and censors. The conflict that exist between the cartels, all the groups in power and the government does make the job of a communicator dangerous or if you’re an activist, or simply someone who is just saying things the way they are." bit.ly

"We haven’t worked with anyone else [beside Chris Teti] in almost three years. Our first two EPs I recorded in my basement, the Deer Leap split and Are Here To Help You, were recorded by Ryan Stack because Chris and Greg’s [Horbal] previous band had worked with them. After that, Chris had been an apprentice at a studio for a while and was starting to take on his own projects so we just started working with him and it was a lot easier. We prefer that to working with somebody else [because] he’s in the band, he understands our ideas and it’s a lot easier to get them out and get something that we’re really proud of." ~ Derrick Shanholtzer-Dvorak bit.ly

"I couldn’t give two shits about what Enigk was singing about, I just liked his voice, and I liked the passion. So no, for me [Jeremy's singing about his spiritual beliefs] was not a problem at all, because I think that whatever moves a person, whether it’s the desire to talk about love or the desire to impress people or the desire to rip people’s faces off with your double-bass-drum, heavy-metal sounds, whatever desire that moves people to make music and express themselves is perfectly legitimate to me. Ultimately, I knew that wasn’t the thing standing between Sunny Day and moving forward. It was really just a side effect of some other stuff that was going on. So over the course of time, it’s sort of been like, 'That’s the reason why Sunny Day broke up,' and the real answer is that, no, it’s not, it’s just something that was going on at the time, and kind of a part of Jeremy’s spiritual awakening. I think what really happened was that the Internet was kind of new back then. Who knew back in the day that if you type a passionate letter and you’re a semi-public figure that that shit was going to stay online and in people’s consciousness forever? Anyone with a brain now wouldn’t put anything like that out on the Internet, where it would be constantly referred to and sort of become a defining moment in your life, when upon reflection it was probably something that could be privately thought and maybe discussed privately with people on a more intimate level. So I think the real story is that Jeremy was among the first victims of the Internet’s ability to immortalize every single thing you say or do." Dan Hoerner | bit.ly

Having just performed today at the OFF Festival in Poland, Sheer Mag will also be playing at Chop Suey on September 26th! Check out more from this Philly band's new release here: sheermag.bandcamp.com

A six-piece power pop band from Toronto. Formed by Coffey, a former mechanic’s apprentice from Kitchener, Ontario, with it’s members collected from various Ontario small towns, they rapidly ingratiated themselves with Toronto’s punk scene. The band released a stream of DIY singles before signing to Oakland punk/garage rock label Southpaw Records (Ty Segall, Young Guv) for their Gates of Hell LP in 2014, which received praise from outlets like Pitchfork, Spin and Noisey. Touring extensively and playing with bands like Redd Kross, Black Lips, Screaming Females and The FLAMIN’ GROOVIES, Sam Coffey & The Iron Lungs have become regulars in DIY venues up and down the East Coast. dinealonerecords.com

"I’ve always been a solo artist. I’ve always written songs. I’ve always written songs for other people, too. So that was natural: to collaborate[, including with Cole Alexander and Cee-Lo Green]. When I was young I sang in church choirs and stuff, so that’s like singing backup. I’ve been doing it all my life. I figure after I’ve been doing all these other things — it wouldn’t hurt to do my own. [Laughs.] It was just a natural progression." bit.ly

Swim along to another awesome track from Pickwick with "Turncoat," a downloadable Featured Song of the Day from our archives: blog.kexp.org

Raised Muslim, Sza, aka Solana Rowe, recounts: “After 9/11, it went from, Oh, there’s this girl who wears a hijab sometimes, but she’s cool and normal, to, Oh, you worship the devil. They would snatch my hijab off and follow me home. My dad would be outside waiting for me.” She detached socially, finding a place for herself among the bad kids who drank Bacardi Gold and saved their money for tattoos. “My parents are both from the ’hood, and they got out of their situations by minding their business and being excellent. That’s what they wanted for me.” bit.ly

After losing Phife Dog, Q-Tip reveals, "It’s so hard for me to sit in there and hear his voice. Sometimes I just have to like take a break and walk away. It gets heavy. It doesn’t necessarily get sad, it just gets heavy. I literally feel the energy from him when I hear his voice.” nyti.ms

