Wilder Maker: “Hope Springs”

He’s growing tired. His energy isn’t where it used to be. He thinks about what he was doing 2 years ago; 5 years ago; 10 years ago. Times were happier then, werent they? But even then, he used to think about how much better things were going to be in 10 years, 5 […]

WHAT BLOG?!’s CMJ Showcase: Miniboone + Johnny Lewis + Mount Sharp + Happy Fangs + Whiskey Bitches + Kid In The Attic

Come on out Wednesday night, October 22 at The Rock Shop in Brooklyn. What Blog?! is Knox Road (me!), Nora of irockiroll, Bryan of subinev, and Chris of batteringroom. UPDATE: Unfortunately, Tiger! Shit! Tiger! Tiger! can’t make it, so instead we’ve filled the bill out with Happy Fangs.

Locomote by Genghis Hans + Kid In […]

Landlady

I guess I’m kind of behind the curve on this one, as Pitchfork just reviewed their album (with a dandy score in the sevens!), but Brooklyn’s Landlady deserves even more love. With free-flowing energy that has been severely lacking in so much of everything these days and a somehow tender abrasiveness, Landlady packs a […]

Mount Sharp

Mount Sharp, comprised of some of the coolest dudes I know, including one of my What Blog?! partners, Bryan Bruchman, have announced that their first physical release, WEIRD FEARS EP, will be available this summer via yk records. If first single “Crazy Eyes” is indicative of what’s to come, we’re in for a real treat. Killer […]

Doe Paoro’s ‘Ink on the Walls’ EP

My good friend Doe Paoro returned with a new EP, Ink on the Walls, this week, marking a vast departure in production from her previous works. She collaborated with S. Carey of Bon Iver fame, and he added necessary tightness to her raw sound. Justin Vernon – surprise! – is featured as well. The soul […]

[MP3] Animal Years: “Got Nowhere To Go”

This week’s vote for most-likely-to-end-up-on-a-tv-show is Animal Years’ new single “Got Nowhere To Go”! Brimming with energy and radiating pop sunshine, it’s oh so easy to picture a character running through the streets to his loved one’s destination at the end of the episode. BUT DO THEY KISS?! I would assume so, if […]

Palehound: “Pet Carrot”

palehound pet carrot

The ’90s were the last, and in fact, the most definitive epoch in the music discovery evolution that grew from early DJs introducing new singles on the radio, to the music streaming ‘arms race’ that has managed to reduce the experience of finding a new band to a Google search, a click of the mouse, or spending five minutes on iTunes listening to bands that have nice headshots.

Once upon a time, I would venture into a Backside Records (because that’s what you did), or aimlessly roam the aisles of a Virgin Megastore; reveling in the ‘shot in the dark’  experience (think Kurt Cobain shopping in a Salvation Army in Aberdeen), of buying a record that had twelve tracks, all of which I had never heard before the five-minutes I spent on a dirty headphone sampling booth, which required the dedication of a music fan willing to purchase new ‘merch’ at a gig, even push through a pit (risking bodily harm) to get close enough to feel the spray of sweat from the bass players fingertips. It was a time where unless you were vacuous enough to subscribe to “free” CD mailers from Columbia House, you would have to engage in a music hunting bloodsport to discover new bands that weren’t being reviewed by Rolling Stone or part of an MTV music video show hosted by Kennedy or Kurt Loder. All of which, if you’ve been living in a cave since 1998, no longer exist.

Ellen Kempner, now nineteen-years-old, was born right around the time Kurt Cobain was found dead in his Lake Washington greenhouse. She’s a product of the ’90s, and while she may not have had the opportunity to see Shannon Hoon’s acid-induced Woodstock performance, or purchase Vans and flannel-shirts without being ‘vintage,’ she somehow seems to perfectly tap into the insular, somewhat quirky, and angst-filled emotions that so many artists embodied during the ’90s — when being sarcastically unhappy was the topic of reality TV shows and song lyrics that embodied the now extinct remnants of ‘Seattle Sound.’

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/106215890″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Continue reading Palehound: “Pet Carrot”

Body Language: “Well Absolutely”

You’d think a mad scientist — some moonlighting hacker who mastered the codes to a complex DJ software — would be responsible for the laser-beam funk that resonates out of every Body Language track. Wrong, it’s just four kids from Brooklyn influenced by Brian Wilson and from the sounds of it; Studio 54 […]

[MP3] Yellerkin: “Solar Laws”

She’s sitting, staring out at the small lake behind the house. Dark clouds appear in the distance, moving quickly towards her. She looks down; the far edge of the lake shows tiny little circles, making their way closer. The circles multiply, getting bigger and fast approaching. Her friends rush into the house, grabbing […]

Heylady

Heylady comes to us from Brooklyn, NY, but despite the similarity of their home base to most artists featured here on Knox Road, they’re actually quite different than our usual suspects. Heylady is my friend Josh Green’s soul/funk project, and while I’ve typically shied away from funk bands since, well, middle school, I […]