
Presenting an in your face ten pack in orbit for your listening pleasure. "Gonna ride gonna ride gonna ride with you..." Luna - Lost In Space Sun City Girls - Space Prophet Dogon Robert Pollard - Subspace Biographies 3Ds - Outer Space The Langley Schools Music Project - Space Oddity Jah Wobble - Tales From Outer Space The Mekons - Space In Your Face Soul Hooligan - Space Travel [...]
UK producer Mekon delves into his love for hip hop in a guest DJ mix.

The Mekons are one of the very few ‘70s-era punk bands still extant as something other than a cash-cow regurgitating pale imitations of past glories. They’ve achieved enduring relevance by adapting and keeping things fresh, and if a steady flow of personnel changes have occurred along the way, the thrust and verve that’s always made their records worthwhile remains intact. Perhaps the band’s best LP was released in 1989, a batch of unruly and often sprawling songs that was collected under the title The Mekons Rock ‘N’ Roll. It’s not hard to [...]
In honor of Independence Day, KEXP is saluting some of our favorite indie record labels who's DIY-spirit helped revolutionize the music industry. As an independent radio station ourselves, KEXP is thrilled to give a 13-gun salute to these pioneers with a series of label spotlights through the Fourth of July. In an interview almost a decade after Twin/Tone Records went "in moth balls", label co-founder Peter Jesperson said that he and the other label founders ran Twin/Tone "made it up as we went along and were fortunate [...]
2-6-4-8 who do we appreciate!? People with dyslexia. I'm learning to appreciate the quiet side of life. Like not so much drinking. Like showing up to work without a hangover. Like having a few extra bills in my wallet. It's a good thing, too, because I'm about to drop $2400 to fix my car this [...]

Collaborations between musicians and authors seem obvious, like they should happen all the time, but the truth is, good ones don't come along that often. Earlier this month, however, author, poet, and memoirist Mary Karr released her first album, Kin , in collaboration with country singer/songwriter Rodney Crowell, and boy is it good. Though we might be a little biased since we've always been die-hard Mary Karr fans, we love the album, which combines Karr's sublime poetry with Crowell's formidable musical talent. Inspired by their collaboration, we got to thinking about other fantastic author/musician pairs, from [...]

Presenting a nostalgic six pack for the weekend, 'cause all that tweeting is making me itch. "When you are lonely and tired of another man's gold, when you are weary, remember this letter, my own..." The Box Tops - The Letter The Mekons - Love Letter Shuggie Otis - Island Letter Tim Buckley - Dream Letter Dave Van Ronk - Death Letter Blues Rex Griffin - [...]

From September 2009: Mekon is John Gosling, who we have previously come across in his short-lived band, Agent Provocateur. Mekon’s work has a strong hip hop influence. John Gosling’s work for Wall of Sound Records as Mekon has anticipated a barrage of stylistic changes during the mid-’90s, from trip-hop to big-beat techno and the general influence of American hip-hop in electronic culture. Debuting in 1994 with “Phatty’s Lunchbox” (just the second release on Wall of Sound), Gosling pioneered the blueprint for the dance music popularized years later by the Prodigy [...]

You'd make that face too if somebody had just splattered paint all over your head like that. The Mekons are one of those bands that I've never really been able to get a handle on. Maybe that's because aside from their great 1989 album, The Mekons Rock 'n' Roll , which I do own, I've never heard another entire album of theirs. And why I would like that album a lot but not ever explore further has a lot to do with what I've read about them: each album seems to vary distinctly in [...]

WDCV has audio from another of my old radio shows up on their tumblr blog. You'll need to go there directly to hear it. This show aired sometime in March of 1991, which means that the cassette tape I took the audio from will be old enough to buy a drink sometime this month. Here is my playlist from that evening: 0:00 PSA Followed by bitter DJ Rant 0:38 Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass - "Green Peppers" 2:05 Tom Zè - "Mã" [...]

WDCV has audio from another of my old radio shows up on their tumblr blog. You'll need to go there directly to hear it. This show aired sometime in March of 1991, which means that the cassette tape I took the audio from will be old enough to buy a drink sometime this month. Here is my playlist from that evening: 0:00 PSA Followed by bitter DJ Rant 0:38 Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass - "Green Peppers" 2:05 Tom Zè - "Mã" [...]

Gang of Four, The Mekons, Special AKA @ The Lyceum, May 27, 1979, courtesy of Fruitier Than Thou

As major labels continue to exist behind the times, artists and labels with little capital and lesser reputations are producing some of the most innovative, interesting, and inspiring music. Whether it’s creating a new niche in digital technology or looking to once obsolete formats, Agitated Atmosphere hopes to pull back the curtain on a wealth of sights and sound from luminaries such as Pete Shelley and Groovy Records . When one sees the name Pete Shelley, thoughts quickly turn to pop-punk pioneers, Buzzcocks . But beneath that English [...]
A new dynamism exists; one fueled by science and fired by revolution. One which has followed Futurism, Dadaism and Surrealism to a point where they must be left behind. Where they attempted to revolutionize “art” we must change life. We seek a form of action which transcends the separation between art and politics: it is [...]
1. The Vinyl District Record Store Locator app (The Vinyl District/Shoutem) 2. Tom Waits - Bad As Me (Anti) 3. Brian Olive - Two of Everything (Alive) 4. Booker T. Jones - The Road From Memphis (Anti) 5. Fleet [...]
This year's rock and pop list is a heady mix of the old (Paul Simon, Lindsey Buckingham) and the new (the Black Keys, Death Cab for Cutie). I thrilled to comebacks (Daryl Hall, Yes) and quiet triumphs (Gregg Rolie, Nick Lowe), and swerved off into a niche inside of a niche with Neal Morse's faith-based prog rock. Then there was [...]

I met Downtown first. Me and Billy the Kid. Billy the Kid was from the East Village, Allen Street from what I understand. There are one of maybe two addresses that could have been him, depending on his father's name or something like that. His father was a veteran of the Civil War and his mother a washerwoman or girl. She was just a kid too, which does not mean you are not responsible for your actions is what she found out. The difference between a squat and an abandoned building is night [...]

Dear Mr. Boogaloo, As we look out of the window across the rooftops of London this morning we see – er – not very much. It is, in fact, a very foggy day. Yesterday was so foggy the day didn’t even get light. It gave North London a lion witchy wardrobe air after such a run of beautiful colourful autumn days. Large leaves seem to have dropped all at once from [...]

Complete and utterly killer blues punk track and video by Black Mekon from Eastside, Birmingham UK. Watch | Black Mekon - Comeback Kitty

Beat Surrender’s Halloween mix-tape Cat Power - Werewolf (BBC) ( buy ) Willard Grant Conspiracy -Bring the Monster Inside ( buy ) Rachel Harrington - Halloween Leaves ( buy ) Jon Langford And His Sadies - Little Vampires ( buy ) Halfway - Monster City ( buy ) Deadman - Ghost Story ( buy ) Eric Ambel -Vampire Blues ( buy ) Jolie Holland - Ghostly Girl ( buy ) Betty & The Werewolves - Werewolves ( buy ) Mekons -Big [...]