Tunes.

Have pretty much got my playlist locked in for the August trip.

Going with a retro vibe on this one with a list of songs that were in daily rotation on the local Bay Area alternative station, "Live 105". As is true of a lot of old farts, I tie a large part of my formative years to music, and I was lucky to have grown up here where one of the best alternative stations in the country was operating.

KITS was independent, had some of the most diverse programming and some of the best, most hooked in DJ's in the US in the late 80's, early 90's. You would hear electronic, reggae, dance, ska, indie rock and goth music in the course of an hour, and it was amazing. Bauhaus followed by Pato Banton followed by Style Council followed by Chris Issak and so on, and it all made sense and flowed into a whole. It was never boring.

So my playlist for this trip pays tribute to that, I've got some Depeche Mode and Cure and Siouxsie but also more obscure stuff that Live 105 played like Visage and Book of Love and Tom Tom Club. Stuff I wouldn't have been exposed to otherwise. I owe a lot of my current taste in music to those great 4-5 years listening to KITS while driving around the Bay Area.

I put a lot of effort into these playlists for every trip. I like to get them down to a pretty tight 40 songs, about 3 hours of music, enough not to hear the same song too much while on shuffle but also not too many so I can hear most or all of the tracks during the trip. I'll listen to it in the bus on the way to the airport, in the SFO waiting area, on the plane and in the room getting ready for each day's debauchery. It sets the mood and puts me in a "party" frame of mind.

I was doing mainly "Vegas" songs for a while but that got old quick, hearing essentially the same set of songs on every trip. So now it's themes...the last one was "yacht rock" which was fun and this one I think will be an epic companion too. It's mostly upbeat songs that will keep the energy up.

25 days...