I can imagine all the web nanny corporate firewall sphincters contracting as I type the name of this mashup artist Retarded Cunt but what the fuck – crazy, uncommercial, uncompromising, messy and silly name, crazy, uncommercial, uncompromising, messy and silly mashups. I like, a lot.

Sometimes the millions of radio-friendly perfectly musically pitched ‘Pop vs Pop’ productions aren’t the point – where’s the grit? The humour? The what the fuck attitude? I worry for a lot of the more recent mashup artists, the pop is less bastard and more brand-friendly. Harummph.

And gotta love something that will never be played on radio, probably cos of the name…as everyone worries about their ‘brand’ and corporate slightly radical posturing…wonderful. You’ll probably hate it, probably think it’s terrible (hey I agree it’s wrong – even probably someone’s idea of a joke alias – but wonderfully intentionally wonkily wrong – full of YOU CAN’T DO THAT moments, some that work, some that don’t) but silly sonic terrorism (as Vicki People Like Us says ‘avant retard’) gives me hope because that’s where this whole thing came from. Silly, messy, clashy, witty, WTF bootlegs. It’s what I fell in love with in the first place.

And anything that makes jaded-old ‘heard it’ me laugh nowadays is alright with me. KInd of like Girl Talk with better drugs and a sense of humour…

Where’s my war of the worlds? by Retarded Cunt

You might like these previous posts:

• War of the World dubstep style – July 15, 2010
• Fleetwood Mix – Fleetwood Mac mashup LP – October 19, 2009
• Year Zero has arrived (Exclusive news, well sorta) – January 14, 2010

The original:

And the remix, which makes me love the internet even more, from the Autotune News peeps:

Actually I like the song even more, kind of sums up the awe in more than the slightly odd (surprised ‘shrooms weren’t involved, Paul Vasquez the ‘Yosemitebear Mountain Giant’ says no ) extreme style of the original, and quite wisely cut most of the sobbing. And moaning. Which although I really appreciate the fact that yes the world has amazing beauty and most people take it for granted, and that IS a bitchin’ rainbow, that bit was ever so slightly scary. More so if he wasn’t on anything…although he does partake of weed, so maybe it’s some sort of THC afterglow?

Even inspired an excellent and funny Muppet Mashup:

The Double Rainbow Connection (Remix) by gdelahaye

I find it quite sweet and life-affirming actually – especially when coupled with Pachelbel’s canon in a mashup style Or even this 2001: A Double Rainbow Odyssey.

You might like these previous posts:

• I’ve been quoted in a Mashup PHD Dissertation… – April 18, 2010
• London Booted double vinyl out September 5th! – August 5, 2005
• Videotones #2 – Kleptones – This Song Smells by BorisB – February 25, 2010
• Oh Delia – July 19, 2008
• Mom, I’m a queercaster! – July 10, 2005

Phew this touring lark in this hot weather is a bind, lugging those stacks around and…WAIT A MINUTE YOU HAVEN’T BEEN ON TOUR. Well *I* haven’t but my naughty videos have and will be – not only were my videos for the Videotones project just shown last week at Glastonbury (did I mention it? LOL…) as part of the Kleptones set, I received word a few days ago via Simon Iddol that Young Punx want to use my video of dj BC‘s excellent and indeed unforgettable Unbelievable Juice and Gin on their tour. Of course I said yes and sent them over the file.

So Instamatic – coming to a venue near you. I quite like this lazy gigging lark, actually…

You might like these previous posts:

• Young Punx mashed – Simple Mashures by DJ Schmolli (Instamatic video mashup) – April 17, 2010
• New Videotones Kleptones videos from Mashup Germany and Crumbs Chief – June 23, 2010
• TV is bad for you, mmmkay? Kleptones – Mad Groove by Instamatic (Videotones #6) – April 2, 2010
• Is this just desire or the truth? Reborn Identity joins The Videotones – March 30, 2010
• The Videotones are here – Welcome Back by The Kleptones (Instamatic video mashup) – February 10, 2010

As the St George flags magically melt away as they were never there in the first place, just like the hopes of the England fans, we can get back to drinking Pimms, Cricket, moaning about being crap at Wimbedon, killer urban crack foxes and random violent knife crime.

Oh and listening to the monster 3-disc Summer Booty 2010 – the new summer mashup compilation from a cast of millions arranged by DJ Useo – this year with added Instamatic

Not Pimms, but oh so sweet…and the fruit doesn’t get stuck in your teeth.

