Posts tagged with indie and Music

"Dingus is dedicated to the search [for new music on Bandcamp]. It's here, on this humble blog that we shed light on bedroom artists in their most defining moments. If you want what's popular today, Dingus is not the blog for you. But, if you want what's fringe, pure and passionate then you've somehow landed on the right URL." [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue on Apr 28, 2012 - 18 comments

KEXP 90.3 FM is a Seattle, WA-based radio station, officially "a service of University of Washington," but it's more complex than that. The first University of Washington radio station started broadcasting in 1952. Five decades, a few station organizational shifts, plus three call letter and frequency changes later, KEXP was (re)born in 2001. Along the way, the station spread the sound of 1990s Seattle indie rock, started streaming "CD quality" MP3 audio of their broadcast in 2000, and they have an ever-growing collection of recordings of live in-station performances, including over 2,000 videos on YouTube. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Mar 28, 2012 - 35 comments

Young the Giant's excellent cover of R. Kelly's Ignition (Remix) kicks off this season of A. V. Club's Undercover series in some style. The song has been covered extensively since it came out, in styles ranging from bedroom ukulele to ivy a capella to basement indie. It was also covered by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and inspired Dave Chapelle's pisstake. John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats has been a long-time fan, usually adding a minute of the song as a coda to his cover of The Boys Are Back in Town. Darnielle, and some friends, gave us 100 Reasons Why "Ignition - Remix" Is So Damned Great.
posted by Kattullus on Mar 23, 2012 - 43 comments

The Mahogany Blog (based in London) features a diverse range of (often indie and/or upcoming) music: through streaming singles, guest mixes and video posts, sharing others' mixes, and brief interviews with artists. Their YouTube channel hosts The Mahogany Sessions - acoustic musical performances exclusive to and filmed by the blog.
posted by flex on Feb 20, 2012 - 2 comments

In the last decade, no organ of music criticism has wielded as much influence as Pitchfork. It is the only publication, online or print, that can have a decisive effect on a musician or band’s career.... [W]hatever attracts people to Pitchfork, it isn’t the writing. Even writers who admire the site’s reviews almost always feel obliged to describe the prose as “uneven,” and that’s charitable. Pitchfork has a very specific scoring system that grades albums on a scale from 0.0 to 10.0, and that accounts for some of the site’s appeal, but it can’t just be the scores.... How has Pitchfork succeeded where so many other websites and magazines have not? And why is that success depressing? A lengthy history and review of Pitchfork [Media], from an inexpensive online alternative to a music zine, to "indie" music kingmaker, and thoughts on pop music (criticism). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Jan 24, 2012 - 109 comments

Joe Dilworth, one-time drummer/collaborator with indie stalwarts Stereolab, Th' Faith Healers and Jarvis Cocker, ex-lover of PJ Harvey, is also a very accomplished photographer. [more inside]
posted by The Discredited Ape on Jan 16, 2012 - 4 comments

Swissted New York graphic designer Mike Joyce takes vintage flyers from punk, hardcore and indie rock shows and redesigns them "into international typographic style posters. Each poster is sized to the standard swiss kiosk dimensions of 35.5 inches wide by 50 inches high and set in berthold akzidenz grotesk medium, all lowercase. Every single one of these shows actually happened."
posted by BitterOldPunk on Jan 11, 2012 - 36 comments

Lana del Rey sings "Video Games" and "Blue Jeans" and just got signed to Interscope. But she's also known as "failed mainstream artist" Lizzy Grant, a "gangster Nancy Sinatra," and "the lie we like to tell ourselves." Here she is at the 2011 Q Awards.
posted by Avenger50 on Oct 28, 2011 - 47 comments

Modest Mouse play a 25 minute set in September 2001 in front of Criminal Records in Atlanta. The songs they play are Paper Thin Walls, Third Planet, Trailer Trash, Lives, Diggin' Holes (later released as an Ugly Casanova track) and I Came as a Rat.
posted by Kattullus on Aug 31, 2011 - 14 comments

