Summer Cannibals are a band which announces their presence. Since the release of 2016's Full of It record, released on Kill Rock Stars, the band has fine-tuned an impressive live show, as evidenced by their set today at Little London Plane, as part of Day 3 of our Upstream Fest & Summit coverag…
Unlike many of the bands I've covered in this blog over the years, I've actually heard of Hunters & Collectors! I'm not sure where or how I first was made aware of this long-running Australian band, but I presume it was in my formative years, listening to college radio in the Boston area. As I …
Portland band Battleme are lovers not fighters. Frontman Matt Drenik may have fueled his project's perpetually punchy new LP with hard-hitting beats and muscular rhythms, but Habitual Love Songs is Battleme's billet-doux to '70s-steeped power-pop and glam guitar rock, populated with characters from…
We were excited when we heard legendary singer/songwriter Paul Weller would stop by the KEXP studios for an acoustic session, but little did we know, he'd be bringing his five-piece band with him for this very special unplugged set. The intimate performance spotlighted his twelfth solo release Satu…
American treasure Willie Dixon would have turned 100 this year. As it seems must be the case with even the most revered and successful blues musicians, his life had its highs and lows; sometimes those were two sides of the same coin, from having his songs covered by some of the most popular bands i…
Boston punk band The Real Kids had a surprise hit in 1977 with the track "All Kindsa Girls," and now all-girl trio Ex Hex give it a modern spin with their rendition, shared below. Lead vocalist Mary Timony described it to NME as, "just a great song, the kind of song that you wish you wrote." The c…
Following yesterday's live session with Polish band Hańba!, today we offer the second performance in a soon-to-be weekly series of recordings KEXP captured during the OFF Festival in Katowice, Poland. During our trip there - made possible by the festival and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute's Don’t Pa…
Has it really been 20 years? Scottish post-punk band Mogwai celebrate two decades as a band with the retrospective collection Central Belters, a box set of hits and rarities available as a three-CD or six-LP. As an example of the goods, today they share a video for an 18-year-old track “Helicon 1″…
We closed out our Hood-to-Hood broadcast with a bang, specifically the boisterous crash of Philly-based indie rockers Hop Along. Frontwoman Frances Quinlan has a wild howl of a voice that shook the windows of West Seattle businesses down the California Avenue corridor. With screeching feedback and …
A bad breakup rarely calls for celebration, but it is a cause for Ceremony. The Bay Area band builds their fifth full-length around singer Ross Farrar's recent romantic split, narrating his loss and resulting loneliness almost chronologically. The L-Shaped Man isn't all about doom and gloom, though…
Understandably, Vancouver band Weed often has difficulty crossing the border. In fact, KEXP's John Richards had to write a letter so they could travel from Canada to perform live with him on the Morning Show last month. But it's really not the sticky green stuff border guards try to sniff out that …
David Bazan has announced on Twitter that his beloved late '90s and early '00s Seattle band Pedro the Lion will be reuniting for four shows, two in Seattle and two in Portland this December. A full US tour will follow. Pedro the Lion broke up in 2006, after releasing four albums, the classic being …
Midday Show host Cheryl Waters recently discovered a slew of great bands that she loves -- Coals, Maszer, Plastic Pinks and more. Enjoy these discoveries along with a heavy helping of fantastic local bands. 1. Coals - Weightless 2. New Order - Restless 3. Gwenno - Patriarchaeth 4. MASZER - Fata …
A native of Red Bluff, California, Margaret Glaspy moved across the country to Boston, where she cut her teeth with master classes at Berklee (regardless of whether or not she was a student at the time) and local gigs. A few years – and one set of studio sessions redoing her original, iPad-recorde…
The long-running Australian psych-rock band stopped by KEXP last month for another blistering in-studio session and chat with DJ Cheryl Waters.
Martin Douglas visits Ballard Avenue's finest Lebanese-Mexican eatery and speaks to its founder, who also happens to play drums in one of the city's greatest rock bands.
In separate interviews, Martin Douglas speaks to Jean Smith and David Lester of the Vancouver-based band about their influence on a generation of musicians, the K Records reissues of two of their classic albums, and much more.
Today, we continue sharing our discoveries from the Trans Musicales festival in Rennes, France, where last December we captured twelve exclusive sessions. This week’s feature is of psych-rock band Swedish Death Candy.
The Seattle punk band's industrial-strength pummel in a live setting is conductive to being punched in the stomach. We conduct a short interview with frontman Nathan Rodriguez in advance of their Upstream Music Fest performance on June 1st.
The massive SoDo fire that filled the Seattle sky with black smoke resulted in no personal injuries, but local musicians are left without their gear.
