iRrecoverable
So this was the rather depressing sight that greeted me yesterday morning.
I’ll try and make this the last ‘woe is me’ post (No – really) but as I said previously, if you know anything about me, then you’ll know that the lose of all my music is most distressing.
First – to all those that have said & will say “Well if it means that much to you, why didn’t you back it up?” – well because, the nature of having an iPod means that it’s already backed up – the iPod IS your backup! Hard drive crashes at home? … just restore from the iPod. Lose the iPod or have it stolen? … you just get a new one and re-sync with your iTunes.
I never thought about the consequences of losing both at the same time.
So on my (hurriedly bought) new PC for doing video editing on Saturday, I loaded up iTunes and grimly looked at it .. because I am OCD and over-fastidious about having my music sorted ‘just so’.
None of that “Track 01” by “Unknown Artist” nonsense. Or things IN UPPER CASE. Instead, every track is filled in properly in ‘Sentence Case’. And ALL the meta data of my 4,500 songs had been filled in. The year, the genre, the 5-star rating … I’d gone through them all.
In quite a lot of the cases, I’d also sat and manually tapped out against each song using a website like this to work out their BPM and filled that field in too. In even more of the cases, I’d sat with my keyboard and worked out the key-signature for each song and filled out what key it was in in the comments field.
Massively complicated smart playlists “If it’s got more than 3 stars, and I haven’t played it in the last three months and it’s not by the artists that I have most of” … all gone .. and i’m trying in my head to think about what it was the I’d set up before.
my iTunes was a work of art .. hours and hours spent at the screen finely tuning it to just how I wanted it .. BAM! Gone, and I’ve got to start all over from scratch. It. Is Painful.
The pluses …
I went down the Apple store in Charleston on Saturday morning and picked up a new 16Gb Nano – paid really out of my own pocket, as all the kind money raised for me is going to towards camera and video gear. But even then, the guy that served me is a friend of a friend (well, he’s now MY friend!) and he’d heard about my stuff being stolen … and so let me use his staff discount, and I got 10% off! Thanks, Wilton.
The new Nano is nice actually … I think I prefer the screen to the Classic that I had before. It looks more vibrant and colourful, and it’s making me ‘see’ my music in a whole new way. In fact … only have a quarter of my music (by end of Saturday, I had just under 1,000 of my songs back on iTunes) is making me appreciate it in a whole new way.
Is that my best mate from home is sending me in the mail a whole bunch of CD’s with music on that he knows I need. My friend Rudi here, already send me a few CD’s in the mail which I’ve loaded up. When I got in touch with Apple, they let me re-download all my previously bought iTunes stuff .. it’s a start.
And here’s a moral dilemma … and once which requires a serious answer. The majority of my music prior to 2006 is on CD … back in England, packed away in boxes that I can’t get access to. So I DO own this music . I’ve legally paid for it and own it … i just … don’t have access to it right now. So – If I use the interweb to download this stuff, IS THAT ILLEGAL? because .. all i’m doing is grabbing a copy of something which I DO own on CD – somewhere in the world.
Even when all is said and done and I’ve worked bloody hard to get this all back – there is one thing that I will never ever be able to get back … the chronology of when i bought/downloaded certain music.
I like to sort my music in iTunes by the ‘Date Added’ field. because then it acts as a log, a record, a musical diary of what you were doing at the time. That Arctic Monkeys track i bought in June 2007? Oh that’s right … that reminds me of the time I was out at that party, with so and so, and we had a great time, and I first heard that song – and the Sunday morning i got up and downloaded it. It is a HISTORY of my life, recorded with date stamps against songs that really meant – and do still -mean somthing to me. And it has been destroyed, irrecoverably. And that’s horrible.
After living in London for the first 33 years of my life and working for the 
So for ten weeks in June, July and August 2009, I drove 20,000 miles around the the lower 48 contiguous states of the USA visiting towns and places that shared the same name as places on The London
My nonlegal opinion would be that if you already own the music, it’s fair use to download it. I’m not an intellectual property lawyer.
Sweetie, truly, think about it. It’s only stuff. Nobody was killed. (A local girl was killed last year just after passing the bar exam, clearking for the SC Supreme Court Chief Justice, engaged to be married, on her way to visit her fiance in DC.) Nobody was maimed. You got folks, some of whom you don’t even know, to kick in $4K+. Pretty decent recovery all told. Sh*t happens.
As the Buddhists say, pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.
Lots of people really showed they cared. That’s huge. Really huge. How many people get that gift?
Sorry about your stuff, though….
Welcome back to the land of the iTunes.
