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

First quickie mash as part of Jez CMP’s Weekend Challenge (to create a bootleg in a weekend) and as I don’t release things enough (sit on them for months > years) I thought like the CO bootleg to just get this out there to the usual deafening silence

The instrumental given was Hot Chip’s ‘One Pure Thought’ and it’s afrobeat drums reminds me of Fela Kuti, the king of Afrobeat, so here it is mashed with ‘Lady’ and a little bit of ‘Schuffering and Schmiling’. Given the sources probably about 0.5 people will get it, but if it makes one person (or 0.5 of one) check out Fela’s back catalogue such as Black President then job’s a good ‘un.

Oh and usual pop service will continue shortly

Fela Down the Chippy (Swears He’s Hot) – Fela Kuti vs Hot Chip

You might like these previous posts:

• Mashup – I Kissed a Monster (Katy Perry vs L7) – August 31, 2008
• Archives / mashups / broken links – March 9, 2006
• New mashup – Instamatic – Stalker Fever (Fever Ray vs Aphrodite) – March 1, 2010
• Radio Clash mentioned and played on WFMU’s Do or DIY show – October 9, 2005
• thanks to DJ Jay-R & new podcast – February 3, 2005

Liam McGranahan’s dissertation “Mashnography: Creativity, Consumption, and Copyright in the Mashup Community” as part of his doctorate from Brown University is available here, a ‘mashnography’ study into the ethnography of the bootleg scene. BTW timbearland = me, before my ‘fingertrouble’ namechange (I’ve also been on GYBO as ‘beardie weirdie’, ‘timbearcub, ‘instamatic’, ‘DJNoNo’ and about a million aliases, just to confuse the historians and dissertation writers out there ).

Slightly surprised since it is a ethnographic study that focuses on GYBO as much as Bootie that there aren’t more interviews with some of us original 2002 GYBO crowd, or indeed McSleazy (we are all quoted from GYBO threads interestingly). Also could cause a few stirs re: quoted comments about some people’s love/hate of GYBO (4 comments? really Partyben? Although I suspect that said Eminem mix is the one DJNoNo purloined the ‘Lose Control’ acapella via LOL…) but a pretty interesting read – includes a lot of the mashup politics, internal schisms, aims and ideas – not really news totally to me, but then I live it don’t I?

Although I disagree with the analysis of one of my writings:

“timbearland: ‘I don’t think you’d find many people here having a problem
with what you’ve said. I mean I’ve even worked for Universal Music and I
agree with you. They seem to usually be one of the better ones, so unusual
if they are doing a Warners. Sony BMG seems best and most flexible,
EMI and Warners historically the worst. UMG are usually in the middle.’

It is possible that certain record companies are more permissive of mashups than others,
but there is no discernable pattern. Rather, major labels appear to issue C&D orders based
simply on what catches the notice of the legal department. This may be the result of
media attention, Internet buzz, the objections of a sampled artist, or just random luck.”

I KNOW this to be the case – but it’s the problem of quoting me during a conversation with my peers without past knowledge – I wouldn’t have re-stated the backstory to this info for the 50th time as a long-term GYBO person most people there have heard it before. I’ve spoken to someone within Sony BMG who confirmed that they send out white labels and promos with acapellas and promote DJ remixes as a sort of focus group – at least within the RnB division they did. I know other labels who’ve paid for white label mashups to be pressed. There is a double standard there – some of the labels DO court unofficial remixes and mashups, others don’t, or in the case of EMI put out a Mashed compilation whilst CD’ing most of the mashup community, without understanding the irony. Universal according to one of their staff are ‘pretty clueless’ about the technology and not really aware enough of the internet to start throwing C&Ds around (until NirGaGa that is).

Coupled with the fact that of all the official and unofficial C&Ds out there, they are all mostly EMI, then Warners close by, then Universal – the NirGaGa one being a rare one – and then Sony. In fact only issue I ever had with Sony was ContentID restricting countries that could see a video on YouTube…compared to a C&D I got from EMI for using Kylie (where I had to do what Pilchard did and ‘duck and dive’ for a while) – this is positively benign! Sony being big in the interactive world, owners of ACID and also having a lot of hiphop/RnB/disco remix culture via BMG seem to in small part get it -as much as evil mega corps ever really get it.

That said, next week I’ll probably get a C&D from Sony, LOL.

You might like these previous posts:

• Warners Protest – January 18, 2009
• Pay to Play – your digital rights? – January 21, 2006
• CC mixter – legally mashup people’s tracks! – April 28, 2005
• Warners Takedown – EFF want to hear – February 8, 2009
• Legal mashups? Gowers review & Warners – December 6, 2006

Yup the classic Proclaimers vs 2 Bad Mice has a rather good video made by minnn07 – shame they don’t credit Soundhog for it for tis one of his classics – always gets the party started that one!

