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Friday, May 1 2015, 2PM
"I wish somebody would look in our neighborhood knowing that it's already a situation, mentally, where it's f---ked up. What happened to [Michael Brown] should've never happened. Never. But when we don't have respect for ourselves, how do we expect them to respect us? It starts from within. Don't start with just a rally, don't start from looting -- it starts from within." www.billboard.com/articles/news/6436268/kendrick-lamar-billboard-cover-story-on-new-album-iggy-azalea-police-violence-the-rapture Our review of the album: http://blog.kexp.org/2015/03/25/album-review-kendrick-lamar-to-pimp-a-butterfly/
"John Grant began his career as frontman of the Czars, a Colorado-based band whose music split the difference between shoegaze, dream pop, and alternative country. Fueled by Grant's songwriting and rich baritone vocals, the band released a pair of independent albums in the '90s before signing with Bella Union, a British label run by two former members of the Cocteau Twins. The Czars established a small international audience during the new millennium, but... the group ultimately broke up in 2004.
After the split, Grant moved to New York and began working as a sideman for bands like Midlake and the Flaming Lips. He also continued writing songs. In 2009, members of Midlake joined Grant in the recording studio, serving as his backup band during the creation of his first solo project." goo.gl We caught his performance at Iceland Airwaves 2013; check it out here: blog.kexp.org
Other Lives will be playing Neumos on Tuesday, May 12th, and will also be performing LIVE at KEXP earlier that day at 1pm. Tune in!
"We’re not deliberately being an anti-rock band. If you came on tour with us, you’d see us get drunk and do a lot of silly stuff. We’re not literally reading aloud from The River Cottage Year and knitting cardigans – we just don’t turn up in leather jackets and sunglasses and get the shots in for a lunchtime interview with the Guardian." ~ Gus Unger-Hamilton www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jul/05/alt-j-mercury-prize-this-is-all-yours
"When we decided to reform and play the shows in 2010, I knew Bernard had no interest whatsoever in being in a touring band. I just knew he wouldn't want to do it. I know Bernard personally. We're kind of friends again. I've seen lots of interviews with him where he's said he's not interested in reforming bands, so I didn't think there was any point in really asking him. And then once we started playing together as Suede, as the five piece, the Coming Up lineup, I wasn't going to suddenly split that lineup up and ask Bernard to make a record with us. It just wouldn't have made sense.... Bernard is doing very well doing his own thing and really enjoying what he does.... He doesn't want to be in a rock band anymore. He really doesn't." bit.ly Incidentally, Bernard Butler came to KEXP with Ben Watt last summer and played a stunning set. Watch their performance, and see the interview, here: blog.kexp.org
"An important piece of new equipment used on the album was the Synthanorma Sequenzer, a customized 32-step 16-channel analogue sequencer made for the band by Matten & Wiechers. This allowed the construction of more elaborate sequenced synthesizer lines, which are featured prominently in the tracks 'Europe Endless,' 'Franz Schubert' and 'Endless Endless,' and liberated the player from the chore of playing repetitive keyboard patterns... The artwork for the album cover of Trans-Europe Express was originally going to be a monochrome picture of the group reflected in a series of mirrors. This idea was dropped for a photo by New York based celebrity photographer Maurice Seymour, with the group dressed in suits to resemble mannequins. J. Stara's image of the group was taken in Paris and is a highly retouched photo-montage of Kraftwerk from their shoulders up again posed as mannequins which is shown on the American album cover." goo.gl
"The source for most of Juan Atkins' prime material, Model 500 was the Detroit godfather's guise for over a decade. Beginning with the 1985 classic 'No UFO's' and extending to the release of his first proper LP (1995's Deep Space), the alias made Atkins' reputation with ten singles for his own Metroplex Records and several others for the Belgian R&S label. The same year Deep Space dropped, R&S also released a compilation including the best of Model 500's Metroplex material." www.allmusic.com/artist/model-500-mn0000569468/biography
