I’ve been keeping tabs on the whole NirGaGa Saga, where DJ Lobsterdust’s Nirvana vs Lady Gaga got a Cease and Desist recently from EMI, as well as Bootie for putting it on their Best of Bootie 2009 CD.

I’ll let DJ Lobsterdust describe the timeline in his own words:

september – Nirgaga (Nirvana vs. Lady Gaga) gets posted. GYBOers give it the thumbs down. several online blogs declare it is the worst mashup I’ve ever done. I move on.

a few months later Nirgaga gets played at bootie, the (drunk) punters love it. A+D declare Nirgaga is now a bootie anthem.

early December – the track is featured on the Best Of Bootie 2009 CD. The CD goes viral and gets mentioned in countless mainsteam outlets.

late December – Twitter & Youtube go gaga over the mashup, MTV and the Wall Street Journal mention Nirgaga on their websites. Twitterati claim it’s one of the greatest mashups ever, youtubers demand I be burned alive for making it.

early January – EMI sends me (and also A+D) a Cease and Desist letter, we pull the plug on Nirgaga. The saga ends (for now).

And most interestingly, EFF have now taken an interest – one of the first mashups to do that, if not the first. That is a very good sign.

Anyone who reads/listens to Radio Clash knows my hatred of EMI – long standing due to a C&D I got from them in 2004 for using an official acapella they released (how stupid is that?)…

I have to say (cos I tell it like it is, yes I know but it’s a package deal don’t look like that) the mash itself is merely OK, not a fave of mine for the reason that ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ has been mashed to death since it’s release, from Call It What You Want to Tin man and Smells Like Teen Booty and about 9,000 more of the suckers…’Smells…’ will go with most tracks and sadly has been (and I hate Lady Gaga) but if the likes of EFF want to fight EMI over it, I’d more than get behind that.

P.S. I wasn’t one of the GYBO thumbs down people Lobsterdust was talking about though, I like most people hadn’t heard the track until A&D started raving about it Certainly as a mash it polarises opinion, which is a good thing – like the comments I get on the video I did for Earworm’s Radiohead vs Kanye mash, some people think certain acts are inviolate and should not be tarred with the pop brush – here’s some funny examples from NirGaGa’s YouTube page:

this is the worst that someone could do to a great song, fuck ugly lady gaga and her stupid talentless songs!!! The guy who made this should be burried alive

THIS IS MUSICAL BLASPHEMY!!!!

This is the worst thing I’ve ever heard. This should be removed on principal alone!!!

AWFULLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can’t believe someone would do this to a great Nirvana song!!!!!

But don’t hold back, say what you think – did you like it? LOL.

For that Lobsterdust I salute you – it’s hard to get a true marmite reaction – and I have to say there are quite a few positive responses too…it does seem to be a total love/hate track. Certainly EMI seem to be in the latter category
Oh and EMI would hate for you to click on this link.

The only time of the year I can trot this one out so I may as well work it (the rest of the year it lurks in the corner, gollum style sulking that it only gets the chance to shine for a few days a year)…this is ‘SCarey Xmas’ – Mariah Carey’s perennial ‘All I Want For Christmas’ given a right royal kicking by DJNoNo and Friends (those friends – in the Twitter ‘I don’t really know you’ sense – being Dillinja and Unknown Error, who actually make far more of a contribution than the estimable DoctorNoNo as he is also now called mWAHAHAHA!)

Also available for you festive-fiends, all one of you, is the video for Voicedude’s ‘It’s the Little Things’ the wonderfully strange combination of Blink 182 and BTrans Siberian Orchestraw, hich not only has recently made it onto A Very Bootie Xmas 2 but also his latest (?) Chrismash compilation which I can’t find the link for sadly – I note a re-pitched updated version…which isn’t this one. The video is Box of Delights which I might crack out again and watch. It’s one of my favourite books and TV series of all time.

Image by mclgreenville/ memorymotel

Yes the Radio Clash Fleetwood Mac LP is now a 5/6 track EP, and coming very soon – but you can hear djbc’s Fleetwood Mac track exclusively over at Bootie Top 10, and watch this space (this very post) in the next few days.

EDIT: it’s now launched and the EP became an LP – 8 tracks of delicious Fleetwood Mac Mashup & Remix action – including a new track from me!

I’ve been so busy only now have I had time for a proper ‘debrief’ of International Mash Bash in Saarbruecken – also wanted to wait til I had all the videos and pictures uploaded. There have been far better ‘debriefs’ such as Shiggi’s aka Defunkto who had far more exciting and dramatic time than me…so I’ll keep it quick.

