Getting ready for work the other morning, I was snapped out of my normal hypnagogic stupor when Radio 2's Chris Evans played "Drinking In LA" by Bran Van 3000.
If I was some kind of barely-literate halfwit, I'd have just tweeted "CHOOON! LOL BSVMP" or something like that but this record - and the memories it conjures up - deserves a better tribute than 140 characters of acronyms.
This unusual and haunting record was the soundtrack to one of the most fun trips I've ever had and hearing the record so unexpectedly took me right back there.
It was August 1999 - almost, gasp, FIFTEEN years ago - when my good friend Jim and I set off on a road trip to end all road trips, and hopefully this condensed, Poundland version of Kerouac's "On The Road" will give you a flavour of this epic sojourn.
We set off from Liverpool and headed down south - in fact as south as you can get - towards the Cornish town of Penzance to get ourselves a bit of the old Total Solar Eclipse; yes, we drove hundreds of miles just so that for a couple of minutes we could see ABSOLUTELY NOTHING at all.
Our trusty stallion for the journey was my first car - the fondly-remembered Peugeot 205 (renamed by Jim as The Truck Magnet as we constantly ended up stuck behind said vehicles on the congested motorway). Although a little cramped, it got us there and back again without a hitch.
For the most part, our soundtrack provider was Radio 1 which was de rigeur when you were young (ish) and travelling during the summer months.
And Radio 1 hammered "Drinking In LA" that summer (although honourable mentions must go to "At The River" by Groove Armada, and, er, "Mambo No.5" by Lou Bega).
So when I think back to the events of that holiday...
The warmth and hospitality of our hosts: the wonderful Ruth and her equally wonderful parents
Ruth taking us to the local nightclub "The Barn" (no joke), where we escaped the scrutiny of the female bouncer who looked like Hazell Dean on steroids, and where Jim and I watched in envious amazement as a young man with a crescent-moon-shaped face danced with the two best looking girls in the whole place (these three were henceforth known as the Cornish Corrs)
Ending up in Penzance's other night club which was decked out to look like Moonbase Alpha, only soundtracked by incessant horrible techno rather than by Barry Gray
An introduction to Julie T Wallace
On our ascent to our solar eclipse vantage point and being amazed at how the elderly man walking behind us up the hill got there before us without him actually passing us
Meeting the female replica of one of our male friends; he and she would have either a) been the perfect couple, or b) destroyed the entire universe had they ever locked lips
The most polite late night enquiry from a fellow reveller as to where we purchased our chips
... all I hear is the bizarre but amazing record about the thwarted dreams of young slackers in the unique city of Los Angeles.
Like the main protagonist of the song, I too was 26, and an aspiring screenwriter, but as a tea-totaller back then, I didn't have "the fever for the nectar".
No, I was taking photos of other people taking photos as the sky went dark in the middle of the day.
Thematically and literally completely different experiences, but for me, inextricably linked by that outstanding record with the hypnotic chorus.
Oh and yes the solar eclipse was okay too...
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