EDIT: ooh just seen Soundhog has uploaded this video for Freelance Hairdresser‘s ‘Knees Up Look Sharp’ – a Bastard classic. And a bootleg bastard pop, NOT a mashup ok? Oh and hurry up and download – sH’s site is going to go down on May 2nd…

You might like these previous posts:

• Radio Clash PodCamp set and video – September 7, 2007
• Radio Clash 79: Boot to the Old Skool (2001-2003) Part 1 – June 28, 2006
• Fleetwood Mix – Fleetwood Mac mashup LP – October 19, 2009
• Reckoner Lockdown video – October 12, 2008
• Warning to proto-mashup historians – ignore Wikipedia – July 7, 2010

So Cold The Freak (Communards vs LFO) by Fudge Tools (10000 Spoons) from Tim Baker on Vimeo.

OK so I was bored…and part of what happens when I’m bored I create mashup videos for lonely or new mashups that really need them cos they are the best mashups EVAH (it’s an ongoing project). I’d just gotten the video for ‘Freak’ by L.F.O. so *ding* lightbulb moment decided to create a quick video for one of my favourite mashups OF ALL TIME – So Cold The Freak (The Communards ‘So Cold the Night’ vs L.F.O. ‘Freak’) by Fudge Tools, which we all now know is 10000 Spoons (well you do now – but he ‘fessed up officially when GYBO went all swanky).

The video for ‘Freak’ is very odd, same territory as Cunningham and the Come on My Selector video – scary Japanese school children getting their freak on, originally to Leed’s finest but now with added Glaswegian camp as well. It works spookily well with The Communards in fact. Will also be on MutantPop TV shortly.

Also available on YouTube, dunno for how long for, seems like a roulette wheel nowadays:

You might like these previous posts:

• fudge tools in the place! – May 2, 2009
• DRM Bombscare – new DJNoNo mashup & Germany – May 18, 2009
• You’ve been GrungeRolled – Astley Gone To Heaven video – June 15, 2009
• Mashup videos of 2009 – December 7, 2009
• Instant YouTube Mashups – September 1, 2009

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.

You might like these previous posts:

• The theme is there is no theme mashup roundup (Lady Gaga mashed, new Kleptones track) – June 11, 2010
• Tik Tok! Poker Face! A Bland Romance! M-e-e-e-e-eH! Telephone! – April 11, 2010
• Videotones #2 – Kleptones – This Song Smells by BorisB – February 25, 2010
• Captain Obvious Strikes! – April 24, 2010
• Things I Never Posted But Didn’t Get Round To It – July 26, 2009

So here’s the first, a mashup idea that unusually came from someone else – namely Jeb 50PoundNote who asked why isn’t there a Nasty Girls vs Chewing Gum mashup in existence? A very good question indeed, and here’s the answer:

This comes in two flavours, the ’7″ Juicy Fruit’ mix and the ’12″ Bubblicious Genius mix’ – not edits actually totally different mashups, second one I did first as I didn’t have the Chewing Gum instrumental (it’s on the flip side of the 7″) so I used the Headman Dub and Mix, but then Gavin Reborn Identity kindly provided it to me so hence the other version. The DJ version is of course faster, about 126bpm if memory serves, and as Chewing Gum is seriously influenced by Tom Tom Club’s Genius of Love I added a bit of my favourite intro to that song and little bits scattered throughout.

Big thanks to Jeb, Gav and Thomas who apparently couldn’t stop dancing along (that is praise indeed )

Nasty Chewing Girls (7″ Juicy Fruit mix – Vanity 6 ‘Nasty Girls’ vs Annie ‘Chewing Gum’)

Nasty Chewing Girls (12″ Bubblicious Genius mix – Vanity 6 ‘Nasty Girls’ (That’ll Work remix) vs Annie ‘Chewing Gum’ (Headman Dub & mix) & Tom Tom Club – Genius of Love (extended))

UPDATE: Annie Strand herself (if it is her official account) tweeted about this mash! Woohoo! Thanks Glad you like it.

You might like these previous posts:

• Radio Clash 94: Halloween comes Early – October 15, 2006
• disco will never die – nowdisco nu-disco/neo disco long mix – April 29, 2010
• Radio Clash 99: San Francisco Pt 3 – Botox and Dreadlocks – December 7, 2006
• Rapture Riders goes legit – November 20, 2005
• Radio Clash 55: 1 Year Anniversary Slightly Listing Tim and Kirk Show, Part One! – November 29, 2005

So it’s nice when you hear something good which uses a mashup o’ mine – and here is a case in point, a random Mixcloud search revealed someone had used an Instamatic track in a dub/dubstep mix – namely White Witch Dub (Dubmatic version) (my track is 52mins in towards the end – but I recommend the whole mix so far). Thanks dreadbot – love the mix! I like the mixing he did with my track too…really made it dubbier, spacier…even mixed in some melodica in from another song! Cool…

And the whole mix starting with a clip from 2001 is ALWAYS a good’un in my book, esp for a dark spacey dub mix…

Moon Weed, Space Trash (Dub Have Mercy Pt. III ) by dreadbot

You might like these previous posts:

