Today KEXP and a public radio station in New York (WNYE 91.5FM) announced they have joined forces to create a partnership called: Radio Liberation. The partnership will bring six hours of weekday KEXP programming, a nightly world music show, and a weekly Kevin Cole broadcast to New York starting March 24th. Radio Liberation also plans to expand KEXP's already extensive live programming and performances, tapping into New York City's vibrant touring and music scene.......

When the Croc closed last December, Black Mountain was already scheduled to play the venue in early February. Luckily, Neumo's knew better than to leave the druggy psychedelic rock five-piece high and dry - they added Black Mountain to the bill of tomorrow night's show, creating a truly awesome (and diverse) bill. Along with BM's Zep-meets-Sabbath-meets-heavy, acid-laced spacerock, Thursday's lineup also includes the groovy, '70s folk-twinged Americana of Howlin Rain, the tongue-in-cheek electro-pop of......

The last time multi-culti multi-genre singer-songwriter Manu Chao hit the Seattle area was at Sasquatch this summer (see above). Singing in French, Spanish, Arabic, Galician, Catalan, English, Portuguese, Italian, and Wolof, Chao fuses a variety of styles, including rock, reggae, punk and ska. So this ain't your grandma's drum circle's world music. There's no word as to when he's headed back to the Northwest, but if you're looking to experience the Spanish political punk......

Last night at the Showbox, we were reminded of something Gino Srdjan Yevdjevic said in an interview with us last year: we don't remember the quote entirely, but it was something to the effect of characterizing "world music" as "shit." Not the music or the musicians, per se, but rather the genre, a peculiarly American way of pigeon-holing and marketing foreign music. Gino understood the process only too well: back in the 1980s, he......

Do you need any other reason to go see Femi Kuti tomorrow at the Showbox? One of the most extraordinary world music artists/activists around these days, Femi Kuti aptly follows in the footsteps of his father, Fela Anikulapo Kuti. The senior Kuti was one of the great innovators of this type of music, and Junior's style and energy onstage are extraordinary. Did we mention the dancers? Get your Nigerian Afro-beat on, y'all. Tickets are......

Dear Darek, We were dancing behind you towards the back of Neumo's at the Los Invisibles show on Saturday night. It was late in the show, and we noticed that you'd also discovered the joy that is the oversized bottles of Red Stripe. We were a bit slap-happy at this point, it being our friend Kevin's birthday and all. Earlier, we saw that you didn't seem much for the dancing, which surprised us, you being......

A few weeks ago we noticed something new in the upper reaches of our Comcast Digital Cable guide. Channels 962-984 now play Seattle FM radio stations: KISW (971), KPLU (966), even KUBE (967). This is cool. Now, if we want to pig out on Cheetos and Diet Coke to radio instead of TV, we can. Problem is, we can only endure one local radio station. And that one--KEXP--isn't among the 23 channels offered. We......

-Episcopalians and Presbyterians don't belong to churches. "They should get another name because they’re just confusing people if they say they are a church." You heard it from Mark Driscoll's kid first. -Five new HD radio stations are set to launch in Seattle: Live rock, roots rock, world music, urban adult contemporary and comedy. Because comedy's funnier when it's CD quality. -A lawsuit was filed against the Seattle school district in an attempt to......

In all the annals of music, it's hard to imagine anymore specific a genre than "gypsy punk." But that's just the sort of cabaret-esque insanity that Gogol Bordello brings to their shows. The band's story is as strange as their music and stage shows. Frontman Eugene Hutz is a Ukrainian refugee displaced as a child in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster. After bouncing through various European countries, he wound up in Vermont. As an......