"My experience in punk rock was really helpful in understanding how skiffle [featuring washboards as instruments] empowered people. For me, it was seeing the Clash on the [1978] Rock Against Racism tour and realising that my generation was going to define itself in terms of opposition to discrimination of all kinds. On that, I based my theory about how music can help the process of change, though only the audience can make that change. Music itself doesn’t have agency, though it can give you a different perspective and that’s also true of love songs. You can be in the deepest trough of heartbreak and hear Smokey Robinson’s Tracks of My Tears and it’s as though he’s been reading your mail." bit.ly

Auckland's Amelia Murray on Fazerdaze's naissance: "It started after my last band broke up and I had all these demos and song ideas sitting around going to waste. I was desperate to make music but struggling to find the right band so I basically taught myself how to record and started working on an EP. I uploaded it onto the internet under the name Fazerdaze and it has slowly grown and developed from there... I recorded the whole body of work over many different flats and locations. I’m very sensitive to my environment so the constant change of moving and not feeling at home anywhere really affected how I was feeling during the writing and recording process. Morningside was the suburb where I finally felt at home for the first time in years so after completing the album there, I decided to name the body of work after it." overblown.co.uk

Ultra Vivid Scene is Kurt Ralske like Nine Inch Nails is Trent Reznor. Although Ralske's atmospheric art pop could not sound less like Reznor's thudding industrial disco, the two are not that far apart in terms of aesthetics; Ralske's lyrical obsessions with such gothy standbys as sex, religion, and death make the band's three albums naturals for the mopey black-clad teenager in us all. Ultra Vivid SceneRalske was born and raised in New York; something of a musical prodigy, he was accepted into the Berklee School of Music in Boston at the age of 16. Though Ralske was an accomplished keyboard player, he found new inspiration in the determined amateurism of the late-'70s New York no wave scene, which took the "anyone can do it" ethos of punk rock to its logical extreme. Thus inspired, Ralske quit music school and moved to London in 1986, picking up the guitar and observing the city's new dream pop scene (Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, etc.). Ralske formed a short-lived group called Crash, named after the J.G. Ballard novel, before returning to New York in 1988 and signing to 4AD Records under the band name Ultra Vivid Scene. bit.ly

Download "Hey Muse!" the title track for The Suburb's newest release, here, a Featured Song of the Day: bit.ly | KEXP blogger Gabe Pollak writes, "Over the last decade, the legendary Minneapolis new wave unit, who formed in in 1977, lost most of their core lineup. Guitarist Bruce Allen died an untimely death in 2009, bassist Michael Halliday left soon thereafter due to arthritis, and founding member Beej Chaney stepped away from the band in 2014, citing exhaustion and personal issues. And yet the band carried on, recruiting old friends and fresh talent alike for their ninth studio release, Hey Muse! The album’s title track both acknowledges and resists that struggle to find joy in the long haul of a creative life. It’s a polished pop prayer for inspiration, which ‘Burbs keyboard-playing captain Chan Poling sings with the rough-around-the-edges sorrow of a man who has, as the song goes, 'traveled far around this big old world,' in a long, storied, and ultimately rewarding career of music making."

"My sister bought me my first guitar when I was 14. Her boyfriend told me that if I became a musician, I wouldn't have to work at some lame job, but I'd get money, fame, sex, and drugs. SOLD! I do work now, but I work 'it.'" Also, boxers, briefs, or commando? "This has been an ever-changing process. I began with briefs as a child, moved to boxers as a teenager (those tangle around your testicles—sounds fun, but it’s not), then commando in my 20s. Commando is wonderful, but you have to change your pants more often, which is a no-no in this man’s world. Now I am 40 and I have been going with briefs or bikini briefs for quite a while. My favorite ones are handmade from Junk Drawers... I teach Bikram Yoga, so I’m in a Speedo almost 24 hours a day—except when I am at home. There, I am naked." bit.ly

"Touring is a great opportunity to do what we do best: bleed rock and roll on stage and leave everything in that moment in each room, in each city, night after night. Prepping for tour is a very spiritual thing. Our minds and bodies must be ready if we wish to engage the minds and bodies of every soul we encounter. Push ups, metronomes, hydration, sleep, humor, routing, budgeting, practice, and careful wardrobe consideration so we look like we don't care about caring about what to wear." bit.ly

