skip to main |
skip to sidebar
My man SF, who figures into the story about the Whitney vs. Fugazi mashup, has a blog now. You can read This New American here (http://thisnewamerican.blogspot.com).I'm not ready to take back all the nasty things I said about blogs and those who read them, but you could certainly be forgiven for reading TNA (no entendre intended). It's way more interesting than this, and SF doesn't subject you to advertising, shameless self promotion, and weeks on end without a post (at least not yet...). If anyone could take the "blah" out of blog, it would be SF.SF gives his take on the aforementioned mashup here. My recollection of our ancient kerfuffle differs slightly. As I recall, the debate (such as it was) went something like, "But dude, Depeche Mode sucks." "Dude, Fugazi sucks." [mutual angry stares] Despite this and other equally mature and relevant fallings out, SF stuck around, cause that's how family do. Besides, now I make Depeche Mode mashups and SF goes to punk rock shows, so I guess we both got the last laugh. Speaking of family, even Monty showed up in this post. What's up, Monty? The blogosphere is a funny place -- you never know who's going to show up.J, who also figures into the story, is now the future Mrs. SF. Congrats -- I could not be happier for them.
Lastly, I'm not sure who "This New American" refers to. SF's people, like mine, have been here for a minute. Maybe he will grace us with an explanation in a future post.
Dean Gray Tuesday is December 13, one week from today, and I'll be participating. You can read about this to your heart's content elsewhere, but here's the skinny --
Dean Gray is the moniker for a team of producers who created a mashup album entitled "American Edit." Green Day's album "American Idiot" supplies much of the source material. (The name Dean Gray is itself a mashup of the name Green Day.) Ten days after "American Edit" was posted on the Internet, Warner sent Dean Gray a cease-and-desist letter.
Out of protest, for 24 hours, a group of DJs, home producers, and mashup enthusiasts will play the album on the air and post it on the Internet. I'll be one of those posting it on my site. However, if you're interested in taking part in the protest by downloading the album, go to the American Edit home page (http://www.americanedit.org) next Tuesday instead of my page. That way, the organizers get a somewhat accurate count of how many people participated.
I'd like to think I would take part in Dean Gray Tuesday even if "American Edit" were a crap album. It so happens it's not: It's a masterpiece of the genre. To me, this case is about a lot of things -- artistic freedom, corporate control of music, narrow conceptions of art -- but it's not about copyright infringement or piracy. It's obvious five seconds into it that "American Edit" is not "American Idiot," and it's certainly not competing for album sales. "In fact, the only possible profit to be made from the release was a plea from the creators of the album... for fans who enjoyed the creation to donate to one of three possible charities that Green Day have been known to support" (http://www.americanedit.org/home/ae).
In any case, people should be able to hear it and judge for themselves, and that's what will happen next Tuesday. I hope you'll join in.
"Whole World Loves Jesus"
http://noddables.cannedoxygen.com/jesus.mp3I wouldn't say the whole world loves this mashup. But, to my surprise, it has made the rounds.
I posted it at Get Your Bootleg On (http://gybo.org) on Sunday and, at last count, my posting had 660 views (that's a lot for me). So far, three listeners -- from Denmark, Germany, and "West of France," respectively -- have left replies.
After googling myself (a favorite pastime), I found two sites have linked to this mashup as well, which is awesome. One is in France (http://www.bootlegsfr.com) and one in the Netherlands (www.mashculture.nl). I'd never visited these sites before, so it was cool to find one of my "compositions" there.
Thanks to everyone who gave this a listen, and especially to those who linked to it!
EDIT: More than 7000 people have downloaded this mashup. Wow! If you haven't already, get on the bandwagon. (What else are you doing for the next 30 seconds?) Also, you can see all links to Noddable Industries (that I could track down) at the post Who's Nodding Now.
This is probably obvious, but it bears repeating:
Copyrights to all the songs I mash up belong to the original artists. Mashups are just demonstrations, and they're just for entertainment -- they are not intended for commercial distribution, by me or anyone.
If you like what you hear, by all means check out the originals. I've made it easy for you with these Amazon.com: So You'd Like to... lists.
Notable omissions:
"Pick Me Up" off the album Gazelle by Marianne Hyatt. To find out where you get the album, click here.
"Stomp That" remix by Beat Chemist. His MySpace page is here.
