The 365 Day Playlist

The Penultimate Month

Another month has passed by and another month of songs playing in my head when I wake up. A continuation of my grand experiment to record every song I wake up with in my head each morning.

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Credit: Futurama, Episode 2 of Season 3 (2001)

Hard to believe it’s been nearly a year since I began this project and it has almost reached the end. I am looking forward to doing a deep dive into the data for the overall playlist, but before that, let’s dive into November—the penultimate month.

For those of you that are new here, I have been recording every song I wake up with in my head onto a monthly and yearly playlist. If you visit the link at the top, it explains the method to my madness, and that is trying to make sense of the earworms I wake up with in my head each morning.

For starters, I have to put the spotlight on my pal, Brad Kyle of Front Row & Backstage, who is a fan (I think) of this series because every now again a song that is playing in my head piques his interest. This month that was “Fools Gold” by Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown. Brad wanted to do a deep dive into the band and let me tell the story of how I saw them for the first time at the Hard Rock Cafe in Pittsburgh 12 years ago. Check it out here.

The rest of the month is pretty standard fare, that new King Gizzard song, “Phantom Island”, has been on near repeat since its release. I think I am gonna try to see them on their next tour where they will be accompanied by an orchestra on each date.

I have a fun story on how fIREHOSE, a spinoff band created after the death of D. Boon and the end of The Minutemen, ended up on this list. I was at a Halloween party and the parents were all discussing music played in their house and how their kids sometimes choose the typical pop music nonsense, but some of these parents are like me and inundate their kids with good music and eclectic tastes so they do not fall into that pop music trap. I, of course, mentioned how King Gizzard gets a lot of play in our house and then I have to go on to explain that they are a psych rock band with thrash metal albums, some jazz, and their most recent release being a boogie rock masterpiece. Imagine the stares around that table.

Anyway, one of the dads mentioned how his daughter heard him play fIREHOSE once and now she requests it on the reg. I am happy to say that (most of) the kids are gonna be alright.

Another fun oddity on the list this month is The New Cactus Band—I love boogie rock and the original Cactus did it quite well, and the successor band, aptly named The New Cactus Band, did an excellent job as well.

Finally, if you haven’t had the chance to spin that new Father John Misty LP—I command you to go do it now. It is some of his finest work, and the track “I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All” is a bop.

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Here is another shameless plug for subscriptions. Rather than go with a pay to read model, I switched to pay if you want. As an added incentive, other than the writing and supporting the Stack, I am giving away some sealed vinyl box sets and other ephemera worth exponentially more than the cost of a yearly subscription—read all about it here. As always, thanks for being here either way!