• Rapture Riders goes legit – November 20, 2005
• All you Can Eat 80′s! – July 6, 2008
• Fleetwood Mix – Fleetwood Mac mashup LP – October 19, 2009
• Radio Clash 122: Loud n’ Angry – July 6, 2007
• Pitchfork mashup article – August 19, 2005

1) “It’s Simon Cowell’s record company” - not strictly true. Syco is a subsidiary of Sony Music UK, but RATM’s label is another subsidiary in the states. Doubtful Simon will profit from RATM, possible if he’s got shares, but he could have shares in all companies for all we know. It will profit Sony but also Rage who are one of the most politically active groups. I’m happy to give them money, cos it’ll probably go to some good use. EDIT: they’ve announced that some of the proceeds are going to UK charity Youth Music and Shelter. I knew RATM would do that; great charities also.

Also may I remind you there are only 4 main record companies now, at least ones that have infrastructure to get a Xmas #1 or mass recognition. So you only have 1/4 chance of hitting a Sony product anyways. Sure you have some hits and novelty hits from the few smaller companies but they are rare – you’d think this might have changed in the digital age, but it hasn’t. Even the likes of XL had to band together with other labels to negotiate with iTunes et al and STILL got stiffed. Also many of the smaller hits when they rise up the charts get distribution deals with those big 4, so back to them again.

Also Sony is one of the less evil corporations – EMI and Warners give people hell over remixes and mashups, UMG via Interscope just got my videos pulled on YouTube and Myspace. Sony BMG I know encourage people to remix their stuff, at least in the R’n'B arena, and they’ve been like that since disco days I think. Certainly never got a DMCA or C&D from them. They see whitelabels and DJ remixes quite rightly as free promotion of their acts, although I’m sure if you start selling CDs in mass quantities like all record companies they would be down on you like a ton of bricked iPhones.

2) “It’s silly” or “It won’t change anything” – This is a funny one, especially as people tend to decry apathy in this day and age. You don’t get to choose what people power is used for, I’d prefer (and would fight) for it not to be used to lynch immigrants, but usually it’s for good purposes. What’s good in this? you might think.

Well it’s a symptom of an interesting shift where Facebook and Twitter are being used for real and not so real political action from MP expenses to Trafigura and Iran and yes Xmas single campaigns. The good is that people are actively doing something and being passionate, those groundswells could be used for great good (and evil) but if the original motivator is something other than self-interest and oil – from music lovers hating X-Factor’s damaging hold on their chart to climate change and making sure MPs are not hypocritical. It’s all part of the same movement.

So no, it’s not ‘silly’ – it’s a bit of fun. As Eric Kleptone said about this in Facebook:

“Anyone that thinks it’s about the cash is really missing the point, in my opinion. Ever bought anything from a joke shop? Something from a pound shop you really didn’t really want but looked daft? It’s a fun thing to do, a wheeze! a jape! it’s like sticking drawing pins on your teacher’s chair and then sitting in the back of the class sniggering, waiting for him to come in. It won’t *do* anything other than cock a snook at someone that has more power and influence than you’ll ever have, but if there are cocks to be snooked, my god, I’ll be right there helping out.”

The other response he had that maybe people should think about where they spend money always rather than just this time was also totally on the money, too.

But being able to send that message, even a silly one, may or may not worry the likes of Simon Cowell (I think it might) but if it succeeds it will make a lot of people feel warm and fuzzy about campaigning online so maybe next time when it’s more serious, they’ll take part. And make certain people higher up nervous or aware of the power of such campaigns widening from being a bunch of geeks with too much time on their hands to mass democracy.That for me is what it’s about.

Oh and blowing a raspberry to Simon Cowell, that too

EDIT: 3) ‘It’s not appropriate’ ‘it has the word fuck in it’ – well unlike BBC Radio 5 Live who should have guessed they’d swear live on air, the band seem to have more grasp of the allure of the song, it’s central message ‘Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me’. In these sanitised photoshopped times, where bland yet hypocritically faintly shocking is king; there is a need to shake things up – not just for controversy but for wider reasons. The power of the media corporates which is now mostly the same as the record labels, the government clamping down on protest and even 3strikes, privacy online, CCTV and ‘terrorist’ monitoring (you can tell I’ve been reading Cory Doctorow’s ‘Little Brother’ can’t you?) is an undercurrent that is boiling under all this jovial seasonal ‘fun’ unrest. It’s a wider issue of censorship and taking back culture. ‘Take it back’, taking back ownership from the spoon-feeding media giants.

So remember to go buy RATM’s Killing in the Name Of before Saturday midnight; the X-Factor Joe Elderwotsit’s CD *boo hiss* goes on sale today.

You might like these previous posts:

• Rage Against the X-Mas Factor – December 13, 2009
• Rage Against the Machine makes Xmas #1 – December 20, 2009
• I’ve been quoted in a Mashup PHD Dissertation… – April 18, 2010
• Saving 6 Music & Asian Network: Peel would be spinning in his grave – March 2, 2010
• Brilliant documentary on the State of the Music Industry – October 18, 2009