RECENT ARTICLES

When you hear Texas native, Leon Bridges, sing, you observe a galaxy of things. But the star around which all the man’s many attributes circle is most assuredly his innate sweetness. There’s gentleness and kindness embedded into all of his music and it’s because of these that Bridges’ soulful songwriting shines. And, not surprisingly, these same traits come through when you talk on the phone with the singer, who will perform tonight in Seattle at the WaMu Theater. But before the big show, we caught up with Bridges — who’s worked with Emerald City standouts, Macklemore and Odeaza, on recent tracks — to chat with him about his early days as a young musician at open mics, how he developed his other-worldly voice, and what he thinks about love at this stage in his life. His most recent full-length, Good Thing, is out now via Columbia.

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Brooks Nielsen has a golden voice. The lead singer for the California-based “Beach Goth” band The Growlers, who play Seattle two nights this weekend at the Neptune Theater (Sep. 7th and 8th), sings like his vocal chords are made of precious metal-encrusted bouncy balls. The prolific group, which just released a B-sides album called, Casual Acquaintances, worked in the studio with Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, to produce a more condensed sonic vibe. And while The Growlers keep experimenting with their stuff, the band is perhaps best known for their deliciously eerie LP, Chinese Fountain, a pastiche of poetry and musical profundity. Prior to their upcoming Emerald City weekend shows, though, we wanted to catch up with Nielsen to ask him about The Growlers’ early days, how his vocal tone developed, and how he feels when he writes a new song.

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Tacoma-born musician, Jerry Cantrell, is thought by many to be a guitar god. A co-founding member of the wildly popular grunge band, Alice In Chains, Cantrell’s prowess on the electric guitar along with his ability to write and sing devastating vocal harmonies, has carved out a place for him forever in rock ‘n’ roll history.

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KEXP is excited to announce a new host for the Pacific Northwest’s longest-running local music radio show, Audioasis. Beginning September 8th, Eva Walker will become the new host of Audioasis on KEXP, airing 6-9 PM on Saturday evenings. Walker, of Seattle rock ‘n roll band The Black Tones, is a born and raised Seattleite, a music teacher, and a lover of music of all kinds.

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The phone rang a few times and a woman picked up. “Hello?” It was one of his daughters. I could recognize her tone and cadence from the now infamous documentary, Searching For Sugar Man. I didn’t have a chance to ask for her name before she passed the phone along to her father, Sixto Rodriguez, the famed songwriter and star of the film. With a sweet, patient voice, Rodriguez asked how I was doing, to tell him something about myself. In the moments before the call, nerves shook me, but now, I was having a conversation with the writer of the songs “I Wonder” and “Cold Fact.” Throughout the chat, I also got to ask him about how he learned to write music, what it was like playing those first big shows in South Africa, and what he thinks about first when he wakes up in the morning.

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With a new album, Digital Garbage, slated for release this September, the iconic Seattle rock band, Mudhoney, has achieved something many groups don’t: a career spanning four decades and 10 records in the books. With the throaty, charged singing of frontman, Mark Thomas McLaughlin (aka Mark Arm), Mudhoney has been a major part of the “grunge” pastiche in the Emerald City, helping to inspire the massive groups that followed. As the Sub Pop 30th anniversary approaches, we wanted to speak with Arm (a longtime Sub Pop veteran) to talk about the origins of his band, how his singing developed and what he learned from Green River, the early band he played in prior to forming Mudhoney.

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Jack Endino is a living musical legend. From the Soundhouse Studios where he works today, Endino offers his expert attention and lends his historic ears to songs from both up-and-coming bands and Grammy-winning ones. Often wearing a neat black cap over a nest of long hair, Endino also regularly graces the stage of many local venues, playing guitar for bands still close to his heart. Known perhaps most famously for his work recording Nirvana’s debut album, Bleach, Endino was integral in the early Sub Pop days, recording a seemingly never-ending list of songs for the burgeoning label – including ones from Soundgarden and Mudhoney. As the SPF30 celebration approaches, we wanted to catch up with the thoughtful engineer to ask him how he honed his craft and what he remembers from those early years.

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Thunderpussy guitarist, Whitney Petty, can go from knee-smacking laugh to face-melting solo in less than a second. The range of her creative and emotional output astounds and the joy she exudes in conversation — whether discussing the hunt for crop circles or text exchanges with Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready — is massive.

During the past few months, Thunderpussy released its self-titled LP to rave reviews and undertook a national tour. And soon the band will head out on a European excursion traveling from Hungary to Germany, Ireland, and Finland. But before Thunderpussy leaves the States, we wanted to catch up the band’s stellar guitarist to find out how the summer has treated the quartet, what’s coming up next, and how the band molded its aesthetic.

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Matt Sullivan founded his company, Light In The Attic Records, in 2002 in Seattle. Since then, he’s rereleased unknown, under-appreciated, and utterly fantastic music — like that of The Last Poets, Digable Planets, and countless others. Light in the Attic, which started in Fremont but now has offices in L.A., was also responsible for reissuing the music of famed rock ‘n’ roll artist, Sixto Rodriguez, the star in the now infamous film, Searching for Sugar Man. And this year, Light in the Attic has another great catalog of music they’re releasing into the world. As a result, we wanted to catch up with Sullivan to get a sense of what it takes to reissue an album, how his experiences have shaped his appreciation of music, and why he likes to bring sounds back to life. 

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The Philadelphia-based rock band Dr. Dog has a new album out. The record, Critical Equation, walks the line between herky-jerky rock ‘n’ roll and sweet, smooth harmonies. And, in some ways, the through line of the album seems to indicate a new chapter with the band, both musically and in the way the band members examine how they orient themselves in the new world. To celebrate the release of the album, we wanted to talk with one of the founding members of the group, Scott McMicken, about how Dr. Dog — which is set to play Saturday, June 9th in Seattle — got together, when Scott first started writing lyrics and how the group feels now that the album is out in the world.

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