As nice a program as Banshee is, they did something really strange during development. At some point they broke everything — presumably for a rewrite — and are slowly assembling it again.
So things that were working well in the early days, like album covers, have become more of a pain with the slicker later versions. If you’re having trouble with album covers here are a few things that might help you.
Dropping a folder.jpg file in the album folder does work, but with a number of caveats.
Album covers are cached in ~/.cache/album-art/. And various subfolders too, for different sizes. It’s best to delete the relevant file from this cache before doing anything. Luckily the correspondence between filename and album is very simple:
$ cd ~/.cache/album-art
$ rm robertplantalisonkrauss-raisingsand.jpg
$ rm */robertplantalisonkrauss-raisingsand.jpg
It should be fairly easy to find the cached images with this naming scheme. Once the cache has been deleted Banshee will pick up the folder.jpg file you added manually to the album folder.
Album names that includes funny characters (parentheses and colons, for example) don’t parse properly. So inserting folder.jpg in the right place will have no effect.
Instead you need to copy the album cover to the cache, ignoring the dodgy characters.
Then it’ll just magically appear in Banshee, in the right place, and all the other resized versions will be generated without problem.
I hope this helps some people out for the more complicated scenarios. Eventually this bug will be fixed and Banshee will not have these problems at all. (Also, interested parties might want to check out that bug thread to see how far down a rat hole one can get with the “simple” topic of album art.)
Spent rather a lot of money on CDs yesterday. Though it could have been worse…
Ocean Beach, Red House Painters. The Red House Painters seem to be Mark Kozelek’s original band. I’ve been really enjoying his other stuff released under his own name and that of Sun Kil Moon, so I chose this one at random.
Flock, Bell X1. Chosen because it was the only album they had by this band. It may be their only album, for all I know. It includes a song which I have on an HMV sampler disc from a few years ago, which is why I bought it. It was a good sampler that one — also introduced me to Death Cab For Cutie.
Edit: It turns out that Bell X1 are the band that Damien Rice left behind when he went solo, though at the time they were called Juniper. Small world.
Carmen Symphony, Bizet. I couldn’t resist this one because it was quite cheap and, you know, it’s got yon Toreador tune.
Movies: The Ultimate Collection, Various. Bit of a silly one this. A 3-disc compilation of various famous themes from the movies. So lots of John Williams, lots of action movies. Mostly recent stuff and unashamedly populist. But it has a high enjoyment factor.
Helen also splurged on similar things — a Karl Jenkins box set (including The Armed Man), The Proclaimers, Stevie Wonder, Simple Minds and some project with Roddy Woomble’s name on it. Lots of exciting new music here!
For her birthday in October I bought Helen the Sharpe box set that was available at the time. Sean Bean as the soldier in Wellington’s army fighting through Spain to Napoleonic France, from the books by Bernard Cornwell. The films (because that is what they are: each episode is 90 minutes long) are excellent fun, but that’s not why I’m here.
I wanted to bring to light the man who plays Dan Hagman in the series, John Tams. He sings the theme song, Over The Hills and Far Away, and incidental songs at regular intervals while the regiment are marching, waiting, sitting by the campfire or burying one of their friends. His aching voice really holds the stories together and makes the viewer feel like they’re there.
John Tams is also, as it turns out, an award-winning folk singer. I stumbled across a compilation of his songs while shopping on Christmas Eve, and it’s been one of the delightful musical discoveries of the season. Have a look for him.
I don’t know why, but I completely forgot to mention that I saw Mogwai last week. Clearly it’s becoming such a common thing that it’s no longer worth remarking on!
They were on at the Corn Exchange in Edinburgh, which is a grim aircraft hangar of a venue — all concrete floors and high ceilings. Helen and I went for tea at Wannaburger before heading out there, and just as we got off the bus I got a call from Martin (who had bought our tickets) to say there had been some generator failure and the doors were remaining closed for another hour or so. I was a bit worried they might cancel altogether. They’d already had to cancel the end of their US tour recently because the drummer’s pacemaker broke skin…
We met up in the Corn Exchange Bar until a replacement generator turned up. Thank god we didn’t have to wait outside the whole time. I would have been considerably more irritable after an hour in the rain. The quick turn-around meant neither of the support acts got to do sound checks, so there were lots of adjustments mid-song.
