May has been a big month for Mary Lambert. In the wake of the success of "Same Love" - her 2012 collaboration with Macklemore & Ryan Lewis that served as a rallying cry to same-sex couples worldwide - the Seattle-based singer/songwriter has been writing new songs, playing a series of local show…
Seattle emcee DoNormaal offers surprise after lyrical surprise in the tightly packed, staccato rhymes brimming on her latest LP, Third Daughter. The rapper, who burst on the Emerald City scene in November 2015 with the release of her beloved first full-length Jump Or Die has maintained status as on…
Is March too early to get your festival season started? We don’t think so and, frankly, we don't care. Treefort Music Fest, running now until Sunday, March 26 in downtown Boise, Idaho, is too good to miss. Looking at headliners alone, the festival boasts two of the biggest names in independent musi…
Over the weekend we got the unfortunate news that Greg Allman of The Allman Brothers Band died at 69. A number of artists have been paying their respects via covers of Allman Brothers Band tracks and Scottish band the Afghan Whigs did just that on Sunday night at a show in Dublin, with the track "M…
From Rihanna to Springsteen to LCD Soundsystem to Smashing Pumpkins to -- well, you get the idea -- everyone paid tribute to music legend Prince over the weekend. One of the more poignant performances came from fellow Minneapolis musician Bob Mould, who took the stage with reunited Twin Cities pun…
Over the weekend, The Posies announced that bass player Joe Skyward, aka Joe Bass, sadly passed away. In 2014, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer that, according to the L.A. Weekly, had metastasized and spread to his skeletal and lymphatic systems. Though Skyward left Seattle for the clear Cali…
Seattle's silver-haired soul singer and her backing band, Grace Love & The True Loves stopped by KEXP to perform a few tracks off of their eponymous debut album, and the nine of them filled our live room to beautiful capacity. Their performance was pure vintage - her rich baritone echoing the i…
First there was the Rat Pack, then the Brat Pack, and now... the Mac Pack? The uniforms may have changed – from suits to cardigans to oversized t-shirts and backwards-facing baseball caps – but the life-is-to-be-lived attitude of today's scene makers hasn't. Singer-songwriter Mac DeMarco embodies t…
Longtime KEXP faves The Walkmen have announced they'll be going on "a pretty extreme hiatus" after a "final" December 4th show at Philadelphia's Union Transfer. Bassist/organist Peter Bauer told The Washington Post, "It’s been almost 14 years now. I think that’s enough, you know?” Bauer is current…
As festival organizers can tell you, sometimes everything doesn't go to plan. With all of the moving pieces involved in a fest, it's not too uncommon that you have to replace an act, and occasionally cancel parts of the festival. (In one recent case, one festival had to evacuate 60,000+ people in t…
The world-famous record label Sub Pop turned 25 over the weekend and to commemorate the occasion, on Saturday, thousands of people congregated in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood for an all-day live music event featuring Built to Spill, Mudhoney, Father John Misty, J. Mascis, Jack Endino's Earthwo…
If Killer Mike had my favorite show at Sasquatch, Chvrches gets to take favorite pop show of the weekend. Where their albums are already pretty perfect in the realm of pop - the live performance blew them out of the water. Lauren Mayberry's vocals are so close to sweet that it's almost bitter - she…
During a two-night stand at Manchester’s O2 Apollo this past weekend, The National paid tribute to hometown heroes New Order with a cover of the band's 1985 single “Love Vigilantes.” Watch as frontman Matt Berninger does his best Bernard Sumner impersonation, and even walks down to the audience. T…
Pickathon is a music festival from another time. Coming down from Seattle, you find yourself coming across the breathtaking Columbia Gorge, taking exit 17 off of I-205 straight onto Woodstock Drive, and maybe that’s no mistake. The closer you get to Happy Valley, the further back in time you seem t…
Father John Misty stopped by Jimmy Fallon this weekend to promote his latest release Pure Comedy, which has been in near-constant rotation at KEXP since it was released. He played the track "Total Entertainment Forever" which also happened to be one of our Songs of the Day last week. Donning a pair…
It was a busy weekend for Jamie xx: not only did he bring the beats to the Capitol Hill Block Party, but he also released a mix for Apple Music's Beats 1 featuring tracks from The War on Drugs, The Persuasians, Deadboy, Apparat, The Durutti Column, The Doors, and more. You can listen to it here. J…
The Vera Stage's sound has been notably quiet (especially compared to the sometimes deafening main stage) all weekend, but that didn't bother Girlpool, the drumless duo of Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad. In fact, if anything, it probably galvanized the Los Angeles duo. Their music is emotionally a…
On their sophomore release, Time to Go Home, local ladies Chastity Belt unveil a new maturity. While their 2013 debut, No Regerts, took a snapshot of the Seattle party, the follow-up captures the aftermath: maybe there are "regerts" after all? Take in the new songs in this excellent weekend afterno…
Is it weird that I actually noticed that singer Jason Bartell was wearing the same star studded shirt today at Sasquatch that he was wearing during Fang Island's session in 2010 at KEXP? I only notice because that's one way I think of their music - the sincerity of their power chord power stance pe…
KEXP presents rotating art shows in its public Gathering Space.
