Re driving music, I often find myself drawn to some of the grand ol' alt-rock of the nineties, with its big beats, guitars, drums, and angst and irony...ah, those were fine fine years. I'm thinking Pavement (probably Crooked Rain), Sebadoh's Bakesale, GBV (Isolation Drills, which admittedly is from '01), Eleventh Dream Day's "El Moodio", The Posies (Frosting on the Beater), Sloan, Superchunk, Yo La Tengo, I'll allow Radiohead (though they appear to be fading for me), and hell why not Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana?! OK, you may draw the line there.

As an aside, isn't it interesting how, ten or twelve years after the fact, I have distilled the early-mid nineties, which were a fantastic period of musical discovery for me, into about ten records - no mention of Drugstore, Polvo, Cracker, Hayden, Grant Lee Buffalo, or Buffalo Tom for that matter, and myriad other bands that I truly dug at the time. Does make you wonder about the true power and resonance of pop music.

So, admittedly, Derek, if you're looking to impress Gavin with your musical wherewithal, slapping on Nevermind may not get the job done....but there is some fine driving music to be mined from the period.

Another great source of driving music is hard bop - 50's and 60's jazz, you know, Sonny Clark's quintet stuff, almost anything by Lee Morgan, Jackie MacLean, Booker Ervin, yadda yadda. Particularly good at night.

And hey, while we're all talking about jazz.....