Run for Cover!

In any music store today you'll get bombarded with albums like Bump Volume 523 or BOOM! Volume 524. Now I have to admit that I did buy my fair share of Bump albums back in the day but these days they are rife with Europop covers of Sweet Dreams, Girls just wanna have fun and every Depeche Mode song ever made. But I do believe that there are still some covers that are just as good if not better than the original and I thought I would share my top 5 with you. Now most of these are pretty hardcore but just sit back and enjoy.

1. Toxic - Static Lullaby
Never has a Britney Spears song sounded this edgy and hardcore whilst still keeping the lyrics quite relevant.

2. Just don't know what to do with myself - The White Stripes
Great song, great cover version, great music video. I still want this on Vinyl!

3. Tainted Love - Marilyn Manson
Now I've never been a fan of Manson, and no I'm not gonna start a religious debate. This is just a rocking cover of the 80's hit Tainted Love. And it was the soundtrack to the best spoof movie ever, Not Another Teen Movie.

4.Shout - Disturbed
This song was originally made by Tears for Fears, and recently Danny K and a bunch of SA musicians covered it and used it for an anti-crime initiative. The cover was bad. Some rapping, Steve Hofmeyr and celebs singing together? Not good. Disturbed did this a lot better and it makes you wanna shout the lyrics!

5. Kaptein - Straatligkinders
Surely you didn't think I wasn't going to drop an Afrikaans song on the list? First listen to the original, if you can make it halfway you've do well...

And now the awesome cover done by Straatligkinders...

Hope the bit of musical inspiration got your Thursday going!!!

Please note that all music and music videos are owned by the artists, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Top 10 things every guy in a long term relationship should know.

1. Chick Flicks are a given. There's no way of fighting it. These tear jerkers will become much more frequent in your life and a lot of the times you will get the odd stare saying: "Why can't you be more like that guy in that movie?" Popular choices among the female race are: You got mail, P.S. I love you, When Harry met Sally and the queen mother of them all, The Notebook.

2. Whenever she says "Don't worry I'll pay", it only means that once you get to the pay window at the Drive-thru she'll give you a doe-eyed look that screams "I'd rather spend this money on skin cream that costs R400/ml over the weekend." So inevitably you end up paying, feeling like a gentleman and feeling R100 poorer.

3. Whenever you ask "Can I help you with something?" she will ALWAYS say "don't worry it's okay". Don't fall into this trap boys. You will more than likely get the silent treatment later on in the night for not helping. I know what you're thinking, she already said don't worry. That's where you're wrong. It subconsciously means just get up and do something, even if it's moving the TV 2 inches to the left.

4. You will see your girlfriend try on 4 pairs of shoes, which end up to be the exact same pair every time. She won't like it the first time, she will the second time, they'll be the wrong colour the 3rd time and on the 4th try she will either buy them or storm out the store complaining about how there's nothing she ever likes.

5. Brad Pitt, Gerard Butler, The Twilight, Vampire Diaries and True Blood boys will always make their knees weak. But those fellows wont be the ones killing a spider she found in the bathroom at 11 o' clock at night.

6. Moodswings. They're no Urban Myth, they happen. Your other half will sometimes get the urge to change from Kind, Warm and Loving to Cold-hearted, Ruthlesss and Over-Emotional.

7. Move along the GQ's, Playboys, FHM's. Your rack of magazines will soon include Cosmo, Woman's Health and Heat. Don't fight it guys. Read up. It's like having another team's playbook.

8. She will have friends that she hates, loves, hates, loves, hates and love again. All in one week. Try to keep up and react accordingly when coming across them in public.

9. There will always be the ex that was like Superman, Chuck Norris, The Bachelor and MacGyver all in one.

10. Don't try watching long sessions of sport. Stick to a 2 hour game of rugby at most. And be prepared to hop to Isidingo or 7de Laan every 5 minutes. This will more than likely happen at the very moment of a try being scored. Just grin and bear it.

Cartoon done by Kevin Spear of kevinspear.com

4 Blogs that got me blogging

I've only recently started this blog and I'm quite happy to say that I've sorta kept it up to date. For the last two years I've been wanting to have a successful blog but never kept that promise to myself. Come New Years 2011 and much research I vouched to keep a blog come hell or high water. I was looking for some inspiration and came across these 4 blogs and I've been following the ever since.

indieBerries 

indieBerries is a blog kept by girl called Che Kershaw. She's a South African living in South Korea and she keeps her blog updated with all the cool stuff she encounters over there, some awesome creative stuff and the craziest, funniest cartoons. This lady won best personal blog and best blog design at the SA blog awards 2010. And I don't think there's a lot of personal bloggers using blogger that can make their blog look this awesome.

