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,...
We like to believe Sam Beam is one of our own. Though he hails about as far away as you can get, from South Carolina and later Florida, the first three Iron & Wine albums were released on Seattle's celebrated label Sub Pop. And of course, KEXP was one of the first radio stations to get behin...
There are few moments in rock 'n' roll as iconic as the opening drum-and-breath line in "Time of the Season." Yet unlike many of their British Invasion co-horts (like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who and The Moody Blues), The Zombies never reached the same level of success. Maybe it was t...
At 60 years old, Robyn Hitchcock has experienced a longevity that would be the cause for many musicians' envy. He began his career as a member of several small, local London bands until 1976 when he founded the psychedelic folk rock group The Soft Boys. In 1981 (about a year after The Soft Boys b...
If you've been listening to the Morning Show with John Richards, you've probably heard a lot of up-and-comers Wild Cub, whose energetic, electronic-infused sound takes the best from 80's new wave romanticism, R&B and indie rock and makes it impossible to sit still. Back in February, the Nashv...
That True Believers' posthumously released second is called Hard Road is no joke. The Alejandro and Javier Escovedo-led Austin band hit the major pitfalls of the 80's music industry starting with a big local buzz that led to a rushed and underproduced first album, a lineup change dictated by thei...
Suuns are riding high this year following the release of their second full-length Images Du Futur, and when they showed up to play at KEXP's broadcast in Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop at SXSW the crowd got to see the band burn with confidence through a set of powerful, propulsive post-rock. Suuns al...
Today marks the release of Dormarion, the third full-length from Seattle power pop project Telekinesis. The band was in-studio this morning celebrating its released, and a couple of weeks ago they played a bunch of material from the new album for the crowd assembled at Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop ...
Since its formation in 2008, Bleeding Rainbow has evolved into the kick-ass psychedelic rock band that you will have the pleasure to jamming to today. Although every young band goes through some growing pains, most don't have to deal with cease-and-desist letters over their chosen name. Philadelp...
As we previously noted, Brooklyn band Parquet Courts make a sound whose exact genre is hard to nail down. Settling comfortably into a blend of seventies and eighties punk, avante rock, 80s pop, and no wave, their songs harken to indie rock's humble beginnings -- think Blonde Redhead but less sad,...
When Lorenzo Cherubini began his career in the late 80's, the stage name Jovanotti (derived from giovanotto, meaning "young man") refered to his youth, but now, decades later, the name that increasingly became synonymous with commercial success in his native Italy is being renewed through his reb...
Anyone still lamenting the demise of Sonic Youth has clearly not yet listened to Thurston Moore's new band, Chelsea Light Moving. While not to diminish the longtime contributions of Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo, Steve Shelley, et al, this new collective of Moore and his Ecstatic Peace! labelmates Sama...
