Hey, I know I’m a day late with this. I had to go to the mountains for a day and do a little fly fishing after talking to Tim Midyett about it. Sometimes you have to go stand thigh-deep in an ice cold river and pray for summer to end.

Here’s this week’s playlist!

1. “Can’t Find a Hat” – Mint Mile: Tim Midyett’s new project, this is my favorite song of theirs so far. I love how it toes the line between melancholy and honky tonk anthem. Seems like a good direction to go in, these days.
2. “Couldn’t You Wait” – Silkworm: The thing I hate to admit about Silkworm songs is sometimes I have no idea whether a song is a Tim song or an Andy song. Whichever, this is the track I played with them the one time I sat in with Andy and Tim in Chicago, and it nearly made me cry, it was so amazing. They say “Don’t meet your heroes.” I say “Get better heroes, pal.”
3. “Nerves” – Silkworm: I think this is my favorite Silkworm song. It’s the one most evocative of touring in the ’90s, and wondering why some bands become ridiculously good, while others become ridiculously successful.
4. “Fleece” – Bottomless Pit: Man, this song crushes. It’s the first song on the last BP LP. That riff. In headphones, this song feels like deep water.
5. “Farewell Trasmission” – Songs:Ohia: Rest well, Jason Molina. This is my favorite Songs:Ohia track, and I sometimes plug my bass in, turn this up as loud as I can, and play along. It’s my form of meditation.
6. “All My Happiness is Gone” – Purple Mountains: Man, the lyrics to this song. Rest well, David Bermann. “Lately I tend to make strangers wherever I go/Some of them were once people I was happy to know.” This song is the source of the lyrics I read in the intro, this week. There’s such a contrast between the bouncy new wave beat of this track and the darkness of the lyrics. There’s so much to unpack here.
7. “Don’t Fade On Me” – Magnolia Electric Co.: More brilliance from Jason Molina.
8. “Random Rules” – Silver Jews: Another track from David Berman. “In 1984 I was hospitalized for approaching perfection.”
9. “FF=66” – Jawbox: Tim and I talked about Jawbox some in the interview, and our friends The Pauses are out on tour with them now. I saw them live in like 1991 and cut my long hair off the next day. This was the first recorded track I ever heard from them and it nearly ripped the rest of my hair out, too.
10. “Escape from Nebula M Spacehunter” – Daikaiju: This is on here for two reasons: 1. Daikaiju is one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen, and 2. I’m missing them as I type this, because they’re in Atlanta tonight and I’m not. Meh.