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How to Pull Off a Massive Socially Distant Concert Aug 20, 2020

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Unity Arena, a socially-distanced outdoor concert space with a 2,500-person capacity, has opened up in northern England. (Here’s what it looks like.) It’s hosted four massive shows so far with over 20 more planned or in the works. Steve Davis, Director and Promoter at SSD Concerts, which is operating Unity Arena, talks about what the arena looks like and how it functions while keeping people safe amid a pandemic.

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Music Venues Reopen in England Aug 18, 2020

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Indoor theaters and music venues opened back up in England on August 15th with social distance rules in place. Founder of Music Venues Trust, Mark Davyd, talks about what these reopenings will look like.

“Venues are operating at roughly 30% capacity. Everybody has to be seated. Drinks are only brought to the table. There are massive additional costs in meeting the health and safety demands of managing the virus. And frankly the kind of music you can program is also very limited. We’re not going to see any hardcore punk gigs. It’s going to be a lot of folk and jazz and singer/songwriters with acoustic guitars,” Davyd says.

Davyd adds that operating at 30% capacity will not be a financial benefit to music venues. He estimates that 93% of England’s music venues are still under threat of permanent closure because of COVID-19.

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Phil Elverum on Breaking Nostalgia and Defying Streaming Services Aug 13, 2020

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Anacortes, WA native, Phil Elverum talks about how he tried to break nostalgia by creating a one-track, 45-minute album under his old stage name, The Microphones.

"I wanted to get at what The Microphones was,” Elverum says.

Elverum also talks about maintaining his DIY and indie approach to music-making and defying the streaming era model of money-making by releasing such a long song and avoiding streaming services altogether.

“It’s maybe an act of protest in a way,” Elverum says. “Songs are getting shorter, people’s attention spans are getting whittled away. I don’t feel great about that and I want to maybe push in the other direction.”

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ODESZA on New Collaborative Project, BRONSON Aug 11, 2020

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Seattle electronic duo, ODESZA has teamed up with Australian EDM artist, Golden Features on a project called BRONSON. ODESZA talks about BRONSON’s new album, creating songs on opposite sides of the globe, and how COVID has impacted them as artists and the music industry as a whole.

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Fontaines D.C. on the Stories Behind 'A Hero’s Death' Aug 06, 2020

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The Irish band, Fontaines D.C. just released a new album, 'A Hero’s Death.' Frontman Grian Chatten shares the stories behind the title of the album and the final track, “No," and explains how the sea inspires his music.

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How Taylor Swift Ended Up in KEXP’s Heavy Rotation Aug 04, 2020

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Taylor Swift has now achieved her seventh No. 1 Album on the Billboard 200 chart for her latest record, ‘folklore.' At the end of April, Swift reached out to Aaron Dessner of the National to make an album. Three months later, ‘folklore' was released. The album is being dubbed Taylor Swift’s first indie-folk record, and has now been placed into heavy rotation at KEXP.

KEXP’s Music Director Don Yates explains why he put Taylor Swift into rotation for the very first time. KEXP’s DJ Abbie also weighs in on the record and the themes it explores, including gender inequities in the music industry and beyond.

KEXP is a listener-funded nonprofit, and today we’re asking for your help to keep creating podcasts like this one. Donate now to help reach our Summer Fundraising Drive goal!

Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/sound/

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Carla Sariñana on Burger Records and Sexism in the Music Industry Jul 30, 2020

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Carla Sariñana is a Mexico-based musician. Her solo project is called Silver Rose, she plays bass in Ruido Rosa and is also label manager at Devil in the Woods. She says she wasn’t surprised when she heard that California’s Burger Records folded after members of more than a dozen bands on the label were accused of predatory behavior, sexual misconduct and assault, especially towards fans who were minors. She’s familiar with the sexist culture of the music industry, saying when she lived in Los Angeles, bookers “wouldn’t give me shows unless I would go out for a beer with them.”

Carla Sariñana joins Sound & Vision to discuss her reaction to the news about Burger Records and how labels have a duty to proactively prevent misconduct, the issue of gender-based violence and femicide in Mexico, the sexualized marketing of women in the music industry, and more.

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The Biography of Chris Cornell Jul 28, 2020

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Total F*cking Godhead: The Biography of Chris Cornell is out today. Author Corbin Reiff discusses the stories behind the music of the vocalist of Soundgarden, Audioslave, and Temple of the Dog.

“Jeff Ament [of Pearl Jam] has once said that [Chris Cornell] is the best songwriter to come out of Seattle since Jimi Hendrix and that’s probably what I would go with his legacy as,” Reiff says. “He was just an immense talent. He had a lot of god given ability with his voice but he also had a lot of determination to become a great songwriter and he really pushed himself to do that, whatever it took to learn new skills, new tunings, new recording techniques. He was endlessly curious about that sort of thing. He might have been born with a lot of gifts but he really maximized them to the greatest ability.”

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Minneapolis’ History of Segregation in Music Jul 23, 2020

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The book, “Got to Be Something Here: The Rise of the Minneapolis Sound” by Andrea Swensson explores Minneapolis’ segregated music scenes and the systemic racism historically at play in the city.

Swensson speaks with KEXP DJ Kevin Cole about the overlooked bands and artists who shaped the city’s sound, the Highway Act that split largely-Black neighborhoods in Minneapolis and how Black artists, bands and venues were scrutinized by police and the local music industry. Swensson says Black artists told her they had to form racially integrated bands with white musicians as a form of survival.

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The Lawsuit Over "Lady A" Jul 21, 2020

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A legal battle over the name "Lady A" has brought up questions around white privilege and racism in the music industry. Amid global protests against police brutality and systemic racism, the country group Lady Antebellum said they would change their name to Lady A. That’s because the word Antebellum, which in Latin translates to “before the war,’ is associated with the US Civil War and the Confederacy. However, there’s already a Lady A. She’s a Black blues singer based in Seattle who’s gone by the name Lady A for more than 20 years. Lady Antebellum, an all-white band is now suing Seattle’s Lady A for the trademark over the name.

Seattle’s Lady A says that since the rebranding of Lady Antebellum to Lady A, her music has become buried on social media and music streaming sites. But she says her fight over her stage name isn’t just about music, it’s about the significance of a name from a historical perspective. She says white people have been taking from Black and Indigenous people for centuries, including their names. “When we came to this country, they [white people] took our names from us and gave us their names,” Lady A says. “This is about every Black, Indigenous person of this land and person of color who has had something taken from them– their land, their artistry, their culture, their language and their name.”

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