Shooflypie

This past Friday was a big release day, with 4 new albums that I will probably be listening to over and over again. That means it's probably time to write about what I've been into over the last month-and-a-half or so. Sound good? Phoebe Bridgers/Stranger in the Alps - Before last fall, I hadn't listened to any of Bridgers' music. Sure, I knew of her, but that was it. It wasn't until Boygenius (the group she's in with Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus) that I really heard anything she'd done. Their EP is great, so I thought it was time to expand my horizons and give this one a listen. Better late than never is a cliche for a reason, right? Anyway, the album starts off very strong with "Smoke Signals" and "Motion Sickness." The former is contemplative and moody and lovely with killer lyrics while the latter is more prickly and up-tempo with (again) killer lyrics. It's a strong start to the album. If I had to pick one track to get someon...

I spent a large part of January just listening to one thing after another and not getting into any sort of groove. That changed toward the end of the month (and into the start of this month), when a handful of albums started getting more spins. These are those albums (CLUNG CLUNG): Bonny Doon/Longwave - This album and band have been championed by an fellow listener of the Rockin' the Suburbs podcast, so I decided to check it out. Their sound is all jangle and chime, the pace is almost languid at times, and the lyrics have a lot of repetition. The more you listen, the more is just gets lodged in your head. Take, for instance, the way the guitar solo blossoms out of the steady pace of "A Lotta Things," which is all acoustic guitar to that point. "Saved" reminds me of Pavement, with its loping beat and repeating "Are you a believer or not?," but it has some subtle notes on its way out like the one ringing chord on the guitar that just changes the overal...

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 ...

I'm ready to put this feature on hiatus for a while, but I didn't want to end on #474 for now, which means I'm bringing back the "double issue" for today. The previous one was on Dec. 18 of last year. Normally, I do 20 songs on these editions, but since it's going away for a while, let's bump it to 25 today. Why not? 1. Price Tag/Sleater-Kinney (17) - last played on 3/24/17 2. The Indie Queens Are Waiting/Dan Mangan (5) - last played on 5/26/15 3. Ain't That Enough/Teenage Fanclub (31) - last played on 7/30/17 4. Dead Smile/Matthew Sweet (6) - last played on 9/10/17 5. Don't Need You/Alejandro Escovedo (4) - last played on 6/30/13 6. Jackson Cage (live)/Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band (2) - last played on 1/25/16 7. Beast/Ex Hex (20) - last played on 8/3/17 8. Be Good/Tokyo Police Club (8) - last played on 11/3/16 9. Accidental Life/Teenage Fanclub (15) - last played on 11/24/17 10. The Good That Won't Come Out/Rilo Kiley (...

I am very much looking forward to a 2-day work week and to Thanksgiving with the family. I hope you all have a wonderful and safe holiday. Let's get to today's ten... 1. Old To Begin/Pavement (13) - last played on 1/17/16 2. Brain Gallop/Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks (14) - last played on 10/23/15 3. Girls Like Status/The Hold Steady (6) - last played on 3/12/17 4. Everything Is Free/Gillian Welch (5) - last played on 3/25/12 5. The Heartbreak Rides/A.C. Newman (8) - last played on 6/5/16 6. Say Goodnight/Dean & Britta (7) - last played on 10/23/16 7. Debbie Downer/Courtney Barnett (18) - last played on 10/21/16 8. Coughing Up Blood/Marah (8) - last played on 4/10/15 9. He Doesn't Know Why/Fleet Foxes (8) - last played on 8/28/16 10. Laughing With A Mouth Of Blood/St. Vincent (11) - last played on 7/31/16

Don't have much to ramble on about today, so let's get right to today's ten... 1. Ret Liv Dead/Teenage Fanclub (14) - last played on 10/16/16 2. Tee Pees 1-12/Father John Misty (14) - last played on 4/5/15 3. Nighthawks/Two Hours Traffic (10) - last played on 7/25/17 4. My Mother Was A Chinese Trapeze Artist/The Decemeberists (14) - last played on 2/12/16 5. Auctioneer/The Broken West (12) - last played on 4/1/17 6. Fish/Wye Oak (18) - last played on 9/13/15 7. Coming To/Apex Manor (19) - last played on 1/29/17 8. Lisa (Esopus Magazine 2005)/The Prayers & Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers (4) - last played on 12/4/11 9. Plumb Line/Archers of Loaf (10) - last played on 12/3/11 10. Pick Me Up/Dinosaur Jr. (13) - last played on 6/24/17 Bonus 11. Penny and Jack/The Essex Green (13) - last played on 11/5/17 Bonus Bonus * "Lisa" isn't on Spotify, but it's a great song and I wanted you to be able to listen, so click here !

I wasn't sure if I was going to do an edition of the Shuffle today, in part because I left off last night halfway through The Breeders' Pod . I'm in a music group on Facebook and that album has been posted a few times lately...and since I'd never heard it, I figured it was past time. Unsurprisingly, I thought it was really good and will be listening to it more in the near future. Speaking of the near future, I hope to get a new Heavy Rotation done relatively soon. This afternoon we are going to see Thor:Ragnarok and I can't wait. It looked great from the first trailer and everything I've heard since has supported that fact. Maybe I'll get a review up at some point too. For now, though, I've rambled enough. Let's get to today's ten... 1. Whenever We Finish/Two Hours Traffic (6) - last played on 7/25/17 2. Get Out of Cities/Blur (3) - last played on 2/10/17 3. Brand New Start/Little Joy (8) - last played on 4/28/13 4. Half Right/Elliott S...