"Born on the south side of Chicago, Saunders collected records from an early age and got into DJing during high school, through his brother. The duo played at high schools all over the area, and Saunders made pause-button megamixes using funk and disco records. After he was introduced to the DJing of Frankie Knuckles at the Warehouse, Saunders began playing more disco-oriented music and, though he spent a year studying at the University of Southern California, he returned in the summer of 1981. Drawing bigger and bigger crowds to his events, he eventually began playing at a large venue called the Playground. When one of his bootleg megamixes was stolen from his crate, Saunders decided to re-create the record with a drum machine and synthesizers he owned. The result was a track called "Fantasy," and after the members of a local electro group named Z Factor heard the song, they convinced Saunders to join their group." goo.gl
"I started hearing English accents asking me for interviews when I answered the phone. I thought it was my friends screwing with me, but damn, those accents sounded authentic. I did a few phone interviews and suddenly, a whole herd of British Press all flew to Chicago to interview any and everyone involved with House music. They sat in on sessions and took loads of pics. Of course, Larry Sherman considered himself the resident expert on House Music and offered to take all the press around to all the House music clubs in the city. At that time I’d tried everything to get Larry to press up Move Your Body, but he hated it and said it wasn’t House Music. It was because he said it wasn’t House music that I called it 'The House Music Anthem.' I even paid him with my own money to press it up. and he still hadn’t done it. Well, when Larry took the press around to all the House clubs, Move Your Body was the hottest song playing at every single club-on dirty cassettes..." goo.gl
"Underground Resistance is probably the most militantly political outcropping of modern urban American techno. Combining a grubby, four-track aesthetic, an almost strictly D.I.Y. business philosophy, and an oppositional, militaristic ethos similar to Public Enemy without the drama (or the familiarity; the members refuse to be photographed without bandanas obscuring their identities), UR have redirected their portion of the Detroit techno legacy to social activist ends, trading mainstream popularity and financial success for independence and self-determination. Begun in the early '90s by second-wave duo Jeff Mills and "Mad" Mike Banks -- who eventually enlisted Robert "Noise" Hood -- UR adapted the flavor and kick of early Detroit techno to the complex social, political, and economic circumstances in the wake of Reagan-era accelerated inner-city decline, and was formed as an outlet for uncompromising music geared toward awareness and change." bit.ly
"'Pretty much from that point I knew I wanted to make that kind of music and see how far I could take it. By the time I was 17-years-old I had already begun to produce some basic tracks and had sent some stuff to local labels in NYC. By the time I was 18 and 19 I had already made and released records like 'Energy Flash' and 'Mentasm' and a bunch of others, and I had already played in several countries around the world. To me it just seemed natural, and even though I was young, it felt to me like I had already been at it for a while." news.beatport.com
"The Hoover is a complex waveform that can be created with three oscillators, each spaced an octave apart, a heavy use of pulse-width modulation and a thick chorus effect. The sound is characterised by its thick swirliness that stems from a fast LFO controlling the PWM and the chorus, It was originally created by Eric Persing for the Roland Alpha Juno, although the term 'hoover' was not introduced by him. The hoover sound is believed to first have appeared in a commercial production in "Mentasm" by Second Phase (1991), produced in a collaboration between Joey Beltram and Mundo Muzique,[2] and sometimes is referred to as a "mentasm". However, mentasm normally refers to the sound sampled from this tune and re-used. Another notable use of a record using a hoover sound is 'Dominator' by Dutch techno pioneers Human Resource. This track gained fame in 1991 and became a top 10 hit worldwide." bit.ly
This song includes samples including Elizabeth Fraser from This Mortal Coil's "Song To The Siren," one from Prince ("Eye No"), and also audio samples from the movie "The Running Man."