Pompeya is a band that is hard to describe, especially if you go by their videos and sound. For example, if you started with Power (Simple Symmetry & Lipelis Remix), you might think it's an act from the the late eighties, complete with break dancing and dated fashions. If you first came across the Barbarella Chisinau Teaser, you might imagine that they're something from the early 1990s, or a new band goofing with vintage video. And then they drop Power II, which could be some kids playing neo-disco akin to the US band VHS or Beta (wiki). But wait! Check out Cheenese (NSFW moment of nudity 2:58 to 3:05), and you think they might be professional musicians with a sharp-looking video. In fact, Pompeya is a mix of various things: they're four young Russian guys who play indie-disco. [more details after the break] [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Jul 17, 2011 - 22 comments

Detektivbyrån (The Detective Agency) was a little-known Swedish band that made delightful music often inspired by Yann Tiersen's soundtrack to Amelié. E 18 - Om Du Möter Varg - Generation celebration - Nattoppet - Partyland - Monster - Laka kaffa - Vänerhavet. (Warning: aggressively cute and happy music containing accordion and bells.) [more inside]
posted by non-kneebiter on Jun 20, 2011 - 11 comments

Canadian indie/hardcore band Fucked Up have released the first of four singles from their upcoming rock opera, David Comes To Life. The album appears to be about a man who works in a lightbulb factory and is a follow-up to their critically acclaimed The Chemistry Of Modern Life. Cryptic character bios can be found on the album's site and more information from the band can be found on their blog.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn on Mar 30, 2011 - 24 comments

Craig Finn from The Hold Steady joins The Mountain Goats on stage to sing 'This Year'. [more inside]
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn on Mar 29, 2011 - 58 comments

Three parts guitar, one part drums, one or two parts percussion (to taste), one part trumpet, and a couple dashes of organ. Add a hearty shake of vibraslap. Season with half-sung, half-spoken vocals and lyrical wordplay. And there you have it, Cake, roughly the same recipe as they've been using for the last 20 years. There is a new solar powered serving available now. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Mar 17, 2011 - 46 comments

69 Love Songs, Illustrated is a blog where comic book artists and illustrators interpret the songs on The Magnetic Fields' classic album 69 Love Songs.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn on Mar 9, 2011 - 17 comments

Do The Decemberists have too many songs about rape?
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn on Mar 6, 2011 - 119 comments

Songwriters on Process interviews songwriters in depth about their writing process. They've talked to everyone from Brian Fallon (The Gaslight Anthem) to J.D. Cronise from The Sword. Where else can you find both Patrick Stickles from Titus Andronicus talking about Faulkner and Eric from Foxy Shazam admitting he's never read a book in his life?
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn on Mar 2, 2011 - 8 comments

It’s maybe a little early yet for year’s end retrospectives, but who cares: we’ve got 157 songs, 10.5 hours, 1.12 GB of “some of the best and most notable music from 2010... covering indie, pop, rock, punk, folk, rap, R&B, soul, dance, country, modern classical, ambient and electronic music, and in many cases, hard-to-classify genre hybrids.” —Curated by FluxBlog’s own Matthew Perpetua.
posted by kipmanley on Dec 3, 2010 - 30 comments

DNA is an unofficial video for the Darwin Deez song of the same name. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue on Nov 2, 2010 - 7 comments

Teenage Dream in a not-so-manufactured-way. (SLYT)
posted by Han Tzu on Oct 23, 2010 - 65 comments

Out of the blue, Sufjan Stevens, most famous for his epic indie symphony Illinois (which can be streamed from this link), released an "EP" called All Delighted People. It's 60 minutes long, you can play it all online for free, and the title track is a deliriously gorgeous 12-minute epic. He's also announced an upcoming new album, scheduled for release this October, called The Age of Adz. You can stream its first single, I Walked. [more inside]
posted by Rory Marinich on Aug 30, 2010 - 52 comments

Joe Pop-O-Pie led his San Francisco punk band Pop-O-Pies through countless performances of the band's "hit", an idiosyncratic cover of the Grateful Dead's Truckin'. As the 1980's closed, Joe fell off the map while his other projects went mainstream, but last month the Pop-O-Pies reunited for one more Truckin' performance.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot on May 10, 2010 - 15 comments

