Shooflypie

Here's what I've been listening to the last two weeks or so... Clem Snide/The Meat of Life - This album made was in a Heavy Rotation just over a year ago, after it first came out. A recommendation of one of their earlier albums by Stephen Thompson on Pop Culture Happy Hour sent me back to this one. These songs are literate folk pop explorations of sublime despair...or something like that. Highlights include "Walmart Parking Lot," "I Got High," and "The Great Barrier Reef." Middle Brother/Middle Brother - This is a group featuring the leads in the bands Dawes, Delta Spirit, and Deer Tick. They each bring a set of songs to the table but collaborate on them with beautiful harmonies and great guitars. I'll have more to say when I get around to reviewing the whole album in my 2011 run-through, which I still plan to do. The Shins/Wincing the Night Away - This is an album that makes me think of spring, in part because I think it came out in the spr...

Happy Easter! 1. Murder in the City/The Avett Brothers (3) 2. Spying on the Spys/Portastatic (2) 3. Stockholm Syndrome/Yo La Tengo (4) 4. In a Cave/Tokyo Police Club (4) 5. You Turned My Head Around/Dean & Britta (5) 6. Island Garden Song/The Mountain Goats (4) 7. Your Weather/Dinosaur Jr. (4) 8. Insanely Jealous/The Soft Boys (1) 9. Zurich Is Stained/Pavement (2) 10. You Really Got a Hold on Me/She & Him (4)

I have a rough draft of a substantial paper due by midnight, so let's get to the music... 1. Banging Camp/The Hold Steady (2) 2. Coax Me/Sloan (1) 3. Running From The Cops/Phantogram (4) 4. Will I Belong?/Sloan (2) 5. Anonanimal/Andrew Bird (6) 6. Good Day Sunshine/The Beatles (1) 7. Kennel District/Pavement (4) 8. To The Morning/A.A. Bondy (6) 9. I Want To Tell You/The Beatles (5) 10. Postcard Blues/Verbena (2)

I've been a sequential reader for most of my life, preferring to read only one book at a time and move to the next one. Of late, however, I've needed to go against my natural preferences in order to read books for school and also be able to keep up some pleasure reading. I've managed to do it, though with my overall yearly total taking a hit (which was and is to be expected). As of today, however, I've wandered into completely new territory...I'm reading 4 books at once. I started A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin just about two weeks ago. It was one of the first books I bought for my Nook, having wanted to start the series for a few years and using the upcoming HBO adaptation as the final push to start it. It lingered on my electronic shelf for a few months until the HBO premiere date got even closer (as in this coming Sunday). I'm on pg. 262 of 787 on my Nook. A few days later I started Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey . My English class this semester...

This post covers the comics that I bought the week of Mar. 9 (remember, kids, a comics week begins on Wednesday!)... Legion of Super-Villains #1 - This titular Legion has fought the Legion of Super-Heroes a number of times over the years and with this one-shot, Paul Levitz begins to assemble to new iteration of the LSV. Saturn Queen is the driving force not only of the group but by use of her telepathic power - she is cold and cruel and calculating. We have familiar faces and new iterations of old villains plus some new ones. The big plot point is the destruction of The Rock of Eternity by the group. This will all continue in the Legion book but I like the approach of getting to know the villains in a little more detail before the inevitable conflict. Batman Incorporated #3 - Ah, Grant Morrison does it again. After an opening that shows us a super-team we haven't seen in the past, we dive into a team-up between Batman and El Gaucho. El Gaucho doesn't want to join Batman Inc.;...

I haven't done one of these posts since the end of October back at the previous blog. This one covers the end of March and beginning of April only, or else it would be quite long (sorry, Built to Spill). Buffalo Tom/Let Me Come Over - I got this from eMusic quite a while back and only listened to it a few times. I decided to dig it up and give it a listen recently and promptly wondered what had taken me so long. This is the type of music I just eat up - melodic rock with lyrics you want to listen to. This album is from 1992, which also begs the question as to why I haven't been a fan for 20 years. Still, better late than never, right? Standout songs for me include "Taillights Fade," "Stymied," and "Frozen Lake." Drive-By Truckers/Go-Go Boots - I had a ticket to go see the DBTs in early March, which was the early stages of their tour behind this record. However, I'd been very ill the weekend before and was still having issues with my back and ...

I'm at a busy point in my semester, with two big papers looming and some reading yet to do. I'm going to feel great that first week of May, let me tell you (guess I am telling you). Setting that aside, I'm not happy with the lack of attention I've been giving the blog pretty much since I launched this version at the beginning of the year. So, I plan on putting up a post a day over the next few weeks. This posts will mostly involve me backtracking and writing about all the pop culture I've consumed in 2011. That will take a while and I should be ready for new ideas and current pop culture intake around the same time my life becomes a bit freer. Coming up this week - Tom Adamson, Jane Austen, comics, and Easy A .

It is 66 degrees at 7:45 in the morning on April 10. Crazy. 1. Horseradish Road/The Mountain Goats (1) 2. Me Around/Michael Penn (3) 3. The Stops/Elbow (2) 4. Candy Cigarettes/Portastatic (5) 5. Life 2: The Unhappy Ending/Stars (4) 6. Stutter/Yuck (4) 7. Cattle & The Creeping Things/The Hold Steady (2) 8. Victory/The Walkmen (8) 9. Ill Placed Trust/Sloan (4) 10. The Smidge/The Hold Steady (7)

It's the beginning of April already. Spring break #2 is over. I have five weeks left of my college classes and nine weeks left of school at the day job. I have a feeling it will all go fast. This past week I bought a few albums, so we'll see if they show up in today's ten... 1. Comfort/Michael Penn (3) 2. Pittsburgh/The Lemonheads (2) 3. Sick Priest Learns to Last Forever/Destroyer (2) 4. Say Hello/The Whigs (2) 5. Pulled Muscle/Superchunk (5) 6. Touch Me I'm Going To Scream Pt. 2/My Morning Jacket (5) 7. Anonanimal/Andrew Bird (5) 8. Broken Chair/Luna (3) 9. Noisemaker/Two Hours Traffic (2) 10. And It Spread/The Avett Brothers (6)