Category: music

Rejoice!

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Much rejoicing Chez 6000 as it appears that after my only partially successful repair of iTunes last week, I have managed to find another 1788 tracks that were “missing”. I’m still not 100% sure that I will be able to get them onto iTunes, but at least they’re safely somewhere on a hard drive. The next step might be a little messy, but it should be pretty straightforward.

The tracks disappeared when I plugged in my daughter’s prize from Kfm (not that I’m blaming her or them) – a shiny little iPod shuffle she got for dancing in the rain while watching the Two Oceans Marathon last month.

It brought up a beautifully clean iTunes window, to which I added some songs she liked (Coldplay, Freshlyground, Slipknot etc) and all seemed well. However, when I later plugged my Big Daddy iPod in, iTunes comprehensively failed to revert to my previous library, leaving me with about 30 tracks, some of which were by Shakira.

Issues.

I have since pieced together a rudimentary replacement library, but there were gaps. Massive gaps of several thousand tracks.
I had to root around on external hard drives and the like, but with today’s discovery, there’s “only” a discrepancy of about 900 items. I have yet to check whether they are important items, replaceable items or stuff I can (or will have to) manage without. This may be a difficult task, since sometimes, I’m just heading to the lab when I have a “must listen to” moment. It will be then that these discrepancies will become immediately obvious. Rage will surely ensue.

My advice to you if your 3 year old wins an iPod is not to plug it into your computer. At all. The best way is to find another computer and use iTunes on there. Or sell it on gumtree. It will save you sleepless nights, much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I’m sure that there is a safe and surefire way of running two (or more) iPods from the same computer. More fool me for ever imagining that Apple would have made it as simple as just plugging the new device into the USB port.
By all means, let me know the best way of doing it in the comments section below, but don’t expect me to let that little silver square anywhere near my desktop ever again.

Capisce?

Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.

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More music? Yes, more music.

There was a bizarre route to my discovering this band – the brainchild of Sam Duckworth –  but we can leave the sordid details behind, because the new album “Maps” is out on Monday and I’m going to go (to my computer) and buy it.

Here’s The Real McCoy from that forthcoming album.

And if you liked that, you can download it for free.

There’s more Get Cape. goodness on their YouTube channel. I’d particularly recommend Daylight Robbery, with its parody video (how many other bands videos can you spot?) and The Uprising, featuring British TV presenter Adrian Chiles.

Get Cape cornet and occasional drummer Mikey Glenister is also a member of band The Power of Voodoo, who don’t seem to be very active currently but whose music is still available on their Facebook page – try It’s My Time (free download of that is here).

Dans, Dans, [censored] Dans.

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Much amusement in Newcastle (no, not that one) OVER the weekend as Afrikaans rapper JACK Parow was escorted off stage halfway through his performance, in order to protect him from a small number of the audience who labelled him “satan slang” (devil snake) and a “disgrace to the Afrikaans language” after he swore on STAGE.

Afrikaans rapper Jack Parow says he is “cool” about being led off the stage midway through a concert in Newcastle when his lyrics upset some in the audience, and that he had a “rad time” regardless.

Parow, whose real name is Zander Tyler, was taken off the stage at the Vodacom Winter Festival on Friday night when a group, upset by his lyrics – which included profanities – physically threatened him.

One man nearly jumped on stage, but was pulled back by police called in to help festival organisers with the group.

A war of words erupted on the Newcastle Newspaper’s Facebook page, with people calling Parow a “satan slang (devil snake)” and a “disgrace to the Afrikaans language”.

Now, I can take OR leave Mnr Parow and I can HAPPILY manage without swearing in my music, but seriously now, what were the audience expecting? It’s like turning UP to a Metallica gig and “hoping they don’t play anything too loud”.
I have kids and I try to shelter them from swearing (amongst other things) as much as possible. That MEANS not taking them along to Jack Parow gigs (amongst other things). No matter HOW backward Newcastle is, the allegation that this performance was instrumental in corrupting their youth is a bit OTT.

Parow, unsurprisingly, was unabashed:

Parow said he was singing his song Dans Dans Dans when the microphone was taken from him by an organiser and he was led off stage. He then noticed police trying to calm a few men beside the stage.

“Some people don’t like the swearing. I was singing ‘Dans, dans f***en dans’. This one guy was shouting at me and said: ‘Why are you f***ing swearing?’, but that was funny because he was swearing at me.”

As you will have noted above, all of this has (typically) reared its head on Facebook, WHERE a couple of comments by Anthon von Lisenborgh have captured the imagination of some individuals and INTRODUCED random CAPITALISATION to popular culture:

The biggest IRONY for me is that Jack Parow’s shortened act followed that of Afrikaner Steve Hofmeyr (and whom Anthon comprehensively fails to accuse of being an “Artist of Satan”), a man perhaps BEST known for his racist rants, being divorced by his wife after having “numerous affairs”, assaulting the female editor of a popular gossip magazine and being described by the Deputy CEO of the South African Institute of Race Relations as being a disgrace to South Africa and of using his “not insignificant following to sow anger and hate among young white people”.

When it comes to role models, it would seem that the Afrikaans culture is struggling somewhat, but while Jack Parow CONTINUES to use the F-word (and he will continue to use the F-word) Anthon seems conveniently blinkered to Mr Hofmeyr’s shortcomings.

UPDATE: A bit more on Anthon – he’s written a book: Apocrypha 999 – The Mystery of Solomon and Queen Bilqis of Sheba – and in his author bio (filled with MORE random capitalisation), he includes THE line:

…do with it as you feel fit or do nothing if you want, it is up to you to decide and not me.

Obviously, the same doesn’t apply to concerts in North West Kwa-Zulu Natal.

Toxicity

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Loving this, which I spotted through… someone… on twitter earlier.

System Of A Down’s Toxicity on Electric Violins (and drums):

Not many people know this, but I can play the violin, although I don’t get much as chance to fiddle since I got married. Also, my legs are easily as good as either of those two.

Bad News: too good

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Look, I mentioned this in passing yesterday, but it’s all I’ve been listening to since I first heard it, so I’m sharing the wealth and putting it on here. The ideal way to play out the end of a long week.

Mike Skinner seems to have discovered a new talent in Elro, while further developing his relationship with Robert Harvey (Going Through Hell, Take The Long Road And Walk It) whose smooth chorus gives some breathing space amid the amazing lyrical flow of the initially somewhat bashful and apologetic rapper attempting to defend his behaviour at 200 words per minute.

You say nothing, but it’s clear to me that you’re fearing me ‘cos I’m weird, but, weird to me is not weird to you, but I accept I’m strange but the best must change, but I’m just engaged, I’m tired of games, I’m not deranged. I’m just, coming up with a new strategy to please and please hear me out, it’s beyond a doubt: I desire your effects and affections, I’m aware that the problems complex and, and I when I get to the best I can be but the best I can be doesn’t seem to fit the script and I’m less than appealing, sometimes feel there’s a mess and I’ve tested your patience; blatant, selfish acts can detract from men who mean well when there are egos attached. I can change myself, not the past.

Yeah, punctuating that was quite difficult.