In thisfirst episode of the dyn-o-mite third season, we answer that ages-old question no one is asking: “What is up with the Sub Pop invasion of Halifax?”
The new and third season of the Sub Pop Podcast begins on Tuesday, May 23rd, 2017, with a new episode to follow every two weeks thereafter. Available through all of the very best podcast distribution points, the Sub Pop Podcast is made at the label’s headquarters in Seattle, Washington by long-time radio so-and-so and verifiable Sub Pop employee, Arwen Nicks, in collaboration with and sometimes overcoming the well-intentioned interference of a handful of other label staffers. Episodes present stories from inside, outside, and adjacent to Sub Pop, Seattle’s premier medium-sized record label. We focus on conversations with our artists past and present, people who work at/with/around Sub Pop, and anyone else willing or reckless enough to talk to us. And same goes for our sibling label Hardly Art.
The Sub Pop Podcast debuted in January of 2016 and its first two seasons featured celebrated artists like… Band of Horses, Chastity Belt, Mudhoney, Shearwater, Jenn Champion, Alex and Victoria from Beach House, Sam Beam from Iron and Wine, Tad from TAD, Benjamin Gibbard from both Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service, Kathleen Hanna, Father John Misty (2 episodes worth!), Jonah Ray, members of CSS and Clipping, and a whole more. We also talked to employees at both Sub Pop and Hardly Art, as well as Sub Pop label honchos Jonathan Poneman and Megan Jasper.
Season three will feature… More conversations with artists, Sub Pop’s “invasion” of Canada, a celebration of Hardly Art’s landmark 10th anniversary, mentions of the Russian mafia, car crashes, birthday parties, musicians who think they should be elected to office, drugs, depression, death, obsessed fans, and at least one cameo from at least one member of Guns and Roses.
Subpop.fm is available to provide you with a convenient means of listening to the new, first episode of this new season, as well as all of the episodes from both previous seasons. There, you can also subscribe to the Sub Pop Podcast, sign up for our email list and get in touch with us (at podcast@subpop.com).
Further persuasion in the form of reviews from listeners…
“Shockingly foul-mouthed and heart-warming at the same time, a great listen!” - someone on iTunes
“I really dig the watercolor art for each episode and I especially loved the two part episode with Josh Tillman; probably the best interview with him I’ve ever heard.” - Dave, who emailed us
“Everybody should listen to the Sub Pop Podcast” - Jonah Ray, host of MST3K and Hidden America
“The Sub Pop Podcast is everything.” - A nice guy named John on Twitter
National Tour Dates Incl. Pitchfork’s Northside Showcase, Riot Fest, House Of Vans, Made In America Festival.
Downtown Boys use their ferocious energy and powerhouse live shows to unite crowds in the struggle to smash racism, queerphobia, capitalism, fascism, boredom, and all things people use to try to close our minds, eyes and hearts. The Providence, RI band have announced their third album, Cost of Living, to be released (Preorder here now) August 11 on Sub Pop. The new album - the follow-up to their critically-acclaimed sophomore album, 2015’s Full Communism - is at once incendiary, cathartic, and fun, melding the band’s revolutionary ideals with boundless energy. Produced by Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto, one of indie-rock’s most mythological figures (he also produced Blonde Redhead, The Gossip, and others), Cost of Living shows a sense of maturity without compromising the band’s righteous assault and captivating presence.
