Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

New Orleans” cultural luminaries have stepped up in the wake of the post-Katrina levee failures to help preserve the heritage of a city where heritage matters most.

Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis have spearheaded the Musicians” Village Habitat project; Wynton Marsalis gave the city “Congo Square”; honorary New Orleanian Harry Anderson has turned his French Quarter club into a political Speakeasy and a bunch of local celebrities joined the Come fall in love with Louisiana all over again campaign.

And with Jazzfest kicking off today, the musicians of New Orleans have the chance to really make the city shine. Dr. John will be there, of course. As will Allen Toussaint, The Meters, Irma Thomas and of course The Radiators. Fats Domino turned down a 2005 slot but will close the festival this year - eight months after he was rescued from his flooded 9th Ward home.

But noticeably absent this year are the Neville Brothers. Why?

And because Aaron Neville fears that post-Katrina air may aggravate his asthma, the Neville Brothers opted to skip Jazzfest entirely.

That”s right. Aaron Neville - who posed as someone who cares about the city by recording “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans” after Katrina - can”t be bothered to play the city”s most important Jazzfest because he”s worried about his asthma.

I”ve never liked Aaron Neville or the Neville Brothers, but it would have been nice if they played next Sunday - since I”ll be there and they”d pull some of the crowd away from whatever stage I”d be at. But if there was ever a family, an act or a person that has built a career solely on being from New Orleans, it”s the Nevilles and specifically the amazingly thick Aaron. For him to bail on Jazzfest because of his lame asthma excuse is an insult to the city.

If you don”t know, Buck Owens was a lot more than Hee Haw”s “pickin” & grinnin”".

In short, he mattered.

Thank you, Buck.

If you have any sense whatsoever, you will catch Boss Martians at The Earl on March 27.

And for my friends in Louisiana, if there”s any way you”d be in New Orleans on Monday the 20th, there is probably nothing cooler in the world than seeing the Martians at Circle Bar, which may in fact be the greatest bar in the world. Wish I could be there for that.

If you”re super-cool, you know of The Mooney Suzuki. But even if you”re super-lame, chances are you”ve heard some of their music.

For a rather obscure - but totally rockin” - band, The MooSuz have managed to leverage themselves into a few high-profile placements.

Ever see School of Rock? The kids in the band sounded so good because The Mooney Suzuki provided “additional instrumentation” on the track - which was co-written by MooSuz frontman Sammy James, Jr.

They apparently have struck a friendship with Jack Black, who also appears in a video of theirs.

I figured their School of Rock gig might just be random happenstance between Jack Black and some hipster friends.

But a few months ago I heard a familiar tune in a new car ad. MooSuz”s “Alive & Amplified” had been picked up for use in - appropriately - a Suzuki commercial. It”s the one where a guy steps out of his front door and BASE jumps down to his Suzuki SUV to go to work. Aside from the handy naming coincidence, it”s a great tie in, as this dude is obviously both alive and amped up enough to jump off a cliff to get to his SUV.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I noticed a spot for TGIFriday”s (or Chili”s, etc. - not sure which) that uses MooSuz”s “In A Young Man”s Mind” from their older Electric Sweat album. Since the spot isn”t for “Mooney”s Restaurant”, there had to be more of an effort to get the song placed in this commercial.

MooSuz is a New York band, and a lot of ad agencies are based in New York, so maybe there are ad types who dig the band and thought it would be cool to use their stuff. Or maybe MooSuz just has the best manager in the business.

Either way, this is a lot of play for a pretty obscure band. And I wholeheartedly endorse the use of good, obscure bands in big ad campaigns.

Might I suggest the Boss Martians” “Heard What You Said” or Rocket From The Crypt”s “Can You Hear It?” for the next Verizon campaign?

This Christmas, the wife was dropping hints about how she might like a 4 gig iPod Nano as an upgrade from her current 4 gig iPod Mini. Seeing an opportunity to both bring a new gadget into the Wisdom household and knock out a big chunk of my Christmas budget for her (my new iPod with Video was considered an early Christmas present and therefore set the bar for our budgets), I jumped on apple.com, whipped out my company-sponsored discount and got one before they went into backorder.

Then a day or so later, a piece on a homegrown 8 gig iPod Mini comes across my RSS reader. Damn, I thought to myself, that”s pretty freaking cool. I showed the piece to the wife, who also thought the idea of a pimped-out, higher-capacity Mini was quite awesome.

She loves her Mini - it”s the right size and damn near scratch-proof. Plus the green is “pretty”. Her only complaint is the 4 gig capacity. She spends more time that she would like adjusting her playlists.

But with the shiny new Nano sitting in the office closet upstairs, I figured I”d go ahead and give it to her and offer to return it in favor of Frankensteining up her Mini.

As TCL mentioned (when I unsuccessfully tried to pawn the Nano off on him pre-Christmas), it sure seems like turning the Mini into an 8 gig player for the same amount of money ($250) would be a better idea than simply “upgrading” to a 4 gig Nano.