Do you like free music, and a whole lot of it? You might want to check out netlabels.
23seconds is a netlabel from Sweden, with music ranging from introspective but fun indietronica to brash electroclash to feel-good Gothenburg disco, all for free (as in beer.)
But what's a real goldmine is their massive netlabel catalogue, with a listing of over 150 labels. Happy downloading! [more inside]
posted by dunkadunc on Apr 28, 2010 - 18 comments

Iraq gave us the heavy-metal band Acrassicauda (previously), who have recently relocated to the US and released their first EP. In Iran, indie-pop is a dangerously subversive underground phenomenon, with innocuous-sounding twee-pop bands hiding from persecution by the authorities. And now Afghanistan has Kabul Dreams, a duo who dress in skinny jeans and cardigans and write songs inspired by British guitar bands like Oasis, Radiohead and The Beatles.
posted by acb on Apr 1, 2010 - 6 comments

What's the matter with Sweden? How public funding for the arts has turned countries like Sweden into Meccas for indie music.
posted by dunkadunc on Mar 29, 2010 - 41 comments

Nitsuh Abebe gives a narrative for a decade of indie.
posted by klangklangston on Feb 13, 2010 - 54 comments

Indie rock darling Liz Phair shares thoughts on her experience at a NASCAR race.
posted by reenum on Feb 9, 2010 - 60 comments

"What we’ve called it has never been stable—it’s been known alternately as “punk” for its early attitude, “underground” for where it happened, “alternative” when the mainstream held it up as an antidote to its own poison—each of these picked up then sloughed off when the semantic baggage grew too unwieldy. Most recently, “indie”—long thrown around as a signifier of how it got done (i.e. independently)—has become the nom du jour." Is indie dead?
posted by Slack-a-gogo on Jan 26, 2010 - 127 comments

Pomplamoose are Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn and they make music. You might have seen their cover of Single Ladies (previously), but they do so much more than pop covers.

Just released for Christmas is this wonderful original track entitled "Always in the Season." Other originals include "Hail Mary" and "Beat The Horse;" the rest of their catalogue is linked inside. [more inside]
posted by flatluigi on Dec 18, 2009 - 47 comments

Fox Rox was a local music show that ran from 2001 - 2007 in San Diego. Here's the YouTube archive of more than 230 good-quality studio performances from bands as disparate as Electric Six, Blackalicious, Drive-By Truckers, Buzzcocks, Peaches, High on Fire, and many more. [post-mortem || myspace]
posted by milquetoast on Oct 22, 2009 - 4 comments

Lou Barlow has a new solo record, and is promoting it by releasing some videos and a making-of documentary every week this month on Lootube. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue on Sep 2, 2009 - 17 comments

John Anealio records songs inspired by science fiction and fantasy. Sing along about Cylons, Summer Glau (Firefly/Serenity), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and about how "George R.R. Martin is not your bitch" (previously).
posted by gemmy on Aug 12, 2009 - 20 comments

Hibi no Neiro by Sour [more inside]
posted by Dr-Baa on Jul 3, 2009 - 16 comments

In 1997, reclusive Neutral Milk Hotel mastermind Jeff Mangum performed a now-legendary set at Athens, Ga. coffee shop Jittery Joe's. One week only on Pitchfork.tv Previously 1 2 3 [more inside]
posted by msalt on May 29, 2009 - 19 comments

"There's sickly pop, there's cheesy pop and then there's the Lightning Seeds brand of pure shiny pop." The Lightning Seeds mixed slick production with equally compelling melodies and lyrics, and produced a number of critically acclaimed albums in the 1990s. Now there's a new album coming out - their first since 1999's Tilt. [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome on Mar 3, 2009 - 38 comments

Pylon guitarist and co-founder Randall Bewley died yesterday of a heart attack at age 53. [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome on Feb 26, 2009 - 31 comments

Live from the Pink Couch: Punks, Girls, Boys, Warriors, Witches, Kids, Comptrollers, and your new favorite band Best Friends Forever! (boyzone comment flamewar included) [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue on Jan 5, 2009 - 16 comments

