Cheryl Waters

Happy 50 years of Hip Hop! This week we are spotlighting the year 2006! This album came out after The Roots ended their association with Geffen Records and signed with Def Jam. They primarily recorded it using GarageBand.: albumism.com -- This tribute to their city features late singer-songwriter Bunny Sigler, a fixture of the traditional Philadelphia soul sound. "My name Black Thought, the definition of raw, I was born in South Philly on a cement floor, We had nothing at all, I had to knuckle and brawl, They swore I'd fall or be another brick in the wall." Happy Birthday to Philly's own Black Thought. Celebrating his 50th birthday today.

Seattle's Fotoform delivers a 'well-crafted blend of post-punk and dream-pop with atmospheric guitars and synths, driving rhythms, ethereal vocals, hypnotic song hooks and lyrics of grief, love and loss' in their second album, Horizons. fotoform.bandcamp.com

London-based Jojo Orme's (aka Heartworms) debut album will be out on March 24! linktr.ee

"The band’s two founders — singer-guitarist Helena Straight and bass player Mikaela Oppenheimer, both 18 — just graduated from high school last summer...." -- They were live in the KEXP studio last August: www.youtube.com Rolling Stone calls them "the next great New York rock band": bit.ly

Yeah Yeah Yeahs will be playing Marymoor Park on Wednesday, June 7th with Perfume Genius! yeahyeahyeahs.com

TV Star LIVE on KEXP, Thursday, April 6th at 12 PM This song is from the Seattle band's debut EP, released Feb. 17. tvstar.bandcamp.com

Playing the Day In Day Out festival August 12 / 13 here in Seattle! - indigodesouza.bandcamp.com

Neko stopped by the KEXP studios back in 2018. Check out her full performance here: www.youtube.com 'Fox Confessor Brings the Flood' is Neko Case's fourth solo album. Most of the songs on the album were based on her life experiences. Case shared in an interview with the Chicago Tribune, "I've always been fascinated by fairy tales, But we really don't have fairy tales anymore. Movies have taken their place, and modern fiction seems to be in this rut of the coming-of-age story, which is getting really boring. I'm trying to find things on the outer limits of experience. I really love the Eastern European fairy tales because they're not only dark but they're also funny and not overly moral." nekocaseofficial.bandcamp.com

Lael Neale's sophomore album 'Star Eaters Delight' is out on April 21st!

Wand's Cory Hanson has announced his third solo album, Western Cum, which will be out June 28 via Drag City. He produced the album himself, and it also features his brother, Casey, on bass, drummer Evan Backer, and pedal steel player Tyler Nuffer.

King Tuff just stopped by the KEXP Studios on Tuesday for a Live on KEXP session! You can go back in the archive and listen to the session and subscribe to our youtube channel so you can be alerted when the session drops! "Smalltown Stardust was co-written and co-produced by SASAMI,"

"At some point, you have to step away from it to make sure you’re not just on the sort of conveyor belt where you get into that record-promote-tour cycle and lose track of why you’re doing it. Having a family and a mortgage and people who rely on you for an income [Meloy is the only songwriter in the Decemberists] is a weird thing and has affected me personally." bit.ly For all intents and purposes, "Her Majesty. . ." could best be described as the charming older brother to the band's previous outing. And, while being recognizably related to its sibling predecessor, it is an altogether different beast. thedecemberists.bandcamp.com The Decemberists' Colin Meloy stopped by the KEXP studio back in 2010! Revisit his performance here: bit.ly www.decemberists.com

Jeff Buckley was somewhat underwhelmed by his own songwriting skills, yet there is evidence on 'Grace', particularly on the transcendently anguished “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over,” that Buckley was as adept at crafting words and melodies as he was at performing them. American Songwriter, Behind The Song: Jeff Buckley, “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over”: bit.ly Jeff Buckley performing "Lover, You Should've Come Over" live at Cabaret Metro, Chicago: youtu.be

Happy 50 years of Hip Hop! This week we are spotlighting the year 2006! Watch their 2013 in studio performance here: youtu.be

Amsterdam-based Turkish psych band Altin Gün have announced a new album, Aşk, due out on March 10 via ATO Records. After a couple synthy records, the album is a return to the band's psych-folk roots and features their takes on 10 Turkish folk standards. The new single is “Rakıya Su Katamam,” originally by Turkish writer/theologian Mustafa Öztürk. The funky, space-rock cover has been part of their live act for the better part of a year. "These songs have been covered so many times, always," vocalist/keyboardist Merve Dasdemir said. Bassist Jasper Verhulst added, "But not really in psychedelic pop versions. It’s definitely connecting more with a live sound – almost like a live album. We, as a band, just going into a rehearsal space together and creating music together instead of demoing at home." bit.ly

While the group members choose to remain anonymous, one name can be found in the liner notes of each of SAULT’s albums: Inflo, the award-winning producer who’s also worked with the likes of Michael Kiwanuka, Little Simz, Tom Odell, and Cleo Soul. Last year alone, the influential producer (born Dean Josiah Cover) took home the UK’s Mercury Prize for Album of the Year (for producing Kiwanuka’s eponymous third album) and the coveted Ivor Novello Award for Best Album (for co-writing Little Simz’s Grey Area). Here's some more things to know about SAULT: consequence.net

