Cheryl Waters

Good morning, and happy Fat Tuesday! It's Mardi Gras and you're listening to The Midday Show with Cheryl Waters! Welcome! -- Here are the wonderful Neville Brothers playing "Yellow Moon" live at Tipitina's in New Orleans in 1991 (Aaron Neville is singing and that's Charles Neville on sax): www.youtube.com. -- Oh, my, go back to 2013 when Aaron Neville graced us with a live performance in the KEXP studio (Cheryl was there!): www.youtube.com

This Melbourne artist was live in our studio in 2018 with a performance that included "Analysis Paralysis": www.youtube.com -- Her new album, "I Am the River, The River Is Me" will be out on March 3rd.: www.facebook.com

The New Birth Brass Band was formed by the trumpeter and vocalist James Andrews. They infuseheavy doses of funk, R&B, and hip-hop into its classic Big Easy sound.

This fine track from Detroit rocker Stef Chura features a duet with Car Seat Headrest's Will Toledo. He produced the "Midnight" album and contributed bass, guitar, organ, and synths. -- See Live Video from Stef Chura's 2019 KEXP In-Studio, hosted by Cheryl Waters: www.youtube.com

The No Ones—Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey, Arne Kjelsrud Mathisen, and Frode Strømstad--will release their new album on March 31st. -- This single track includes The Bangles‘ Debbi Peterson on backing vocals. -- Don't know much about revered folk singer Phil Ochs?: bit.ly

Speaking about "Cells," songwriter Norman Blake said in 2005 "We had come to the end of a period in the band’s career, where we no longer had the security of a big label and four-album deals. I’ve got a kid, a Visa bill and the rent to pay, like everyone else, and when I wrote ‘Cells’ I was probably thinking, ‘Here we are, it’s bloody freezing, we’re spending our own money on this record – what if it’s just going to be flushed down the pan?’ -- Read a biography of this Scottish band: www.allmusic.com

See Nada Surf perform "Jules and Jim" in a live concert for KEXP listeners at Seattle's Triple Door: www.youtube.com -- The music video for the song "Jules and Jim" was filmed over the span of several months on location in Arch Cape, Oregon and inside a historic house in Providence, Rhode Island. It gently alludes to the classic French New Wave film of the same name. : www.youtube.com

"'I Will Not Sleep Here’ is the album’s longest cut, and slowly unfurls through resonant acoustic guitar chords, organ drone, and [Carson] Cox’s singing, in which he is slowly and tenderly pulling himself away from whatever or whoever has been tying him down. The song then explodes into a joyous stadium rock outro, wordlessly expressing that feeling of freedom....": bit.ly

"The formation of Divine Fits can be traced back to Britt Daniel attending a Handsome Furs show in 2007, seeing Dan Boeckner milling around and looking like the type of guy that would talk to strangers. Britt acted on this assessment, telling Dan he possessed one of the best rock ’n’ roll voices he’d heard. A flattered Dan upped the ante, telling Britt he’d been an ordering-singles-through-the-mail-level Spoon fan since high school, and moreover, that mail-order Spoon singles had inspired Dan to quit the Metallica cover band he’d been playing in and singlehandedly set him on the path to his future life in Wolf Parade and Handsome Furs." The band also include Spoon's Alex Fischel and The New Bomb Turks' Sam Brown. -- Divine Fits performed live in the KEXP studio back in 2012: youtu.be

Atlanta’s Arbor Labor Union (previously known as Pinecones) are Bo Orr, Brian Adams, Ryan Evers and Bryan Scherer.: www.subpop.com -- "Mr. Birdsong" was chosen by Cheryl as song of the day back in 2016! www.kexp.org

It's pronounced Liv--the “E” and punctuation are silent. : www.allmusic.com Wild Animals was chosen as a Song of the Day on KEXP: www.kexp.org

Fenne Lily will be at Neumos on Monday, May 15th, 2023. -- The Bristol-based musician's new album will be out on April 14th. See the official video for "Light Light Up": www.youtube.com

Caroline Polachek will perform for two nights (with Sudan Archives) at the Showbox SoDo on Thursday and Friday, May 4th and 5th, 2023. -- This song is a collaboration with Grimes and Dido. The three singers trade off verses, making for a sprawling exploration of complicated romance.

Hammock is the musical creation of guitarists Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson. Just-released "Love in the Void" is their twelfth album: echoesanddust.com

What Good Luck! Debby Friday will play Barboza on Thursday, April 13th, 2023. -- "So Hard to Tell" is the first single from 'Good Luck," Nigerian-born, Canada-based artist Debby Friday's debut album. Here's the video - www.youtube.com

Quasi will be LIVE on KEXP on Friday, March 3rd, on The Midday Show at noon. They will be at The Tractor Tavern that evening. -- Quasi is the partnership of Portland rock veterans Sam Coomes (ex-Heatmiser) and Janet Weiss (ex-Sleater-Kinney),

Django Django have announced "Off Planet," their fifth album, which they say is their most ambitious yet. It is being released in four parts, each representing a planet, over the next few months. The whole album is out June 16th via Because Music.