You might like these previous posts:

• Mashup – I Kissed a Monster (Katy Perry vs L7) – August 31, 2008
• Radio Clash 99: San Francisco Pt 1 – These Guys Are From England… – November 23, 2006
• RC 188: iFad (The Schizophrenic Shade of Summer) – June 5, 2010
• This One’s For Joe stats – January 13, 2008
• NEW MASHUP – Instamatic – I Kissed a Monster over at APC – August 25, 2008

Can’t think of a clever thematic linking device apart from there is no mention of the World Cup or football in this po….DOH! Have an unrelated yet topical Chris Brown MAD cartoon mashup instead…

I should be so getting sick of Lady Gaga mashups by now, but no not yet. I was getting ready to hate Pomatic’s Thieves Like Romance Lady Gaga vs New Order mashup (well so few people do New Order justice, much abused in the mash world but rarely bettered) and was surprised to find out that’s it’s a total POP CHOON (Ian Act of Dog and Jeb 50 Pound Note please report to the front desk! beep!) mashing Thieves Like Us and Bad Romance to great effect.

In fact it’s part of a whole album ‘The Fame Monster Mash Hitz’ (title could be slightly better, C- see me!) and it’s pretty good – nothing here crossing genres or experimental like the last post but with tunes like Just Summer – Bananarama vs Lady Gaga (Cruel Summer vs Just Dance) it’s less about cred envelope-pushing and just recognising a good dancefloor-friendly totally pop mashup – which I remind you is quite hard to pull off well especially pure A vs B. And these two do that well – good summer pop mashups.

Unwanted Whisper by The Kleptones

Kleptones are off to several festies this year, including i_beta festival in the Netherlands and Glastonbury – and afore thee went they left us with a nice present, Unwanted Whisper a reversal mashup of their infamous Bootie track ‘Careless Or Dead’ – rather than using the George Michael instrumental this uses the acapella, and vice versa for the Jon Bon Jovi. Strange to hear this combo reversed, but it also works but in a less immediate way than Careless.

You might like these previous posts:

• Captain Obvious Strikes! – April 24, 2010
• New Videotones Kleptones videos from Mashup Germany and Crumbs Chief – June 23, 2010
• The NirGaGa Saga – January 14, 2010
• Tik Tok! Poker Face! A Bland Romance! M-e-e-e-e-eH! Telephone! – April 11, 2010
• New Videotones videos shown at Glastonbury inc a premiere from me: Kleptones – Brightness and Contrast – June 27, 2010

I have to say I don’t cover the artier/experimental side of mashups and cutup culture as much as I’d like to, but here’s definitely one release to make up for that – the second volume of Motown Meltdown. I loved the first volume ever since I heard it via Vicki People Like Us’s Do or DIY show and played a Blanketship track from it a couple of years ago.

This new volume carries on the humour and ambience of the first, the idea being that you can only use tracks from the Motown Masters Karaoke discs (yes you might have wondered where those many Motown mashups come from, well they released Karaoke discs made of the actual master tracks, that’s how!) and nothing else. The resulting Vol 2. goes from insane brokenbreaks glitch of Vytear to achingly sad tracks from Blanketship, to more hypnagogic drones from Beaks Plinth and manic cutups and loops of T H E M A Y S and Lord Tang. Definitely not Motown as you’ve heard it before!

My choices? Well ‘I Still Hate You…_ Lavender Dreams’ by Blanketship is definitely recommended as well as these two:

Since I Decided to Go by Rokhausen – a manic jive through the Motortown’s back catalogue, humorous and funky and mad. My kind of track – fuck art let’s dance

Qulfus – Three Times Twice – I have several factors for why I choose the music for the blog and podcast, one of them is definitely if it makes me laugh. This is probably some kind of profane sacrilege dissing The Lionel but I love the slowed down re-edit/retake of the Commodore’s ever-green (and admittedly slightly mouldy) classic. Brilliant

If you like download the whole album here.

You might like these previous posts:

• It Aint Girl Talk… – June 23, 2008
• Pop of the Tops – September 23, 2008
• Shut Up And Ting – Ting Tings vs Shut Up And Dance – May 9, 2009
• Do or DIY are Awful Fun and Ultimate Ultimate Ultimate breakbeats – October 11, 2009
• Bhangra Bootay – August 3, 2009

Behold Dan Walsh’s genius Garfield minus Garfield; which is unusual in a whole  sea of C&D’s regarding derivative and transformative works of cartoon/comic characters is that Jim Davis is not only a fan but they did a book together. Very cool of Jim…as Dan points out the whole idea isn’t new, although the idea of deleting Garfield is new to me (previous works have changed or deleted Garfield’s responses (or all of them) or deleted Jon from the proceeds or added new characters).