“… wild, bilingual, no-filler, can-still-throw-down punk rock.” - NPR
“Accompanied by production from Greg Norman and Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto, Downtown Boys sound sharper than ever, their urgency tightened into a raging storm. The band understands that for a song to be political, it needs to be more than just than a temporary rebellion: It has to dig into the essence of an identity with relentless honesty.” - Pitchfork, Best New Track
“… Downtown Boys are a beam of radical energy” – Rookie
“ …the politically-minded Rhode Island punk crew Downtown Boys slam bullying hardcore guitars, X-Ray Spex-y horns and radical lyrical fury together into a moshpit utopia.” – Rolling Stone
Cost of Living is Downtown Boys’ first record for storied indie label Sub Pop, and the band is using this new platform as a megaphone for their protest music, amplifying and centering Chicana, queer, and Latino voices in the far-too-whitewashed world of rock. t Lyrically inspired by Assata Shakur’s poem “i believe in living,” album-opener “A Wall” rides the feel-good power that drove so many tunes by The Clash and Wire, calling out the idea that a wall could ever succeed in snuffing the humanity and spirit of those it’s designed to crush. “Promissory Note” is a bold self-introduction to the exclusive clubs that either ignore Downtown Boys’ existence, or worse, feign appreciation: “So what’s the matter, you don’t like what you see? / I can’t believe you’re even talking to me!” Ruiz shouts. “Tonta,” one of the three songs written and sung primarily in Spanish, is an introspective and emotional portrait of anguish which calls to mind the mighty scrum of Huasipungo at an ABC No Rio matinee.
The position of Downtown Boys has been clear since they started storming through basements and DIY spaces with their radically-minded, indefatigable rock music: they are here to topple the white-cis-het hegemony and draft a new history. This is how Downtown Boys began, and their resolve has only strengthened as both their sound and audience have grown. Like the socially conscious groups of years past, from Public Enemy to Rage Against the Machine, Downtown Boys harness powerful sloganeering, repetitive grooves, and earworm hooks to create one of the most necessary musical statements of today.
[Photo Credit: Miguel Rosario]
The time is now for you to follow Downtown Boys everywhere over the known internets via Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Bandcamp.
Cost of Living
Downtown Boys’ new album, Cost of Living, will be released on CD / LP / CASS / DL, and is available for pre-order here now. LP pre-orders in North America through the Sub Pop Mega Mart and select independent retailers will receive the Loser Edition on marbled gold vinyl while supplies last. Plus, a new T-shirt design will also be available.
Cost of Living :: Tracklist
1. A Wall 2. I’m Enough (I Want More) 3. Somos Chulas (No Somos Pendejas) 4. Promissory Note 5. Because You 6. Violent Complicity 7. It Can’t Wait 8. Tonta 9. Heroes (Interlude) 10. Lips That Bite 11. Clara Rancia 12. Bulletproof (Outro)
6/9: Brooklyn, NY @ Pitchfork Northside Fest Showcase @ St. Vitus 6/16: Ashfield, MA @ The Ashfield Lake House 6/17: Providence, RI @ Aurora 7/12: Brooklyn, NY @ House of Vans 8/19: Omaha, NE @ Maha Festival 9/2 - 9/3: Philadelphia, PA @ Made In America Festival 9/15 - 9/17: Chicago, IL @ Riot Fest 9/23: Los Angeles, CA @ Summer Happenings at The Broad 10/9: Leffinge, Belgium @ Cafe De Zwerver 10/10: Paris, France @ Le Point Ephemere 10/11: Brighton, UK @ The Haunt 10/12: Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club 10/13: Edinburgh, UK @ Sneaky Pete’s 10/14: Glasgow, UK @ Stereo 10/16: Dublin, Ireland @ The Workman’s Club 10/17: Liverpool, UK @ The Shipping Forecast 10/18: London, UK @ Dome Tufnell Park 10/19: Sheffield, UK @ Picture House Social Club 10/20: Manchester, UK @ Deaf Institute 10/21: Bristol, UK @ Simple Things Festival 10/22: Birmingham, UK @ All Years Leaving Festival 10/24: Munster, Germany @ Gleis 22 10/25: Berlin, Germany @ Urban Spree 10/26: Hamburg, Germany @ Hafenklang
The time has come for us to celebrate another revolution
around this flaming coil of molten garbage for our number one favorite corporate sell-out,
the Sub Pop Airport Store. This May marks 3 years in Sea-Tac’s heavily populated
Central Terminal. Come for the Qdoba, stay for the moderately priced vinyl
records (sorry, they’re not calendars).
