Hello there everybody! For this week’s installment, let us go back twenty-damn-five years and across the nation, to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. A man named Mitch Easter, fresh from producing R.E.M.’s “Radio Free Europe” single, started a band and named it Let’s Active after a hilariously non-grammatical Japanese T-Shirt. Perhaps due to Easter’s [...]
Ahhh, Spinal Tap. Possibly the most successful band completely invented for the sake of television/film comedy (eat your heart out, Monkees), the band just released their third actual album (not to be confused with their 13-album fictional discography), are now among the elder statesmen of Guitar Hero, and have been playing huge festivals this [...]
Also posted in KEXP | Tagged Spinal Tap |
I know we’ve already covered Helmet in this space, but I think these rock-purveyors are more than eligible for multiple album attention. Besides, Strap it on is one of those albums that helped get me through my teenage years. Glad to hear I wasn’t the only one loving its thick, bludgeoning layers of [...]
Also posted in KEXP | Tagged Helmet |
Seattle has a funny relationship with Jimi Hendrix. We like to claim him as our own (I believe in the past his records were even in the local section at KEXP/KCMU), even though he didn’t seriously start his music career - never mind become the guitar-burning rock star we see in statues around the [...]
Also posted in KEXP | Tagged Jimi Hendrix |
Fact: Chris Stamey formed the dB’s with Peter Holsapple, but left the band after two albums. (Sub-fact: He does not appear on the dB’s album previously covered in this space.)
Fact: In 1984, Stamey released the 12″ EP Instant Excitement, animatedly discussed here, which is now out of print.
Fact: Stamey & Holsapple reunited in 1991 under [...]
Also posted in KEXP | Tagged Chris Stamey |
Hey everybody! It’s been a little while. I apologize sincerely for my two-week absence from the KEXP blogernet. It’s been a crazy, busy summer and I let some things slide. I’m not proud of it, but hopefully we can move past it together with some rock and roll.
OK, you know what’s [...]
Also posted in KEXP | Tagged Joan Jett |
When I was 12, and The Cowboy Junkies‘ second album The Trinity Session was released, the fact that it was recorded live direct to tape, using one stereo microphone, would not have meant a damn thing to me. In fact, maybe I heard that at the time and it just rolled off my brain, [...]
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Most musicians out there have a hard enough time getting their music out to the world, that once it’s there you’d think they would want to make the experience as straightforward as possible. You know, band name, album name, track listing; the whole deal. Many artists, though, seem to thrive on making the [...]
Also posted in KEXP | Tagged Cindytalk |
Hey everybody —
Happy almost-Fourth-of-July! It seems that with Independence Day being observed on a Friday, the whole week becomes a wash, so if you’re reading this from your place of work, I commend you on your dedication (well, sort of: what are you doing reading a blog when you should be working?).
Anyway, [...]
Also posted in KEXP | Tagged Dead Kennedys |
You know what’s weird? I grew up in Boston, and the years I was starting to get more into music from independent labels with electric guitars and such were the very years Blake Babies were most active around Boston. And yet… I never really listened to them. I heard their name all [...]
Also posted in KEXP | Tagged Blake Babies, The Bats |
