To be honest, I’m somewhat over Record Store Day. It has become over hyped, massively attended, and, frankly, I’m not much one for crowds. It is the Black Friday for music nerds. So I forewent shlepping it up to Bellingham and took a 25 mile bike ride instead. This left me plenty of time to make it to Anacortes and The Business for their 11am opening. Read More »Thee Oh Sees present Moon Sick
Not much can be found online about Belgian Fog. Belgian Fog is Robert Dale, a Los Angeles native who now resides in Seattle. There’s a single song, “Wait for Help”, on Soundcloud, a simple and minimal Facebook Page, and an equally minimal Twitter account. Read More »Belgian Fog: A Brief Interview with Robert Dale
Fishboy is one of my favorite bands because frontman Eric Michener approaches music in a different way than most musicians. His albums, at least the latest two in Classic Creeps and Albatross, follow stories chronologically throughout the album. They’re amusing, funny and lighthearted. While Classic Creeps was originally released back in 2011, Michener recently released an acoustic version of the album with a tour diary comic. Read More »Fishboy Releases “Classic Creeps” Acoustic, Live and with a Tour Diary Comic!
Next week is the pledge drive, meaning all of you should tune in to my show from 10pm to midnight PST on Friday, April 12 and pledge your support for independent radio. For my April 5 show, I returned to playing primarily new tunes, opening with the stellar new track by Sweden’s Lars Bygdén, dropping in a pair of tunes by San Francisco post-rock outfit Tartufi, and crossing the pond to Spain for an amazing track by Soledad Vélez. Read More »KSVR Radio Recap: April 5, 2013
There’s something a bit timeless about “Black Light in the Forest”, a new track by Soledad Vélez off her forthcoming LP Wild Fishing, out now on Absolute Beginners Records. This makes sense given her background: Originally from Chile, Vélez grew up with her father’s record player and a guitar. She moved to Argentina and ultimately Spain, where she now resides in Valencia. Read More »Soledad Vélez: Black Light In The Forest (Video)
Lars Bygden is a singer/songwriter from Sweden; that’s to say, he’s an artist who creates haunting folk melodies fronted by strong vocals that seem to echo through the darkness. His latest release – his third under his own name – is simply called LB and the opening track, “The Hole”, recently received very stunning video treatment.
Read More »Lars Bygden: The Hole (Video)
Post-rock, perhaps more than most genres, has an inherent ability to lump together artists so diverse they seemingly should not fit in even close to similar categorical sub-genres, yet alone within the exact same sub-genre. Post-rock, then, features artists as wide-ranging as folk-centric epic-masterpiece purveyors Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, the soft-loud-soft instrumental rock-ists Explosions in the Sky, and this band – Tartufi – who blend lovely melodies with dreamy vocals against intense face-melting rock. Read More »Tartufi: These Factory Days
There is little more fleeting yet memorable about youthful pre/early-teen romance for someone my age than a 1980s roller skating rink. London band Still Corners capitalizes on this nostalgia in their new video for “Berlin Lovers” off their forthcoming Sub Pop LP, Strange Pleasures. Read More »Still Corners: Berlin Lovers (Video)
As you may already know, but I’ll state it nonetheless for those who do not, I have a weekly radio show on KSVR Mount Vernon, KSVU Hamilton and KSJU Friday Harbor. You can tune in via the respective dial pinpoints if you live within those townships, or you can stream from KSVR.org. We will be hosting our pledge drive in April, so I thought I’d kick things off by doing something no other station in Skagit or (to my knowledge) the surrounding areas does: a vinyl only night.
Read More »Vinyl Only Night on KSVR
My introduction to Bored Nothing came last year on a little compilation put together by Bleeding Knees Club. “Snacks” was the third track on the comp, featuring Bleeding Knees Club and several of their musician friends. That track appears on Bored Nothing’s new self-titled LP. Read More »Bored Nothing to Release Self-Titled LP on April 9
