It’s time again for Friday on My Mind. Our weekly blog post where we look at videos centered around one common theme. This is a collaborative effort between KEXP and King 5 News. Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck opened Thursday, April 23, as an exclusive engagement in select movie theaters prior to the…
The final act to be affected by the mid-afternoon Bigfoot set delay at Sasquatch, Mogwai were fortuitous enough to be the only set to perform in full darkness. Although the Glaswegian quintet don't move much onstage – save for Stuart Braithwaite's possessed, wide-eyed wiggle – their dark lighting …
"So, what did y'all motherfuckers do to get in here? What makes you VIP? Is this like one of those fucked-up... when the celebrities go play the show at the Eastern European child dictator's party?" So asked Travis Morrison, mischievous frontman for the DC post-punk veterans The Dismemberment Plan,…
K-vicker? No, K-vaker! Today's release of Sigur Rós' 2013 album, Kveikur, may seem like a speedy turn-around on the heels of their 2012 LP, Valtari, but the ground-shaking sound on the new LP is what the Icelandic band has been building toward over the past few years. While the relatively placid Va…
It’s time again for Friday on My Mind, our weekly blog post where we look at videos centered around one common theme. This is a collaborative effort between KEXP and King 5 News. Today we are fundraising for only 12 hours, thanks to our Amplifier Monthly Giving Club. Amplifiers have made it possib…
London post-punk band Savages made an explosive entrance onto the American scene last year at CMJ (and then this year at SXSW) and have quickly become one of the most anticipated new acts of year. And after witnessing them live for the first time on Seattle soil, all this writer can say is this: no…
David Bowie played his last concert (to date) on June 25th, 2004 in Scheeßel, Germany. On one of the final legs of his tour behind 2003's Reality, Bowie began dealing with a series of health problems, which caused the dates following the Scheeßel performance to be scrapped. Afterwards, Bowie slowly…
This year is Wilco's twentieth anniversary, but the posit of Wilco merely being a band for two decades is a somewhat reductive statement – across their career, they've covered as much musical ground (and employed as many personnel) as three or four bands. They started out as alt-country lifers tryi…
It’s time again for Friday on My Mind. Our weekly blog post where we look at videos centered around one common theme. This is a collaborative effort between KEXP and King 5 News. Next Tuesday is Cinco de Mayo and we all know that means - time to drink. Or at least that’s what it tends to mean for a…
It’s time again for Friday on My Mind. Our weekly blog post where we look at videos centered around one common theme. This is a collaborative effort between KEXP and King 5 News. Super Bowl Sunday is almost upon us. This year the battle will take place at The MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New…
Thursday night’s Decibel Festival awesomeness continued at Neumos with the Psychotropic showcase, featuring Neon Indian, Teen Daze, Big Black Delta, and Seattle’s own Vox Mod. The bill was brave – all of these bands come from radically different places in the musical spectrum – but eclecticism has …
Though he'd been playing a variety instruments and styles for years, Oakland music Luis Vasquez never intended his current project, The Soft Moon, to catch on. A true bedroom project, The Soft Moon was originally meant to be a device of self-exploration, a spelunking of the depths, as it were, of V…
Just when you thought festival season was over with Bumbershoot, another one has jumped in right before the buzzer. This means you've got one more shot to enjoy free outdoor music before the cold weather kicks in. This Sunday, September 17th, Lyft will host their first annual Lyft Fest at the Seatt…
Veteran LA-based artist Moby debuts his new project, Moby & The Void Pacific Choir, and KEXP Music Director Don Yates notes their first LP is "a potent set of noisy, goth-tinged post-punk with loud, distorted synths, rumbling guitars, pounding industrial rhythms, dour vocals, soaring song hooks…
Being that I was quite young and on the other side of the country in the heyday of Seattle's The Visible Targets, I was not familiar with the band or their legacy until quite recently (I was more of a Moving Targets kid). But fortunately, I didn't have to go far to find a wealth of information on t…
It's difficult to imagine Iska Dhaaf as only a two-piece, even when they're right in front of you. The sound of their full-bodied post-punk is supported by Benjamin Verdoes' (Mt. St. Helen's Vietnam Band) unique ability to simultaneously play the keyboard and drums. It takes a talented musician to …
Next on KEXP live from KEX Hostel at Iceland Airwaves was an insane set from Icelandic band Grísalappalísa. The band, whose name means "pig-legged Lisa," plays raucus music that genre-jumps like nothing I've ever seen before. Vocalists Gunnar Ragnarsson and Baldur Baldursson scream and grunt, with …
If volume is your only musical qualifier, then there is probably only one band on your best of 2013 list. San Francisco metal duo Deafheaven dropped Sunbather last month, a seven track sonic masterpiece that relentlessly pulls at your heartstrings and threatens hearing damage for 60 minutes. The al…
One thing I've noticed over the years I've been writing these blog posts is that I should really know more about the English city of Birmingham and its music. While it might not have the name recognition of Manchester, Liverpool, and London to those of us outside of the UK, Birmingham has produced …