Support groups were Errors and Fuck Buttons. Former quite good, in a Kling Klang/Battles kind of way. Fuck Buttons were a bit annoying and incredibly loud. Felt quite addled by the end of their set.
Went to the back of the crowd before Mogwai started. The volume was more than enough for me, and Mogwai are super-keen on the strobes and other energetic lighting. In the old days they’d just break out the strobes for the last song of the night, Like Herod or maybe My Father, My King. No more! Nowadays it’s a “sod the electricity bill” approach to stage lighting.
I’m having trouble remembering what they played, it was not yesterday. Batcat was really good. Powerful. Almost go as far as saying a “rock” song. On the other end of spectrum, Christmas Steps was breathtaking. I love the way the crowd went instantly still the moment the opening notes were played. Of course they spoiled this by breaking into rapturous applause a good two minutes before the song ended.
I’d heard rumour they had been playing Mogwai Fear Satan again, with Barry Burns’ flute getting a look in, but not this time. But I’ll be back and so will they.
On Monday evening I skipped off to Glasgow with Martin to see Sun Kil Moon, one of the side projects of US singer-songwriter Mark Kozelek. The gig was at a place called Stereo, which sounds like it might be a nightclub but turned out to be a vegan cafe with a stage in the basement, all situated at the far end of a damp side-street.
The music was proper melancholic Americana. All about unrequited love and dead boxers. The band made sure never to crack a smile during the whole performance, or to accidentally look like they were enjoying themselves.
Kozelek’s voice sounds just like it did on the records, though I’m not really sure how to describe it. A strange smooth, strained quality. It was really apparent on Monday night, though hard to describe. Brilliant show, anyway.
Tuesday night we got into another Nigella that had been hanging over us, though I haven’t got round to blogging it yet. Wednesday we went to The Stand Comedy Club. It was a charity fundraiser night for a cancer charity, but we went to see Emily (and Ella, Francis and some other people who I can’t name right now), who has just moved to Aberdeen.
Comedy was reasonable but not great. Last time we were at The Stand in Glasgow it was a weekend show but was even more variable in quality: the best was better but the worst was terrible. After the gig we went to the pub and I dropped Coke all over the table and my seat. And not even in an amusing Woody Allen way either, just the ordinary sugary fizzy liquid way.
On Monday the talk at Cafe Scientifique was given by New Zealand’s contender for the 2010 Winter Olympics in the skeleton bob sleigh event. He’s also doing a PhD in related areas — studying how the sledge interacts with the ice, and how the drivers’ wind profile and helmets affect their performance.
It was a damn interesting talk. We had to rush off to catch the final performance of the Antonion Forcione Quartet, but it would have been really great to stay behind and ask more questions.
The film we saw before was as good as I remembered, though Helen slept through it. Last time I took her to see a Japanese film she said it wouldn’t happen again. So it’ll be A Fistful of Dollars and Magnificent Seven from now on!
Nick was waiting in the queue for Forcione when we arrived, so we got good seats (in the third row, left of centre). There were two annoying guys behind me that would gasp and squeal and exhale sharply every time Antonion Forcione did something impressive (which of course was all the damn time). I really didn’t appreciate this running commentary. It got to the point where I would cringe after every display of virtuosity because I knew there was going to be a ridiculous exclamation from behind my right ear.
Show was awesome though. Band were really tight and enjoying themselves too. Apparently he’s been playing the Edinburgh Fringe for about 17 years now… see you there next year!
In completely unrelated news, we received a flyer through the door on Sunday for the Islam Festival in Edinburgh, that had been running concurrently with all the other festivals in August. Including a 3-day conversational course in Arabic! That would have been seriously cool — where else can you get nine hours tuition in beginners’ Arabic for fifteen quid? If we’d received the flyer when the festival started instead of when it ended that probably would have been the impetus I required to ask for time off.
There’s a lesson — don’t hand out flyers after the event has finished.
We went out again this Wednesday. Even more frantic than last time, though with more sauerkraut to compensate.
Pappy’s Fun Club: Funergy
Matt was late turning up (damn you Matt!) so someone had to wait outside. That was me, in case you hadn’t guessed (damn you Matt!). The show had been going ten minutes by the time we managed to brag our way in. We only got in because our ticket stubs had already been ripped, so the capacity crowd inside technically included us too.