"[Before Downtown Boys,] a few of us were in a brass band called What Cheer? Brigade. We wanted to create a new band that could be more explicitly political and more maneuverable than an 18-person brass band, so we started a band with rock instruments. Around the same time, I was working with Victoria at the Renaissance Providence Hotel where, like most hotels and service jobs, they were treating workers like shit. I worked in room service where we were getting $5.50 an hour, and we were supposed to be making the rest up in tips, but the hotel and our managers were stealing a lot of our tip money. That kind of tip theft is still legal in most states. In housekeeping, workers were being made to clean 16 or 17 or 18 rooms per shift, which is a lot of work; you have to consider they are lifting incredibly heavy duvets, scrubbing floors with harsh chemicals, and so on. Housekeepers have an incredibly high rate of injuries on the job. Lots of people were getting sick or getting rashes from the chemicals, so we were working to organize a union to better those conditions. The workers there are actually still calling for a boycott of the hotel until they get a fair contract. Victoria and I knew each other through that work and that fight. After Downtown Boys played 2 or 3 shows, we asked her to front the band, and that’s when it really came together to be something special." bit.ly

Playing the Jungible Summer Music Series at Jardin du Soleil Lavender in Sequim, Washington tonight! Their next show will be on August 28, 2017 at Out to Lunchat Denny Park, Seattle's first established city park from 4:30 to 6 p.m.

The Andy Weatherall Mix. "Primal Scream approached Andrew Weatherall after a favourable review of the second Primal Scream album in the 'Boys Own' football fanzine. He was asked to remix 'I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have', a song from the band's eponymous second album, Primal Scream and by the second or third attempt Loaded was born — his first visit to a recording studio. At the start of the song, Weatherall added an audio sample of Peter Fonda from the film The Wild Angels: Just what is it that you want to do? / We wanna be free / We wanna be free to do what we wanna do / And we wanna get loaded / And we wanna have a good time / That's what we're gonna do / (No way, baby, let's go!) / We're gonna have a good time / We're gonna have a party. | The rest of the song is constructed from parts of 'I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have', with a vocal sample from The Emotions' 'I Don't Want to Lose Your Love,' and a drum loop from an Italian bootleg remix of Edie Brickell's song 'What I Am,' plus Bobby Gillespie singing a line from Robert Johnson's 'Terraplane Blues' and Andie MacDowell from the film Sex, Lies, and Videotape saying 'That's beautiful... That's really beautiful.'" bit.ly

"After news of the reformation broke online and the official announcements were made, we took ourselves away to Vale studios, a quiet residential studio in Oxfordshire. Slightly stunned to all be in the same room together with our instruments again, we soon captured our new sounds and musical ideas after our reunion. This exact jam and musical moment turned into the track nine of the album and was named 'Integration Tape', a product of a very surreal and long first day. For the rest of the week, we were up and throwing out frames and shapes of all sorts. The tentative became more assured and the inevitability of the flow was awe-inspiring if a little daunting. We’d taken a hold of the new dawn, and new things were on their way. Over the coming months, we returned three times to the same studio, putting down more material each time and generally achieving a track a day. Out of the 22 demos and ideas recorded at Vale, only 5 of these sketches eventually became songs which made it onto the album. These were: 'All I Want', 'Home Is A Feeling', 'Cali', 'White Sands'. In order to make it onto the album, a track had to be a very special one indeed. The rest of the songs were demos recorded at home on laptops. These demos imagined wider paths the band might take as it is sometimes easier to push the envelope away from everyone else and to get taken by instruments you don’t normally play. From this stage maybe 15 demos were created, but only five songs were selected for the album: 'Lannoy Point', 'Charm Assault', 'Weather Diaries', 'Rocket Silver Symphony', and 'Lateral Alice'. In some ways, these may well end up as the talking points of the album, as they began to open up the sound." bit.ly

In October 1998, Jello Biafra was sued by former members of Dead Kennedys. According to Biafra, the suit was a result of his refusal to allow "Holiday in Cambodia" to be used in a commercial for Levi's Dockers; Biafra opposes Levi's due to what he believes are their unfair business practices and sweatshop labor. However, the other members claimed that their royalties had been defrauded. "The record industry has been skimming royalties owed artists since the beginning," according to Dead Kennedys' guitarist East Bay Ray. "This case is no different from blues musicians being taken advantage of in the twenties and thirties. Many people doubted the claims we made against our former record label back in 1998 but with this announcement there is no denying we were the victims here." Biafra lost the lawsuit and as the owner of Alternative Tentacles was ordered to pay $200,000 in damages to the other band members. bit.ly

"We were playing the Bowery Ballroom, and it was our first time selling that place out. Anyways, we had brought Odonis Odonis and Soupcans with us—it was like 'Toronto visits New York City' —and I think about halfway through, [Chris] Slorach kind of headbanged and hit his head on his bass and split his head right open. There was blood everywhere although the crowd seemed pretty entertained by it. In fact, he just duct-taped his face together and kept on going." bit.ly

