What a happy coincidence! When I began my usual internet research for this week's piece on Northwest heroes Mecca Normal, I fully expected to find the usual nostalgic laments for a great band that was no more. How wrong I was! Not only is the two-piece guitar/voice unit of Jean Smith and David Lest…
Today's Song of the Day, as chosen by Gabriel Teodros, host of Early on KEXP, is "COMPLEX OF KILLING A MAN (feat. Baby Rose)" by BLK ODYSSY, from the 2022 album BLK VINTAGE: THE REPRISE on BLK ODYSSY / EMPIRE.
The rumors are true: LCD Soundsystem and Guns N' Roses will reunite to headline the 2016 Coachella Music Festival in Indio, California, with Calvin Harris headlining the final night.This April 15-17 and April 22-24, you can head to the desert and catch Sufjan Stevens, M83, Grimes, Run the Jewels, I…
The Vera Stage's sound has been notably quiet (especially compared to the sometimes deafening main stage) all weekend, but that didn't bother Girlpool, the drumless duo of Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad. In fact, if anything, it probably galvanized the Los Angeles duo. Their music is emotionally a…
Longtime KEXP-friend Bob Mould has announced his next album, Beauty & Ruin, is slated for a June 3rd release on Merge Records. He'll continue to be backed by bassist Jason Narducy (Split Single, Verbow) and drummer Jon Wurster (Superchunk, Mountain Goats), who pretty much killed it on Mould's …
KEXP seems to get gayer every year, and this year's Big Gay Podcast, featuring twenty tracks spanning more than 40 years, is no exception. With everything from vintage queer country to an electronic interpretation of a black metal classic, El Toro's 2014 roundup of songs by, for, and about the LGB…
"I'm sorry, I have to interrupt. My mind was just blown," DJ Cheryl Waters revealed after Milagres opened their recent in-studio session at KEXP with "The Letterbomb." With its funky drums and shifts between baritone and falsetto, it's easy to see why Milagres' music made her feel this way. In fac…
From a KEXP Song of the Day in 2013 to a Grammy nomination and Saturday Night Live in 2016 -- it's been fantastic watching the rise of our beloved Courtney Barnett! Over the weekend, the Aussie superstar made her first live TV appearance in the U.S. with "Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go to the…
Filigree & Shadow was the second album released by the loose 4AD collective This Mortal Coil. As with the third album, which I covered here eight years ago, label head Ivo Watts-Russel teamed up with some current 4AD artists (including members of Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, and The Wolfgang …
Recently, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn declared February to be Seattle Women Who Rock Month. The announcement was spurred by a new play and history project created by Gretta Harley (Maxi Badd, Danger Dens), Sarah Rudinoff, and Elizabeth Kenny called These Streets, a fictionalized story heavily inspire…
Ty Segall is like the American Horror Story of rock 'n' roll. The now-LA based maniacal, musical polymath constantly reinvents while rotating a cast of characters around a shifting approach to one theme: to rock the living shit out of you. Though his latest album - and what we can assume to be just…
Watching these videos you might be thinking: political outrage hasn't seen this much ferocity in music since Rage Against the Machine disbanded a dozen years ago. The fact is, Raymond "Boots" Riley and his band The Coup have been making socially outspoken jams for just as long and have turned out e…
It's been a year since the release of David Bowie's Blackstar, the #1 Album of 2016, as voted on by KEXP listeners. And to mark what would have been his 70th birthday, an EP has been released featuring some of the last songs this musical icon recorded, including “No Plan”, “Killing a Little Time”,…
It's been a great year and a half or so for writing albums about death. Most recently, Flying Lotus killed on impact with his incredible You're Dead!, but Noah Lennox, a.k.a. Panda Bear, isn't far behind. Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper has been whispered around the Animal Collective spheres for w…
Northwest artist Joey Casio has been identified in the aftermath of last weekend's Oakland warehouse fire, one of the deadliest building fires in history with a total of 36 people killed. Joey (real name: Joseph Matlock) was scheduled to perform under his alias Obsidian Blade. Originally from Vanc…
Seven years after their last record, Canadian band Wolf Parade are back with a new full-length record. Called Cry Cry Cry, the album follows 2010's Expo 86 and last year's EP entitled EP 4. They've shared with us the first single off the album, "Valley Boy." The band is made up of Spencer Krug (Moo…
If their lyrics give any sense of how tough the ladies of Warpaint are, the Los Angeles quartet aren't a band so much as they are a gang. Not in the organized crime sense, but in the "don't mess with us" sense. Case in point: On "Elephants", the second track on the band's 2008 debut EP Exquisite C…
