When you hear a band is from Nashville, most likely you think of big coiffed hair, thick acoustic guitar sounds and gallon-sized hats. Well, Wild Cub, borne out of the Tennessee music hotbed, sounds more like they were from Northern California, or even the Pacific Northwest, than from the same plac…
Gong Xi Fa Cai! If you've already blown your new year's resolutions, get a fresh start with the lunar calendar and the 2016 Chinese New Year, which begins today, Monday, February 8th, and ends on January 27th, 2017. Traditionally, every year is assigned an animal in the Chinese Zodiac, and 2016 has…
How many indie rock dudes does it take to cover a Sharon Van Etten song? By our count, four, as footage has surfaced of a 2010 concert where Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, Bryce and Aaron Dessner of The National, and Colin Stetson covered her single "Love More." Watch below. The footage comes from a Mu…
All hail Father John Misty, whose sophomore release I Love You, Honeybear comes out tomorrow on Sub Pop. Watch the charismatic performer turn out an acoustic rendition of "I Went to the Store One Day" in a French café, via La Blogothèque's famed "Take Away Show" series. And tune in to KEXP tomorro…
Last month, we shared the first wave of bands playing the 2015 Treefort Music Fest, March 25th - 29th, 2015 in downtown Boise, Idaho. Today, we've got the next batch to share, and it's a doozy! Hometown heroes Built to Spill will take the stage, as well as Syrian artist Omar Souleyman. Both of Mont…
When Sólstafir plays for KEXP, the gods take notice. Two years ago, during KEXP's broadcast at Iceland Airwaves, hurricane-level gales swept across Reykjavik as the hard rocking band brewed up their own storm inside Kex Hostel. Last month, on their first tour of the West Coast, heavy winds followed…
If the recent rainy weather is getting you down, take a musical vacation with Beach Day. Formed in 2011 in an uncannily-named place called Hollywood, Florida, it would be impossible for the bright sunshine of their locale not to radiate into their retro-tinged songs. A shared love of surf-rock brou…
By taking their name from the annual festival held in Pamplona, Spain, San Fermin presents their musical philosophy outright. Like the running of the bulls, San Fermin's music bewilders, delights, and intimidates. Surprisingly, the Brookyln-based Baroque-poppers have only released one album, San Fe…
Seattle's Chastity Belt play energetic indie rock 'n roll. They are sarcastic, sharp and both complex and simple all at once. They are also an all-female band. But does gender matter when it comes to the music they produce? Does it matter for the bands Childbirth, Lemolo or La Luz? You get the sens…
Brian Foss, host of Sonic Reducer (KEXP's Saturday night punk show), plays some of his current favorites plus a few older cuts. Featuring mostly Pacific Northwest bands. 1. Radioactivity - Battered 2. The Dumps - Turd World 3. Steal Shit Do Drugs - Money Spent 4. Sick Sad World - Alone All The T…
DJ Kevin Cole presents a mix of highlight artists performing during this year's Sasquatch! Music Festival. Soundtrack your road trip out to the Gorge, or, if you're unable to attend in person, enjoy this awesome musical companion for your Memorial Day Weekend. 1. Temples - Shelter Song 2. S…
The 43rd annual Bumbershoot Music Festival will be taking place this upcoming Labor Day weekend from Saturday, August 31st through Monday, September 2nd. This year's edition of KEXP's Music That Matters Bumbershoot Podcast is curated by variety mix DJ Melissa Trejo who brings you a mix o…
It's an unlikely cover, but they make it work: downtempo duo Darkside (electronic producer Nicolas Jaar and guitarist Dave Harrington) take on the 1972 Nick Drake track “Things Behind The Sun,” from his classic Pink Moon album. The cover was recorded for Modular’s Modcast podcast: stream their hou…
If rock and roll music – specifically punk rock – is a genre for the young, then The So So Glos have done as much as anyone to help foster and support that spirit. Not only does the Brooklyn-based band -- comprised of brothers Alex and Ryan Levine, their step-brother Zach Staggers, and Matt Elkin -…
Rounding out tonight’s broadcast live from KEX Hostel at Iceland Airwaves is Borko. Though it is not uncommon for Icelandic musicians to have their fingers in many pots, Borko (Björn Kristiansson) takes the idea to a whole new level. He immerses himself in essentially every aspect of local music, …
Forget anything you might already think about Northwest electronica. For all of our gloomy and rain-sodden days and our fern-covered evergreen terrain, we sometimes produce bubbly and even tropical music. Take, for instance, Bellingham producer/multi-instrumentalist Grant Eadie, who with his projec…
This weekend, Friday, August 4th and Saturday, August 5th, the Chautauqua Music Festival takes over the Vashon Eagles on Vashon Island. The festival was founded to benefit elementary and middle school arts programs on Vashon Island. To date, Chautauqua has raised over 14,000 dollars to "help augmen…
As the music world reels from the news of Alan Vega's passing, several fans have shared cover versions of Suicide songs online. Check out Win Butler of Arcade Fire's take on the 1979 single "Dream Baby Dream" below, shared under his DJ Windows 98 name, and MGMT's resurrection of Vega's 1983 track …
Peter Michel seems to be living in the breezy midpoint in between lying in bliss and getting lost in the moment, so it's fitting that the Seattle' musician and his comrades in Hibou opened the Bigfoot stage on a day that fell into that same feeling. Most of Hibou's catalog runs at a midtempo pace a…
We love when one of our favorite bands remixes another favorite band, and that's just what we've got with the track below: hear Wye Oak's take on "Need A Friend," a single from EL VY, the collaboration of Matt Berninger of The National and Brent Knopf of Menomena and Ramona Falls. Find the origina…
