I have this Plants and Animals t-shirt that I love love love. Whenever I wear it out in public, people always come up to me and say, “Plant Sand Animals… ha ha, nice.” I just nod and smile, its not worth correcting them.
I had one of those magical weekends filled with family, friends, sun and lakes.
On Sunday, Coral and I packed Mads, her Mom and sister up in the Jeep and headed to her Uncle and Aunt’s place on the beach of Lake Cowichan.
Lake Cowichan reminds me so much of summer’s at Bob’s cabin at Christina Lake. For the hour and a bit drive from the city to Cowichan I quickly crafted a playlist. Here are some selected faves from the list.
Off to Cowichan
01) Phoenix – “Love Like a Sunset Part 1”
02) Phoenix – “Love Like a Sunset Part 2”
03) Phoenix – “1901”
04) Yeah Yeah Yeah’s – “Zero”
05) The Rural Alberta Advantage – “The Ballad of the RAA”
06) The Rural Alberta Advantage – “Four Night Rider”
07) Cage the Elephant – “Ain’t No Rest for The Wicked”
08) Foals – “Balloons”
09) Friendly Fires – “Jump in The Pool”
10) Hadoukan! – “Declaration of War (Whip Remix)”
The first ten tracks are a great illustration of what I’ve been feeling lately.
Phoenix have this epic instrumental cut on track 4 of their album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. I always thought it would have sounded for more promising as the opening of the record, but hey, I’m not a French rock star. Its a very pretty slow jam and I think it lends itself well to the radio hit, “1901.”
“1901” is where we pick this show up and the design was, we’d be just climbing into the Jeep during our opening track, adjusting volumes, doling out the McDonald’s breakfast and getting the A/C set… by the time we were on the highway and feeling good, “1901” would be firing up and the drive could really begin.
After picking up Alyx we b-lined for the Douglas and headed north. Coral’s current obsession is the YYY’s “Zero.” She can’t hear it enough so it had to come with us.
I have the Rural Alberta Advantage in my head most days lately… I thought I better add a couple. I love to sing along to RAA at the top of my lungs and really strain to find the emotion in the songs.
Cage the Elephant is one of Coral’s Mom’s fave son the radio right now, neat.
Foals have that fine dancey rock beat going on, this would be a great example of something I’d fire up at The Clubhouse on a Thursday. Then some chick would fly upstairs because she can’t dance to it. I laugh (on the inside) apologize for have the audacity to play something interesting and quickly find something retarded that everyone knows the words to and the cycle continues. Whatever, its a small victory if I can get a few punchy ones in before the request for Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” comes in.
Friendly Fires and Hadoukan! are also what I call alternative dance songs… I think, if /when I become a better vinyl/serato DJ and look the part, you know… I’ll belt my jeans just below my bum and wear some sort of 80’s neon either on a t-shirt of fanny pack… I’ll be able to pull off spinning this music in a nightclub and not be bothered about it.
As it stands now, thou Hadoukan! should change any young lovers dancing world, it does not. To be honest, I didn’t get it the first couple listens either, but now the song “Declaration of War” lives in my brain. This song might make a gnarly workout track for you kids that actually… you know, work out.
I guess I better hit The Patch to find me something ironic to wear and practice my DJing.
This video is not the Whip remix, but a groovy video still.
Go with yourself.
The Morning After 
