3,691Shows
177,540Spins
Friday, Jan 29 2016, 2PM
AMAZING news from Wolf Parade! "Hey-o everyone, the hiatus is over! We’re very excited to get back on stage together at these residency shows in NYC, Toronto, and London. We’ll be playing our favorites from from the old albums, of course, as well as a taste or two of some new tunes we’ve been writing. Hope to see you there! xo WP"
Claire Boucher, aka Grimes, relocated from her hometown of Vancouver to Montréal, where she studied Russian Literature, then Neuroscience, at McGill University. While pursuing her academic career, she started hanging out at La Brique's predecessor Lab Synthèse, where she was encouraged to produce her own tracks by her now-manager and engineer Sebastian Cowan. When LS's co-founder David Matthew Peet killed himself in 2008, she decided that she owed it to him to submit to her to true calling. 'I was like: 'Fuck, I could die. We could all die, at any time. Why the hell am I wasting my time? I'm just going to do what I want to do for the rest of my life. I don't need money.'' To the mild horror of her parents, Claire turned her back on the world of brain biology to pursue Grimes full time. 'I've completely fucked my life. I don't live anywhere, I don't see my friends. You have to sacrifice a lot of things to do this. But the pay-off is this incredible.'" goo.gl
After recording Headfirst, Alison Goldfrapp notes, “I went a bit nuts watching films, and reading books. I just love that immersion into a whole other world, and getting lost in characters, and that's what I wanted with these songs, for you to feel that you were entering this person's world for a moment. I love escaping into film, because everyday life I find quite troublesome. So any excuse to go into a cinema and say goodbye to the world for a couple of hours, or in a book or whatever, is great. And the older I get I want to do that more and more. I read a quote the other day that said, 'don't ever expect an idea to pop out of your computer'. That's so true. You can get so absorbed in what's on the computer, and you just waste so much fucking time. All those little worlds in books… it's nice, it's delicious.” goo.gl
On meeting David Bowie and his influence on Blondie, Chris Stein recounts, "We got into an RV after one of our shows and just drove up to Montreal for the first gig. We were very groggy and we walked into this hall and those guys [Bowie and Pop] are standing there. They were our complete heroes. The fact that he took a backset to Iggy during that tour was a huge deal because he was a big mega-star then. Bowie was totally gracious. After that tour, we toured with some of our peers and there would be frequently more competition. Just being nice to everybody around was something I picked up on from Bowie.” Debbie Harry added, "They were really just concerned with putting on a great show and not about competing with the opening band. This was a new idea for us, but it’s something I tried to carry through all these years when putting on shows – give the band as much tech support as possible. We’ve always done that." goo.gl
Performing at Sasquatch on Monday, May 30th with Florence and the Machine, Grimes, and Jamie xx. Wolf Alice always put on a breathtaking show, as you can re-experience in a recent in-studio session at our old Dexter location, set amid the stars therein: blog.kexp.org
"We have never really discussed our aesthetic, in that we have one or want one, you know? Since we’ve known each other, we just happen to have super similar tastes, and tend to share clothing and ideas in a more informal way, like any friend group. It’d be more like Lelah and I having conversations like 'Hey, your hair is kind of pinkish purple, do you care if mine is blueish purple?' or 'Let’s dye our hair peach and pink!' Sometimes we all bring the same shoes on tour – we all have matching high-heeled jelly shoes (except for Eric) in different colors. More often than not, we’re accidentally matching, or each wearing a different primary color. Eric and I are the candiest candy fiends in the band, for sure, so I think we’ve pushed that aspect into our band. One of the first songs I ever wrote, 'Peeps,' was about the marshmallow Easter candy. I guess that’s been in our recipe since day one. Lots of sugar, lots of color, lots of hair dye, glitter, et cetera." goo.gl
KEXP fave Wussy will be performing in our brand-spanking new Live Room on February 19th! Not only that, but the night before, they'll be playing a pre-release show at Funhouse/El Corazon (Feb 18th) and an in-store performance at Sonic Boom at 6pm on February 19th. Whew! Here they were in our old studio, playing a killer set; check it! blog.kexp.org Full tour dates here: wussy.ella.net
"It was a culmination of pressure. My marriage was suffering, I’d released a record I was disappointed in, I didn’t like how I looked or acted…so I’d gone on tour, I was gone about two years! I didn’t take time to think about failure, but I knew I was going deeper and deeper…I was thinking, I have this life, but it’s not my life, I haven’t done it right… The record is called HEAL, but it’s not a soft, gentle healing, it’s like scream therapy, a command, because I ripped out my subconscious, looked through it, and saw the worst parts. And that’s how I got better." Watchi him perform songs from that album here: blog.kexp.org Strand of Oaks will be playing the Timbrrrr! Festival this Saturday in Leavenworth! Full line-up here: goo.gl
Gemma Thompson: “We had the idea originally and wanted to put everything we’d all accumulated individually into creating a performance that had a sonic representation of the name Savages.” Blistering in performance yet so nice in person, watch the Savages play a stunning set in some gorgeous black and white video: http://blog.kexp.org/2013/05/17/live-video-savages/ For some fun, check out a collaboration between Savages singer Jehnny Beth with The Strokes' Julian Casablancas in a ticklish remake of "Boy/Girl": www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7Cy_N7t490 For reference, the original by Danish band Sort Sol, featuring Lydia Lunch: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvJP5d0rku4