Friday morning was stressed – I was running late and the supposed Stansted Express is anything but, stopping at the likes of Little Buttf**k, Essex for no apparent reason. I ran – well shambled – as fast as I could to the gate, to find this is the Uprising crew method of flying:

So I made it with plenty to spare, sadly Shiggi didn’t – as you can read in her report…and this wasn’t first of the RyanAir hassles – several of the Who Boys massive got surcharged with that ripoff scam where you have to print out your boarding card – to turn up with the booking number like you can on other airlines means you get a 20 or 40 quid charge! Horrible airline.

Anyway safely in ZweiBruecken, we met up with Andreas and made it to Saarbruecken on the coach…it was at the hotel I met DJ Fuller (who is crazy) and DJ M.i.f. again – he was also at Trier. After much wandering trying to find the other hotels, finding a massive German sausage met Bacon (ooh! Insert Carry On Style joke here) and DJ Fuller attacking children’s bouncy play areas in the high street, we eventually found and lured the Who Boys to the Alligator, a 1 Euro per drink dive near the Continental. As you might have guessed, this set the tone for the rest of the weekend.

I finally met up with John later – the hotel had despite me mentioning him on booking email, and asking about him that evening by name – had booked him into a seperate room! It was by pure chance we met, so went and had a nice Italian meal…totally wrecking my German acclimatisation. The club started at 11pm, and we got there at 11:15.

Modul is a great club, quite civilised with loads of places to sit, sofas (of which several varieties became Jimmi Jammes home for most of the weekend) and an upstairs and downstairs bar. To kick off was Andreas akamouzpusha doing his first ever DJ set, video’d by his dad – ahh…a rather bigger camera was the SaarTV who interviewed Andreas on the dancefloor despite Jez mit Horsehead going up behind him..

Here’s Morgoth DJing in the upstairs bar:

I danced to his set but my dancing ‘duck’ was broken earlier by Mr Whitelabel who played a great mashup of Pjanoo vs Robin S, and if there was a song of the weekend, that was it for me.

(Djing AND taking pictures? Man after my own heart)

And here’s the start of CMP’s set (the ‘You Bastard!’ you hear part way through was as I realised he was playing one of the tracks in my set. He theen went on and played the next track I was going to play in my set – in exactly the same order! Hence a quick set change/panic on the Saturday for me).

BTW may look a bit empty but that’s cos Fusion’s crowd cleared out at the end of his set before ; Jez had the floor packed in 1-2 songs after this.

The Who Boys disappeared for most of the night, and came back with strange tales of midgets and polish women. Here’s a sample of a new video podcast called ‘Friday Night With The Who Boys’ I am not producing

John was flagging so left around 1am ish – but I wanted to stay to the bitter end, mostly to hear LV15’s set at 5am. I didn’t know what to expect, but as it wasI think his first set in about 5 years, and apparently the last I wasn’t going to miss it…I wasn’t disappointed, it was the best set of the whole weekend for me – old skool drum and bass bootlegs, as I’ve posted here a few days ago. Total class, and was one of only two sets where I danced like a loon.

(Warning, audio is seriously not safe for work:)

So after that most of Saturday was rather quiet – John went off to visit the sights while I slept, then stirred around 1pm – well was actually awoken by a call by Robin aka Superelectro and practised my set, panicking that after CMP’s set it might seem a bit like a rehash. I calmed down, got my soundcard working with Traktor properly and felt a lot better. Stumbled out at around 4pm, looking for food and collided with the gang who were going down to the 6nul3 venue to show us where it was. It looked like a rundown secret cinema, and the poster had gone, rather worryingly.

Wandered around, got some food at a local Imbiss (the sausages are lovely!) and then drank in the Markt with the Uprising crew and Nick Deep Disco Force who was over from Trier…oh and Shiggi arrived! That was a pleasant surprise as we were all bummed she missed the flight…apparently she got in from Munich on the train at 4am. Ouch.

8pm: Soundcheck: oh dear. The place looks like a bunker and sounds like it, bass reflections all over the place. Their idea of soft furnishing and sound proofing is building the walls from those sorts of rocks you get in B&Q rockeries. Ouch. Set up my laptop and scarpered cos I was meeting John for dinner. A fraught yet nice affair – fraught cos I was nervous about my set, and the fact that I hadn’t been able to setup the projector.

Get back to the club with John, get lost finding the ’second floor’ til I learn it’s in the toilet. Cue much laughing (but later taken (a)back when I realise the acoustics were actually better in there) and learn the projector can’t be setup, as despite there being a big fuckoff strobe that’s always on, a projector will ruin the ‘ambience’. What ambience? Were they going for 60’s ski-resort torture dungeon that week? So it means my specially created hour-long video set is now going to be on TV only. Sigh.