In simultaneous celebration of our anniversary and this month’s obscure internet holiday,
World Goth Day, I’ve created a Special Bonus Zine Page highlighting some of the
“Dark Music” of Sub Pop. As a dedicated night shift worker and
self-deprecating-20-something-nightcrawler (using this in place of “goth” to
avoid hate mail), I’ve forever been a fan of all things Sub Pop. However, I wanted
to specifically bring forth some of the label’s dark music of present and past.
From Sub Pop 100’s track list including Skinny Puppy’s “Church in Hell” and Scratch Acid’s “Greatest Gift” (drummer Rey Washam went on to play with Ministry and
Jello Biafra and Al Jourgensen’s Lard) to Birthday Party-influenced bands like The U-Men (infamous for setting the moat surrounding Seattle Center’s Mural Amphitheater on fire
during a concert), there is a clear lineage of darker influences spanning
genres from post-punk to industrial and dark wave. There is still a vein of significant
contemporaries in bands like Hardly Art’s Grave Babies, Sub Pop alums A Frames,
Italian band His Electro Blue Voice, and dark electronic duo Handsome Furs.
If you see me at the airport store, please do ask me to discuss your favorite
Clock DVA album, please don’t lecture me on the bands I didn’t include in this
blog post (I know, I wasn’t born when you saw Nirvana play in your friend’s
basement).
Also, in lieu of apologizing profusely for not selling bottled water or
newspapers, please accept some Top 3 lists from the Airport Staff:
Now listen to previously unreleased track. “Chariot”.
[Photo Credit: Shawn Brackbill]
Cry those tears of joy, because on Friday, June 30th, Beach House will release the B-Sides and Rarities album (pre-order here!), a 14-track compilation of songs from throughout their career. The album features 2 previously unreleased tracks “Chariot” (as seen above) and “Baseball Diamond,” which were recorded during the Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars sessions (both Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars were released, 2 months apart, in 2015)
Beach House says of the release, “When we announced that we were releasing a B-sides and rarities album, someone on Twitter asked, ‘B-sides record? Why would Beach House put out a B-sides record? Their A-sides are like B-sides.’ This random person has a point. Our goal has never been to make music that is explicitly commercial. Over the years, as we have worked on our 6 LPs, it wasn’t the ‘best’ or most catchy songs that made the records, just the ones that fit together to make a cohesive work. Accordingly, our B-sides are not songs that we didn’t like as much, just ones that didn’t have a place on the records we were making.”
“The idea for a B-sides record came when we realized just how many non-album songs had been made over the years, and how hard it was to find and hear many of them. This compilation contains every song we have ever made that does not exist on one of our records. There are 14 songs in total.”
Beach House’s B-Sides and Rarities will be released on CD / LP / CASS / DL and is available for pre-order now here. LP pre-orders in North America through the Sub Pop Mega Mart and select independent retailers will receive the Loser Edition on crystal clear vinyl (while supplies last), and a new T-shirt design will also be available to bundle with the album.
B-Sides and Rarities Tracklisting: 1. Chariot 2. Baby 3. Equal Mind 4. Used to Be (2008 Single Version) 5. White Moon (iTunes Session Remix) 6. Baseball Diamond 7. Norway (iTunes Session Remix) 8. Play the Game 9. The Arrangement 10. Saturn Song 11. Rain in Numbers 12. I Do Not Care for the Winter Sun 13. 10 Mile Stereo (Cough Syrup Remix) 14. Wherever You Go
About the B Sides and Rarities album:
When we announced that we were releasing a B-sides and rarities album, someone on Twitter asked, “B-sides record? Why would Beach House put out a B-sides record? Their A-sides are like B-sides.” This random person has a point. Our goal has never been to make music that is explicitly commercial. Over the years, as we have worked on our 6 LPs, it wasn’t the “best” or most catchy songs that made the records, just the ones that fit together to make a cohesive work. Accordingly, our B-sides are not songs that we didn’t like as much, just ones that didn’t have a place on the records we were making.
The idea for a B-sides record came when we realized just how many non-album songs had been made over the years, and how hard it was to find and hear many of them. This compilation contains every song we have ever made that does not exist on one of our records. There are 14 songs in total.