"Timeless doesn’t even begin to describe Chromatics. 2007’s Night Drive introduced us to the cinematic, electro sound that has come to define them, with a massive Italo disco story arc of a record and the monumental “Tick of the Clock“. With 2012’s Kill For Love, an air of americana floated through another expansive collection of haunting, ethereal dance music, giving us their fantastic take on Neil Young’s “Into the Black” and the dark sensuality of “Lady“. But in approaching Dear Tommy’s impending release, the singles we’ve received have taken us to yet another place and time... Never before has the band so acutely embodied an emotional landscape as they have here. Every dive into song evokes years upon years of love and relational hardship. Chromatics seem to have a Midas effect in this respect – everything they touch turns to ethereal beauty, both enticing and haunting in equal parts." blog.kexp.org
Afrika Bambaataa started out as a teenage gang leader in the Bronx. After winning an essay contest and a trip to Africa, he came back to form a positive community force called “The Zulu Nation." Bam was also famous for mixing genres together, using records as tools for composition rather than dance cuts. Most of all, Afrika Bambaataa created a foundation for hip hop culture by encouraging graffiti artists, dancers and MCs to complement the music. Stream our audio documentary here: www.kexp.org/learn/documentaries/?docid=6#2
Playing at Chop Suey on Thursday, Feb 11th and Thursday, March 10 at the Bunk Bar in Portland, OR, then SXSW later in March. Enjoy a gorgeous performance from Pillar Point, straight from our studios: blog.kexp.org
On recording Technique, Bernard Sumner reflected, "'We were in this position of being known for this dance-electronic sound and it would have been daft to have just stopped doing it. That was the nature of the time. The way I saw it was we were still writing band music as well, so we'd reached a compromise.' Peter Hook joked that the album was 'an epic power struggle between the sequencers and me. I was resisting it valiantly, because I still wanted us to be a rock band... I think Technique sounds fantastic. It really does, considering it's not an Ibizan dance record. I think it catches a summer sound really brilliantly.'" goo.gl
Austin's Ringo Deathstarr will be embarking on an extensive tour, including a Seattle date on Saturday, February 27th at The Sunset. Full show calendar here: ringodeathstarr.org Download "So High" and read more about the band in our blog: blog.kexp.org
"I never knew there was a law against sounding vulnerable. And anyway, personal politics are part of the human condition, so what could be more political than human relationships? Many of those songs are more about not having love -- the downside of things. I heard that Joe Strummer once told Paul Weller that he should write songs about life as it's lived, rather than singing about driving around the freeway in convertibles. I mean, in England we didn't have convertibles - or even freeways - so we had to do something else. We were sick of those boring old farts from America and, if our songs sounded bleak, well that's normal if you live in Manchester. It's grim up North." ~ Pete Shelley thequietus.com
"The song was recorded as part of the sessions for Orange Juice's second studio album and would go on to become the title track of said album. It marked a departure from their previous guitar-pop based material, instead utilising Chic style guitar-funk and a bubbling Roland TB-303 synthesiser bassline, becoming the first chart single to feature the instrument. The song also features a snatch of the guitar riff from 'Boredom', a song by Buzzcocks that featured on their debut Spiral Scratch EP. The riff chimes briefly in, just as Collins namechecks the song in the lyrics claiming that '...and my favourite song is entitled 'Boredom'.' Backing vocals on the song were provided by Paul Quinn, the lead singer of fellow Scottish band Bourgie Bourgie, with whom Collins would later record a single in 1984, a cover of the Velvet Underground song 'Pale Blue Eyes.'" goo.gl
Written by Aztec Camera founder Roddy Frame and featuring Mick Jones, of Big Audio Dynamite and guitarist for The Clash.
"We want to play the music that we enjoy listening to. When we try to write a sad song we always have it going well for a bit, but then someone will come into the room and we’ll all start jumping around until it turns into a happy song. We can’t help it!” ~ Carlotta Cosials goo.gl Watch Hinds play rousing music to lighten the heart and feet here in our Old Dex studios: blog.kexp.org
This NY band will be playing the Vera Project on March 25th! More info from their Bandcamp, including more tracks to explore and complete (and extensive) tour dates: porchesmusic.bandcamp.com
DSD will be playing on the Afternoon Show on Thursday, February 11th. Watch an archived in-studio performance here: blog.kexp.org Jessica Dobson, who worked with Beck, The Shins, and Conor Oberst, reminisces, "Well, I played piano first. I often think about the time that my dad busted out this old 12-string and he showed me a couple songs on the guitar. I was 11. And I told myself I could do that. For the rest of my life I chose guitar over piano because I already had theory and knew how to read music. Picking up the guitar became my third arm, I was inseparable from it. I think I’ve always been kind of a ham of a performer. I just love making people laugh and singing with them. I guess I realized I was good at the guitar when people would ask me to play songs. I would go home and learn songs on the radio and pick apart albums. When people kept asking me to do it, I realized what I was doing wasn’t necessary in vain." goo.gl
"LA garage pop outfit Bleached have been rising strong on the scene in the last year with a number of fantastic singles and well known strong live presence. The band mixes West Coast surf tendencies with the gorgeous melodic punk of bands like Vivian Girls and Dum Dum Girls, delivered through tight musicianship, longing vocals harmony between sisters Jennifer and Jessie Calvin, and joyous hooks." Watch them charm the living daylights out of everyone at a transporting in-studio session at the Old Home: blog.kexp.org
"After a move to London, former Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore reclaimed his place as a ranking don of noise-rock while reassembling his band with some true ringers, namely former SY bandmate Steve Shelley on drums and Debbie “effing” Googe of My Bloody Valentine on bass. Guitarist James Sedwards may be the new one in the group, but he’d already made his own name as an award-winning riff wielder, and it was his proximity as apartment building neighbor, and then collaborator, that sent Moore careening back towards the gloriously dissonant sounds that characterized his earlier work." Watch Moore and Co. perform this song, along with others, in a sweet in-studio from our old digs: blog.kexp.org
