Because I love you all so dearly, gentle readers, I have put together another mixwit tape for your enjoyment. In this installement I share with you a variety of delightful mashups. What is a mashup, you may ask? Something akin to a remix, but in this case more focused on taking two (sometimes more) songs and melding them together in such a way that you’d never want to hear them any other way. Generally speaking, this mix is intended to at least get you chair dancing, if not full out dancing your ass off. Three from A plus D, three from Instamatic, three from DJ Lobsterdust.
A plus D - Love Will Tear You Apart (She Wants Revenge vs. Joy Division vs. Bauhaus)
Not much to say about this one. Consider it an appetizer for what A plus D has to offer.
A plus D - Sexy Peek-A-Boo (I’m Bringing Siouxsie Back) Justin Timberlake vs. Siouxie & The Banshees
Ordinarily I’d have nothing to do with Justin Timberlake. I really don’t go in for “pop” music. This changes things a lot. Trust me. Also, accordian.
A plus D - Don’t Stop Believin’ In Planet Rock (Journey vs. Afrika Bambaataa)
Journey never had so much funk. Nor did they expect to have it. Yet… it feels so right.
Instamatic - Crazy Marvin (Gnarls Barkley vs. Marvin Gaye)
That song you couldn’t get away from meets a soul master for a refreshing look at both.
Instamatic - Electric Loop (Judas Priest vs. Pendulum)
Chosen mostly for the liberal Willy Wonka (original film thankyouverymuch) sampling, in all honesty. Fast-paced and fun.
Instamatic - Ghetto Tits 2006 (Benassi mix of Outkast vs. Peaches vs. Scissor Sisters)
This is mostly Peaches, and therefore has liberal use of various sexually charged terms some folks consider foul. NSFW I guess. Probably my fav of the Instamatic remixes.
When they call this an allstar jam they aren’t at all kidding. This is my favorite mashup of all time. Just listen. The transitions are masterful, the songs flow like an undeniable force of nature, and I pretty much guarantee you’ll smile at least a little.
DJ Lobsterdust - RightNowRightNow (Beastie Boys - Love Psychedelico)
I think if the Beastie Boys had met Hot Chip, or hung out with the guys hacking their C64 to make chip tunes they might have made something like this on their own.
DJ Lobsterdust - Glass Octopus (The Beatles vs. Blondie)
This may be the most approachable mashup for people who don’t really care for hip hop or techno or dance-oriented music. It’s Blondie’s Heart of Glass mixed with The Beatles’ Octopus’s Garden in a really fun, natural way. Still got a great beat for those who do enjoy a good excuse to dance.
That’s all for now! I hope you have as much fun with this as I have!
Image on the tape is art from P. Robertson’s Kings of Power 4 Billion %. Download it. Watch it. He’s great.
Boy was it ever! I would explain it to you, but I barely understood it myself. For your listening pleasure, however, I’ve put together another mixwit mix tape that I feel helps express in very broad terms the kind of day I had.
Featuring
Kajiura Yuki - Key of the Twilight
Sonic Youth - Hits of Sunshine (For Allen Ginsburg)
Although Guided By Voices were around between 1983 and 2004, there is a good chance you’ve never heard of this band. I know I wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for the combined efforts of a cover by …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead and Ian’s prodigious musical knowledge.
The song I’m sharing with you is the one I’m desperately, madly in love with these days. Clocking in at a meager 1:45 (2:14 on the Trail of Dead cover), it’s hard to believe it could be so moving. This brief sampling off of 1994’s Bee Thousand is slow and delicate like an aged alley cat and just like that old cat it still resonates like the graceful killer living at its core. That, and you know, there is all that rusty yowling.
The lo-fi buzz permates the latter half, sending the song from a quiet mystery into a trip into the past, when records were cut in one take or bust, all the instruments in one room, and you’d better hope the drums were properly muffled because we aren’t doing this again, dammit.
I highly recommend giving the rest of Bee Thousand a listen. If you have an interest in early R.E.M., Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, or perhaps some of these newer lo-fi and indie darlings like The White Stripes or Trail of Dead, then you should really be listening to Guided By Voices. For those less interested in the actual audio aspect, you can stun all your hipster friends with your new found, old school indie cred, you trend whore.
For musicians, the Guided By Voices website has the chords available for a bunch of their songs (Caution: Frames! T_T). In that same section are MP3s and Real Audio files of live performances, as well as a couple videos.
Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory (lyrics by Guided By Voices)
Cold hands touching my face
Don’t hide… the snake can see you
Old friends you might not remember
Fading away from you
The Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory
The Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory
And we looked
And we passed
Through the hallways of shatterproof glass
She runs through the night as if nobody cares
She screams and she cries and ignores all the stares
She wants me to come, but I’m never going there
The Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory
The Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory
The Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory
If you happen to already have the soundtrack to the film Snatch, then you have definitely already heard this. However, if you haven’t I strongly suggest giving it a listen. The song is just like falling snow at midnight: lazy and impenetrable. The harpsichord! The drifting guitar! It’s so dreamy and enjoyable I can’t help being in love.
It is also the first of many songs which I will be posting that are ostensibly about heroin. The reason for this is that I have a theory regarding heroin-themed songs. That theory? They are all really great. I suppose it’s ultimately a matter of taste and some people may find the subject matter a bit too distasteful or too uncomfortable but I have to say that I have yet to discover a song about heroin that I didn’t like.
(P.S. I have not, nor do I necessarily endorse, doing heroin. Just clearing that up right now.)
Hard on the heels of that mind blowing letter of protest came another. Let it never be said that direct reasoning and protest is useless.
Yknow, he’s got a point there. I was pretty quick to just fold on the whole issue, but the fact of the matter is, theres lives at steak* here. In a literal, and figurative sense.
There must be a way to keep it alive. Dont lose heart G. Our numbers may be small and even infrequent, but you provide unequaled sanctuary when its needed most. In the midst of the storm G! The Shit storm!
Think about it. Jesse’s inspiration has awakened a slumbering giant of ranting protest. Wait til all four of us get going! Between us we can inundate your inbox with thoughtfully nagging pokes and pleads until Dec. 22, 2012.
Dont think we cant do it.
At this point you can imagine I’m feeling sort of guilty! Yet still somewhat resolute. There are things that must be done and there must be alternatives for these guys! Little did I know that this was not nearly the end, and J-2xxx’s threat was in no way a bluff.
J-Dilla, also known as Jay Dee, is widely regarded in the hip-hop community to be one of the most innovative producers ever to grace the turntables. Known as a “producer’s producer,” Dilla’s work was so highly esteemed that many of the biggest and most important names in hip-hop (like Common, Talib Kweli, ?uestlove, Erykah Badu, A Tribe Called Quest and Madlib) looked to him not only for inspiration, but for actual production work on what ended up being some of their most accomplished albums to date.
J-Dilla was also one of the first to release entire albums of sample-heavy, instrumental work, which incidentally is how he ended up collaborating with another master of the genre: Madlib. Madlib had been extremely impressed with Dilla’s innovative style and couldn’t help himself but to play with some beats for inspiration. The compliment didn’t escape Dilla and this initial meeting led to the creation of the now somewhat legendary JayLib.
Part of what makes their album, Champion Sound (2003), so distinctive stems from the way it was recorded. The duo met only once during the making, and the rest of the album was recorded by sending beats and vocals back and fourth. The collaboration ended with half of the album consisting of Dilla beats with Madlib’s vocals and the other half Madlib beats with Dilla’s vocals. I hesitate to call the final vibe earthy but for lack of a better word, it does feel somewhat organic in that there is nothing forced about the way these two artists blend their individual styles.
Dilla was a pioneer in blending hip-hop with a kind of neo-soul music that brought to life both genres and infused the result with a little bit of jazz, funk and a personal touch that can only be described as heart.
Huey Lewis is in dire need of your assistance. Wait, he is? According to MattressPolice.com he most definitely is in need of YOUR help, and my help, and apparently anybody’s help. Harnessing the power of the mighty internet, this fellow named Diesel (I’ve got a funny story about that name in another context, but I digress) has issued a solemn plea to get Huey Lewis back into the hearts and ears of everyone who partakes of classic rock radio.
In the words of the fossil fuel named author himself:
The avowed purpose of this blog is to bring back the genius that is Huey Lewis. In particular, I want Huey to get the airtime on classic rock radio stations that is being squandered on hacks like BTO and Foghat.
As of this posting he’s only got 59 comments to this petition. Maybe Akismet is working overtime? This is where you come in. Only YOU (and me, and a ton of other people) can actually raise a big enough stink to get people to acknowledge the greatness that is Huey Lewis (with or without The News, though for the record I’d prefer with).
Reasons I’m in favor of this cause personally?
I still own a vinyl of Fore! (For non-hipsters or people under the age of 20, “vinyl” refers to a circular disk of compressed plastic with grooves cut into it, also known as a record or record album, which when a needle connected to various wires is correctly drawn across it will produce sound.)
I mentally associated either Hip to Be Square or Stuck With You (forget which at the moment) with the very flavor Fig Newtons for the longest time. Straight up synesthesia. (Another tip for some of our less worldly readers: Fig Newtons are both fruit… AND cake. Astounding but true.)