Foals will be playing Climate Pledge Arena (with Paramore and The Linda Lindas) on Monday, July 24th, 2023. -- Watch them perform "Black Gold" live in Toronto in 2019: www.youtube.com

Enjoy this NPR feature on New Orleans dance-punk band Special Interest: www.npr.org -- In a press release, bandleader Alli Logout describes “Midnight Legend” as “a love song to all the girls leaving the club at 6AM, a love song to everybody who doesn’t have love around them.”- bit.ly -- Alli Logout also directed the video: www.youtube.com

Wow! The Preservation Hall Jazz Band were in our studio, performing "Go To The Mardi Gras" live!: www.youtube.com

Speaking of brass bands.. This New Orleans band covered Joy Division in our studio back in 2019: www.youtube.com

This is Charles Bradley covering The Dead! "Cumberland Blues" was written by Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter, and Phil Lesh and first performed live by the Dead in 1969. Watch the legendary Charles Bradley perform live in the Gathering Space at KEXP in May of 2016 at the Grand Opening celebration: youtu.be -- Here's a 2017 obituary of beloved artist Charles Bradley: www.theguardian.com

This talented trio's new album, "the record,' will be out on March 31st. -- Lucy Dacus was the songwriter for "True Blue." She's also singing lead vocals.

The Smile (Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood and Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner) performed "Thin Thing" during their live KEXP in-studio session this past December. Don't miss the full set here: www.youtube.com -- The stop-motion animated visual was directed by Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña. They spent six months on the “Thin Thing” video. They said in a statement: Hearing the song for the first time, we imagined a frenetic fluid that carries machines, pieces of human bodies and carnivorous plants. When presenting the idea to the band, Thom [Yorke] told us about a dream that made him write the song. We believe the video is the conjunction of these two things.: www.youtube.com

Iranian-born, Dutch-based artist and producer Sevdaliza began her career as a professional basketball player before turning her discipline and talent to music, combining Persian mythology with trip-hop, crafting sensual soundscapes with hypnotic vocals. She describes her second full-length, Shabrang, as "kind of like a letter that I wrote to myself."

Jessie Ware says, "'Pearls' is a record that doesn’t take itself too seriously but demands you to have a dance. It’s inspired by divas like Donna Summer, Evelyn Champagne King, Teena Marie and Chaka Khan and I guess attempts to show - in lightness - all the hats I try to wear (usually at the same time." -- Her fifth album, "That! Feels Good!" will be out on April 28th.

Hot Chip will play The Moore Theatre on Friday, May 19th, 2023. -- "And I Was a Boy From School" was listed by Pitchfork as number 29 on their top 500 songs of the 2000's. Did you know that this song appeared in The Simpsons episode "A Totally Fun Thing That Bart Will Never Do Again".?

Jane Weaver will be at the Substation on Friday, March 24th, -- A press release says 2021's "Flock" is the album Weaver “always wanted to make, the most genuine version of Jane Weaver, complete with unpretentious day-glo pop sensibilities, wit, kindness, humor, glamour” and that it was “produced on a complicated diet of bygone Lebanese torch songs, 1980s Russian Aerobics records, and Australian Punk.”: janeweaverfire.bandcamp.com

Having escaped a conservative Christian upbringing that forced them to deny their sexuality and identity, South African artist Nakhane (they / them) is centering pleasure on their new album Bastard Jargon. Executive produced by Nile Rodgers and featuring cameos from Perfume Genius and Raphael Saadiq, the record is powered by a potent mix of dancefloor sounds. -- This song is a collaboration with Mike Hadreas (Perfume Genius). "I always thought singing with him would be a beautiful thing," Nakhane said. "I liked that it’s a song that was not necessarily what people would expect from us: a sad, trauma-mining ballad." bit.ly

Nation of Language is playing two sold-out shows at The Crocodile on Thursday, May 18th, and Friday, May 19th. -- We selected this song as a KEXP Song of the Day. Download it for yourself here: www.kexp.org

"If I don't do it, somebody else will..." -- Here's Dr. John performing this during The Band's "Last Waltz" movie: www.youtube.com

The Wild Magnolias are a Mardi Gras Indian tribe who also record and play as a funk musical act from New Orleans, Louisiana. -- For your Mardi Gras pleasure, here's an hour-and-a-quarter of live Wild Magnolias: www.youtube.com

This single comes from Galactic's Jan EP! "TCHOMPITOULAS once again sees Galactic enlisting a diverse array of talent that includes their own vocal powerhouse Anjelika “Jelly” Joseph along with Afro-Cuban rockstar Cimafunk, who is looking to win his first Grammy at this year’s award ceremony. Also featured on the EP are rapper Eric Biddines, singer/songwriter Eric Gordon, and fellow New Orleans musician Glen David Andrews." bit.ly -- Set the Way Back Machine to 2012 to see this jam band playing live in the KEXP studio: www.youtube.com