On a typical day I end up listening to a bunch of different things:

• Talk Radio (like WNYC, WBAI, KCRW)
• Beats, beats, and more beats
• The annoying whining of clients (JUST KIDDING to all my lovely clients, whose love, concern, and attention to deadlines I would not be willing to life without)

Most significantly are the Beats, the beats, and the beats. Not sure why a driving baseline is creative fuel for me while I’m stringing together code, layout out graphical elements, or sketching my newest worse drawing ever . but it is. Very much so.

Consequently, as an homage to the grand ol Internet, I am here listing the BANGINEST (read: should not be missed) radio shows and mixes on the Internet.

These shows exist ONLY on the Internet.
Sadly, no radio station in the US market is brave enough to play even 1% of the great music that you’ll likely hear in any of the shows below. So with that said, listen, enjoy, and in turn put me onto great shows that you like and have found online. I will update this list into perpetuity (either that or until I next decide not to update my blog for 4 months).

The list after the jump . . .

This One’s For the Hot Steppahs

Delving a little bit further into the Last.fm community, I followed a path from Pursuit Grooves (through the wilds of myspace -yikes) that led to the Coopr8 crew of folks. CoOp is London party / venue where they make it a point to play only the right tunes. This is how Time Out London described a CoOp event from May:

The future soul, jazz, broken beat and funky breaks specialists’ nights are always chocker-blocked, so expect an intimate night with DJs IG Culture, Afronaught, Domu and Daz I Kue plus spesh guests Phil Asher (Restless Soul) and Seiji (Bugz In The Attic).

Exactly.

Streaming mix and more after the jump …

Sometimes you just need to deviate.

Credit where it’s due: I first heard LITTLE DRAGON on the Soulsearching radio show (Michael Ruetten). And since then on both the Deviations radio show (Benji B) and Worldwide (Gilles Peterson).

The luscious voice you hear in these Little Dragon tunes is that of the remarkable Yukimi Nagano. She and the crew hail from Sweden and don’t play. Before you judge what you think of Swedish music, just listen. You won’t be sorry. You also might recognize her voice from groups like Koop and Hird and assorted other bangers.

Listen to the tracks after the jump …

More than a year ago, in an attempt to wrangle in all the paper in my life along with the great ideas I think I have constantly marauding around in my mind, and to prepare myself for self-employment, I got into a strong productivity kick. There are many systems to do so, the one I chose (after seeing it mentioned at Lifehacker.com) is known as Getting Things Done (or GTD). You’ve heard of it before. If you haven’t, you haven’t missed a whole lot. This particular GTD system was developed and fleshed out by a cat named David Allen. Anyway, there’s a whole cultish, obsessive thing to it which didn’t appeal to me as I was reading about the system and some of its proponents. What did appeal to me was the level of mental discipline required to make it all work.

Wanting to take that mental discipline aspect even further, I found my way to the O’Reilly book Mind Performance Hacks. (Perhaps I also came across this book while reading Lifehacker.com, but it’s also likely that I came across it while perusing the collections at Computer Book Works, the geek-king bookstore that is near where I used to work.) Mind Performance Hacks is a great read, with tips on memorization, effective sleep, nutrition that supports high level brain functioning, and many other things including ORGANIZATION.

I’ve been learning mass amount of lessons as I quest into freelancedom. Some I’ve had a harder time at internalizing. For example, a loaf of bread will eventually mold in the refrigerator (I know, shocked me too!); or when you want something sweet to eat, but don’t want to spend money on fancy deserts with rich ingredients, hot water with sugar is not a satisfying substitute.

On the flip side, I have encountered some pleasant aspects to the freelancing life (other than the obvious ones like casting off the shackle of oppressive employers, and being able to go outside when you want to and watch the sunlight dance off the leaves of trees and the glistening coats of the birds as they leisurely flutter by). Specifically, the dreams.

Fall’s rolling in ….

For a minute there, I really thought climate change was going to keep things temperate in BK until like February. Not sure why I thought that was possible … a brother can dream, can’t he?

In between the daydreams I’m grinding. [UPDATE: new term for 2008 - “crunchin” just cause grinding don’t always sound right…] And here are a handful of joints I’ve been grinding to. Some jazz, some hip hop, of course the uptempo nu-jazz (for when I’m messing with code). I’ve embedded the imeem player, which is horrendously ugly in the context of this blog’s visual theme. But I can’t access their code beyond a few inconsequential tags, so dunno what to do about that part.

The streaming playlist is after the jump…

Some joints I’ve been listening to lately courtesy of the high grade downloads at emusic.com. My thoughts on some of these tracks are after the jump….

This may sound something like a review of software - in fact it is something like a review. More accurately, this is about how I was reading some emails and was tasked with a question from a colleague that I could easily answer with a “yes” or a “no.” Nothing too interesting about that - I know.

But the thing is, I realized that such tasks of pristine simplicity are way more rare than not. The typical mental errand requires steps and tool initiations, analysis, and then concluding statements well manicured and properly influenced. (Or is that just me?) Emails that are completely satisfied with a two or three word reply are a joy.

There are a handful of sites that I check in with on a regular to keep up on code developments, design trends, design tools, and just to try and be aware of the collective consciousness of design and development entrepreneurs. Here are a few of them:

Technical Tools / Code / Standards

• A List Apart
• Boxes and Arrows
• BoagWorld Podcast
• Vitamin
• Digital Web

Design Styles and Inspirations

• CSS Globe
• CSS Beauty
• Design Meltdown
• Speak Up
• Digital Thread

The Freelancer’s Life

• Freelance Switch
• LifeHacker
• Smashing Magazine
• You Suck At Web Design Podcast