Hard to believe we're already at the end of October. The World Series is in full swing (pivotal Game 5 tonight!), the new batch of Stranger Things is here (I'm still trying to finish Daredevil Season 2), and Thor:Ragnarok comes out next weekend (looks like a ton of fun, doesn't it?). I'm behind on almost everything as usual (except for a few TV shows, like  The Good Place and The Flash ), but I'll never stop trying to catch up (2 years behind on The Great Albums podcast and 1 year behind on Spontaneanation). Let's get to today's ten (like we do almost every time)... 1. Tell Me What You See/The Beatles (5) - last played on 12/14/14 2. Black Hole/The Rosebuds (8) - last played on 2/21/16 3. Cemetery Guns/Fountains of Wayne (20) - last played on 10/20/16 4. Game Of Love/The Redwalls (4) - last played on 11/13/16 5. Long As I Can See the Light/Creedence Clearwater Revival (5) - last played on 2/28/16 6. Screwdriver/The White Stripes (12) - last play...

It's the middle of October and the middle of a 3-day weekend. I was trying to think of a way to have today's shuffle be the middle of the songs somehow, but decided it was more work than I wanted to do. So instead, let's just get to today's ten... 1. Saint John/Cold War Kids (3) - last played on 6/19/11 2. Last Night In Town/The Twilight Singers (10) - last played on 2/12/17 3. Cobra Tattoo/The Mountain Goats (4) - last played on 2/21/16 4. Stick Together/Eels (17) - last played on 8/20/17 5. They Killed John Henry/Justin Townes Earle (3) - last played on 1/27/13 6. The Ambassador/The Hold Steady (8) - last played on 9/24/17 7. Ghosts of Syllables/Admiral Radley (8) - last played on 8/7/16 8. Feud/Band Of Horses (16) - last played on 6/9/16 9. Flowing/Teenage Fanclub (16) - last played on 10/1/17 10. Two Of Us/The Beatles (4) - last played on 5/12/13

I have a busy day ahead, so I'm just going to get right to today's ten... 1. AT&T/Pavement (14) - last played on 7/24/16 2. Streetlights/Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit (11) - last played on 3/15/17 3. The Government Darling/Spoon (12) - last played on 3/11/17 4. See My Way/Nude Beach (27) - last played on 9/27/17 5. Beach Baby/Bon Iver (4) - last played on 3/13/15 6. Radio/Teenage Fanclub (10) - last played on 10/15/16 7. With Or Without You/U2 (9) - last played on 12/18/16 8. Keep On Running/The Smithereens (11) - last played on 11/2/14 9. St. Apollonia/Beirut (5) - last played on 2/21/16 10. Got To Get You Into My Life/The Beatles (11) - last played on 1/29/17

It's hard to believe we're already the last Sunday in September, especially with how hot it has been around here for the last week plus. I have units planned deep into October, though, so it shouldn't be that hard for me to fathom. I think the rhythm of school from the teaching side is messing with me a bit. That's fine. Anyway, I hope you have had a good couple weeks since the last time I posted. Let's get to today's ten... 1. Sick File/Archers of Loaf (9) - last played on 12/9/12 2. Never Run Away/Kurt Vile (5) - last played on 7/23/15 3. Liquid In, Liquid Out/The Thermals (13) - last played on 6/18/17 4. Tell Me/Le Switch (6) - last played on 5/1/16 5. Living with the Masses/Sloan (23) - last played on 11/17/16 6. Gonna Break Into Your Heart/Earlimart (8) - last played on 4/15/13 7. Angela/Oakley Hall (4) - last played on 10/17/10 8. Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)/Squeeze (5) - last played on 7/10/16 9. Too Many Demons/I Love Math (6) - last pla...

I almost did a Sunday Sweet today, because it was a year ago today that Matthew Sweet played the Popcorn Fest. However, I don't have his great new album, Tomorrow Forever , digitally, so it seems silly to do one. Maybe when I get my own copy. So, today is just a normal episode of the Sunday Shuffle and it's time to get to today's ten... 1. Moves/The New Pornographers (20) - last played on 11/15/15 2. Blue/First Aid Kit (9) - last played on 3/14/15 3. Remember Last Time/Avi Buffalo (12) - last played on 1/31/16 4. The Curse/Josh Ritter (17) - last played on 2/5/17 5. New Light/Great Lake Swimmers (7) - last played on 2/24/13 6. Grave Architecture/Pavement (12) - last played on 6/13/15 7. I Like To Keep Myself In Pain/Kelly Hogan (17) - last played on 3/24/17 8. G N D N/Admiral Radley (9) - last played on 6/28/15 9. Time Spent in Los Angeles/Dawes (13) - last played on 5/1/16 10. The Darkest Part of the Night/Teenage Fanclub (1) - iTunes debut

I almost did a Sunday Sorrow today, because the new album from The National is out on Friday. I can't wait to hear Sleep Well Beast and I'm sure I'll be gorging on their music this week. The reason I decided to go with a regular episode was that I didn't want to post an entry titled Sunday Sorrow on this beautiful Sunday, especially since it's a three-day weekend. I hope you are enjoying your weekend and that your weather is as nice as we have here in NW Indiana. Let's get to today's ten... 1. The Descent/Bob Mould (46) - last played on 9/2/17 2. Saturday Nite/Blitzen Trapper (5) - last played on 3/5/15 3. I'm Gonna Getcha/Eli "Paperboy" Reed And The True Loves (5) - last played on 12/14/14 4. The Victory Choir/American Music Club (5) - last played on 12/27/15 5. Unhinged/The Drams (5) - last played on 10/4/15 6. Same Old Drag/Apples In Stereo (7) - last played on 2/22/15 7. The Love You Love/The Walkmen (19) - last played on 2/1/15 ...