Holy shit, Say Hi knows how to get the party started on a Friday night at 9PM! I honestly think I saw more empty drink cups and shot glasses lining the Barboza shelf of subwoofers tonight than I’ve ever seen at their weekly Saturday night dance gigs. In a city on a hill where we show the Rocky Horr…
Wow, another year of Bumbershoot action already over, and what a ride it was! This year's festival was truly a different beast. With the new overhead having a full year to strategize and plan logistics, it seemed like by day 3, a lot of these were starting to go out the window. Crowd rushing in the…
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…
A little over a decade ago, Josh Homme - singer/guitarist/only consistent member of Queens of the Stone Age - broke out of the Palm Desert scene that birthed his first projects (including desert rock pioneers Kyuss and the ever-changing Desert Sessions) and into England with QOTSA's second album, R…
It’s time again for Friday on My Mind. Our weekly blog post where we look at videos centered around one common theme. This is a collaborative effort between KEXP and King 5 News. Hey, everybody! The weekend is here and we need to get out in the sun while the sun is still out for gettin’. This week …
Here's a counterintuitive factoid: Lost River is Johnny Jewel's first fully commissioned film soundtrack. Any fan of Johnny Jewel or his multifaceted Italians Do It Better disco dynasty knows that every record the man has ever produced is a soundtrack. There is a film playing with a story that only…
Before the Fallon performance, FKA Twigs was a pervasive mystery – a voice and an image spun together in perfect unity to create something entirely other worldly that you felt both drawn to and intimidated by. Maybe it was fear, or maybe it was just mystery, but either way, FKA Twigs was impossible…
It was another flawless Friday evening at last week's Concerts at the Mural event. The only thing brighter than the August sun was Seattle boys Bread & Butter, who delivered a performance of pure power pop joy. Youngsters Naked Giants defied everyone's expectations with an adrenaline-fueled per…
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…
On Friday, April 19th, as part of Hood to Hood 2013, the Audioasis Community Partnerships Benefit show at Cafe Racer in the University District will feature Hounds of the Wild Hunt with Lonesome Shack and Nu KlezmerArmy. Each band has generously donated their performance in support of this mont…
The album cover for Minnesota rapper Brother Ali's 2012 LP, Mourning in America and Dreaming in Color, features the Muslim artist praying towards Mecca and kneeling on an American flag as his prayer rug. The image encapsulates much of the spirit which Brother Ali has staked his career on. Brother…
XL Records is entering a very fun new chapter - chapter six to be exact. Last fall (and this spring with the physical edition), the label released Chapter VI, the first entry in their ongoing electronic compilation series since Chapter V back in 1995. The label has seen a ridiculous amount of growt…
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…
After showing off one of the most refreshing album rollouts in recent history (see: fake websites, conference calls, and blockbuster billboards), synth pop duo Tanlines don't seem to be running out of ways to up the ante on tour. Eric Emm and Jesse Cohen brought a rock-heavy four piece setup to Neu…
"Music can't be everything." Damn, that is not something you want to hear sung softly by the likes of UK bass pioneer and R&B crooner James Blake. And yet, this is how he closes out his third LP, as "Meet You In The Maze" fades out into oblivion, and the synthesized harmonies fizzle apart into …
Friends of the station Of Monsters And Men have come a long way since KEXP filmed them playing in a living room in Reykjavik, Iceland in 2010. In fact, they've come a long way even since the station filmed them playing on a bluff at Sasquatch in 2012. KEXP was one of the earliest to discover this b…
UK electronic chameleon Zomby is one of those few artists from whom we've only seen improvement since his beginnings. Back in 2008, Zomby's full-length debut came in the form of Where Were You in '92?, an over the top, muddy 90s rave soundtrack that played excellent tribute to the scene of days pas…
To call James Blake's second LP "greatly anticipated" may be a bit of an overstatement, but only because it's been hardly two months that we've even known that a new album would be available some time this year. Despite the short time to process the news, fans certainly were eager to hear what the …
