Do you like dancing in your underwear? Yeah? Do you like dancing in public in your underwear? Well, !!!'s Nic Offer sure does. For their performance at KEXP's broadcast from Doug Fir Lounge during Musicfest NW, the frenetic frontman stripped down to his Some Girls-inspired skivvies before thrusting…
"How about this?" Julie Edwards screamed from the drum set halfway through Deap Vally's set, "Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and DFA 1979! This is the friggin' rock n roll circus man!". Edwards remark couldn't be more true - truly, tonight's sinfully good double feature is a match made in heaven. At f…
With a song titled "Live Alone" and a brand new album titled The Jackals, it's clear something is dark and foreboding in Ravenna Woods these days. The Seattle quartet admits: "This album has an underlying current of fear, greed, distrust and malevolence. It's someone talking in their sleep about ra…
There is a simple & sure premise at KEXP. To discover and experience great music that brings fulfilment and enjoyment to your life. Join Midday Show host Cheryl Waters for our latest Music That Matters podcast. We hope these tunes hit the spot. 1. Jessica Lea Mayfield - I Wanna Love You 2. Th…
Did you know about the current infestation of pythons that Florida is facing? Yeah! They're eating all the small animals and slowly squeezing the biodiversity out of the region - but there is a different python at work in Surfer Blood's new album, Pythons. It's a surf rock kind of slippery happy su…
You know, it's bad enough when there's a band that I'm vaguely familiar with, that I know I should really check out, but have never quite gotten around to (we see a lot of those in this column). But when there's a band that I totally think "yeah, I know that band! I like them," only to realize that…
Bands go through changes – name changes, member changes, sound transformations, covers. One of those bands that has recently changed names, members, and sound, but has survived, is Philadelphia’s Bleeding Rainbow. Starting as a duo of sludge-infused indie pop back in 2009, the band then known as Re…
Despite being recorded in December, Lavender Diamond's in-studio session was one of the warmest things that KEXP broadcast in 2012. Singer Becky Stark's voice is nothing short of radiant, buoying the Los Angeles quartet's tender, winsome sound. Across the folk pop bounce of "There's A Perfect Love …
On Wednesday, I was excited to begin my fifth time attending Decibel Festival with the Abstract Earth Project showcase at the Showbox at the Market. This showcase featured Wax Tailor, an artist whose work I'd never yet picked up, but hearing some of it recently on KEXP had me saying "oh yeah, this …
As if we needed an excuse to get Cloud Cult on our airwaves again... The longtime KEXP favorites released an acoustic album earlier this year featuring live recordings of acoustic sets the band performed at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis. Seattle, though, was their inspiration, as band re-tool…
Australian band San Cisco’s first time in Seattle included a stop by KEXP for an in-studio with Cheryl Waters. “That was more fun than a barrel of monkeys,” joked Waters, describing the performance. Formed in 2009 in the small city of Fremantle, Australia (the same town home to Tame Impala), San Ci…
It seemed so daunting when Joseph Arthur first talked about The Ballad of Boogie Christ during an in-studio session two years ago. Back then, he thought it might be a potential rock musical or even a "rock opera" about a man who was either enlightened or insane, and it was either going to be about …
Earlier this month, Alice Russell graced KEXP’s studios with her breathy, soulful style. With a rhythmic push tempered like a slow-build, her set kicked off with the song “For A While.” Donning a gold heart-shaped ring on her left hand, Russell belted her heart-felt “Ooos” and “Yeahs” that clutched…
Did all the new lights in the KEXP Live Room get to him? Because Will Toledo of Car Seat Headrest is talking about collaborating with... Smash Mouth. Yeah, the band behind karaoke go-to "All Star." In an interview with Australia's Triple J radio, he says a project "kind of remains a mysterious fro…
I've covered Beat Happening records in this space before, but it's been just over six years, so I figure the time is ripe to go back to that well. For my previous post, I compared the reactions to the Oly DIY heroes' first and fourth albums. Today we'll split the difference (sort of) and go back to…
Among the constant changing tides of the music industry and the struggle forward for artists to learn to adapt and improvise to find new ways to make it on the modern scene, it's nice to know sometimes that you can't keep a good man down. At least, that principle holds for Dan Boeckner. The masterm…
Opening Decibel Festival 2013 at Neumos was a show that set the bar so high that it's going to be hard to compete with it for the next four days. Peter Hook & The Light headlined the Factory Pop Showcase with a double header of classic New Order albums: Movement and Power, Corruption, & Lie…
"It's not a perfect record, but then you wouldn't want it to be" - The Quietus' Emily Mackay hits the nail right on the head in her review of Palma Violets' debut album 180: the London quartet's most endearing quality isn't their pop-sensible hooks, psychedelically-tinged guitar hooks, or their sha…
2013 continues to bolt out of the gate with another solid week of new releases. With the long awaited followup to their well-received 2009 debut, Local Natives top our list of must-buys. Hummingbird finds the Silver Lake, Los Angeles, group pushing into new territories of song structure, challengin…
