Today is a special day, it’s Romain’s birthday. 31 and counting! I went to his in the evening to celebrate this together, brought a bottle of champagne but most importantly his gift (which incidentally is my pick of today): two LPs from Tommy Guerrero, Soul Food Taqueria (2002) and Road to Knowhere (2018). And yes, we are talking about this Tommy Guerrero, the same dude who pioneered street skateboarding apparently had a prolific music career, with close to 12 solo albums and countless appearances.

Tommy Guerrero - Organism (2002)

As a review on bandcamp describes, Tommy’s music is that of a modern Santana with hip-hop/soul/funk influences. The track I selected coincidentally also appears as the title track in the video game Tony Hawk: American Wasteland (2005); one of the last good Tony Hawk games, all known for their amazing OSTs.

The entire album is worth a spin, with super relaxed vibes, summer afternoon chilling at the park kind of vibes. I always have difficulties finding good albums for these moments as I tend to listen to either way too chill (ambient) or way too fast (breaks, dnb) music. Even the downtempo tracks I have are usually too party-oriented. This in contrast hits the perfect balance. Cannot wait to chill at Romain’s this summer; this album playing in the background, sipping on a cold beer, my feet in his lil’ water pool discussing the latest party.

Happy birthday again to the master of cool Romain, peace out!