I think of myself as pretty knowledgable about tech things, or at least tech things that I use regularly. For months, years maybe, I\u2019ve been lamenting how I have to delete my Friday Playlists out of Spotify after a month so my local library doesn\u2019t get too unwieldy to scroll through. \u201cIf only you could do nesting folders like in old iTunes,\u201d I thought. But I never, you know, looked to see if that was possible. I finally did last week and – LO! – you can! So now I have a folder where I can dump my old FP\u2019s, which means these will hang around rather than turn into dead links after a month. In case any of you ever look back at them.<\/p>\n
On to this week\u2019s tunes\u2026<\/p>\n
https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/playlist\/7AdIVBIb2c0SdTrhckKLrC?si=DLwBVE9BRC6r3FDOZ0rvdg<\/p>\n
\u201cSomewhere\u201d – Gum Country
\nThis LA band claims to be \u201charsh twee.\u201d To me this sounds like straight, early 90s, college grunge. And I like it.<\/p>\n
\u201cForever Nevermore\u201d – Sea Wolf
\n\u201cYou Fear the Wrong Thing Baby\u201d – The Radio Dept.
\nI don\u2019t know why, but I lump these two bands – and a few others like Longwave, Rogue Wave, Matt Pond PA, etc – together even though they don\u2019t sound much alike and I discovered them several years apart. Weird. Anyway, two solid new songs from two bands that I\u2019ll always take a listen to when they drop fresh material on our ears.<\/p>\n
\u201cCatch the Sun\u201d – Doves \u201cLovely Day\u201d – Bill Withers
\nShit, man. We\u2019re starting to hit 20-year anniversaries of things that happened this century. I\u2019m not sure I can get my head around that. This past week was the 20th anniversary of Doves\u2019 debut album Lost Souls<\/em>. I\u2019m a bigger fan of their later work, when they tightened things up a bit and shifted in a slightly more pop direction. I don\u2019t think I got into this song until about a year later, as I recall it being a big part of my summer of 2001 playlists. Still, it was my entry point for one of my favorite bands of the early 2000s.<\/p>\n
\nWe lost a couple legends this week. I don\u2019t know much about John Pine, but a lot of people and artists I like were moved by his passing. Bill Withers, though, was one that hit me. I never owned a Withers album, never played any of his songs on repeat. But once you heard his songs, they were in your head and heart forever. He has at least four timeless songs that pretty much everyone alive in the 1970s and 1980s will remember forever. I figure we need a lift these days, so I picked this one.<\/p>\n