Just got an email back from Slacker Radio support
I doubt their answer is going to help anyone, but here goes.
they said to disable the firewall.
and to set ALL permissions to "allow".
Seems like a funny couple of tips, seeing as how I told them the problem I had was intermittent loud volume and skipping songs randomly. I had also mentioned that album art was missing in the previous version of slacker--something that's been working since I upgraded BEFORE I emailed them.
anyway, that's what they told me to do. nothing else. sigh. No word of them working on a new release, which is what I wanted (chuckle) to hear.