On Monday night, I got together with a bunch of my fellow dads from my kids' preschool for one of our semi-irregular 'Dads' Nights Out." The venue this time ended up being a restaurant down in Chinatown on the far-flung corner of Bayard Street. These dads run the full vocational gamut. One's a professional d.J, one's a game designer, one's a investment banker, one's a teacher, one's a graphic designer, etc. As such, the conversation's always a little odd, but our mutual interest in the kids and the school unites us. After several plates of "soup dumplings," duck, moo shoo chicken and countless Tsingtaos, the professional d.j. suggested we all repair to a bar nearby for some continued imbibing. Who was I to argue?

We walked a couple of typically atmospheric Chinatown blocks and found ourselves on Doyers Street, a fabled, crooked little byway that formerly typified the old neighborhood. Our d.j. friend -- this hippest one in our little brood by a country mile -- led us through an unassuming looking doorway and into strenuously swanky lounge I'd later learn was called Apotheke. It's a place I'd never have found -- let alone be let into -- on my own. The bunch of us packed into a dimly lit booth and carried on our evening, fueled a couple of seriously watered-down cocktails and a couple more Tsingtaos.

As the hands of the clock threatened 11:45 pm, I figured I should probably take my leave. Gradual attrition had already chased a couple of the other fathers away and now it was my turn. As much as I'm an avid fan of nights out on the tiles, my current vocational and financial situations just don't afford me such luxuries, or at least let me enjoy them without feeling guilty as hell and shitty about myself. As such, I bid farewell to the boys and stepped back out onto the dimly lit streets of Chinatown, newly shimmering after a Spring rain.

The shining wet streets were all but deserted, apart from the shadowy figures lurking in ominous doorways. After getting my bearings, I flicked on my iPod and set it to a ridiculously titled playlist called "Candlelit Somnambulism," a collection of tracks I pieced together some years ago with the common thread of being moody and suitably atmospheric. This song was the first one to come on, and suited my noir-ish stroll home through the dark city streets to a proverbial T.

"Can't Get Loose" by ex-Magazine/Bad Seed veteran Barry Adamson is a slyly transgressive Bond-theme-gone-bad, turning Doc Pomus' "Can't Get Used to Losing You" on its head and gagging it with duct tape. Replete with sinister whispered vocals, cool xylophone fills, some damn funky bass and washes of elegiac synths, this lushly cinematic song instantly became a favorite when I first heard it in 1998, and has remained so ever since. I put it on the first mix tape I ever made for the woman that became my wife, and it might have scared her off me for good had it not been so damn groovy. I can never listen to this song only once, I have to play it at least three times in succession (especially that break towards the final refrain when those string-like synths cascade over that funky bass like the aurora borealis). The perfect song for a buzzed, late night stroll home. Crank it and get lost in it.