Noise. The place is noisy. Even the ‘Second floor’ is noisy. Bass in your face and every other nook and cranny. John does not look happy as he’s agreed to stay for my set until 2am, so proceeds to get drunk. I can’t blame him. I partly join him, cos I am not looking forward to my set. Nick Deep Disco Force plays storm in the toilet, sorry second room, and I have fun taking pics in that room with it’s odd lighting.

My set rolls around, and I take to the ’stage’, well bit by the bar – it goes well for the first few songs, despite aggro trying to get the DVD to start with German OSX which Andreas sorts out (thanks)…but during the piano-house / modern AC Slater – Jack Beats style section I lose them…I couldn’t really work out what they liked, cheese? electro? rock? Strangely they seemed to react well to one of the earlier Metal bootlegs, and I’d not brought any metal – apart from Electro Sandman – in my set which they didn’t really like either. I’d gone for a surefire commercial electro/mashup floorfiller type set, demo’d elsewhere successfully, and it turned out to be far from surefire. I probably should’ve done ’silly’ but the point was to prove that I can do other things, like a credible set, like I’ve done successfully at Bootie or Eclectic Kettle. It failed.

Also I learned you can’t DJ in a top hat! I’ll be posting my set and my video in the next day or two so you can make up your own mind. Some of the bootleggers liked it – LV15 and Mrs Pilchard said nice things, which meant a lot. I stumbled off the stage into John’s arms – he thought it was wonderful, and no he doesn’t usually say that automatically The irony was I was half thinking of making it my last DJ set too, the response probably has made up my mind – if I was a good DJ I could’ve rocked that place. Oh well.

Still the night was young and I could now get very drunk and had nothing to worry about! Wayhey!

Pilchard went on and did a great set despite me knocking over his beer, and the soundsystem and then it was the Who Boys:

It was their retirement set, and sadly there weren’t a lot of people left by the time they went on, mostly bootleggers…the club was only partly full to begin with – not Andreas’s fault, the posters were everywhere and flyers in massive quantity – which we got to see when Andreas asked the owner if he had any flyers left and he pulled out a massive box full – not given out. Andreas was not pleased…tbh it seemed like the owner didn’t really care as he was selling the place.

But despite this the Who Boys played a brilliant set to the few people who were there. I danced like a loon, and it was great to see others like LV15 do too…

In the second room Shiggi was mixing up a storm playing house and later evil dubstep which reverberated the tiles and turned it into a giant bass unit – I wished I could be in both rooms!

So 5am comes around after Jimmi Jammes great set and taking loads of mad pics like these ones of ToTom and Shiggi with the Evil Strobe which was now on overdrive:

We walk to the after party where Ciaran Whitelabel will do his set as the 6nul3 is closing, to find that the other place has closed too – sorry Ciaran And we had a laugh as LV15 cajoled and told off everyone in the group, especially Scott Pilchard who had fallen off the wagon rather hard…and Shiggi and ToTom escorting him down the street…I stumbled into bed, but not after having breakfast at the hotel which Fuller and M.i.f. wangled every day – that man could talk the legs off a donkey, but knows how to get food and cheap alcohol, if you see DJ Fuller follow him for a good time

Despite my set etc. I had a great time in Saarbruecken, esp. the Friday, and pretty much all the sets rocked…it was great to meet more of the Europe contingent, from ToTom, Gaston, FM24, Morgoth, mad Danish posse, Fusion and Andreas – big thanks to him for organising this crazy catherding experiment. I hope there are many more!

You can find all the Saarbruecken pics that strangely appeared on my camera although I wasn’t taking pics, right? here.

Just heard from Amanda Shinji that the Parkade, one of the longest clubs in Second Life (nearly 3 years!!! That’s several lifetimes in SL) and the club I had a part in running and designing after Andy Asylum decided to stop running it is closing at the end of this month closed, gone, no more (see EDIT below for rant).

Here’s what she said:

As some of you know, I took over Parkade from Andy Asylum back in March 2007 and with the graphical assistance of the erstwhile DJNoNo Ulysses, we reopened the facelifted club in May 2007, on the now long gone Pontiac Motorati Island.

Pontiac left SL and the United Spinal Association took over the 7 sim complex, Parkade grew, with the slightly smaller replica of the Golden Gate Bridge out front and the small chill out area around the back… Same amazing crowd, same fun…

Last year, around June time, I moved Parkade to what was Kara Zor Isle and we had a giggle there, but the sim being sold forced me to move the club to it’s current location, Parkade Island. As you know, full sims aren’t cheap and I couldn’t afford to buy or rent one, so I rented a light use sim, which was adequate but then the delightful LL decided to stick their noses into what we did with these ‘buffer’ sims and called time on our antics, creating the Homestead sims, which then drastically limited the number of people who could use the places to 20. Not ideal for a club.

