If I were a better blogger, I would have gone into KEXP armed with the Bumbershoot lineup and found an album from one of the many fine bands playing at this weekend's festival (Negativland, say, or maybe Jonathan Richman) so as to bring you a remotely topical post for this week. Instead of that, I …
I've covered Beat Happening records in this space before, but it's been just over six years, so I figure the time is ripe to go back to that well. For my previous post, I compared the reactions to the Oly DIY heroes' first and fourth albums. Today we'll split the difference (sort of) and go back to…
The Wedding Present is one of those bands whose catalog I always found daunting when I browsed the record store bins. So many albums, and singles, and EPs, and Peel sessionses! I ended up just buying Seamonsters and sticking with it, but I knew they had much more to offer. And that was before I hea…
It's nice to pick up a relatively obscure album from the KEXP stacks and discover that it's found a bit of new life in this century. It's not exactly a mysterious discovery along the lines of Light in the Attic's release of L'amour (though I will be looking for a vintage copy of that gem next time …
We're talking about Seattle Center today, right? Of course a bajillion huge bands have played Bumbershoot and Key Arena over the years, but the lifeblood of this area – as of the city as a whole – is the underrated local bands. Sure, you saw the Pixies on the Bumbershoot main stage in 2004 with sev…
"Hey, baby, it's the 4th of July!" Digging a little deeper into the lyrics for this X song about fading love - promoted via the giant sticker on this copy of See How We Are - perhaps it's not the most appropriate tune to be cranking in honor of our nation's birthday, but that sort of incongruity di…
On-U Sound is a record label based in England since 1979, focusing on dub music in its many forms - or at least some of its many forms - from Lee Scratch Perry to label founder Adrian Sherwood's own work. Compilations have always been a great way for labels to give the world a taste of what they h…
In 2018, KEXP celebrated the 30th anniversary of local record label Sub Pop with a four-month retrospective, "counting up" every catalog number in their vast discography of over 1,200 releases. Dig into the archives of our catalog coverage, featuring in-depth coverage on the history of their releases.
