Rock icon Tom Petty has passed away at the age of 66, following a full cardiac arrest on Sunday night that left him with no brain activity. On Monday, October 2nd, the decision was made to pull him off life support. His longtime manager Tony Dimitriades released the following statement: "On behalf …
Montreal-based band Loon is Tessa Dawn K, Gregory Burton, Alexander Thibault, Tamara Sandor and Alex Nicol. They played a lovely set of ethereal, down-tempo dream pop, with Tessa’s delicate, crystalline vocals shining through, reminiscent at times of Kate Bush and Lauren Mayberry of CHVRCHES. Their…
It's an understatement to say The War On Drugs' return to KEXP was highly anticipated, but it's the best that words can do for this sublime session from Adam Granduciel and company. Featuring four songs off the band's beautiful new album A Deeper Understanding, the Philadelphia…
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…
Okkervil River's 2005 masterpiece, Black Sheep Boy, is one of those records that grabs you wherever you're at. If you haven't gotten the divine pleasure of experiencing it yet, I promise you, it will grab you at some point soon. There's just something about the coming-of-age brilliance of its narra…
Before the Fallon performance, FKA Twigs was a pervasive mystery – a voice and an image spun together in perfect unity to create something entirely other worldly that you felt both drawn to and intimidated by. Maybe it was fear, or maybe it was just mystery, but either way, FKA Twigs was impossible…
It should be no surprise that several of the artists topping this week's list of new releases were making appearances at SXSW last week, but two of them were also previewing their new songs live on KEXP during our broadcast from Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop. Billy Bragg and Palma Violets both gave mem…
We’re back for our second and final day at the Halle de la Courouze for another day of filming bands during the 39th annual Trans Musicales Festival in Rennes, France. It’s another cold day here, but it turned out to be bright at sunny this morning, so we decided to take advantage of the light and …
We often forget, but even Patti Smith -- an icon who has inspired and influenced a generation -- had her own musical idols in her youth, in this case, Bob Dylan. As you may have heard by now, Smith was invited to perform at the induction ceremony for Dylan's Nobel Peace Prize for Literature, and s…
In the years I've been doing this series we've talked about Daniel Johnston a couple times, and we've talked about Shimmy Disc many (many, many) times - so isn't it about time we hit both in one post? 1990 was the massively prolific singer-songwriter's first album not to appear under the Stress lab…
Hop Along frontwoman Frances Quinlan's distinctive voice has been compared to everything from a hurricane to sandpaper and everything in between, but what ultimately makes it so magnetic is its emotiveness, it's ability to sound human and stand out when surrounded by the pointed bluster of her band…
By the end of Greg Dulli's second set of the night at The Triple Door, there were an atypically low number of dead bodies that had sung about by the Cincinnati songwriter. But while the fictional body count remained low, there were a few overeager audience members that might have pushed up the numb…
Celebrating their fourth LP, A Man Alive, Thao and the Get Down Stay Down stopped by KEXP to throw a little pre-release party. Though the new songs are energetic and completely accessible, as Thao explains to the Midday Show's Cheryl Waters, recording A Man Alive was an incredibly personal, at time…
At the end of Alabama Shakes' set at Marymoor Park, there was a conspicuous absence: their biggest hit. "Hold On" just isn't the song that introduced the band to a wider audience, it's still one of their greatest moments. On paper, its omission is bewilidering to say the least. (Hell, even the noto…
