Shooflypie

It hasn't been that long since the last Heavy Rotation (certainly there have been bigger gaps between editions), but I have a handful of albums I haven't been able to stop listening to over the past six weeks or so. These are their stories... The Black Crowes/Amorica - I was a big fan of The Black Crowes when they appeared on the scene; I had both Shake Your Moneymaker and The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion on CD and played them a ton. So why didn't I get Amorica when it came out? Or any of their records after that? I have no idea. I do know what made me check it out now - a friend I met through the Rockin' the Suburbs podcast shared a song off of it and then a whole Black Crowes playlist. That was enough for me to start listening. Honestly, the first time through I thought it was okay. The second time I thought it sounded good. After the third time, I was all in. Their sound isn't really different on this album - it's still got echoes of the Stones a

I don't know if it's the weather, nostalgia, or something else, but I woke up feeling like I wanted to do a Sunday Shuffle today. I barely open up iTunes anymore and haven't downloaded new music into it in a long time...which also means I haven't listened to a lot of the music I have stored there in a while. So, this is simultaneously old and new in a way and that feels interesting to me this morning. Let's get to today's ten... 1. Pulling On A Line/Great Lake Swimmers (6) - last played on 11/8/15 2. Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Of/U2 (7) - last played on 5/19/13 3. Us/Spoon (4) - last played on 11/24/17 4. Meat Is Murder/Shout Out Louds (6) - last played on 12/11/16 5. Different Days/Jason Isbell (11) - last played on 6/1/17 6. Another Way I Could Do It/Sloan (34) - last played on 6/22/18 7. Wizard Buys A Hat/The Mountain Goats (8) - last played on 2/12/17 8. Decks Dark/Radiohead (8) - last played on 7/10/18 9. Luisa/Jay Gonzalez (13) - last

School has started back up and my glorious endless summer days are now ended and gone until next June. Fortunately, this shift in free time hasn't affected my ability to listen to music too much, because I can still listen any time my kids aren't in my room and I'm not in a meeting or making copies or collaborating or what have you. This edition of Heavy Rotation features the albums I listened to over and over again in August and the early part of this month. Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires/Youth Detention - I should have listened to Patrick Foster (one of the co-hosts of the podcast, Rockin' the Suburbs). He touted this album as one of the best of 2017, but it wasn't until the podcast ran an interview with Lee Bains that I gave it a try. Yup, I should have listened. It's a rock album that has 17 songs and 6 of those have exclamation points in the title...and the music matches that enthusiastic punctuation. I love "Whitewash," which starts out a

I've got about 25 pages left of the book I'm reading and I don't have any album in particular I want to listen to right now, so I thought I would hit shuffle on iTunes. And if I'm shuffling through iTunes, I might as well do a Sunday Shuffle installment. So, here are today's ten... 1. Goldtone/Kurt Vile (8) - last played on 11/11/17 2. Eastern Terminal/Superchunk (18) - last played on 2/13/18 3. Jealous Girl/Ben Kweller (31) - last played on 8/31/17 4. Changes (Live)/Sugar (2) - last played on 5/1/16 5. Kaputt/Destroyer (9) - last played on 8/28/14 6. Cemetery Guns/Fountains of Wayne (21) - last played on 10/29/17 7. Why Won't They Talk to Me?/Tame Impala (5) - last played on 10/26/14 8. I Want You/Kings of Leon (5) - last played on 10/19/14 9. Battery Kinzie/Fleet Foxes (17) - last played on 11/19/17 10. Full Of Stars/Portastatic (4) - last played on 1/29/17

It's just under 2 months since the last Heavy Rotation, which might be the shortest gap between them ever. I also have a few others albums I played a handful of times, such as Violent Femmes' self-titled, but not quite enough to include here. A fact worth noting is that half of these I have been listening to via CD; in fact, I've picked up more CDs in the past few months than I have in years. Anyway, here are some words about what I've been spinning (physically or digitally) of late... Buffalo Tom/Quiet and Peace - Last time out I wrote about their album Skins and talked a little about the band and my history with them. Quiet and Peace is their brand-new one and the third since their almost decade long hiatus; as much I like Skins , this one is even better. The opener is "All Be Gone" and it was the first song to be released from the album. I liked it from the start - a charging beat, a soaring melody in the chorus, a tasty guitar solo. It took me a whi

The last time I had a Sloan-centric edition of the Shuffle was back in November 2016, right before I saw them in concert for the first time. They have a new album coming out on April 6, so it's time to start listening to their music in preparation and this is the perfect kickoff to that. This will be their 12th album (appropriately titled 12 ); I have albums #2-11 (plus 1 EP and a couple new songs from their best-of...I will skip the Christmas singles if they pop up) loaded into my iTunes, so today's shuffle will go as long as it takes to get each album represented. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go see them again when they come to Chicago in June...if anyone wants to go, let me know! Let's get to today's yet-to-be-determined number of songs... 1. A Side Wins (25) - from One Chord To Another 2. She's Slowin' Down Again (30) - from The Double Cross 3. Shame Shame (20) - from Twice Removed 4. I Was Wrong (21) - from Action Pact 5. The Good In Everyon

I wasn't planning on doing this today. It's been almost 3 months since I last did a shuffle and I haven't really missed it. I last did a Superchunk-only version back in July, not long after I was on the Rockin' the Suburbs podcast talking about the band. In that post, I mentioned how I hope there would be an announcement of a new album soon. Well, their most recent album, What a Time to Be Alive , just came out on Friday. Naturally, I gorged on their music in anticipation and I've already played the new one a couple times. Furthermore, I had some gift cards from Christmas still hanging around and I have the new album in my iTunes (and a physical copy along the way), as well as new digital copies of their self-titled debut from 1990 (the last of their studio albums I didn't have) and their 2003 compilation Cup of Sand . So, it seems like a perfect time for Sunday Superchunk #4 to celebrate new and new-to-my-computer music of theirs...and you know what? I think t

Last year I only managed two Heavy Rotation posts; it was the same in 2016. This year I hope to get back to 2015 levels, where I put up four. Posting one in early February gets me off to a promising start, at least. The albums I'm writing about here have been keeping me company throughout January (and even late December in many cases)... The Breeders/Title TK - I'll admit it. I really slept on The Breeders. Sure, I loved "Cannonball" just as much as everyone else back in '93, but I didn't investigate any further. Thanks to streaming, however, I've become quite familiar with Last Splash and love it. Still, however, I hadn't ventured much beyond that album. It wasn't until the band announced it was coming back earlier this month that I gave this album I try. All I can say is...man, I really slept on The Breeders. Title TK is actually their follow-up to Last Splash , coming 9 years later. It's also produced by Steve Albini, which is a fact