The oldest song is “Rain in Numbers” and was recorded in 2005, during the summer we formed the band. We didn’t have a piano, so we asked our friend if we could use his, which was pretty out of tune. We used the mic that was on the four-track machine to record the piano and vocals. It was originally the secret song on our self-titled debut.
Sequentially, the next couple of songs are from late 2008. We were so excited about “Used to Be,” that we recorded it right after writing it so that we could have it as a 7” single for our fall tour with the Baltimore Round Robin. We recorded our cover of Queen’s “Play the Game” in the same session. It was for a charity compilation benefiting AIDS research and we will continue to donate all profits from the song to that charity. As fans of Queen, we thought it would be fun and ridiculous to try to adapt their high-powered pop song into our realm. These songs were recorded at the same studio where we made Devotion.
There are a bunch of songs written and recorded in the 2009-2010 window. This period of time, as well as 2014, was our most prolific to date. “Baby” was written and recorded in October 2009 with our friend Jason Quever. “10 Mile Stereo” was recorded during the Teen Dream session in July 2009. Since we used tape, we often slowed the tape way down to create effects while recording. When we were doing that for “10 Mile Stereo” we decided we wanted to make an alternate version where the whole song was slowed down, hence the “10 Mile Stereo (Cough Syrup Remix).”
“White Moon” and “The Arrangement” were both songs that we didn’t believe fit on Teen Dream. “White Moon” originally appeared on our iTunes live session. Since that was recorded and mixed very hastily, we have remixed it to better match our current aesthetics. We have also remixed and included the version of “Norway” we did at that same session. The main reason we wanted to include “Norway” is that it features a very different bridge from the original version.
After the insane year of touring we had in 2010, we felt incredibly grateful to our fans for all that had happened. We wrote and recorded “I Do Not Care for the Winter Sun” during a break between tours and released it on the internet for free, unmastered. Well, it’s finally been mastered…
“Wherever You Go” Is another song from that era. We always loved this song but thought it sounded too much like our old music. We paused writing it and didn’t finish it until 2011 during the Bloom recording session. It appeared originally as a secret song on Bloom.
“Equal Mind” was also recorded during the Bloom session. We really like this song, but pulled it from the record when we realized it had the exact same tempo as “Other People.” They are like twins.
The Bloom sessions led to “Saturn Song” as well. This song is built on a piano loop we wrote while recording Bloom. It also contains sounds recorded in deep space. It originally appeared on a compilation of songs incorporating space sounds that was released in 2014.
Finally, there are two previously unreleased songs from the Depression Cherry/Thank Your Lucky Stars sessions. They are called “Chariot” and “Baseball Diamond.”
Beach House has also added new dates to their 2017 international headlining and festival tour schedule. Highlights include: August 13th in Castelbuono, IT at Ypsigrock, August 16th in Sestri Levante, IT for an appearance at Mojotic Festival, and a string of September dates with friends and former labelmates Fleet Foxes (with stops at the Hollywood Bowl and Red Rocks Amphitheatre among those).
Beach House will also appear at New York’s Governor’s Ball the weekend of June 2nd-4th.
May 24 - Charlotte, NC - Neighborhood Theatre May 26 - Orlando, FL - Beacham Theatre May 27 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL - The Revolution May 28 - Ponte Vedra, FL - Ponte Vedra Concert Hall May 30 - Athens, GA - Georgia Theatre May 31 - Knoxville, TN - Mill & Mine Jun. 02 - New York, NY - Governor’s Ball Jun. 03 - New York, NY - Governor’s Ball Jun. 04 - New York, NY - Governor’s Ball Aug. 11 - Copenhagen, DK - Haven Aug. 13 - Castelbuono, IT - Ypsigrock Aug. 16 - Sestri Levante, IT - Mojotic Festival Aug. 18 - Parades de Coura, PT - Parades de Coura Festival Sep. 23 - Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Bowl* Sep. 24 - Phoenix, AZ - Comerica Theatre* Sep. 25 - Santa Fe, NM - Santa Fe Opera* Sep. 27 - Denver, CO - Red Rocks Amphitheatre* *w/ Fleet Foxes
