If there is one thing Sasquatch crowds seem to agree on, it is that Thee Oh Sees are awesome. Fronted by the quite charismatic multi-instrumentalist John Dwyer, Thee Oh Sees tore up the Bigfoot Stage on Day One of 2017's Sasquatch Music Festival, resulting in a sweaty, bro-laden mosh pit and necess…
This week we celebrate the 15th year of one of Seattle’s favorite hometown labels: Barsuk Records! Since its birth in 1998, Barsuk has helped create a platform for dozens of great bands, from the Pacific northwest and otherwise, to get off the ground and put forth incredible music. Even in the deca…
This week, Anti- Records releases the eight-album Neko Case vinyl box set, Truckdriver, Gladiator, Mule. The collection features her solo discography remastered from their original analog tape and pressed on 180 gram vinyl. There's also an 80-page photo book, a vinyl slipmat featuring an illustrati…
Michael Franti will, without hesitation, say that his 20-plus year career was built on one thing: tenacious optimism. And even if you can't see it in the room, Franti's optimism radiates just as brilliantly through the songs of his new album Soul Rocker as anything else in his catalog. Franti, alo…
Good music may be one of the few things Iceland and Austin, Texas, have in common. Kaleo is a perfect example of that bond. The Austin-based Icelandic four-piece dance around their influences while delivering songs with such diverse sound you wonder if their songs all come from the same band. But u…
One surefire way to break through the gloomy weather of Seattle is with some sunny rock and roll. Lucky for us and all those at our Occidental Stage yesterday, local the Killroom Records power-pop rockers Bread and Butter came to the rescue! The rain that struck Upstream was long-forgotten once the…
There's one aspect to booking Man or Astro-Man? for an in-studio session that the band didn't reveal until they were on air. "We steal one thing from you guys, and if you figure out what it is, we'll give it back." Well, we don't think they took anything when they stopped by KEXP's studio in March,…
R.E.M., who released Reckoning, their second album, almost exactly 31 years ago, were a band for 31 years. They began as a quirky group of Athens weirdos beloved by college radio DJs, and became one of the biggest rock bands in the world, and then they decided to stop being a band, which you have t…
As they say in Texas, "Fool me once, shame on... shame on you... fool me, can't get fooled again!" But you can get fooled all you want, right here with our April Fool's Day Video Roundup. It's safe, it's easy... no whoopee cushions, exploding cigars or Weasley Whiz-bangs... just good songs about be…
It takes a lot for a song to enter the Christmas canon. Most of the songs we sing every year have survived generations, outlasting our memory and seemingly always existing. It's not that new holiday songs aren't still being written -- good ones still emerge constantly, but very few can reach the ub…
Audioasis host DJ Sharlese dishes up the first in a two-part 2014 Pacific Northwest Round Up! Featuring sounds that came out of the region this year like Vox Mod, Fruit Juice, Low Hums and more!1. Cabana - Wet Brick2. Helms Alee - Pinniped3. Kithkin - Altered Beast4. Low Hums - It's in the Air5. L…
DJ Kevin Cole lays down some of the Greatest F*cking Songs of 2013 with John Grant, Phosphorescent, Laura Marling, and Julianna Barwick. This is freaking awesome! 1. John Grant - GMF 2. Phosphorescent - Song For Zula 3. Sin Fang - Look At The Light 4. Thee Oh Sees - I Come From The Mountain 5. M…
When it comes to whimsical multi-instrumentalist Kishi Bashi, we should've known we had nothing to worry about. A couple of years had passed since his beloved debut release, 151a, and as DJ Cheryl Waters said to a co-worker a few months before the release of his latest, Lighght (pronounced "Light")…
HAIM introduced themselves to Seattle Wednesday night with a show at Neumos, and if you’ve been following anything about this band for the last year, you know that’s no small event. The sold out gig had lines starting up outside in the cold more than an hour before doors (that’s pretty much unheard…
Julian Casablancas kicked off his Showbox set Thursday night with an eleven minute experimental track about the corruption of the music industry and the doom of creativity called "Human Sadness". It is truly a new era for one of our generation's best songwriters, personally coming full circle with …
I had never heard of the idiosyncratic Los Angeles guitar player/singer/songwriter Sylvia Juncosa before pulling this record off the KEXP shelf, but I'm glad to have made her musical acquaintance, however late I am to the party. And it seems my timing is pretty good, as just last year she released …
One of the many reasons KEXP went to Montreal was at the recommendation of our friend Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Operators), so when we had our plan in place to record at Breakglass Studios during the POP Montreal Festival, naturally we asked Dan if he had any local bands that he would recommend th…
It’s a bit difficult to accurately convey in words the many factors big and small that contribute to making Timber! Outdoor Music Festival a weekend unlike any other. As cliche as it might seem, Timber really is one of those things that has to be experienced in person to be fully appreciated. Now i…
The MusicfestNW / Project Pabst teamup makes plenty of sense on paper - one had a great location on the Portland Waterfront last year, and one had a truly unique, interesting lineup - and at the end of day one of the newly-combined fests, it turns out it works in practice too. Despite being sold ou…
On any given weekend in Seattle, there are a million amazing shows to see - from jazz sets at coffee shops and orchestras at theaters, to a grunge shows in DIY spaces and major touring acts at any of our larger venues. Maybe this weekend you want to try something new; maybe you heard one song by th…
