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…
It's been announced via Facebook that guitarist Dave Rosser has been diagnosed with inoperable colon cancer. Rosser has been a long-time member of all Greg Dulli's bands (The Afghan Whigs, The Twilight Singers, and Gutter Twins). The Afghan Whigs have scheduled benefit shows for December 10th in N…
The last time Foals were in town, frontman Yannis Philipakkis jumped off the Neptune Theatre's balcony into the crowd. It was, quite frankly, as thrilling as it was dangerous. On the band's return trip to Seattle three years later, he (wisely) did not jump from the Paramount Theatre's balcony. Pers…
"It's pretty windy, and Peter's cymbals are all over the place, but we're going to roll with it." Deep Sea Diver's Jessica Dobson may have introduced the Seattle quartet's performance nonchalantly, but they were anything but casual during their 45 minute performance as they opened the Bigfoot stage…
If everything else in the world seems to be going crazy at the moment, take solace knowing that The Joy Formidable still shamelessly tour with a gong. The Welsh trio's stage presence has always been one that's far larger than whatever venue they're playing in – inside or outside – and the gong that…
Mac DeMarco is a walking contradiction. He's a hardworking slacker, a popular outsider, and his newest release Another One is laden with carefree melancholy. His shows have always been a celebration of his refusal to fit any sort of vague mold, and the fans that aspire to do the same. Thursday nigh…
Whatever "chillwave" as a genre tag was, it's dead. However, its two biggest names, Toro Y Moi and Washed Out, have both (maybe coincedentally) evolved into something a little less ephemeral: electronic-savvy, funk machines. As he's gained more prominence, Ernest Greene's initially bedroom-sized pr…
It's hard to believe it's already been three years since the release of the Fleet Foxes album Helplessness Blues (voted #1 album of 2011 by KEXP listeners). Frontman Robin Pecknold took to Facebook yesterday to share an update:
For anyone who’s curious, this is a short Fleet Foxes update – been a w…
Our friends at Merge Records are celebrating their 25th Anniversary all year long -- not only with our recent SXSW showcase, a buncha great reissues, and a 25K run, but with Merge 25, a four-day music festival taking place July 23rd through 26th in the label's hometown of Carrboro, NC. They've jus…
Weighing Barboza's Tuesday night festivities by pictures alone would be a crime. What you don't see behind camera - in view of the focused eyes of Russell Whyte and Reed Juenger - is a bloody marvelous party. There's little-to-no room to move or breathe, dozens of couples or just-mets dancing toget…
It's been hard for us to forget the beautiful and intimate session we had with Ólafur Arnalds during our Iceland Airwaves broadcast last year at KEX Hostel. This year, when we saw that the young Icelandic composer and songwriter would be performing at SXSW, we wanted to get him live on air again, n…
Monotown: it's a name you'll be hearing a lot on KEXP, and hopefully everywhere else, in 2013. Over the past several years, our trips to Iceland have allowed us to discover bands sometimes even before they've released any albums (as was the case with Of Monsters and Men in 2010), or at least before…
Summer is nearly over but, on the upside, that means Seattle's biggest music and arts festival is back. Running Friday through Sunday, rather than Saturday through Labor Day Monday, for the first time in its history, Bumbershoot otherwise hasn't changed much else in their formula: a mixture of musi…
Since the mid-'90s Omaha, Nebraska natives, The Faint, have been composing within the dance-punk tradition, but not without a distinctive tinge. On their website, they state that, they're "disinterested in making anything except what their own inspiration drives them to make." This philosophy, albe…
Tomorrow, reunited shoegaze legends Ride will release Weather Diaries, their first album in 21 years. And today, they’ve shared a new video for their single “All I Want.” Director Jade Mortimer relied on simplicity and detailed camera work for the video, which is mostly centered around a man slow-m…
There's a new pop-savvy sheriff in Sub Pop town, and he goes by the name of Cullen Omori, and instead of having to wield a Smith Western to corral a crowd's attention, all he has to do is coo his name. Omori quickly became a wunderkind as one of the instrumental brains of the Chicagoan outfit Smith…
The Cure celebrate their fortieth anniversary this year. Let that soak in for a second. Then consider that the English quintet are playing three-plus hour sets with multiple encores night after night. Needless to say, Robert Smith and the current Cure lineup are doing right their legacy night after…
