Yoko Ono turned 89 last Friday, the same day a new covers album of her music was released. The album was curated by Ben Gibbard and features artists like Japanese Breakfast, Sharon Van Etten, and David Byrne.
It has been 25 years since the one-hit wonder White Town released the hit, "Your Woman." The man behind White Town, Jyoti Mishra, breaks down how the song came together and why he wrote a song from a woman’s perspective.
Laura Ballance, bassist for Superchunk and co-founder of Merge Records, talks about how her hearing issues have impacted her career in music.
Chris Bathgate talks about his new record, The Significance of Peaches, which was released after living in a national forest in Michigan, farming in California, working at a tech startup in San Francisco, having a child and moving back home to Michigan.
Rachel Stevens talks to rock and roll royalty Corin Tucker about Sleater-Kinney’s new album, Dig Me In: A Dig Me Out Covers Album (out Friday, October 21st).
R-Pal is the DJ alias of Seattle's Rachel Kramer. Active on the local DJ scene since first getting behind the decks in 2013, Rachel currently runs a cassette mixtape series called Technodad alongside KEXP's own DJ Sharlese and is a member of Seattle's TUF, a female/non-binary/trans collective based…
As we mentioned earlier this month, Seattle's own Soundgarden are set to reissue their 1988 debut LP Ultramega OK. Like previous reissues, it'll come bundled with cool previously unreleased bonus tracks, like this early demo of "Beyond the Wheel." Sub Pop explains, "The [early versions] were recor…
When the most recent Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds album, Skeleton Tree, hit stores earlier this fall, it was accompanied by the release of the documentary, One More Time With Feeling, a gorgeous, if heart-wrenching, feature-length film on the making of the album. The film returns to theaters on D…
Second on today's broadcast live from KEX hostel at at Iceland Airwaves Music Festival was Icelandic singer-songwriter Axel Flóvent. Axel has achieved recent international prominence after years playing in his hometown of Húsavik (a small fishing village in the north of Iceland), and all around his…
With Decibel Festival ending its incredible decade-long run, there was a void in Seattle that the Chance of Rain Festival is poised to fill. The inaugural five-day fest kicks off tonight, presenting art, fashion, and music in nightly showcases at venues across the city: Q Nightclub, Crocodile, Re-b…
Seattle's Car Seat Headrest is no stranger to covers: founder/frontman Will Toledo has previously taken on tracks by Radiohead and Bowie. Today, they add another musical icon to the list: The Smiths. Listen to his lovely, acoustic cover of "That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore" below. Car Seat Headrest p…
Moderat is the collaborative team-up between German electronic heavyweights Modeselektor (Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary) and Apparat (Sascha Ring). Longtime KEXP favorites with three stellar albums under the Moderat name as well as deep individual catalogues, the trio will be joining forces o…
There are so many excellent Summer music festivals in the Pacific Northwest, it’s hard to know where to invest your time and money. West Seattle Summerfest, July 8-10, is absolutely not one to miss. Besides being completely FREE, it has the best local music lineup you’re likely to find- Seattle fa…
Is it really only the fourth annual Fisherman's Village Music Festival? In just a few years, this Northwest fest has established itself as a must-see musical bonanza. This year is no exception: from Friday, May 20th through Sunday, May 22nd, the streets of Everett, Washington will shake with the so…
Canadian indie legends Metric have undoubtedly "made it." They're at the glorious stage in a career where they have the commercial success to justify any off-kilter choice they make, while still being independent enough that they have the freedom to make those off-kilter choices without any corpora…
Minneapolis' ubiquitous underground hip hop figure P.O.S has a long list of credentials: guitarist for Building Better Bombs, vocalist and keyboard player for Marijuana Deathsquads, member of well-populated supergroup Gayngs, and a founding member of the Doomtree collective. All of these were runni…
This morning, Pickathon announced its 2016 lineup, and it's a doozy! Wilco's Jeff Tweedy headlines along with Yo La Tengo, Beach House, and Ty Segall & The Muggers, plus so many other KEXP favorites - like Black Mountain, Thee Oh Sees, Dan Deacon, Ibeyi, Fruit Bats, My Bubba, Hurray for the Rif…
Car Seat Headrest came dressed for success to their first KEXP in-studio session. Adorned in suits and ties, the young Seattle band got down to business with a fantastic five-song set of lo-fi epic indie rock. Despite his relatively young age, frontman and songwriter Will Toledo (reportedly just 22…