Over the past few years, we've tried to make KEXP videos not only fun to watch but also instantly recognizable. But when artists and other guests visit our actual studio space and see the dark and starry walls, they almost always say, "Wow, this is much smaller than it looks!" Charming as it may be…
Friday night of Decibel Festival 2015 not only continued the celebration of its 10th anniversary but also festival founder Sean Horton's birthday. And while the night provided many enticing showcases, one was hard pressed to find a more entertaining one than Body Language at Q Nightclub. Mr. Horton…
Disclosure is not a new face to Sasquatch! Music Festival, having played the El Chupacabra stage in 2013. Since then they’ve garnered worldwide fame and accolades and influenced the sound of pop music as a whole. So when their 2015 release Caracal was not received with as much universal praise as t…
Well, that was a long time coming, but I'll be damned if that could have been any better than it was. Death From Above 1979 made a great record back in 2004 - like a really great record. You're A Woman, I'm A Machine put DFA 1979 on the map like clockwork, feeding the band with plenty of live dates…
For a moment there, it looked like The National's headlining set at Sasquatch – one of the band's biggest shows to date – was going to be underwhelming. For the first twenty minutes, the band felt too mellow, and frontman Matt Berninger, disinterested. And then, after "Don't Swallow The Cap", a swi…
Of all the happy-go-lucky twenty-somethings in the world learning to deal with the anxiety of entering the first chapters of independent adulthood and being 100% responsible for one's own actions, there are few you can picture less concerned than Mac DeMarco. If you've played witness to his erratic…
"Stick with the old stuff, Win." That's the advice that Butler gets from Carl the roadie (Rainn Wilson) after playing a bloated, belligerent rendition of Funeral cut "Wake Up" during the fictitious Arcade Fire performance in the Reflektor accompaniment film Here Comes The Night Time. Here, Butler i…
I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp is exactly the succulently-written, shit-talking, salty dog memoir you’d want from the man who dreamed and ignited punk. Richard Hell was a fun-loving little Kentucky cowboy as a kid, loving TV, growing up with peak period 60s Stones and Dylan LPs, dreaming of tak…
Despite the innumerable sources of praise and worship from every corner of the earth, David Bowie somehow finds a way to face a sort of misrepresentation in the modern world, where every new album is slated as a comeback. Each forthcoming effort from the aging rock legend has some sort of Lazarus e…
Playing while it's raining at a festival is always a gamble. Lots of people who would have otherwise wandered over out of curiosity are hiding out in every covered nook and cranny imaginable, so it was only the diehards waiting in the drizzle for The Julie Ruin's mid-afternoon set. But, to be hones…
FFS, the eponymous debut album from the collaboration project between Franz Ferdinand and Sparks, feels a bit like a beautiful car crash in slow motion. I say slow motion because the two objects that make up the collision seen here have been careening towards each other since the good old days of 2…
For longtime followers of the band, it's a little strange that Modest Mouse has now spent more time as a big-name ticket than a scrappy indie rock band from Issaquah, but in retrospect, the band's current status goes along with Modest Mouse's singular trajectory. Although many would label them with…
Starbucks, KEXP & Friends Of Waterfront Seattle bring you SEAchanger, a waterfront concert to raise awareness around issues facing unsheltered families.
They made us wait all Spring, but you know it's Summer when you get the complete line-up for the Capitol Hill Block Party July 21st-23rd in the heart of Capitol Hill. Check it out below. They've also released the daily schedules so you can begin to plot out your festival attack early.Diplo | Run Th…
Timely does not even begin to describe the new record from NYC rappers Heems and Riz MC, a.k.a. Swet Shop Boys. While it's depressing as hell, these two dudes seriously could not have picked a better week to drop an album about basic human rights being put up into contention. As the race towards Vo…
It’s Friday again so it’s time for Friday on My Mind, our weekly blog post we look at videos centered around one common theme. This is a collaborative effort between KEXP and King 5 News. With a sound more accessible than, but derived from metal and punk, grunge took the world by storm during the e…
How is walking through the woods on a foggy, chilly late spring day similar to strolling past the closed fun houses and ferris wheels on a boardwalk at the end of summer? You could just as easily listen to the melancholic surf bee-bop of Seattle's La Luz in both of the situations. What started at a…
Brittany Davis talks with Emily Fox about raising her voice in the face of adversity on her new album.
I’m stunned and shocked at Prince’s passing. I wish I was in Seattle to do my show today, but I’m out of the country traveling, lucky to be with a small group of friends and loved ones from Minneapolis from back in the day, several of whom worked with me at First Avenue, and worked on Purple Rain, …
