It's with terrible sadness that KEXP reports Darius Minwalla, longtime drummer for local band The Posies, passed away yesterday, May 21st, in his home in Vancouver, BC. Cause of death has yet to be determined. Minwalla joined the power-pop quartet in 2001, appearing on their 2005 comeback album Eve…
As a born and bred Northwesterner, seeing a dual lineup of my teenage (and adult) favorites Modest Mouse and Built To Spill play at the fair I went to every single year from the time I was a child until I was a pre-teen, the Puyallup Fair (I'm sorry, but it will never be the Washington State Fair t…
Rock and roll icon Richard Wayne Penniman, aka Little Richard. has died following a battle with bone cancer. He was 87.
Legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen has passed away following a battle with throat cancer. He was 65 years old.
As we waited at the Paramount Theatre for the Father John Misty show to begin, a fellow show-goer said to me, "Sometimes he walks around the crowd during the opener. He followed me on Twitter today and I literally died, so I'm gonna say hi to him if I can find him." I wondered in my head how this g…
After arriving on the main stage at Sasquatch! Music Festival in a Value Village-via-80s workout tapes-via acid getup and leading his band through a dramatically reworked "Seven Swans", Sufjan Stevens laid down the mission statement for his subheadlining set: "God is in the house." He paused, then …
Save for the jam band-heavy lineup of the festival's inaugural year – it's weird to think about now, but in the early 2000s, jam bands were as prominent at festivals as EDM is now – Sasquatch has long been an indie rock heavy festival, and even though this year's lineup is slightly less heavy on gu…
Philadelphia rockers The War On Drugs have been touring tirelessly on the wide success of their third album, 2014's Lost In The Dream. KEXP listeners voted it as their top album of the year, and with good reason. Singer and songwriter Adam Granduciel wrote the songs during a post-tour period of iso…
Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unrealeased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJ’s think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the …
Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Today’s song, selected by Afternoon S…
Those Pretty Wrongs frontman Jody Stephens was a key member of the seminal Memphis band Big Star, but while he was behind the drum kit in that outfit, he's front and center on his new project with Luther Russell (The Freewheelers). In this acoustic performance, Stephens and Russell's so…
Love & Hate, the sophomore release from soulful UK artist Michael Kiwanuka was a fave for many KEXP DJs last year. (It was even a nominee for the prestigious Mercury Award in 2016.) Kiwanuka revisits the release with a video for the track "Cold Little Heart" -- watch below. The video was direc…
There was a palpable moment of anticipation in the crowd right before Mitski Miyawaki hit the most pivotal D chord in the evening, the one that kickstarts the massive chorus of "Your Best American Girl", song-of-the-year candidate and the track pushed the Brooklyn musician's buzz from slight rumbli…
If Killer Mike had my favorite show at Sasquatch, Chvrches gets to take favorite pop show of the weekend. Where their albums are already pretty perfect in the realm of pop - the live performance blew them out of the water. Lauren Mayberry's vocals are so close to sweet that it's almost bitter - she…
Alejandro Escovedo - that's all I knew about the True Believers when KEXP's lineup for SXSW at Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop was first announced. OK, then someone mentioned it was his mid 80's band, a crew that had a brush with fame, but never quite broke through. They had label issues, personnel cha…
All the way from a remote valley in the North Cascades, listener Ana Maria Spagna tells us why she & her wife Laurie power KEXP.
The prolific songwriter and producer worked with numerous artists, including The Shins, The Black Keys, Foxygen, Sharon Van Etten, Damien Jurado, and more. He was 41.
Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, Chairman and Founder of Vulcan Inc., died today in Seattle complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was 65.
Their last album was 2015's Currents
