The final part of this journey down bootleg history lane is probably the biggest project, covering all tracks from Blur’s legendary Parklife album, A-sides and B-sides in 2 CD set to honour it’s 10 year anniversary of release.

Conceived by McSleazy and helped out by RadioQuita then from Strangely Familiar and created as with London Booted from the people on Get Your Bootleg On messageboard, it came out a few months after the aforesaid Clash album and again was popular with many blogs.

This one didn’t get an physical release so probably in some ways is rarer, but there are some real gems on there. The star-studded international assortment of bootleg & mashup DJ names you’ll probably recognise (or should seeing what they went onto) that contribute tracks are Loo & Placido, Lenlow (Bootie Boston), Go Home Productions, McSleazy, Pojmasta and JoolsMF (both also the people behind DJ Hero creating most of those mixes), DJ Payroll, Gameover, Dunproofin, Mixomatosis, FakeID aka Lionel Vinyl/Geek Chic Soundsystem, DJ Tripp and Josh Console aka cry on my console (Pirate Soundsystem/again DJ Hero) and many more.

My tracks? Well I still stand by my b-side ‘Golden Beard‘ by my alter-ego ‘timbearcub’ – later just ‘tbc’ the world’s worst DJ name – as one of my best ever, Slowdive meets Nina Simone and only 3.4 seconds of Blur’s frankly terrible jazz-wankathon ‘Beard’. ‘Godlife‘ – well I love the intro, but really the Acapella of Doom although being in key (I checked, both are Eminor Dm or something) claimed another victim. It’s those evil Beach Boys harmonies…goes in to the ‘not bad, could do better folder’ really.

I’ve included both artworks (the ones shown here are by myself, the bumper cars/whippet) and an interview done by theconfidential with all the people involved and RadioQuita.

Girls who are boys who like boys to be girls who do boys like they’re girls who do girls like they’re boys can download the zip file via Mediafire here (164Mb) or failing that (and only if it doesn’t work) then try the direct link here which should never change (warning: any hammering of my server or sharing of the direct link and I will take it down again!).

Disc 1 – Parkspliced album

1. Blur – Grrls & Bots (JoolsMF and Duff Fader)
2. Blur – Tracy Jacks (McSleazy)
3. Blur – End Of The Century (Gameover)
4. Blur – Godlife (Instamatic)
5. Blur – Bank Holiday (Payroll)
6. Blur – Goodhead (Jet Set Alex)
7. Blur – The Cassette Dissector (10000 Spoons)
8. Blur – Even Further Out (Pop Razors featuring m3)
9. Blur – No Blur No Cry (Loo and Placido)
10. Blur – Londinium Loves (Go Home Productions)
11. Blur – System Error in the Msg Centre (FakeID)
12. Blur – Naughty Dover Girl (DJ Tripp)
13. Blur – Magic America (Fujikato)
14. Blur – Jubilee (Fujikato)
15. Blur – Is This A Bootleg? (Dunproofin and m3)
16. Blur – Lot 1110101111001101010105 (cry.on.my.console)

Disc 2 – Parkspliced B-sides

1. Blur – Hey Magpie (Ilunga)
2. Blur – People In Europe Spread Love (Miss Frenchie)
3. Blur – Pojjy Waltz (Pojmasta)
4. Blur – Peter Panic and the Wolf (Lenlow)
5. Blur – Miracle on Threadneedle Street (Faultside)
6. Blur – You Can’t Go To The End (Mixomatosis)
7. Blur – Goldenbeard (timbearcub)
8. Blur – Shop Like A Britpop Millionaire (DJ Nite)
9. Blur – Theme From An Imaginary Chameleon Affair (CompactRisk)
10. Blur – Red Neck (Bad Tattoo)
11. Blur – Alex’s Hidden Place (Softbot)
12. Blur – Got Yer Album Dun (DJ Porky)

via Podcasting News

‘Before The Music Dies‘ is a 2006 documentary about the state of the music industry without the shrill discussion about filesharing and that particular RIAA Weapon of Mass Distraction and very welcome because of it. Made by music lovers FOR music lovers; it interviews many people from Eric Clapton, Elvis Costello, a wonderfully on form Erykah Badu, Dave Matthews, Branford Marsalis and many more known and unknown. It covers the main reason that the music industry is changing and it’s not filesharing – the major corporations and their conservative management and lack of artist development and swallowing of radio – the homogeny of culture (monoculture) created from that.

The big 4 would like you to believe the 800-pound gorilla is filesharing and the internet, but largely it’s a convenient excuse for a bland-ishment and lack of support for artists and focusing purely on the bottom line – I mean how many major groups and artists you hear now have been dropped, still big/known ones which surprise you? It’s quite a lot – because unless you provide the hits then you’re out. People will support the music they love, and will fall in love with new music – but if you pump 80’s channels and the same old crap at them then yes they will switch off and treat it as background. It’s not the video game nor is it the internet that is killing music for the youth – it’s lack of innovation, creativity and support from the modern likes of John Hammond and Ahmet Ertegun that is killing music. Push bland Beyonce and Britney and tried and tested retro ‘hits’ at people and don’t provide anything new, of course the kids are going to drift off and do something else, or treat the music as wallpaper. For it IS wallpaper. Aural brainmulch candyfloss wallpaper.