As you get older, you will find these things become less worrying, as you wake up and can’t remember:-who you are, where you are or why you’re here. Your best storage of memories are in your head, electronic data can let you down, but until you go ‘Gaga’ no-one can take that away. Happy travels. P.S. I can send old C.D.s if you let me know where to send them.
Why do you not set up a page on this site listing the stuff you need. We can get ‘donations’ to you.
I’ll run to the UK to get those cds for you ! LOL. Is there a way I can let you look at the 1000 songs I have on my ipod to give to you?
Good idea Tami, #3 come round my flat, and I’ll give you the C.D’s to take back to Geoff, as I don’t know where to post them. Geoff will be a Registered Charity soon, & be tax deductible!
Geoff,
Here’s a plan – I get the CD’s from your mum, I rip them with iTunes, I ftp them to one of my servers I manage at work, you download them onto your pc.
What d’ya reckon?
Phil
Geoff (O’ Phoenix Rising from the Ashes)– we may not be able to re-organize your music to the ‘eenth degree, and we can’t necessarily bring back the date-downloaded associcated memories, but I bet that if we can get around a major stumbling block, we WILL try to help re-build your library of music. Here’s the challenge: some of us (OK, me!) are not tech savvy– what is the easiest/most practical way to get the music to you??
Is there anyone else reading who would be willing to send a cd or two of their own backup iTunes, compilation cds or flash of music if Geoff could “borrow” the address/P.O. Box of someone he’s visiting during his travels?
Is there anyone he’s visiting willing to temporarily “donate” an address/P.O Box? For example, someone could temporarily rent out a P.O. Box near where they live, have folks send as much music as possible until he passes through, and have a little present for Geoff waiting. I know is A LOT to ask– plus some stuff might not make it in time for him to pick up, which would totally suck (err, time to send it to the next person??)… I just get these hare-brained ideas sometimes, sorry. Wait, no, I’m not sorry– I’m far too enthusiastic to be sorry!
There has to be a solution… we just need to figure one out!
You have a contact in New Orleans I believe?
Geoff will be at our place in Chicago July 18. The address is 1012 East 54th Street #3, Chicago Il 60615 USA
and I doubt we have any music Geoff would like, but if he wants any jazz or classical we got it!
The one thing that really surprises me, is that you only had 4000 odd songs on your iPod/iTunes.
Um, Geoff – don’t we have a few boxes of your CDs in our shed? Or is that other stuff? I can’t remember…
BTW – did you get Miles’ message about sending you a loaded iPod??
Really sorry to hear of the thefts of your stuff. I haven’t yet watched the vid because it’ll be too painful.
Surely your pro/semi-pro camera/microphone kit won’t be that easy for the thief to dispose of without questions being asked? Would not some of your famous media-whorage increase the chance of some leads… which may also lead to the really-irrecoverable missing DV tapes?
Thank you, Kathryn! Heh, I have a lot of classical & jazz, too. We can surprise Geoff with random music, if nothing else.
It looks like he will be stopping in my neck of the woods, too. Is it cheating to give away dates?? Ooops. Well, if anyone wants to send tunes & they can’t get it to Kathryn’s in time, feel free to send stuff “For Geoff” c/o me (Raineth) before the 25th of July, @ 8460 Atlas Ave., Inver Grove Heights, MN 55077.
“I bet Geoff never knew that he needed Corelli & Coltrane in his life.”
@kathryn – that’s a crap argument “Sweetie, no one was killed”, really it is. i take offense to that, and will gladly have this out with you when i see you in Chicago. Next time something bad happens to you in your life that isn’t life threatening, I’m going to say to you “sweetie, no one was killed”, and that will make it alright, will it? No, it won’t. ’nuff said.
you clearly have NO IDEA how music can be life-defining, changing, and can make or break your whole day and inspire you to do things with your life.
in the meantime, i’m up to 1,500 songs out of 4,500 (yes @michael – only 4,000! because i am very particular and fussy about what music goes on, i am obsessive about it!) due to stuff that’s been sent to me, ripping from JJ’s iTunes collection etc.
bestmate from home is already sending me 10 CD’s worth which will be waiting for me in New Orleans, and then ‘nother kind folks are going to then most likely ship out a portable hard drive to me with the companion that is coming out from the UK in August. by the time the trip is over (ironically) i will be back to normal again…. hopefully…
I would be happy to send all the obscure 80s stuff I gave you a few years ago. If you want I can post a disc to Kathryn in Chicago. Sorry that it won’t be carefully formatted, but at least you will have the files. Does that float your boat?
You still on for Great Falls? Email me if you can.