I guess the things that used to thrill me don't thrill me so much anymore. Intimacy is more important to me than sleeping with hot chicks. I don't even know if I really savored every menage a trois I had. I don't want to do it all over again.

Why is Portland 10 degrees hotter at all times? While Seattle seemed temperate on friday afternoon, I arrived in PDX to what felt like sweltering weather. Maybe it was just the long drive (5 1/2 hours - Thanks Tacoma traffic!) in the sun, but all I wanted to do when I arrived was sleep.

It was getting late, and hungry, with need of a shower, I decided to press on and just have dinner and some caffeine later.

The reason for the trip was the one and only Horse Meat Disco, DJ's Jim Stanton and James Hillard.

The thing that makes Horse Meat Disco so fucking special and amazing is the fact that even though it started out in a small boozy leather bar in London, somehow the kids heard the call! Somehow the people recognized quality over laziness, intelligence over vapidity, hard work over phoning-it-in.

That's what Horse Meat Disco gave Portland. Reading the crowd from early in the night (they played 4 hours), Jim and James took us all on a journey from funky strutting slow-groove disco to Hi-NRG early 90's house, then back to a melange of some of the most creative Disco and Post Disco dance music of the 70's and 80's. There were tracks that had people wondering if they were contemporary or vintage.

The best part?!?! The kids danced. ...And danced. It was if the magic of the legendary glory days of Disco and House were being sent out via the good vibes of the music. At one point the crowd started screaming in unison to one of the songs, and early house track. The room went dark and a giant laser mirror ball effect (I have never seen a light like this in a club before) sent the energy zapping out the front door. People came piling into the bar for a serious fucking workout.

People you assumed would hate disco were dancing and singing and bumping along on Horse Meat's ride. It was totally fucking fun.

When Horse Meat Disco is done with this tour, promoting their new mix CD, they head back to London, to the same small boozy sleazy little gay leather bar, where the disciples will come, some to play (guest at the night have ranged from James Murphy, Prins Thomas, Lady Miss Kier, Idjut Boys to name a few), but most to dance.

More pics (including some dude from Seattle) after the jump.

After four years of marriage—and just a couple months away from the birth of their first child—Nas and Kelis are splitting up.

The only reason I care about this enough to write about it: My affection for "Getting Married", the Nas track devoted to just that, with lyrics painting a detailed portrait of Nas and his lady's wedding day.

Condolences to the busted couple, and confidential to Nas: Take copious notes—hiphop needs its own Great Divorce Album.

In the concert performance of this tune, when the slamming hiphop beat hits, the musicians, one by one, leave the stage. First the drummer puts down his sticks and walks away; he is followed by the keyboardist, percussionist, the guitarists, and, finally, Sade. Her beauty vanishes, and all that is left is the hiphop beat. It pounds on its own. No one is needed—no singer, no musicians, no living thing. This is the dictatorship of the beat. The musicians can only surrender to its mechanical will, its factory logic, its inhuman repetition. The loops are identical and refuse to give us the pleasures of variation and verticality. All narrative pleasures have been pounded out of existence by the inflexible and inexorable progress of the beat machine. This is the end of human emotion, of cherishing.