This week on Signs of Life with Paste Magazine, Nick and Josh examine the merits of seeing music live and take a look at some of the best concerts coming to Atlanta in September. Because September is a month that is so jam packed with great live music around the city, this was not a particularly easy to list to come up with, so rest assured that this program is packed with only the best of the best. As always, this episode starts with a flashback to a Issue 48 from November 2008. This week’s flashback is Of Montreal’s “Id Engager.”

Episode 47 of Paste Magazine’s Signs of Life takes a look back at one of their most high-concept issues. Issue 47 took a look at violence in the television, music and video games and where the line between right and wrong lies. This episode features some of the best songs with themes of death and violence from artists like Johnny Cash, the Decemberists, Uncle Tupelo and more. As always, this episode starts with a flashback to the sampler CD that accompanied Paste Magazine Issue 47. This week’s flashback is “Gillian was a Horse” by Seattle artist Damien Jurado from October 2008.

This episode of Signs of Life is a complete synergy of music, film and culture (with a little television thrown in for good measure). This episode tests has Josh testing everyone’s knowledge of fictional bands in television and film. As always, this episode starts with a flashback to Issue 46 with Jamie Lidell’s “Another Day”

Paste Magazine celebrates one year of Signs of Life on AM 1690 in a very big way. Well, that may not technically be correct. Paste Magazine celebrates their birthday by looking at some of the other bands that are sprawling, over sized and very large. This idea was inspired by Arcade Fire’s latest effort The Suburbs and features large bands like the Polyphonic Spree, the New Pornographers and of course Sly & the Family Stone

Paste Magazine looks back at a website feature highlighting “State Songs for the 21st Century.” This feature looks at songs written in the 21st century written about states. In addition, the staff of Paste Magazine examines the psyche behind the writer as the pen songs written about specific locations. As always, the show starts with a flashback to a previous issue with Constantines’ song Hard Feelings.

Paste uses this episode to gain insight from their interns, asking the worker bees what one song the radio listeners really need to hear. Reminiscing about Issue 42, Paste looks at their non-traditional tradition of featuring the occasional artist-penned cover story, in particular this issue’s article written by Ben Gibbard. This episode starts with “We Both Go Down Together,” a live track from Colin Meloy.