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(As I write this, I’m sitting in my balcony garden tending my new charcoal grill’s flames and soaking up the fresh spring sunset.)

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Uncle Rico: Kip, I reckon… you know a lot about… cyberspace? You ever come across anything… like time travel?
Kip: Easy, I’ve already looked into it for myself.
Uncle Rico: Right on… right on.

Ok, so this post has a heavy dose of nostalgia (thus Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite). While I love Chicago, there are a few things I miss about Gainesville. Probably the biggest being indie dance night at the Atlantic. Whether you had class or not the following day, you didn’t dare miss this weekly mandatory social function.

I’d lock my bike to the railing in front of the Top restaurant and stash my bike lights in the potted plants. Since arriving at the Atlantic at midnight was considered kinda early, I’d get my wrist band early around 11:30ish, hang out at the Top, and then skip the line when I’d official arrive around 12.

The following playlist is a monument to all my favorite indie dance songs from that era. These songs were played at the Atlantic and/or the UC and house parties. While there are a tons of songs I could add from the year since I’ve graduated (like Those Dancing Days and MGMT), I wanted this to be an authentic period piece. Suggestions for additions are welcome!

Note: this mix isn’t any kind of party order. Just as they came to me.

The mix is mostly songs of the moment, but there are a few older songs that got thrown in. For example, Teenage Wasteland and Under Pressure were popular ‘end of the night’ songs. And David Bowie’s “Queen Bitch” became a staple after The Life Aquatic used it on the soundtrack.

For local Gainesville flavor, I threw in Against Me!’s “Don’t Lose Touch” and Emperor X’s “Exterminata Beat” - a song that talks about laminate factories. I saw Emperor X perform with one other guy at the Civic Media Center and used some of his former students as props to hold his various toy keyboards.