From Kill Rock Stars: Filthy Friends is the product of likeminded individuals with nothing to prove getting together and making a heroic racket together that finds space for their many influences and interests. Lead singer Corin Tucker has left an indelible mark on the punk scene through her memberships in Sleater-Kinney and Heavens to Betsy. Guitarist Kurt Bloch has logged a lot of hours as the leader of The Fastbacks, as well as serving as a producer/mentor for up and coming Seattle rock groups. Drummer Bill Rieflin has a fine day job as one of the drummers in King Crimson. Bassist Scott McCaughey keeps plenty busy doing studio work and mining the power pop underground with his long-running band the Young Fresh Fellows. As for the other guitarist Peter Buck...if you’re unfamiliar with him, you haven’t been paying attention to the last 30 years of alternative/college/indie rock. (Stage whisper: He used to be in R.E.M.) bit.ly Linda Pitmon, also of the Baseball Project and The Minus 5, is now the active and touring drummer for the band.

"I have a very strong memory of being on this playground and thinking to myself, 'I want to be in the Beatles. I wish I could be in the Beatles. I wish that there could be a new Beatles that I could be in.' I also remember asking my mom why all of the songs were about girls. I remember singing all the songs and being like, 'Why do I have to sing about girls all the time if I want to sing the Beatles’ songs? I wish I could sing about boys.' I have a lot of strong early Beatles memories." Julia Cumming on.mtv.com

“We can spend our entire lives reading about things that are going [on] in other people’s worlds, in the political world and the environmental world, but really, the best way to be close and to understand these things and to have empathy for them is to actually be a part of it. It is scary when you realise that everybody’s locked away in their own little technology worlds – it can be very isolating.” bit.ly

This fresh new Seattle band will be performing at the Nectar Lounge on August 10th and Substation on August 24. Check out more tracks at https://dotcomet.bandcamp.com/ | Check out the video for "Kids Go WIld" here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xufuBjfyc7g

“I think that the moments in the album songs are not necessary the darker moments of my childhood. I mean a couple of songs, a couple of instances. I am not really obsessed with my childhood feelings but I do pay attention to other children. In a way, all of the childishness and stuff I never let go, I mean I never forced it out of our system, the way some adults are forced to force out of their system. There are only one or two tracks that refer to childhood, one refers to my childhood but, the other track is about other children that I know.” bit.ly

Like being lost in a fever dream, Mammút channel a deep energy from the Icelandic landscape from whence they spring, fully formed and wreaking glorious sonic havoc. Watch them rip a hole in the sonic stratosphere in our old star-filled studio: blog.kexp.org

"These are issues that if you come from that environment it’s inevitable to speak on. It’s already in your blood because I am Trayvon Martin, you know. I’m all of these kids. It’s already implanted in your brain to come out your mouth as soon as you’ve seen it on the TV... Whenever I wasn’t on the streets with my homeys I was in the studio. It was something that kept me out of trouble. So my mom would let me stay out till four in the morning because she knew I was doing that.” bit.ly

Back in 1984, X had released a cover version of "Wild Thing" as a non-album single. In 1989, the song was re-released as the lead single from the soundtrack to the hit film Major League. It later became a staple at sporting events, particularly baseball games, and was used by Japanese professional wrestler Atsushi Onita after he founded Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling in 1989. bit.ly

"When we got signed to a major label, we made a conscious effort to record at the same studio we recorded Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge at. I was so disheartened when The Replacements and Hüsker Dü put out their major-label records. It seemed like bands moved to major labels and put out really glossy records. Even fucking Nevermind, you know? I thought the production on that was awful. I remember those songs live. It just sounded too slick to me. To me, that record sounds incredibly sterile. And I actually heard that things were looped on that record—like, drum parts were looped, and guitar riffs were looped to make a more perfect record, which is kind of funny. I don’t know what the truth is, because I wasn’t there. But that was what people were saying at the time that record came out." bit.ly

"Feel the Pain" is a single by Dinosaur Jr. from their 1994 album Without a Sound. When interviewed by Billboard magazine the producer and mixer for Dinosaur Jr., Agnello, explained that he was after a "dry" sound to the song, "…so dry it jumps out at you." Despite bashing Without a Sound as a whole, "Feel the Pain" was one of the two songs (the other being "I Don't Think So") that music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine felt was a success. The music video was directed by Spike Jonze. www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXkN3nJyWEA http://bit.ly/2vABU7r

Helio Sequence are headlining tonight's Concert at the Mural, kicking off KEXP's summer concert series at Seattle Center. For more info, head over here: blog.kexp.org