This is a picture of Stephanie taken by Jake Riskin a couple of years ago. I’ve uploaded it for Underworld.

If you know me, you know my favourite band is Underworld. I’ve been a hardcore fan since 1996 or so, when I was about 16. It’s one of those fandoms that changes your life and influences directly or indirectly just about everything you see, hear and do henceforth. I’ve seen them live six or seven times all over the U.S. (which works out to basically every time they come here), attended art exhibitions they’ve curated, bought all their music I can get my hands on, and simply sing their praises whenever I can.

So you can imagine how tremendously gratifying it was when — after I wrote to ask them if they’d give a shout-out to my girlfriend and fellow Underworld fan, Stephanie, during one of their in-studio radio broadcasts that happened to fall on the date of her birthday— they actually did it!

Download Underworld’s birthday message to Stepho (MP3 format, 2.5 MB).

While the broadcast was on December 11, I waited until her birthday party this past Saturday to play the recording of Underworld’s message. I stopped the party and plugged my iPhone into the stereo so everybody could hear it (lots of UW fans around that night), and Stepho just about died. It was just a fantastic birthday surprise, and perhaps even more special for me to have experienced that kind of interaction with my favourite musicians.

(For more Underworld, you can hear a bit of their music in my latest DJ mix, which I would never have made if not for their influence and inspiration)