Over the weekend, I played some of my music at a friend’s birthday party—my first live set in 3.5 years. In those days, I lugged around several large mixer and rack cases of equipment and cables. Now, I’ve pared it all down to my Apple G4 iBook and a single rack case for my power conditioner, nord micro modular and an inexpensive tapco mixer. My music leans more towards the ambient/chill-out/lounge/micro electronic realm, and it was nice to hear from Emma people were nodding their heads. I’ve posted a partial recording of this weekend as well as from back in October, 2002 for your enjoyment.

In winters past, I’d listen to slowcore (Tara Jane O’Neil, Cat Power, Low, Ida, Hem…) and chill-out (Ministry of Sound, Bent, Bonobo, Air, Tosca, Peace Orchestra, Zero 7…) musics to keep warm. Today, listening to those artists brings back memories of those times: books read, food & drink consumed, old haunts frequented. These days, I’m all about the Anti-Folk/Singer-Songwriter (Iron & Wine, Sufjan Stevens, Laura Veirs, Nina Nastasia, Elliot Smith, Calexico, Jolie Holland…) and especially the Jazz (Miles Davis, Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Django Reinhardt, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Josephine Baker…). What memories will embed themselves in these timeless tunes?

…American Idol is a car crash with voluntary victims. Fast food is slow poison. Gossip is the new gold. Flickr is the new crack. My (2nd generation) iPod is gonna give up the ghost soon. I can’t stop drinking Pellegrino. All I wanna do is read books. I can’t wait ’til we have our baby…