Hey, happy new year! What better time than the transition to a new year — indeed, a new decade — to bust out some really dark, pissed-off punk rock? Black Flag’s second LP — released in 1984 on SST — was a bit of a departure for the notoriously fast and loud band, [...]
Merry Christmas Eve, everybody! The other day Kevin sent out a playlist e-mail with a reference to “St. Nick” Cave, and it inspired me to hunt down one of old St. Nick’s records for a pseudo-seasonal offering (though I wouldn’t necessarily recommend throwing this record on at your family holiday gatherings; it might give [...]
It seems the band name “Boys Life” will mean different things to you depending on where and when you grew up. For hardcore/emo kids who came of age in the 90s, of course, it refers to the band that “sprang out of the post-hardcore scene” in Kansas City and went on to birth such [...]
You know what? I think this is the most verbose and informative album cover I’ve ever seen at KEXP (including a full, song-by-song, review at the end). So I’m just going to let the KCMU staff take it away on this one, with nothing but a “KICK OUT THE JAAAAAAAMS!!!!”
The idea of the band This Mortal Coil is quite ingenious, really. Ivo Watts-Russell, who founded the label 4AD Records (probably past, present or future home of some of your favorite bands) started a band in the early 80s whose original purpose seems to have been to promote his label. The band featured [...]
Hey, guess who I saw in concert on Tuesday? They Might Be Giants! Guess which album they played all the songs from? Flood!! Guess how much it ruled? SOOOO MUCH!!!
A couple things I learned at the concert:
Flood was recently certified platinum 19 years after its release, making it, according [...]
Usually it’s not hard for me to find music somewhere online by the bands covered here in Review Revue, no matter how obscure. If I’ve never heard them before, it helps give me some context, and if I have, it’s a good refresher. A.C. Temple, however, is proving tricky. Aside from the [...]
Man, nothin’ gets you going for Halloween like a heaping dose of psychobilly, am I right? Yet another band that is still a band, The A-Bones just released Not Now! this summer. Of course by now they’re elder statesmen of crazy American music, but even by the time they released their first album, [...]
Ahhh, New York. What could be more controversial, more inspiring of both gushing love and bitter derision, than the city of New York (currently hosting CMJ and many of our KEXP DJs, of course)? Well, maybe New York, the 1989 album by Lou Reed. It took me a while to figure out [...]