Cheryl was the host in 2021 when Jungle gave this great Live performance In-Studio at KEXP: www.youtube.com. The London-based duo said this about "Talk About It": The producer Inflo was in town when we were recording in LA and we just started jamming and came up with this. The drums have a sense of [The Jam’s] “Town Called Malice” or The Stone Roses to them. It’s another one of those songs that feels like it’s taken something from different eras and then pieced them all together. We wanted to hold on to the drum breakbeat that started it off and we just wouldn’t let go of it until it was finished, not tweaking it or changing it but allowing it to sit in its original form. www.junglejunglejungle.com

Out of Seattle, "Your little brother's favorite band." scarvesmusic.bandcamp.com

New music from Feeble Little Horse off their upcoming album 'Girl With Fish' out on Saddle Creek Records on June 6th!

Find more from Adi Oasis: adioasis.com

While many hits of the disco era were fun but meaningless, Earth, Wind & Fire considered all their songs meaningful, and this one projects a positive message in a turbulent time. --- Check out a classic live performance of "Shining Star" on a 1975 episode of Midnight Special: youtu.be.

Today we celebrate Billy Frank Jr. Day!! Billy Frank Jr. led protests for tribal fishing rights across Washington in the 1960s and 70s and has a long legacy of environmental stewardship. His efforts helped lead to a landmark Supreme Court decision that honored tribal treaty rights. Billy always said his goal was to build community and find solutions not just for today, but for the next seven generations. As we uplift indigenous voices, I would like to acknowledge that KEXP is on the traditional land of the first people of Seattle, the Duwamish People past and present. We honor with gratitude the land itself and the Duwamish Tribe. www.duwamishtribe.org

Watch The War on Drugs Live on KEXP from 2014 here: www.youtube.com

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

Jonathan Michael Richman is a singer, songwriter and guitarist. In 1970, he founded the Modern Lovers, an influential proto-punk band. Since the mid-1970s, Richman has worked either solo or with low-key acoustic and electric backing. He now plays only acoustic to protect his hearing.

Watch Operators Live on KEXP: www.youtube.com

Of her new EP, WA-based Grace Love says, "It's about grieving and no one's watching and you have to keep fighting while still trying to breathe. It's about living in moments that hurt, its about waiting for love that may never come and it's about forgiving yourself for taking less than you deserved. It's about finding comfort. It's about not quitting when you just couldn't see the light." gracelove.bandcamp.com

This Brooklyn band debuted in 2021 with the album "Projector." This is their first single since that album. Geese frontman Cameron Winter says of the track: “The song is about life getting better, and more fun, after the end of the world." -- Watch the dark music video: www.youtube.com

The lyrics are based on a dream Ollie Judge had about classic Rococo painting "The Swing" by Jean-Honoré Fragonard: "In my dream, I was in the painting but it was flooded and everything was floating away," he says. The video includes a basketball court, a deer, and a Zamboni: bit.ly

Irish post-punk band Murder Capital will be LIVE on KEXP on Monday, April 10th, at 9:30 a.m. and will be playing an all-ages show later that evening at The Vera Project! bit.ly

The three musicians in Karate put together a puzzling thing. A ’90s punk band with an inimitable grasp of jazz, they stood out in a scene that made neophyte musicianship a badge of honor; Karate also helmed an understated mastery of slowcore that could shift the air around listeners and made each band member seem at least a few decades older than their driver’s licenses would indicate. Their stylistic twists and turns eluded definition for years, breeding the kind of talmudic reverence in listeners that’d result in building allegories out of the most minor of details. karateallston.bandcamp.com

Larry Mizell, Jr hosted Arlo Parks - Live in the KEXP Studio in April: youtu.be Parks also created a guest DJ mix for KEXP's Midnight in a Perfect World in 2020: kexp.org

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

Happy 50 years of Hip Hop! We're celebrating the year 2006 this week!

Happy Thursday and welcome to The Afternoon Show with Larry Mizell, Jr.! It’s OG Thursday! In honor of De La Soul's Plug 2, Trugoy the Dove, we have been celebrating and focusing on the first four De La Soul albums for four OG Thursdays in a row. Today, It’s De La’s fourth album, “Stakes Is High.” R.I.P., David Jolicoeur: nyti.ms -- The introduction track for "Stakes Is High" begins with various clips of interviews, the interviewees describing where they were when they first heard the influential rap album "Criminal Minded." The album was the debut album from Boogie Down Productions. "This statement is going to sound cliché, but it’s true: Boogie Down Productions’ Criminal Minded is hip-hop in its essence. It’s one of the essential templates that hip-hop albums are still built around. It’s groundbreaking in terms of both lyrical content and delivery, as well as production style." Enjoy this retrospective on "Criminal Minded": bit.ly

Here's what they were saying in "Intro": genius.com