SAN ANTONIO
Running Through the Riverwalk While Your Playlist Becomes a Memory You Can't Shake
SAN ANTONIO running playlist blends garage rock, experimental hip hop, neo-psychedelic, and indie rock—capturing vacation vibes with 52 minutes of genre-bending energy.
This playlist wasn't built in a lab. It was assembled in San Antonio at the end of 2022—a family vacation soundtrack that became something else entirely once I strapped on running shoes and let it loose on the pavement. The Kills' "Future Starts Slow" opens with that slow-burn tension, all distorted guitar and Alison Mosshart's voice like gravel in honey, and I'm not even warmed up yet but the playlist is already doing something to my central nervous system. Ghostland Observatory's "Silver City" follows—Texas synth-funk that belongs in a desert rave and somehow also belongs at Mile 1 of a run where I'm chasing the feeling of walking around the Riverwalk with my family, sun-drunk and overfed on breakfast tacos.
The genre shifts are the whole story here. Garage rock crashes into experimental hip hop, TOBACCO's glitchy madness ("Hawker Boat," "Fresh Hex" with Beck) detonates right when my legs are settling into rhythm, and the playlist refuses to let me coast. This isn't a smooth tempo escalation—it's a patchwork of vacation brain: baroque pop sweetness from Ra Ra Riot, anti-folk weirdness, neo-psychedelic sprawl. The blend works because vacation energy is exactly this: unpredictable, overstimulated, moving too fast to process. I'm three miles in and Phantogram's "Don't Move" hits with that bass-heavy paranoia, and I realize Past Me wasn't curating a running playlist—Past Me was trying to bottle the specific feeling of being somewhere else, someone slightly different, before the trip ended and real life resumed.
Mile 4. TV On The Radio's "Mercy" lands like a sermon I didn't know I needed. My quadriceps are filing formal complaints, citing workplace safety violations, and Tunde Adebimpe's voice is management's response: denied, keep moving. The playlist knows what my body doesn't yet—this is where the lies start. The Joy Formidable's "Whirring" crashes in at Mile 5, all distortion and Ritzy Bryan's vocals like a controlled detonation, and I'm not negotiating with tired legs anymore. I'm just following the music deeper into whatever this run has become.
By Mile 6, Sleigh Bells' "Rill Rill" is pharmaceutical-grade momentum—Derek Miller's crunching guitars against Alexis Krauss' sugar-sweet vocals, and my brain is back in San Antonio, walking past the Alamo in December cold that wasn't really cold. Blood Red Shoes closes the wall moment with "Cold," all garage-rock snarl and two-piece ferocity, and I remember this feeling: the playlist as time machine, the run as the only way to re-enter the memory properly. Black Moth Super Rainbow's "The Dark Forest Joggers" ends it—1:32 of warped synth whimsy, like the playlist is winking at me. You ran through a vacation memory for 52 minutes. It was absurd. You're doing it again next week.
Tracks
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1
Future Starts SlowThe Kills
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2
Silver CityGhostland Observatory
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3
Hawker BoatTOBACCO
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4
Fresh HexTOBACCO, Beck
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5
Don't MovePhantogram
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6
BoyRa Ra Riot
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7
It's Getting Boring By The SeaBlood Red Shoes
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8
MercyTV On The Radio
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9
Sad Sad CityGhostland Observatory
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10
WhirringThe Joy Formidable
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11
All Of ThisThe Naked And Famous
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12
Rill RillSleigh Bells
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13
Osaka Loop LineDiscovery
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14
ColdBlood Red Shoes
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15
A Heavy AbacusThe Joy Formidable
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16
The Dark Forest JoggersBlack Moth Super Rainbow
Featured Artists
