Sub Pop Turns Twenty, Invites Mudhoney, Green River, Wolf Parade to Birthday Party

To celebrate twenty years of providing a home to some of the most seminal underground music in history, Sub Pop Records is throwing a party. Taking place on July 12 and 13th in their native Seattle, the label will gather former and present acts for the SP20 Festival. Leading the charge are old school favorites Mudhoney, the Fluid and a reunion of Green River (which features members of Pearl Jam, Mudhoney and Love Battery) and new schoolers Wolf Parade, Iron & Wine, Flight of the Conchords and No Age. The label will also host a comedy festival featuring Patton Oswalt, Eugene Mirman and Todd Barry. Sub Pop also plans on reissuing some of their greatest hits, with Mudhoney's Superfuzz Bigmuff the first to get the deluxe treatment.

SP20
Beachwood Sparks
Comets on Fire
Fleet Foxes
Flight of the Conchords
The Fluid
Foals
Grand Archives
Green River
The Helio Sequence
Iron & Wine
Kinski
Low
Mudhoney
No Age
Pissed Jeans
Red Red Meat
The Ruby Suns
Seaweed
Wolf Parade

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Song Stories

“The A Team”

Ed Sheeran | 2011

This debut track from the then-20-year-old British singer-songwriter has a dark story behind it. Sheeran says he culls songwriting inspiration from "viewing other people's situations," which, for the heroine in "The A Team," involves drug addiction and prostitution that began as a teen. Sheeran paints the woman's trials with haunting imagery such as "But lately her face seems/Slowly sinking, wasting/Crumbling like pastries." "I did a gig at a homeless shelter, [and the song] is about one of the women there. It's her story," he said.

More Song Stories entries »

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