I figured the wife would probably go for the 8 gig Mini option, but chicks tend to like shiny new things, so if she”d rather keep the Nano, that would be fine. It didn”t take more than a few minutes for the wife - a geek at heart - to realize a pimped-out 8 gig Mini would be a super-cool thing to have and that the Nano is probably too small for her to keep up with. Other than the super-small form factor (if you”re in to that kind of thing), I personally don”t see a lot of appeal in the Nano. The color screen is nice, but I tried displaying some album art - which was barely distinguishable on the small screen.

So Christmas night I sold the Nano to a friend of hers (who had the same model on backorder somewhere) and promised her the most Mack Daddy iPod Mini the world has ever seen.

[editor"s note: this is the point in the story where we"re transitioning from a piece about The Cap"n and his wife being geeks to a rundown of how to make an 8 gig iPod Mini - like how From Dusk Till Dawn turns from a crime/road movie to a vampire movie when they reach the Tittie Twister.]

The story on the homegrown 8 gig Mini laid out the required components and the how-to, so I ordered:

- The Seagate 8 GB CompactFlash Photo HD from Amazon.

- The high-capacity iPod Mini battery from Sonnet. Not only is the battery upgrade a good thing to do (for just $30!), but the new battery ships with tools to get into the Mini as well as an instructional video. This makes the drive switch much easier.

I was a little put off that the guy who said he did this didn”t provide much proof that he really did it and that it actually works, so I had a slight concern that it might be a load of B.S. But it does work, and I took pictures during the operation as more guidance to anybody who might want to undertake this upgrade.

If you”re looking to do the upgrade, follow the Sonnet instructions carefully to get into the case, and just be very careful when you”re removing the old hard drive and installing the new one. The last thing you want to do is rip out ribbon connectors, bend the data pins, etc.

Here we go.

The Mini pre-op:

On the right are the 8 gig drive and new battery. On the left are the tools provided by Sonnet. If anybody”s going to try this, be real careful with that little blue plastic tool. It”s essential for the job and is rather flimsy, so don”t break it.

The Mini taken apart:

There are only a few plates and screws that need to come free to liberate the Mini from its case. A hair dryer is required to heat up and loosen the faceplate adhesive and not messing that part up is key. Go slow and be patient opening the Mini.

Backside of the naked Mini:

Factory battery (blue thing) and 4 gig drive nestled in place waiting to be swapped out with the new stuff on the right.

Fully disassembled:

Note the piece on the right. This is a rubber cushion that helps protect the hard drive. Untape it carefully from the 4 gig drive so you can re-tape it to the 8 gig drive. And take a look at the tape configuration before you start the swap. The tape holds the cushion to the drive and also holds the drive to the pin connector. Take your time and don”t screw up the drive connection.

New drive installed:

The new 8 gig drive taped up and plugged in just like the 4 gig had been. Again, go slow and be careful when making the swap and your new install will be just like the factory one.

New battery ready to go:

The actual battery swap is simple. One connector to pull out (carefully, please) and then just plug the new battery in.

Back together:

The new 8 gig drive and battery are installed - the original components are at right. Again, follow the Sonnet instructions to get the thing back together. This will involve the hair dryer again.

7.4 gig capacity:

That”s right - an 8 gig drive gives you 7.4 gigs of usable space. The 4 gig gave you 3.7 gigs of usable space, so deal with it.

And that”s it. The entire operation took about 90 minutes, then I had to go through the iPod Software Update process to get the OS on the new drive and let the new battery get its initial charge for a few hours. But overall, a quick and easy upgrade. Total cost was $248.99 including Sonnet”s shipping and sales tax (why is a company in California charging me Georgia sales tax?).

Some of you may be saying “Jesus, what a stupid thing to do - just buy a new 30GB iPod for $300 and sell the Mini on eBay!”. A very valid option, but the wife loves her Mini for all the reasons mentioned above and just wanted to be able to get more music on it. And it”s just cool to have a 8 gig Mini.

[editor"s note: For those of you who don"t already know who the hell Cap"n Ken is or what the hell he does for a living, putting together where he is this week and the fact that he saw The Dan Band Monday night may help you compile some info. If you"re somewhat smart ...]

Those of you who are fans of the movie Old School may know about The Dan Band. They were the wedding band playing a very inappropriate version of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and later a rendition of Kenny Rogers” “Lady”.

And, it seems, “Dan” has decided he should try to parlay his movie success into a career as a novelty live act.

When I saw Old School, I was left wishing they”d included the entire Total Eclipse performance in the movie. And after seeing The Dan Band in person, I was left wishing Old School had included the entire Total Eclipse performance in the movie.

Simply put, The Dan Band is like the world”s most honed and prepared karaoke act. Stupid renditions of “Mickey”, “Nasty Boys”, etc., made me think that if I got TYB and TCL together and worked out a karaoke act, we could pull in some decent change as a value-add to local bar karaoke nights. Yes, it was that bad. And pathetic.

So pathetic, in fact, that I stuck around for only about 45 minutes despite free-flowing Jack Daniel”s (which bartenders here think is “bourbon”).