I think this existential ‘Waiting for Garfield’ angst version of Garfield, while also funny in places is verging on art; the bathos and focusing on Jon’s mental state brings it into pop art territory in my mind. And also is perfect mashup territory being an excellent display of a transformative work where the original creator sees the value and humour in the new work, and not only is the new work allowed but both collaborate to make new ones with the book.

Contrast this with the war over Dysfunctional Family Circus.

Thanks to Solcofn for putting me onto G-G.

Oh and polka! Accordions! <3!

You might like these previous posts:

• New Adventures of Freud – May 25, 2010
• The theme is there is no theme mashup roundup (Lady Gaga mashed, new Kleptones track) – June 11, 2010
• monetize your eyeballs for transplants – July 19, 2010

I discovered this old Northern Soul gem on ‘Shoot the Piano Player’ records down the charity shop – who knew that Marvin Gaye and Mayer Hawthorne ripped this poor guy off? I ripped it from the original 7″ in glorious original mono just for y’all.

Marvin Hawthorne – I Heard You Were Ill (So I Bought You Grapes)

P.S. might be something to do with the GYBO Weekend Challenge

You might like these previous posts:

• The Best Disco in the World (and it didn’t play Disco) – May 9, 2010
• If you hate your printer…(Mistabishi Printer Jam vs Office Space) – March 25, 2009
• Radio Clash Show 36: Banana Heatwave! – July 15, 2005
• Saarbruecken – LV15 and Pilchard sets – May 22, 2009
• Quickie mashup #1: Fela Down The Chippy (Swears He’s Hot) – Fela Kuti vs Hot Chip – May 16, 2010

Third act: Our hero Captain Obvious travels to Ancient Greece and Babylon in search of Dionysus, Apollo, Silenus and Bacchus for a Bacchanal and to Xanadu where did Kublai Khan a pleasure dome erect (trans: a right royal knees up).

OK it’s not as pretentious as it sounds, but then again not many bootlegs contain quotations from Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy, Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, Dionysus, Babylon, Geoffrey Palmer AND Ian McKellen? Actually it’s a party record containing the new Scissor Sisters track ‘Invisible Light’ which is obviously a rip of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s ‘Welcome to the Pleasuredome’ – even down to the speaky bit. So I’ve reunited them via the Thomas Shumacher and Fruitness mixes of FGTH, and the Siriusmo and original mixes of Invisible Light in two parts.

First is the shorter radio* mix without the intros, slightly different structure at 4:40 – enter stage left the Silenus in Shorts mix:

Captain Obvious – The Light of Pleasure (Silenus in Shorts mix)

And the finale is my homage to the ZTT production team and their long extended DJ mixes I grew up with, usually including quotations (hence the Birth of Tragedy from the Fruitness mix – but both songs mention Dionysus/Bacchus too interestingly) so this at 7:33 is the Dionysus vs Apollo full length DJ mix.

Captain Obvious – The Light of Pleasure (Dionysus vs Apollo full mix)

Coming to an orgy near you…hopefully

* if I ever got played on radio that is…hurrumph. Actually the first Captain Obvious track was played on German radio on Mash Up Your Boots radio – thanks Dr Waumaui / Morgoth!

You might like these previous posts:

• I remember when, I remember when I lost my mind – January 1, 2010
• Warners Takedown – EFF want to hear – February 8, 2009
• Google’s ‘blogocide’ deletes music blogs – February 11, 2010
• RavEvil (2009 Prodigify Me Remix) – an original tune! – March 12, 2009
• Don’t Tase Me Bro! The return of DEVO – June 27, 2010

Another slice of cheesy rather obvious dancefloor fun from Captain Obvious – this time inspired by DJ Schmolli’s excellent Joan Jett vs Crookers ft Yelle mashup, I’d not heard the Crookers track before and immediately thought Laura Branigan’s hand-punching classic ‘Self Control’.

So here it is – not exactly genre-defining, full of cheese du guilt and probably not that original. I’d store it behind the breadbin and only get it out secretly on Sundays if I were you.

Oh I hope you like the artwork, again by the legendary JCBF Productions – last seen on those classic compilation cassettes in the early 90′s, they’ve come out of retirement just for the ol’ Cap’n.

This one also goes out to Felix Five

Self Couleur (Laura Branigan ‘Self Control’ vs Crookers ft Yelle – Cooler Couleur (Junkie XL mix))

You might like these previous posts:

• Captain Obvious Strikes! – April 24, 2010
• Know Your History part 1 – GYBO’s I Created A Monster – October 23, 2009
• Here comes the Santastic 4! New DJNoNo mash! – December 1, 2008
• Young Punx mashed – Simple Mashures by DJ Schmolli (Instamatic video mashup) – April 17, 2010
• Number of da Boots – Maiden Mashed! – July 9, 2007