However, this wasn’t an issue, because with the decline in SL clubbing culture, only the diehard faithful hung around. We’d already lost a few DJs by then and what with the receeding crowds, we lost long time resident DJNoNo. However, we keep going and push on. Saturdays are still busy, with Walt’s Boot Camp nights and of course me n’ Diva taking it in turns before BootieSL, then there are Walt’s Sunday sessions and me on Thursdays… However, things aren’t picking up and it’s not just this club that is affected, others are too… Once great names like Republik are also suffering. Republik are in the same situation as Parkade too and thats a shame.

Anyway, enough about Republik. This is about Parkade here and this is where it gets tricky. I’ve taken the hard decision to close one of SL’s longest running clubs. What was started in 2006 is ending in 2009, by the end of this month. I’ve informed the company who I rent the sim from that I’ll not need it come the end of March and I’ll be removing the build permanently then. Parkade will cease to exist. It’s been one helluva rollercoaster ride, but the LL decision to limit numbers has been a huge factor in this, as well as cost too… I’m paying a lot for this sim and frankly, it’s not worth it any more.

So, this is it…

Well, so you’d think, no?

What if there was a “But…”?

But… this isn’t the end. Oh no. Parkade might be closing, but this isn’t the end.

I mentioned Republik earlier on. Republik on their class 5 sim, with a 100 person limit and the threat of closure due to financial issues and dwindling attendance… Well, guess what grrrls n’ bois? I’m moving to Republik!!

I’m going to be investing in keeping the sim afloat, along with the other owners, I too will be an owner of the club and between us and the management team, we’re going to relaunch the place, complete with a brand new club build that is almost finished and stunningly gorgeous. Even though I’m paying into the tier, I’m still saving money on what I pay now for this cut down excuse for a sim, so I win there, and I know that BootieSL and my sets will continue there and I’m hoping that Walt will come with me and bring his Saturday night and Sunday sets with him too, so if you lot come along, it’ll be like home, only darker and posher. Slightly

This isn’t the end, it’s the beginning. The beginning of something pretty damned cool. Myself, Sable, Lina and Jo are going to really push Republik in 2009 with some different strategies and ideas, plus I’m hoping to bring a live band from RL to perform in SL too and I’m not talking about some kids in a garage, this lot have supported Depeche Mode on tour

So, don’t be sad that Parkade is closing, be happy that the music, atmosphere and fun live on.

I am planning to sort out a farewell party soon, and I’ll post details of that when I’ve got it arranged.

Anyway, I’ve gone on long enough. I wanted to let you all know what is happening and I hope you realise this is for the best.

Thanks, and see you on the other side soon… Amanda xXx

I have to say I’m not surprised – as Amanda says the club culture and audience in SL has been tailing off for a while now – not to say there aren’t well attended clubs as I expect the new Republik will be, but certainly the tier-changes killed or consolidated a lot of smaller clubs and places in SL where I stayed (and meant a lot of my friends left), hence my decision earlier this year to stop DJing at the Parkade.

I wish Amanda all the best at the Republik, where Amanda’s night and BootieSL will continue, and a few more of the Parkade nights maybe, and I’ll definitely try to be at the last events at the Parkade for a tearful farewell. Thanks to Amanda and Andy for running a great club, it’ll definitely be missed.

EDIT: Due to the what I can only describe as what sounds like the SL version of a slum landlord (I can shorten it even further: C**ts) the Parkade is no more – Amanda thought she had until the end of the month and they foreclosed this morning…so I never got to say goodbye and the place is an empty island. This makes me very sad.

Really I have to say this is one of the major problems of SL – the fact that Linden Labs itself doesn’t really show a good example means that the place is full of shady and dodgy people – but it hurts Second Life as a whole – people don’t want to turn up to a club and find a stinking hole, or be messed around, or have the whole openspace debacle…they just leave annoyed and don’t come back. So what might be a quick buck for the landlords of SL and Linden Labs eventually damages the whole thing, and creative people leave, and it all just leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth.

This impermanence – the loss of popular areas like Fat Tiger for example, should be something Linden Labs is worried about – if you don’t have cool places for people to visit, then people will go away. And these places may be virtual but people do have real connection to them over years – so to just pull the plug immediAately with no warning is callous and just shows you what kind of people rent land in Second Life, somewhere below pond scum.