This is how we call it: “It’s still funny how the new den of troubles and sorrows – hanging on the walls like the prized game heads of successful hunts – still seem to be reflective of the ones that came before, just told over better tea or coffee, and with a lot more depth to them. They have their mother’s eyes and their father’s heartbreak. We leave girls and friends holding the pieces or we’re left holding the pieces of nights gone disastrously wrong or people gone completely astray from the other people and the things that would essentially make they themselves happy people. No one ever really gets to put that star at the top of their tree. They never get to casually breathe it all in as they’re always choking back on something, holding in a disappointment.”—an excerpt from Sean Moeller’s “Taking Full Advantage Of His Constitutional Right To Pursue Unhappiness (Or Happiness)”

Daytrotter asked Ashworth what songs he was listening to this week and he took the assignment. We’re wondering, now that the weather’s broken, if that Gate song still holds its spot in the top five. Either way, Ashworth not only is in touch with the essence of his own human spirit, but he finds a way to discover it in others as well.

“OK man here you have it—five jamz to do your summer right.”—Owen Ashworth

“Lonely Town, Lonely Street” by Bill Withers
“This is the first song from Still Bill in case you did not know that. I first heard this song on a train in to Stockholm, Sweden a few months ago and it convinced me that Bill Withers was the guy for me. Sure I loved “Ain’t No Sunshine” on the oldies radio and, yes, “Lean On Me” is a summer camp classic but when Mr. Bill sings to me about sweet young sweet young pretty prettys and silver-tongued sho nuff high class talkers, I am really listening. Dude is right on.”

“Sandy” by The Papercuts
“Jason Quever (who is The Papercuts) just laid an unlabeled CDR of the new Papercuts album on me and I can’t believe how totally great it is. The Papercuts are one of my all-time favorites, for real, but I’ve also felt that Jason and I have always had very different ideas about what makes his songs so great. This is the problem with being good friends with one of your favorite bands: You tend to take it very personally when they cut your favorite song from an album or change the verse of a piano solo that hit you so hard the first time around. The point is that I feel like I understand Jason’s intentions with this new and presently unnamed album moreso than i ever have with his music and I am proud, astonished and impressed. Every single song is great and so perfectly placed, but I’m picking this one for my favorite because Jason’s got our friend Jenny Herbinson singing the backups here and it just feels like old times.”

“Yeah Yeah” by Black Rock
“This is the first song after the intro on that Chains and Black Exhaust—funk Detroit or Chicago, I forget—45 comp that came out last year or so. This song is so marvelous for it’s weirdly saloonish piano and meandering guitar solo and epic “BLACK… rooooock” intro and the totally perfect “unnhhh!” that kicks off the groove. This has been the song i’ve wanted to hear everytime i’ve gotten in the car for weeks now. This is how I want my summer to be man.”

“PI.Quad.15.1” by Gate
“This has been a nice “last music of the day” sort of jam on warm nights like Chicago has had lately. It’s a kind of sweet and sad and whispery and a little instrumental built out of incrongruent sounding loops. It always sounds like it’s coming from the the next apartment over and it’s those very aloof and far off qualities that make you want to listen close for all the details. It loses points for the annoying computer code title when the jam should clearly be called Cherry Blossom Honeymoon of Sorrow.”

“Six Feet Deep” by The Geto Boys
“Tony from The Donkeys put this on in the van on one of the very last days of our national tour and I was so bummed that we hadn’t been listening to it all month long. As soon as I got home I went and paid my 99 cents to iTunes for the Michael Watts Chopped and Screwed remix because Marvin Gaye sample clearances don’t pay for themselves the last time i checked. I like when Bushwick Bill says “Uh/And Bushwick can’t sleep/When everybody around me keeps falling six six feet deep.”

Check out ‘Etiquette,’ Casiotone For The Painfully Alone’s masterful new record

Check out the just as masterful Casiotone For The Painfully Alone’s 4-song Daytrotter session with this week’s featured band, The Donkeys, backing his ass up