Nathan's Small Delights: SD_015

Ayup, what’s good?

I’m in full recovery mode after an outstanding weekend of gigs in Houston with Rick Lara. That recap has to wait until SD_016 because this one is all about the experiences April delivered. Last week’s rain has transformed my front yard into a jungle that must be chopped by the character-building machine called the push mower. For now, I am perfectly whelmed, but we are burning daylight, so let’s get down to business!

The Delights

It’s been a few years, but thanks to my day job, I finally made my way back to the West Coast - destination, Bellevue. I was in town for a conference, so after tossing my belongings into the hotel room, I laced up my sneakers & hit the streets to check some quick items off the to-do list. First up was some grub & as luck would have it, my target destination Tendon Kohaku was right around the way from the hotel. Tempura has always been an à la carte menu item for me & after this dining experience, I can confidently say that I will be searching it out as a main more often. After a short wait, my dish arrived & it looked like an altar to the lightly battered & deep-fried gods on high. The flavor matched the presentation, which made for a truly pleasurable dining experience. Delish!

With a belly full of tempura, I made my way across Lake Washington to pay homage on the dancefloor at the longest running underground House night on planet Earth - Flammable Sundays. I definitely see why this night has such staying power. It has great sound, great DJs, & an electric energy in the room. It was easy to get grooving & the dancefloor had a way of drawing me back in whenever I wandered off. If you are in Seattle on a Sunday night, then make sure to pop in.

After a week of attentively attending conference sessions, I had one final evening free to get some digging in, so I made my way back across the water to visit Sherman at Selector Records. The conversation was refreshing & after spending time catching up on our latest adventures, I dove into the bins to see what treasures I could dig out. As always, the digging was good! Some unexpected finds include an album by Onaje Allan Gumbs (with a straight-up banger named That Special Part of Me), the Double You E.P. by M.ono & Luvless, & Dolphin Kid Remixes Vol. 1. After a few hours in the trenches, I walked out with a nice grip of new wax & once again said arrivederci to Seattle.

With new wax in the bag & feet firmly planted back in Austin, I made my way to Marlow for a set at the Rendez-vous party. It was a fun evening of music where I managed to catch up with some old heads & finally put some faces to some names. I played a decent enough set that ended up being the inspiration for a new mix (more on that below). Surprisingly, I managed to stay for the whole night & had to be shooed out with the rest of the riffraff at the end of the night. All in all, it was a good one.

Quick update on the jungle.

Despite the decades of advances in push mower technology, I am here to tell you that they are still trash & that building character is really overrated.

Absolute junk.

According to the produce manager at HEB, before the stone fruit season can arrive, we have to wrap up the season of tropicals. Not the answer I wanted to hear, but I figured it was a good enough reason to try something new while I wait. I perused the produce shelves & landed on an avocado from the Dominican Republic. For the most part, the DR version is pretty similar to the Mexican variety I enjoy on the regular. Really, I only bring it up because it was big. Like REALLY big. It is definitely too much avocado for a breakfast taco.

The other day, I was walking up to my front door & I noticed a speckle of red in the wild jungle that is my yard. I am not sure why, but seeing what was obviously a ladybug in my peripheral vision made me realize that I used to find great joy as a child looking at bugs. I think they are kind of weird & cool looking - they remind me of tiny little robots. I stopped for a moment to summon some childhood whimsy & was briefly disappointed to discover the red speck was a spotless ladybug. I have only ever heard of spotted ladybugs bringing good luck if they land on you, so I was very curious to see if the whole bug was lucky or if it was just the spots.

Very curious might be a stretch because I have stopped in the middle of that simple search query about a dozen times. Let’s just say, for the sake of wrapping things up, that spotless ladybugs are even luckier than their spotted counterparts. Some say that the reason they have no spots is that they needed more room for all that extra luck.

What a delight!

Vinyl Jockey on the web

The post-gig record bag is a funny thing. For as long as I have been DJing, it has existed in two states - immediately unpacked or eventually unpacked. I mostly lean towards the immediately unpacking camp, but recently I have begun using the contents to record a post-gig, pre-unpacked mix session. Yes, that was an extremely clunky way to let you know that Digging Thru the Wall 06 is hot off the press!

This installment is comprised of tunes I had packed for the Rendez-vous party I played in mid-April. The mix is a one-and-done set of some current favorites that live in the funky deep side of my collection. Give it a whirl when you get a chance.

Vinyl Jockey in the wild

Outside of the recent gigs in Houston last weekend, I have nothing on the books for May. This means I will be spending the month basking in some much-needed downtime & hopefully wrapping up some long-standing projects.

That’s a wrap for now!

-Nathan Stewart