BeingBrazen

This lady is based in the Mother City. And you can feel it. Her writing is just smooth and breezy all the way down. Her blog updates just read so easily and she posts the coolest stuff and there's a lot of fashion in it as well, so I always keep up to date when talking about clothes with my girlfriend. Her blog inspired me with all the cool categories she has; you can literally find anything from movies to cool new places in Cape Town on this lady's great blog.

Lucky Pony 

The owner of Wolves Cafe and wife of Shane Durrant from Desmond and the Tutus has created this blog that is packed with stuff that will blow your mind. Whether she's posting a great art exhibition she atttended or one of the great new muffins Wolves might be selling, her blog is filled to the brim with just crazy, creative stuff. And the fact that her husband is part of Desmond and the Tutus, means every now and then there's also some awesome tour pics from the band.

2oceansvibe

The biggest blog in the country at the moment. The moment 2oceansvibe hit the internet it kick started the blogging movement in SA. Now only did the blog become very successful but it's now become an entire media machine there's videos, sponsorships, parties and even 2oceansvibe Radio. They've made it, and by doing so gave every blogger something to aspire to.

Facebook vs Twitter

There's been battles that will rage forever: iPhone vs Blackberry, Man U vs Liverpool, Bloods vs Cribs, Bulls vs Stormers, toiletpaper up vs toiletpaper down... But a battle that's really coming of age lately is Facebook vs Twitter. Being friends with people and telling them nothing vs Telling everything to people you don't know at all.

Facebook hit my life circa 2006. In my first year of Varsity one of my friends looked at me in a drunken state and said: "Like... Like why haven't you added me on Facebook yet?" Facebook then went from being a description of a library that holds ID pictures of everyone, to an obsession of mine. I mean I could see what my buddies were having for breakfast! Oh how young I was... My love for Facebook soon faltered as pokes, Farmville, random digital vampire bites and online poker messages started flooding my inbox. Random tags of myself in photos I don't even appear in, stalking by creepy Indonesian ladies and friend requests from that guy who was cool in high school but now can't even buy a friend, soon became too much.

3 years ago, more or less, Twitter hit SA shores. I never took much interest in the rage that surrounded it. The first claim to fame Twitter had was Ashton Kutcher posting a picture of Demi Moore's butt all over TwitPic, and that seemed a bit like candid camera for the web. In a digital marketing lecture 2 years ago our lecturer told us to sign up to Twitter to get marks. According to him if we weren't on it there was no way we would be able to keep up with advertising in the future. Soon I signed up and now I can't see a day without Twitter.

I get my news, my sports reports, even work updates from Twitter. Twitter will forever be remembered as the movement that retained freedom of speech for everyone. And here you can actually get real updates from people that matter. I've made more connections in terms of work, social life, business etc. than Facebook ever could do for me. I mean I'm talking to bloggers in South Korea, getting replies from Playboy magazine, meeting fellow creatives, all whilst checking what's new in the life of Gaga, Kanye and Katy Perry. To prove my point I made a little list of 5 things with which you can compare Facebook to Twitter.

Someone will always declare their undying love for someone with words like baby, sweetheart and darling.        Facebook has Farmville.        The more friends you have on Facebook the less you have in real life.       Facebook is for hearing from people you went to school with.

There’s only love for people who write meaningful stuff on Twitter          All the cows and pigs on Twitter just get unfollowed.          The more followers you have on Twitter the more friends you’ll make in real life.          Twitter is for hearing from people you wish you went to school with.

Here's looking at you Casablanca.

With all the recent rain pelting down on an already wet Johannesburg I did what many a Joburger does on a day like this...hit the shops. Now I'm an avid movie fan and I collect DVDs like women collect shoes. As I stepped into Look 'n Listen at Cresta a sign caught my eye that read DVDs! 1 for R79, 2 for R149, 3 for R199. Being in advertising myself, the word sale doesn't really trigger me into compulsive buying but it did. I walked out with 7 DVDs to add to my collection and 1 of them was the renowned movie Casablanca. I've never seen the film myself and I've always gotten the odd glare when i mention this in conversation, so last night I sat down with some popcorn and watched the epic play out in front of me.

This movie is simply brilliant. There's something about the golden age of Hollywood that captures you in so many ways. The dialogue is razor sharp, the storyline is fantastic (Nazi's, WW2, a love triangle, a bar owner...), and Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman are sublime actors. Watch this movie if you haven't, if you have watch it again. And to those of you saying "but it's in black an white", if you haven't seen a movie in black and white you haven't seen a movie. Oh and this movie is riddled with movie quotes that you've always heard through the years but never really seen played out on screen. It saddens me to say that it's been a long time since Hollywood has brought out a film with this much cultural impact and good acting. CGI and cheesy teen soundtracks have taken over movies but we can always hope that this will soon change.