But like I said, we missed the first ten minutes. (For anyone who’s seen the show, we arrived as The Internet was about to have a “knowledge-off” with a Wise Owl.) It was a loosely plotted sketch show about a kid’s entertainment troupe, like a sweary Singing Kettle. They had a fun-o-meter that was going to solve global warming.
The jokes were more hit-and-miss than I expected, given the hype Pappy’s Fun Club have been getting for a while. The problem seemed to be, alternately, a lack of coherent ideas and a strange embarrassment at being on stage. Amusing, but I don’t think I will be rushing back.
Miles Jupp
This is the second year we’ve seen Miles Jupp doing his stand-up routine. Last year we also saw him with Simon Munnery in Johnson and Boswell. Both were excellent, so we’ll have to see Elizabeth and Raleigh to round everything off.
Anyway, Jupp was excellent. He does a fine line in barely suppressed British rage — hilariously twattish and sympathetic at the same time. It’s the same kind of social status comedy that Fawlty Towers was so good at portraying.
Antonio Forcione and Adriano Adawale
Virtuoso Italian guitarist and Brazilian percussionist. Simply stunning. I can’t stress enough how much you have to catch this one. If you even thought to yourself who’s the successor to Michael Hedges? then you need to see this show.
Both players were amazing. Adawale does some amazing percussive magic that you have to see. And he has bells on his toes (well, ankle).
The two of them will be playing in a quartet until Monday, doing different material. I’m keen to see them again.
Some people were actually going to both nights when Tom Waits played Edinburgh. Alas, not me. But I’m happy to make do with quality recordings like this. NPR, the US public radio service, are serving a live recording of Tom Waits’ concert in Atlanta (MP3). The set list:
Lucinda / Ain’t Going Down to the Well
Down in the Hole
Falling Down
Chocolate Jesus
All the World Is Green
Cemetery Polka
Cause of It All
Till the Money Runs Out
Such a Scream
November
Hold On
Black Market Baby
9th and Hennepin
Lie to Me
Lucky Day
On the Nickel
Lost in the Harbor
Innocent When You Dream
Hoist That Rag
Make It Rain
Dirt in the Ground
Get Behind the Mule
Hang Down Your Head
Jesus Gonna Be Here
Singapore
(encore)
Eyeball Kid
Anywhere I Lay My Head
Download it while you still can. I don’t know how long it will be available.
Last night I finally got to see Tom Waits, live at the Edinburgh Playhouse. The last time he played Edinburgh I was two years old. At this rate I don’t hold out much chance of seeing him tour near here again! Thankfully it was a good show…
The ticket purchase procedure was pretty horrendous. Only two tickets allowed per person, both of which had to be named and one of them in the name the buyer. So there was no possibility of buying one as a gift, or giving one to a friend if you couldn’t go at the last minute. To get in you needed to show the original purchasing card, the ticket and some photo ID! Probably a prime pocket-picking performance.
The Playhouse is a theatre, not an open-plan gig venue. So we were all seated in little plush red seats. I was to the back and right of the stalls, underneath the low ceiling created by the circle seating above. There were no warm-up or support acts. Tom Waits came on stage 35 minutes after the “8PM start” (does start mean something different to show organisers?) to a pretty deafening applause.
He played a number of things I wasn’t familiar with, but I’ve since found the set list on a fan site so I know what to look for to plug the gaps in my collection. The venue wasn’t really appropriate — sitting in awkward seats with no leg room — but the music was fantastic. I was really impressed by how beautiful and clear the saxophones were.
Highlights for me:
Innocent When You Dream. A beautiful song that I don’t own. Yet.
The spoken-word Circus, including a mini-rendition of Table-Top Joe. I love Waits’ spoken pieces. Potter’s Field is unparalleled genius, but this was so good because you could see he wasn’t reciting the words but telling the story.
Ending the set on Make It Rain. Another of my favourites off that album. It had been hot and muggy all weekend, and was just right for how I felt. When we got outside the streets were slick, and the city was blanketed in mist. Heh!
…and starting the encore with Goin’ Out West was even better. You’re probably getting tired of me saying how good these songs were, but honest, they were really good! And this song rocks.
The Scotsman gave this show a good review too, with some other details. I know a couple of people who went last night or are going to the second performance tonight. Maybe they can chime in with their thoughts in the comments?