The author also raises several very good points as to why Huey Lewis will make a very important contribution to the distribution and serving up of classic rock, but I’ll let you determine for yourself.
I think I mentioned once before that I’m not dreadfully astute when it comes to the world of hip-hop, mainstream, underground, or otherwise. I fibbed a little there. I am a budding fan of what’s been dubbed as “nerdcore”. While I’m sure anyone familiar with nerdcore has heard the name MC Chris (and possibly controversy surrounding his involvement with the term/movement nerdcore), I’m not as sure you’ve heard this spacey, minimalist remix of his better known track: Fett’s ‘Vette. N8ur also did a pretty sweet job remixing MC Chris’ Tractor Beam.
For more on MC Chris, check out his Slashdot interview, or really any of the resources listed at the bottom of the wiki page. Also, be sure to let n8ur know what you think of the remixes!
Tay Zonday’s managed to snag an endorsement deal. I’m sure you’ve all heard about it already. From the heartlands of Ectomo to Wired’s hipster hovel blog The Underwire and beyond, it’s being talked about non-stop.
Chocolate Rain, that agitatingly infectious little ditty from a little while back, caught the attention of the Dr. Pepper marketing staff and they decided the way to go would be a remix. The 25-going-on-14 Adam Nyerere Bahner, aka Tay Zonday, managed to snag himself a tidy marketing deal with the song that had everyone mezmerised for a good few weeks several months back. I think it’s foolish for a major brand to jump on the Chocolate Rain meme now. It’s well past its prime at this point, surely. Based on my own observations, it would seem that wide-spread things like this have a tendency to start small, flare up within a community, die out a little, spread to a series of other communities, and then burst into the general public for a brief flare of upwards of a month, then slowly die out. Think of it like the female sexual cycle. There are often spikes of intense “oh god oh god” followed by almost a total reset bordering on disinterest. Eventually there’s the actual orgasm itself, a plateau of enjoyment, after which it cools down to nothing again in relatively short order. Yes, further peaks can be coaxed out after the initial plateau, but it’s not easy and not every meme is capable of such repeated overtures.
At any rate, while I’m not much of a fan of the thinly veiled viral marketing of a carbonated beverage that is Cherry Chocolate Rain, I did get the opportunity to catch another tune by Tay Zonday that I actually enjoyed. See below and weigh in your thoughts on memes, marketing, and how goofy this kid is.
This guy is a genius. He’s a musical prodigy. He’s got more than 13 aliases, each allowing for a metamorphosis of character and style that is stunning in its diversity. He’s a composer, a drummer, a DJ, a jazz musician, a beat-maker, a lyricist, a producer and one of the most original minds in music, not just today, but ever. In 2003 he told Mugshot Magazine that he considers himself a “DJ first, producer second and MC last,” but in limiting himself to those three categories he is either extremely modest, self-deluded, or high as shit.
While he might be most well known for his quirky pseudonym, Quasimoto, this funky and often psychedelic form of hip-hop does not even begin to define Madlib’s complicated aesthetic. Of course, that might be because Madlib’s aesthetic defies definition. It is a relative abstraction based on the character he is embodying, and is anything but static. The son of a jazz and soul musician, Madlib has been a pioneer in blending the genres with an understated hip-hop that is a fresh take on all three.
Search for Yesterday’s New Quintet, The Beat Konducta, Quasimoto, DJ Rels, Ahmad Miller, Monk Hughes, Malik Flavors, Joe Mcdurphy, Monk Hughes and the Outer Realm, The Joe McDurphy Experience or Astro Black and all will bring you back to Otis Jackson Jr.- Madlib.
From 2002’s “Blunted in the Bomb-shelter,” a remixed dub of old reggae beats infused with a touch of ska, to 2004’s “Madvillany,” a collaboration with another bizarre genius of sorts, MF DOOM, Madlib is well recognized within the hip-hop community to be an innovator in changing the way we think of the genre.
Check out: Mind Fusion Vols. 1-3, Blunted in the Bomb-shelter, Beat Konducta Vols. 1-4 (India, his most recent, is a subtle fusion of traditional Indian music with modern beat-making techniques), Yesterday’s New Quintet and Sound Directions: The Funky Side of Life, for just a taste of what this guy’s got up his sleeve.
Some kids play in the sandbox. We play in the.... litterbox??? The RKNet staff is pleased that you decided to stop by. Currently this is a multi-author project, with a rotating cast of totally kooky characters. Contact giania [at symbol] gmail [dot] com if you'd like to play here too.