Creepy, awesome, twisted and cool all in one.

I regularly check out a site called the Behance Network. It's a site where designers, photographers, illustrators and tons of other people who do great stuff with images showcase their work. I then came across these mad and crazy, and brilliantly done illustrations by a guy named Anton Semenov. His work his twisted yet absolutely beautiful and, although I don't know this for a fact, it also gives a bit of social commentary. Mr. Semenov your work is brilliant.

You can't win elections without the right beat

A newspaper columnist recently lambasted the ANC for their election CD they released. Believe it or not, but it wasn't so much about the fact that the CD is propaganda etc. etc. but rather the fact that the singing was quite horrendous. I gave this some thought and made a tracklist of songs that will get the ANC election CD to the top of any music store's charts:

1. Under Pressure - Queen
2. Where's your head at? - Basement Jaxx
3. Our House - Madness
4. Jailhouse Rock - Elvis Presley
5. Help! - The Beatles
6. Black or White - Michael Jackson
7. The Middle - Jimmy Eat World
8. Money (That's what I want) - Barret Strong
9. 99 problems - Jay-Z
10. Sounds of Silence - Simon and Garfunkel

Not only is this a CD that fits all ANC legislature and actions but it's one that I will actually buy and sing along to in the shower (oh crap, i just said shower and ANC in the same sentence...).

Songs that get my head a' bopping.

Recently I found myself dumbstruck by the kind of music that dominated the Grammy's. Now, I'm sure the so-desperate-for-attention-that-i'll-stalk-a-boy "beliebers" will throw hate mail my way but that poor boy shouldn't have even been nominated. Lady Antebellum got a few rewards and frankly they deserved it. They made country music cool again without singing about 4 shots of whiskey and a girl named Lucille. But overall I just felt that a lot of the winners weren't really that good and in light of that I proudly present my Top 5 Songs at the moment.

Now just for one moment ignore the fact that this is on the soundtrack of Twilight: Eclipse. Because let's face it, if it weren't for the soundtrack those poor fang boys would never had all their fame. This song by Florence and the Machine is just so epic in both wording and production value, and yes I sing along to this like a teenager in my car.

Next up is one of the best voices in music at the moment. Just take it in.

This next one is from Mumford and Sons. THE MOST UNDERRATED BAND IN THE WORLD. Pure Genius.

Yes yes, go ahead judge me. Call this woman what you want: crazy, attention-seeking, ridiculous etc. She doesn't care and neither does 30 million other people. She creates hit after hit. I only put up the audio track because that music video...well...I'm still trying to figure that out for myself.

Besides from being probably the coolest music video of the year, Mr West has collaborated with Rihanna and Kid Cudi to drop an absolute ripper of a song. PLEASE NOTE: This music video contains very frequent flashes of light and colour that can trigger seizures for people with epilepsy. No jokes.

Let me know what you think of my choices. Agree? Disagree?

Top 5 cool things about being Afrikaans.

Being a small town Afrikaans boy who's "Englishified" himself in the great city of Johannesburg I decided to make a small little list of 5 cool things about being Afrikaans. Not to worry all my English friends, I don't think I even speak 5% of all my words in Afrikaans these days.

1. I can totally start a weak-ass braai with no hope of ever taking flame and people will just look and say: "Nah, he know what he's doing."
2. If I wear anything other than a two-tone khaki shirt, knee high socks and tekkies I'm considered as a trendsetter.
3. Die Antwoord and Jack Parow has gone more global than Prime Circle or Danny K.
4. People automatically think you're not so smart, so whenever you talk English without an accent, they get this amazed look on their face.
5. Listening to people using the words 'lank', 'kwaai' en 'lekker' as if they came straight from the Oxford Dictionary.

John, it's good to get to know you.

I was browsing this insane little bookstore in Margate while on holiday there in December and stumbled upon this gem for only R50. It's an authorized biography of the life of Mr Lennon himself, and I have been gripped by this book. I don't know if it's the totally awesome cover or the fact that it contains in-depth details about the inner workings of the Beatles, but this book just shows you why it's such a loss to the world that we lost Lennon so early in his life. Now there hasn't really ever been cool movies about the Beatles which they didn't star in themselves, think Hard Day's Night and Help!, but when I saw Nowhere Boy I was blown away. It's very Indie, very British and very Awesome.