Nineteen Ninety Never

I spent a dreamy week on the Valley Isle over Christmas.

Here’s a track from Digits

Digits - Lost Dreams

Catch him at The Boat in Toronto on February 17th. Then, listen to more Digits on 199x.

I’ve spent a few good weeks relaxing on the Valley Isle with my buddy Dave. Our time has been divided equally between surfing mild tropical waters and drinking cold, American beer.

Dave also hooked me up with Bullion’s mashup of J Dilla and the Beach Boys, entitled Pet Sounds: In The Key Of Dee and it is the perfect album to listen to while driving through the sugar cane fields on the way to another session in the water.

The Sonic Mine Field has a great write-up on the Bullion album, so go give it a read. In the meantime, you can listen to a couple of the tracks here.

Bullion - Let’s Go Away For A While (J Dilla and The Beach Boys Mashup)

Bullion - Here Today (J Dilla and The Beach Boys Mashup)

To see more on 199X from The Valley Isle, check out these posts:

Valley Isle Vagabond

H-Bay

Life on Maui

Then check Bullion on Myspace

I’ve been living the good life on the Valley Isle for the past week - eatin’ delicious grinds and giving it a good rip at H-Bay.

Justin Faust - Surfer Mystique (Pelifics Remix)

Props to the Trash Menagerie kids for serving up that timely track. You can find more Justin Faust on MySpace or buy his stuff here. More Pelifics here (looks like he’s another Scando).

On my way home from a little holiday jaunt over to the valley isle, airport security directed me away from the lineup of American cattle and towards the queue for Expert Travelers.

Finally - some recognition for the amount of time that I’ve spent at airports.

They still made me take off my shoes, and I was subject to additional screening because I forgot to take an American nickel out of my pocket.

Here are some airplane-related tracks that you can cruise the skies to.

Daft Punk -Voyager

Louie Vega & Jay ‘Sinister’ - Diamond Life (I just love those Hed Kandi cats)

Coyote - Too Hard (Aeroplane Remix) (snagged off of Palms Out)

I added that picture of BJ Penn turning Joe Stevenson into a murder scene because The Persian Prince sent me a couple of tracks and wrote me an email about MMA last week:

“Remember when we used to spend an inordinate amount of time watching big knockouts? Perhaps the most satisfying of which was watching over-rated Kimbo Slice getting his ass handed to him in 14 seconds from a washed up ex-UFC fighter. Not sure whether he loves big knockouts as much as us, but Praverb references the aforementioned KO in this new track, “Blessed with the Gift”, produced by Teddy Roxpin.

I don’t much care for Kanye the rapper (let alone Kanye the robo-voice singer)….but Kanye the producer?  Pretty much never misses.  Case in point: the new Jay-Z track with the fantastic Santogold sample.”

Praverb - Blessed with the Gift

Jay-Z - Brooklyn Go Hard

I love Penn because he’s from HI, and I’m stoked to see him and GSP go at it in January.

I’ve only been here for 24 hours and I already I’ve had 3 pretty decent surf sessions and eaten 4 fish tacos. Plus, I’ve been listening to the island’s hottest radio station: Da Jam 98.3. They pretty much play the week’s top R&B/Hip-hop songs a couple of times an hour.

One song they’ve been playing lately that I can’t get out of my head is this one:

Bobby Valentino & Li’l Wayne - Mrs. Officer

In the word’s of the Mix Tape Maestro:

“Does it instantly register as one of the reasons why (Lil’ Wayne’s album) will go down as the classic album it’s been tirelessly predicted to be? Not necessarily, but the next time someone utters the line “fuck the police”, NWA’s rivalry with the FBI probably won’t be the only thing that crosses one’s mind anymore.”