"His style formed by a fusion of the barest acid house and straitjacket-tight Detroit techno, Richie Hawtin became one of the most influential artists in the world of techno during the 1990s, even while sticking to out-of-date synth dinosaurs like the Roland TB-303 and TR-808. Hawtin combined lean percussion and equally spare acid lines into haunting techno anthems that kicked with more than enough power for the dancefloor while diverting headphone listeners as well. While even his early recordings were quite minimalistic, he streamlined the sound increasingly over the course of his recording career; from the early '90s to the end of the decade, Hawtin's material moved from the verge of the techno mainstream into a yawning abyss of dubbed-out echo-chamber isolationism, often jettisoning any semblance of a bassline or steady beat." bit.ly
"After commercially successful stints in the Housemartins and Beats International, Norman Cook moved on to a new moniker, Mighty Dub Katz. The founder and sole producer of this project, Cook debuted the single 'Magic Carpet Ride' in 1995. Following the EP Cangica in 1996, the Dub Katz found some commercial success in Europe with 'It's Just Another Groove' that same year. Distributed in the UK, Holland and eventually the United States in 1997, the single became very popular. Cook continued to build his discography that year with 'Ghetto Girls' and a 1997 remix of 'Magic Carpet Ride.'" www.allmusic.com
"The cover of the album was from a 1970s fashion shoot reject box, according to Ed Simons. In a 1995 interview with Select Magazine, Ed says 'we wanted something that just looked nice. A lot of techno albums just have fractals on them, and we wanted something a bit more romantic and otherworldly with soft, nice colours. It's the wrong way round as well - intentionally. If me and Tom are in that picture we're in the car going 'Oh she's alright, I wish I had a guitar on my back with her.' That would rank as one of the good things in life. Originally we had this pregnant woman in a field wearing this white see-though dress, like a Flake advert gone wrong. But we couldn't use it because the unborn child could have sued us. Another image from the same fashion photoshoot was used as one of the images in the Dig Your Own Hole booklet.'" bit.ly
"'I think people like the idea of a second Postal Service record better than they would like the second Postal Service record,' Gibbard told Spinner writer Ian Gormely. 'It’s the desire for something one can’t have, the anticipation of possessing something is more fulfilling than actually having something. People don’t get what the Postal Service was meant to be. It was meant to be for fun. And just because it was so successful doesn’t mean that we have to make another one.'" www.aux.tv/2013/04/interview-the-postal-service-reflect-on-10-years-of-give-up/
"'Da Funk' was initially released as a 12 inch single in 1995 under the Soma Quality Recordings label, with the B-side 'Rollin' & Scratchin'. The pressing was limited to 2,000 copies and was 'virtually ignored' according to a Muzik magazine feature at the time. The single received a boost in popularity when The Chemical Brothers incorporated it into their live shows. Subsequently the British duo's song 'Life Is Sweet' was remixed by Daft Punk for a single release in August 1995. Daft Punk eventually signed with Virgin Records in late 1996 after a bidding war amongst several labels. 'Da Funk' was re-released by Virgin with the B-side 'Musique', a track that later appeared in the album Musique Vol. 1 1993-2005. The duo's debut album Homework features 'Da Funk' as well as a reversed excerpt titled 'Funk Ad'. Daft Punk expressed that they wanted to make the album balanced by distributing tracks evenly across each of the four vinyl sides." en.wikipedia.org
Kevin's own project!!! "From 1993, a collaboration with producer Chris Sattinger. From Kevin's days as The Rave God of the Twin Cities!" ~ Michaelangelo Matos To bring this interview full circle, check out the following article Matos wrote for Redbull Music Academy, where he delves deeply into the history of the Twin Cities' groundbreaking music scene, and he interviews none other than the legendary Kevin Cole: www.redbullmusicacademy.com/magazine/nightclubbing-house-nation-under-a-groove
Enjoy a bit of a dig into our archives for a live performance by these indie vet: kexp.org
"Port Townsend’s Solvents have been one of Northwest’s best kept secrets for the past half-decade, but all that should change with the release of Modern Dystopia. A wash with the truly beautiful and intelligent vocals from frontman Jarrod Paul Bramson and pitch-perfect harmonies from violin/vocalist Emily Madden; these multi talented marvels make sure each element contributes a sense of melancholy and wistfulness that many established bands struggle to include. With its deliberate pacing and expert crescendos, 'Reeling Out' is one of the catchiest well-written rock songs to hit the KEXP airwaves this year." Read on, and download your own copy of the song here: blog.kexp.org
Wilco will be performing at Marymoore Park on Tuesday, August 11th, with Jenny Lewis opening, and congratulations to our Wilco ticket giveaway winners! For something really sweet, Jeff — along with his son Spencer and some family friends — formed the band Tweedy and came by the station recently to perform some songs from their album, Sukierae; enjoy their performance and interview here: blog.kexp.org
