Yes, we waited a long time, we waited through an audience rendition of "Oh Canada", we waited through rumors of the show being canceled. Yes, this was the band so many people had said was the one band they really needed (not wanted) to see this weekend. Yes, I actually walked to the wrong stage ass…
Warhol would've been proud. Although the wigged genius fostered relative grumps like the Velvet Underground as his house band, his own art was often considered just this side, if not over the line, of parody. Warhol was both revered and despised for presenting such common items as soup cans or doll…
His posse was on Broadway last night. In what became the worst kept secret appearance in Seattle, local hip-hop stars Macklemore and Ryan Lewis took over the intersection of Broadway and Olive Way in Capitol Hill yesterday to film a video for their song "White Walls", referencing the singer's suped…
Red Wedding (and my selection of this album for this particular week may or may not be related to the start of the new season of Game of Thrones) was a pretty obscure band even by Review Revue standards. It sounds like they had quite the reputation as a live band around L.A., but they only released…
Unlike many of the bands I've covered in this blog over the years, I've actually heard of Hunters & Collectors! I'm not sure where or how I first was made aware of this long-running Australian band, but I presume it was in my formative years, listening to college radio in the Boston area. As I …
The second day of The 2016 Governors Ball Music Festival was also its final day. (The threat of severe thunderstorms led the festival's organizers to cancel the Sunday programming – most notably including Kanye West.) But until the unexpected deluge of rain came pouring down around 7 p.m. on Saturd…
As we step inside Paul's Boutique today, we're are exploring all of the intricate and diverse elements that have made Beastie Boys's second LP so revolutionary. Perhaps no greater element to the genesis and genius of the album was the Beasties' collaboration with the Dust Brothers, two friends who,…
NYC duo Cibo Matto share a trippy new video today for the track "Deja Vu," off their comeback album, Hotel Valentine, released earlier this year. The mostly-monochromatic clip was directed by Jean Claude Billmaier, and was filmed using an Xbox Kinect camera. Check it out below, and check out their…
With a voice nurtured by her Tennessee church roots, singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Valerie June skillfully combines gospel, folk, bluegrass, and a bevy of other genres in her music. Known for her distinct voice, June was determined to succeed as a solo artist and taught herself to play gu…
Yeah Yeah Yeahs' frontwoman Karen O has announced she'll be releasing a debut solo album, Crush Songs, on September 9th via Julian Casablancas' label Cult Records. In a note on her website, O shares, "When I was 27, I crushed a lot. I wasn’t sure I’d ever fall in love again. These songs were writt…
In the midst of the 10th annual Decibel Festival, KEXP was fortunate to get Julia Holter in our studios. While her first two albums were recorded alone in the intimacy of her bedroom, her acclaimed recent release Loud City Song on Domino Records was her first to be recorded outside the comfort of h…
It's hard to believe that there can be room for improvement when it comes to James Blake's music. Apparently Blake himself wasn't 100 percent sold on his song "Life Round Here" and he said, “I never really felt the track was finished, even when it went on the album, I just felt there was this spac…
Sunday at Bumbershoot 2013 was just about as good as it gets at Seattle’s hometown festival. Beginning with Kithkin’s tribal hair-cutting and ending with an incredible turnout in Key Arena for Death Cab For Cutie’s 10th anniversary performance of Transatlanticism and packing pretty much everything …
Next on the video stream live from Kex Hostel at Iceland Airwaves Music Festival was Icelandic atmospheric metal band GlerAkur. The solo project of sound designer for National Theater of Iceland Elvar Geir Sævarsson, creating post-rock flavored metal. His debut record The Mountains Are Beautiful No…
LA-natives Allah-Las are about as LA sounding as a car ride through the desert - their sound wasn't made for riding the waves, but for steaming on the beach. Beautiful guitar notes ripple out of a haze of vocal harmonies reminiscent of The Beach Boys. It's hot music for a hot day - "We're feeling k…
Seattle, you never cease to amaze us with your passion for music, and we love you for it! Despite rare high temperatures in the mid-90s, over a thousand of you came out last Friday for the latest edition of Concerts at the Mural. And, a little heat was so worth it with the great bill we had. Local …
Today, over five and a half years after my post about Lida Husik's 2nd album and its reception at KCMU, I decided to share her very first album. Way back in 2010, I was lamenting whatever oversight had led to Ms. Husik's not being on Wikipedia, and expressing excitement that she was working on her …
Following his stunning participation in A Tribute to Woody Guthrie and His Month of Song at Benaroya Hall last month, L.A. punk legend John Doe shares a video for the track "A Little Help," which, incidentally, gets a little help from Chan Marshall aka Cat Power. Doe explains, "There is beauty &am…
Due to the windy weather and the consequential shuffling of band’s set times and locations, Sasquatch! Music Festival's El Chupacabra tent housed several acts that certainly didn’t fit the sound the EDM-themed stage is known for. Ibeyi was seemingly one of those bands, but the group had been schedu…
There are many ways to “get down,” and Thao and crew seemingly discovered them all on Monday at Sasquatch! Music Festival. Thao and the Get Down ripped through a festival ready set, encouraging the crowd to get down in every possible way. Whether it was through the plucky rhythm the group often hel…