Punkcast is a long running series of videos of live underground music in NYC shot by Joly MacFie. Each video is usually one song. The Internet Archive hosts its videos and offers downloads in a variety of formats. MacFie also has a YouTube channel with 480 videos and a video podcast [iTunes link, feedburner link]. Here are a few bands that caught my fancy: The Icicles and The Besties, The Slits (1, 2 ), Andrew W. K., Oneida (1, 2), The Long Blondes, The Gossip, Acid Mothers Temple & Cosmic Inferno, Art Brut, Be Your Own Pet, Cansei de Ser Sexy, Lesbians on Ecstasy, The Fall, Fred Frith, Rose Melberg and Jennifer O'Connor, The Horrors, The Homosexuals, Bat for Lashes, Radio 4 and Teddybears, Kimya Dawson and Tiny Masters of Today, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Nikki Sudden.
posted by Kattullus on Dec 25, 2008 - 12 comments

Leslie Low is an indie improv-based musician singer/songwriter. This site has songs from his two solo albums, Volcanoes, moody instrumental music mixing striking melodies, organic sounds, odd rhythm structures and laptop noise elements; and Worms, with solo guitar and voice delivering haunting intense acoustic numbers about death, retreating from the world and seeking refuge in a quiet place behind the woods. [more inside]
posted by netbros on May 19, 2008 - 10 comments

Death Cab For Cutie. Live, in a Black Cab. One Song ("No Sunlight"). One Take. One Cab.
Also: Daniel Johnston, Bill Callahan, The New Pornographers, The Raveonettes, Okkervil River, Spoon, & The Futureheads.
posted by msalt on May 16, 2008 - 28 comments

If you don't know who Jason Molina is, get to know his music. [more inside]
posted by auralcoral on Apr 17, 2008 - 7 comments

The Mountain Goats' newest video is a dizzying, typographical romp. (SLYT)
posted by auralcoral on Apr 16, 2008 - 34 comments

Hands Behind Your Back. Do the Indie Kid (SLYT).
posted by jontyjago on Apr 11, 2008 - 49 comments

No Depression magazine will soon leave this world of toil and trouble. NPR reports that, due to falling ad revenues, the May/June issue of the revered alt-country zine will be the last. The magazine's Web site will remain active, but to what extent remains unsettled. [more inside]
posted by Bizurke on Mar 4, 2008 - 27 comments

Rhino Releases The Brit Box It's hard to explain in 2007 what it feels like for music to be both uniting and important. Having spent nearly three years of the '90s living in London, it's with honest nostalgia and wonder that we examine Rhino's The Brit Box. The set's mission is rather broad: it attempts to examine the whole of UK indie rock from 1985-1999 and devotes a disc each to '80s indie, shoegaze, Britpop, and the late '90s. [more inside]
posted by psmealey on Dec 6, 2007 - 60 comments

Lucky Soul's 'Lips Are Unhappy' isn't the likliest of contenders for the UK's coveted Christmas number one, but this is the track (from a shortlist) selected by listeners of Last.fm to receive Last.fm's backing. Profits go to charity, as is the norm for Xmas No. 1 entries.
posted by nthdegx on Nov 26, 2007 - 13 comments

Indiana's Sardina. The New Pornographers of the '90s, the Sardinas released two fantastic albums full of mixtape fodder. Now everything they've got, including some live gems, is up online.
posted by klangklangston on Sep 25, 2007 - 21 comments

"When youth culture becomes monopolized by big business, what are the youth to do? I think we should destroy the bogus capitalist process that is destroying youth culture...the first step to do is destroy the record companies." 1991: The Year Punk Broke
posted by TrialByMedia on Sep 15, 2007 - 81 comments

The Superfantastics, a catchy, pop indie music band from Halifax, Nova Scotia, recently completed work on a music video, Tonight, Tonight. Innovative and cute!
posted by dflemingdotorg on Sep 11, 2007 - 24 comments

Iran: This musician is revolutionizng the music scene (Video) Mohsen Namjoo and her superstar
posted by hoder on Jun 13, 2007 - 19 comments