Category: music

Yesterday, I discovered Derek Paravicini

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I mean, discovered for me. He was already very much about, like when the Khoikhoi when Jan came to the Cape and the Indigenous Americans when Chris went across the pond.

I just found out about him for the first time yesterday.

Who is Derek Paravicini?

Derek Paravicini is one of the most extraordinary pianists and musicians of his generation, yet he is blind and has severe learning difficulties and is on the autism spectrum.
Based in London, Derek performs regularly across the UK, and is also making a name for himself internationally having performed in venues across Europe and the United States.
Derek has a repertoire of tens of thousands of pieces — all learnt very rapidly, just by listening.

Beneath his quiet charm lies a fiery, creative musician, whose astonishing improvisations and dazzling technique have wowed audiences all over the world, with many millions of views on his YouTube channel and a much-revered TED talk, that has been translated into 26 languages.

I came across him on social media on this Facebook reel, and I was “reeled” in (rofl!) primarily because I love the song in question, the beautiful Avril 14th by Aphex Twin:

Derek – as you will see below – gets played about 30 seconds of this and then just absolutely nails his version of it. Even picking up on the tiny excerpt of the gentle repeating phrase which makes up a lot of the beginning of the song, but not so much in the bit he hears.

I know – I know! – I share a lot of videos on here and tell you that it’s worth your time and effort watching through to the end. But this one just blew me away.

It’s definitely well worth your time and effort watching through to the end. Obviously.

Derek’s website is here, with all his links to social media readily available. He’s also part of the Derek Paravicini Quartet (who knew?), which you can find more about here.

Best song of the year (so far?)

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I know that musical taste is a personal thing, and that some people don’t even look (or listen?) to the music stuff on this blog, but it’s a chunk of my life, so I like to stick it on here. #MMIRIM, remember?

And this latest Baxter Dury track has got me hooked. (Previous Baxter Dury posts are here.)

New album next week, you say? Even more hooked.

Are we allowed to suggest Pet Shop Boys vibes? I think so. But then with that instantly recognisable gravelly voice over the top, that bitter, personal feel, and lyrics like:

An aisle seat on a cheap airline
Trying to get to Lithuania
I think of you to calm my nerves

it could only be Baxter.

Now if we can only get that dreadful stand-in 6Music DJ to pronounce the title correctly, we’ll be golden.

And there’s so much room for remixing here. Give the right people a bit of time and opportunity and I’m going to be pumping this 24/7 in the gym. Doing backflips on MDMA.

(That’s another lyric by the way.)
(And probably not a great idea, healthwise.)

How to listen to BBC 6Music (and all the other BBC radio stations) if you are outside the UK

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Hey, Music Lover! I wrote this back in July 2025. It’s now November 2025 and if you want to use the BBC Sounds app from overseas, pop over to this new UPDATED post to find out how.

The original post continues below:

We knew it was coming.

The BBC Sounds app has closed for me and the other people living outside the UK. I’m sure that you could slip in the back door via a VPN, but the BBC are (allegedly) rather good at spotting those things and not allowing them to work.

The signs of trouble were there this morning when I was in the gym, as the app glitched onto Radio 4 Xtra, and gave me a bit of Steptoe & Son while also still playing Hit by The Sugarcubes on 6Music:

Sample lyrics:

I’ve been hit, with your charm.
How could you do this to me?
You dirty old man!

But mixed messages aside, just a couple of hours later, it really was gone:

Ironically, when I clicked through onto that new app, I found that Radio 4 was about to broadcast this show: 6. The Only Friend That Mattered.

Ouch. Way to rub it in, guys…

But don’t worry. Hakuna matata. Nem panikus.

There’s still a perfectly legal, perfectly straightforward route to listen live to your favourite BBC radio stations – including 6Music, wherever you are in the world: here are the details.

Let me save you some time: here’s the direct link for the 6Music feed through your internet browser. And it’s working for me.
Three dots in the top corner, save as shortcut to your home screen, Bob are your uncle. The logo even looks the same.

Sadly, there is no obvious route to listening on catch-up or for downloading shows for those of us outside the UK. Aside from trial and error with a VPN. And (allegedly again), that can often be rather hit and miss and somewhat tedious. Or so I’m told, etc etc.

I’ve also just tested whether I can still get 6Music on my smart speaker (IYKYK) and yes, even right down here in the far bottom corner of Africa, that’s still working fine. Whether that will continue (I actually don’t know from where it plays it, it just plays it), I just don’t know. Time will tell.

This hasn’t been a clean break: some of the links from the new feed pages don’t work, although the actual feeds are fine. If the site thinks you’re in the UK, it tries to take you to the app, but then the app doesn’t work. There are clearly some issues that need to be ironed out, and whether that will affect our ability to continue to listen from overseas remains to be seen.

Or… er… heard, I guess.

It burns, burns, burns…

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Things that aren’t funny:
– People shooting guns.
– Wanton vandalism.
– Disrespecting music performers.
– Wasting water.

Things that are actually a bit funny:
– All of the above, together.

Don’t believe me? Look at this:

The shot wasn’t quite perfect. And I know that I shouldn’t be laughing, because of all those reasons above. But it is actually a bit funny – and pretty good publicity for the town. And I suspect that the authorities in Kingsland also recognise that, by the way that they haven’t bothered to plug the leak, even after a week of their hero relieving himself from a great height.

200 up

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I added a couple more tracks to my Playlist For A Chilled Braai playlist on Spotify this week, and those tracks upped the number of total tracks on said playlist to 200. Fourteen hours and forty-one minutes of musical accompaniment to your braai, and just the right mix of background and gently upbeat tracks – and just a few old skool memories thrown in – to make your braai’ing experience absolutely perfect.

And no, of course you don’t have to listen to it all at once, but the sheer amount of music on there means that you get to hear something different each time you log in and light up. So hit the save button above, click on shuffle on your device of choice, and have a great evening cooking oor die kole.

You can click through here if you can’t use the graphic above, and you can click through here to see all my other Spotify playlists, should you want to enjoy some different genres and go back in time ever so slightly*.

* Musically, I mean. I haven’t invented a time machine or anything.