08 Jun Matador Playlist 6/2/16 (aka, Adventures with the Cloud)
Welcome, Gentle Reader(s), to this latest installment of the standard-bearing blogization of all subterranean Galisteo Street DJ gigs, Matador Playlist. Ask for it by name, accept no substitute. As I apply digits to keyboard to document this latest subsurface scrum I am still recovering from the digital meltdown that I had long feared. Your Humble Narrator employs the use of a number of devices in his various capacities as DJ, art world flunky, frequent traveler, and general participant in 21st century intrawebby lifeways. These include an iPhone, an iPod Touch, an iPad, and three (!) MacBooks. A bit boggling, I know, but it seems to work—generally speaking. The ‘generally’ portion of that statement came into play when I cranked up MacBook #2—my Matador computer—to stitch together the outline of a playlist for last Thursday night. Upon crankup I was notified that software updates were available for MacBook #2 so I proceeded to install these before digging into my extensive music catalog. MacBook #2 has been showing its age for a while now (about 7 years old, approximately—aeons in computer years) but its workload consists of nothing more than downloading, storing and playing music files—not a lot to ask of any reasonably healthy computational device. Be that as it may…
…In the reboot portion of the software update process MacBook #2 seemed to stall out and the clock was ticking with its usual inevitability towards Matador launch time. Impatiently and ill advisedly, in the midst of the process I shut down #2 and reinitiated the reboot. Bad idea, it seems. #2 shuddered back to life but when iTunes appeared on its screen all of my DJ Inky playlists had disappeared. Disappeared as in Gone. Gone as in Not There. Not There as in Nowhere To Be Found… you get the idea. The music files themselves were still in evidence but indications were that they had all retreated to their incorporeal hidey hole in the Cloud. I don’t know about You (and You know who You are) but as for Myself, I have but the vaguest grasp of the Cloud concept—what it is, how it functions, what it likes for dinner. Shaky though our relationship is, I was thankful in this instance that the Cloud (the iCloud, specifically, in the Apple way of things) for lurking about, wherever it is, so that my music files had somewhere to seek refuge. Being a kind and conscientious computer owner, I do back up my devices regularly but I’ve no experience with restoring data from the backup disc to the computational device. In other words, I was in a Quandary. Or a Predicament, as it were.
Not yet realizing the full gravity of my Quandary and/or Predicament, I packed up my gear and headed off to Ye Olde Matador Bar & Lounge, determined that I should figure it all out when I got there. Well, that plan didn’t work. Having no recourse in the internet dead zone that is the Matador, I bailed back to the Inky Aerie, retrieved MacBook #1 (the Pro), determined to see that The Show, such as it is, Would Go On. MacBook #1 has a fairly deep music library, as some, though not all, of the music purchased on #2 appears on #1. And vice versa. However that works, I have no idea. In theory, all of my music files are lurking somewhere out there in the (i)Cloud, ready to be summoned forth when I need them but I’m just not well acquainted with the process.
I was easily able to stitch together a respectable, if abbreviated, playlist from MacBook #1 and the evening was saved from wrack and ruin to the apparent satisfaction of all parties. Back at the Aerie, further examination revealed that in order for my music files to fly back home from Somewhere Over the Rainbow I simply had to create a playlist and move all of the songs from the general library to the playlist. Once installed in the playlist all of my files hearkened to the siren’s call of MacBook #2 and magically reconstituted themselves, courtesy of the iCloud. However, all of the data that I had traditionally drawn upon to build Matador Playlists—number of plays, date of most recent play, rating, etc.—were irrevocably lost. So, on one hand, a bit of a bummer. On the other hand, sort of a fresh start. Funny how some things can be one and the same.
Off we go…
Grammar of Life – Charles Bukowski
No Time to Be 21 – the Adverts
Move Fast (feat. Mystikal & Mannie Fresh) – Galactic
Back in the Saddle – Aerosmith
Summer Wind – Frank Sinatra
Between Us – the Jesus & Mary Chain
Tennessee Whiskey – Chris Stapleton (request)
Clear Blue Sky – Chris Whitley
Too Much Pressure – the Selecter
Baby You’re A Rich Man – the Beatles
Up On the Sun – the Meat Puppets
Something In the Air – Thunderclap Newman
Sound and Vision – David Bowie
Corvette Bummer – Beck
Badge – Cream
Strange Desire – the Black Keys
Brown Eyed Handsome Man – Chuck Berry
Overkill – Motörhead
Neobamboom – Tiger Army
Strangelove – Depeche Mode
25 or 6 to 4 – Chicago
Dig Me Out – Sleater Kinney
Burning Down the House – Talking Heads
Twist of Cain – Danzig
Rise – Public Image, Ltd.
Down In Louisiana (a.k.a., It’s A Thing You Gotta Face) – the Detroit Cobras
Their Cell – Girl In A Coma
Long Snake Moan – PJ Harvey
Rebel Girl – Bikini Kill
You Know I’m No Good (feat. Ghostface Killah) – Amy Winehouse
Bastards of Young – the Replacements
Transylvania Blues – Silver Jews
Teenage Kicks – the Undertones
Summertime Blues – Blue Cheer
Post Acid – Wavves
Streets of Bakersfield – Dwight Yoakam
Superstition – Stevie Wonder
Butthole Surfer – Butthole Surfer
Little Cream Soda – the White Stripes
Candy-O – the Cars
Making Plans for Nigel – XTC
If You Want Me to Stay – Sly & the Family Stone
Cut Your Hair – Pavement
Y Control (Brooklyn Fire Retouch) – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
California Uber Alles – Dead Kennedys
Knock Knock – Band of Horses
Fascination Street – the Cure
Can’t Get Enough of Your Love Babe – Barry White
Beyond and Back – X
Lonely is the Night – Billy Squier
Get On the Good Foot, Pt. 1 – James Brown
When the Levee Breaks – Led Zeppelin
Hello Walls – Faron Young
(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais – the Clash
Peggy Sue – Buddy Holly
Heavy Metal Drummer – Wilco
The Guns of Brixton – the Clash (request)
Stand By Your Man – Tammy Wynette
Never Say When – the dB’s
No One Knows – Queens of the Stone Age
Honky Tonk Women – the Rolling Stones
Papa Was A Rolling Stone – the Temptations
World Without Tears – Lucinda Williams
Buona Sera – Louis Prima
Happy Trails – Roy Rogers & Dale Evans (feat. Trigger on Flugelhonk Hammertoe)
Taxi – Bryan Ferry
