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…
In the last few years, there’s been a slew of English, (mostly) London-based bands emerging from basement gigs with world-beating ambitions and the musical elements to make good on them: a heavy dose of pop melody, a balance of snarky storytelling and heartfelt appeal, and most of all, hooks that a…
Some bands jump into their opening song and some bands literally jump into their opening song. After completing their own soundcheck at Sasquatch, Seattle band Kithkin quietly got into position on the sides of the stage and literally leaped – with Kelton Sears nearly pulling off the best scissor ki…
We made it out to the Trans Musicales festival grounds last night after we wrapped up filming for the day. The festival grounds are located at the Park Expo, which is a complex of large buildings, a couple of which are the main festival areas, like the food court, for a lack of a better term and I …
KEXP begins Day 2 of Bumbershoot in-studios at the new home with Black Joe Lewis and his band the Honeybears. The Austin blues singer is three years deep into a cathartic rampage. With the release of Electric Slave in 2013, Lewis shed all extra weight from his warpath. The band name is slimmer, the…
Julian Casablancas kicked off his Showbox set Thursday night with an eleven minute experimental track about the corruption of the music industry and the doom of creativity called "Human Sadness". It is truly a new era for one of our generation's best songwriters, personally coming full circle with …
On a rainy Wednesday evening, Annie Clark brought wonder and beauty to Seattle and to the Moore Theater with her St. Vincent return to our fair city. Both of the last times we've had the chance to see clark, it was alongside David Byrne, playing some original material, but mostly cuts from their co…
Bon Dimanche! It’s written in graffiti on several buildings all over Rennes. Happy Sunday! Sunday is the day of rest for the French people and even our crew got to take a small break on the final day of filming during the Trans Musicales festival. Normally, we’re up by 6am, breakfast at 7, out the …
The last time they were at the Paramount Theatre, Sigur Rós were touring behind their just-released sixth album Valtari, their final LP with founding member Kjartan Sveinsson, who declined to tour with them that year and would fully quit the band not long after. That album remains the most mellow i…
It won't just be the record-breaking temps that make this weekend the hottest of the year so far. Besides the start of KEXP's own Concerts at the Mural series this Friday, down in Happy Valley, Oregon, our friends at Pickathon are at it again. It's always hard to say that "this year" is the best ye…
There's probably a joke somewhere in the fact that Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats played a rousing workout of a show on Bumbershoot's first (and, in quintessential Seattle fashion, only) warm afternoon, but it wouldn't illustrate the Denver, Colorado-singer's performance any better than s…
The EMP Pop Conference covers a lot of ground in its panels, discussions, and presentations – where else could you find programming covering both a Missy Elliott retrospective and a roundtable seeking to find out what the worst song ever is? – so it only makes sense that for its Seattle artist show…
It's the annual April Fool's Day Video Round-up, a compilation of jokes and fools for your viewing and listening pleasure! You can prank me later. What will April Fool's Day 2015 bring? Here's hoping someone tries to top last year's Flaming Lips release, "Sell Out," or Björk's 2009 announcement tha…
Milwaukee folk punk legends Violent Femmes have announced that they’ll be relasing their 10th studio album on July 26. Titled Hotel Last Resort, the record follows 2016’s We Can Do Anything, which saw the band return for their first album in 16 years. Hotel Last Resort features covers of Irving Ber…
At the Paramount Theatre last week, Phantogram opened their set without even being on stage. After they performed two songs obscured from the audience, a screen fell shortly thereafter, revealing the New York duo behind the fourth wall to fervently shake the physical walls of the venue. Going from …
The second day of Macefield Music Festival invoked thunderstorms and musical fanfare as dozens of bands faced ecstatic crowds of music lovers at the KEXP Mainstage, Tractor Tavern, Conor Byrne Pub, and The Sunset. Seattle rapper Grynch threw down his approachable, lyrical west coast rhymes for an e…
"Good evening" or "we're Iceage from Copenhagan, Denmark" wasn't the first thing that Iceage frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt said when the Danish four-piece arrived onstage. It wasn't even a simple "hello". It was a startling, guttural grunt that soared over the opening chords of "On My Fingers". …
The eternally mysterious Frank Ocean has posted yet another (semi-confusing) hint about a forthcoming album via his Tumblr. The post features a person wearing a baseball cap that says, "If you liked 2017, you'll love 2018" (which feels comical because we're pretty sure no one liked 2017). The photo…
Even for a band that’s made a career out of reinterpreting styles from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and beyond, Dr. Dog’s latest release, Psychedelic Swamp, (ANTI- Records), is more meta you might think. The album is a rehashing of their first unreleased demo, originally recorded in 2000, and as such, it mak…
Playing while it's raining at a festival is always a gamble. Lots of people who would have otherwise wandered over out of curiosity are hiding out in every covered nook and cranny imaginable, so it was only the diehards waiting in the drizzle for The Julie Ruin's mid-afternoon set. But, to be hones…
