3,300 MINI owners have embarked on a cross-country journey that finds them making 17 stops along the way, and SPIN.com is rolling out all the tunes from their trek's companion album, Soundtrack to a Drive. Every song on the compilation is by a band local to each stop along the trek, which begins in Monterey before heading down the Pacific Coast to Santa Barbara. Southwestern cities Las Vegas, Flagstaff, and Albuquerque are the next destinations on the drive, and then the MINI crew heads to Texas, where they'll pull up in Amarillo and Dallas. From there, the drivers swerve over to St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Charleston, WV. Charlottesville, VA, Richmond, VA and Washington, D.C. are the trek's next stops before the roadsters steer up the Eastern seaboard to hit Jersey City and, finally, Lakeville, CT.

TODAY'S STOP: Albuquerque, NM
TODAY'S BAND: Gingerbread Patriots

Transcendent yet bubbly, Gingerbread Patriots, an experimental band based out of Albuquerque, make any listener want to dance on clouds just like the creatures on their latest album cover, Wax Lips and Hummingbirds.

Song: "Eye Bear" (Download MP3)

Credits: : Words and music written by John Brophy. Copyright Value Owl 2005

On the Web: gingerbreadpatriots.com/

Fasten your seatbelts and keep your eyes on SPIN.com for more tunes soundtracking the drive as MINI Takes the States.