But also this culture of fame, celebrity creates something far more worrying – something I’ve been talking with John recently is that people expect more and more instant feedback, they’ve become X-Factor fame junkies, it’s devalued in their eyes unless it’s somehow BIG and SUCCESSFUL. As far as I can tell it permeates all fields – not just music; many places where business has a grip on the cultural psyche – from the modern social spaces such as social media, to the older spheres such as broadcasting and education.

The worse thing about that is it can make artists devalue their own work in their own eyes, this drip drip drip brainwashing that X-Factor Pop Idol Heat magazine type successes is the benchmark of what’s good – or people don’t even try or embarassingly like the first auditions of X-Factor think they don’t have to practice or learn…the myth of the overnight success is very dangerous (and false – as people have pointed out their 5-10-15 years of ‘day’ working at their skills previous to that ‘night’) It’s turning yourself into a brand and product, and the alienation that entails – which as in the film if you are your own boss and company can be liberating, but most often than not you are a corporate puppet.

And when you have the likes of Cerys on BBC 6Music – a niche music lover’s radio station on DAB, publicly funded and thus removed from the need to be commercial – stressing that she might not get away with playing an 18 minute tune as I heard a few days ago, then you know something is extremely wrong in the state of Denmark (St). The idea of advertiser-friendly 4 minute songs has trickled into areas that shouldn’t need to care about them, in fact it’s in the remit NOT to be like other commercial radio, well that’s worrying.

The metrics the BBC is using – of RADAR and RAJAR figures – to justify it’s programming is the same as commercial radio, so to keep the ears they employ the same tactics and the same people, even if it goes against the very same idea of public broadcasting. They should be serving the niches and areas that are increasingly not filled by commercial interests, it’s not elitist it’s what their public remit is. Again and again though they defend their increasingly populist programming (even in the case of the newer digital stations there is no need to be) with audience figures. It’s meaningless. It should be more about audiences served and their happiness that they have some home and diversity in the bland homogenity of stations, rather than Strictly Come Dancing ratings war replicating the worst of commercial broadcasting. Worthy and treating your audience as intelligent is not wrong; and it’s dumbing down which is the real crime.

And it’s not just in media – the Success Factor plugs into so many things, people won’t watch or value a video unless it has 100,000s of views, won’t value someone’s contribution as ‘official’ unless they have 1000s or 100,000s of friends on Twitter or Facebook, won’t think a website or blog is big until it gets a lot of comments (although ironically most readers are passive and don’t comment). The celeb magazines are just a glamorous if inane symptom of a much deeper cause; what I call the numbers game. And most of the numbers game is actually faked as much as that BalloonBoy – people puffing up figures, fake sales, payola, fake comments, fake hits, SEO trickery and bullshit, autofollows and fake accounts. Why can’t we evaluate something on it’s own worth? And conversely work at stuff without expecting immediate reward or placing value systems on it that eventually suffocate the creativity? Is that so hard?

Branford Marsalis says it best in the video, 1hr 4mins in:

“What I’ve learned from my students is students today are completely full of shit. That is what I’ve learned from my students is that much like the generation before them the only thing they are interested in is you telling them how right they are and how good they are.

That is the same mentality that basically forces Harvard to give out B’s to people that don’t deserve them, out of the fear that they’ll go to other schools that will give them B’s and those schools will make the money.

We live in a country that seems to be in this massive state of delusion, where the idea of what you are is more important than you actually being that.…yeah my students all they want to hear how good they are and how talented they are. Most of them aren’t really willing to work to the degree to live up to that”

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.

This article in Technology Review includes a interview with me – it sprang out of the anti-Girl Talk post I made on Radio Clash where I posted examples that were far better that don’t get Pitchfork’s tongue up their arse (bitter? me? why yes when it’s so meh!).

It also has interviews with several other people that have been featured or played on Radio Clash – the ever-lovely DJ Earworm (as interviewed on the podcast in 2005, and regularly played on the show and I made the approved video for the Reckoner Lockdown mash mentioned in the piece) and Lenlow who’s mashes I’ve played many times on the show.

The interview – well I had a great 1-2 hour chat with Larry Hardesty, lovely journalist who had done his homework (so many journos don’t – it’s why I wanted to make sure he had all the info – a lot of the stuff in the article is stuff we talked about, like the acapella sources but I didn’t want to go into proper print saying something like ‘Yeah Tim told me how to get acapellas from video games’ – err nope. I may be punker than Girl Talk – not hard – but I’m not stupid .

And nice to see he agrees with me about Stairway to Bootleg Heaven – it is the best mashup, ever as I told him

When i interviewed rx oh so many years ago, I did ask him if he’d do more UK-related cutups – nice to see he’s finally done one (well it’s the second if you count ‘Should I Stay or Should I go’

In other related news, the twitter was ablaze with questions for David Cameron this morning via Reuters, Documentally and Sizemore and co., but looks like the Tories didn’t totally understand social media. Ah well…not our loss