As you may know, my mashups have a new home: http://noddables.cannedoxygen.com/
TinyUrl did a valiant job of making the urls from my personal pages look like less of a joke, but I vastly prefer this setup.
And, as you know if you're looking at this page, there are now ads on this blog. As I've mentioned before, if you're reading this or any blog, you already have a high tolerance. A few ads won't kill you. If you just want to get to the music already, just click on the link above. It's still clean and ad free. Basically, I'm trying to get love from Google in any way I can. It seems like the long way around to optimizing my site, and I'm not even sure if it will work, but I'm giving it a shot. Maybe I'll make enough in ad revenue to pay for Web hosting.
"Rave That Dirt Down Off Your Shoulder" (http://noddables.cannedoxygen.com/so_emo/dirt_down.mp3)My first ever attempt at a mashup was far too ambitious for my nascent skills. It would take actual musical knowledge--you know, of keys and stuff--to complete. (I have worked on a scaled-down version, but you may not ever hear that one, either.)Anyway, Jay-Z vs. Swervedriver is the first mashup I actually completed. I must admit, a lot of credit (or blame) goes to Jay-Z for making these acapellas widely available. If I hadn't actually finished this mashup, I may have long since quit altogether.I think, were Jay-Z's fans to hear of this mashup, they'd be like, "Great...another Jay-Z mashup." I haven't actually investigated that--it's just a strong hunch. On the other hand, unlike Jay-Z remixes, I don't think Swervedriver remixes come out every other minute.
So, when I had this in a halfway listenable form, I ran it by the good folks at Swervedriver.com (http://www.swervedriver.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=372) who provided some helpful comments. (In all fairness, WTS also made many of the same comments. However, he is half deaf, so you can't blame me for seeking a second opinion.)
"So Emo" (http://noddables.cannedoxygen.com/so_emo.mp3)
"So Emo" is a mashup whose origins are complicated and rambling.One day, my buddy SF called me and told me he had a mashup I had to hear. He played it over the phone, and I recognized Fugazi's "Repeater" but couldn't tell what the vocal over it was. I got the idea that it was Whitney Houston's "So Emotional." Because I couldn't hear it clearly, I had to figure out how it went in my head. Then I told LS about it. Not knowing the Fugazi song, she asked me how the mashup would go. We sang it as a duet--her on the Whitney part and me on the Fugazi part. (LS has a fantastic voice when you can get her to sing.)The two of us had the acapella version pretty well down by the time we visited SF in Jersey, and we couldn't wait to hear the real thing. I'm sorry to say that, when we did, we were disappointed. It was actually Fugazi vs. Mariah Carey. Maybe SF had it mixed up--it was a white label, and therefore the record wouldn't have the information on it. Or maybe I had it mixed up. Either way, I think the Mariah song being mashed up was "Emotions," so the mistake was understandable.(No disrespect to the person who put together the Mariah mashup--it's a fine mashup. It's just that we were expecting something else.)SF wanted to know how we thought it would go, so LS and I rocked it live. He and J were cracking up. At this point, I knew it had to be done, but it would be another five months before I could. I had it finished around midnight on 12/22. Dare I say it was a Xmas miracle.
"
Canaryz is Out Tonight" (http://noddables.cannedoxygen.com/so_emo/canaryz.mp3).Jaylib is a collaboration between Jay Dee (aka J Dilla) and Madlib, probably my two favorite hip hop producers. The Jaylib song is called "Starz" and in this case, it's Dilla on the beat and Lib on the verses. The Liz Phair song is called "Canary" and it's one that, years ago, I brooded over a lot. It just popped in my head again for no good reason.This was my second successful attempt at a mashup (the first was Jay-Z vs. Swervedriver). When I started this one, I realized I had a self-control problem. I didn't even like it--the piano sounded nice over the beat and that was about the extent of my curiosity--but I kept at it anyway.The first draft was passable. Lib took a verse, Liz took a verse, that was about it. (And on the Liz verse I was trainwrecking all over the place.) But it was everyone else's favorite, which made its incomplete state all the more annoying. So, this weekend, I finished the second (and, I hope, final) draft. It's now got a few more things that every song should have: an intro, a chorus, and reversed-out piano at the end--and I fixed the trainwrecking, for the most part. Now I actually like it. Dare I say it's a song.
Mashups are taking over my life--or, at least, my brain and a lot of my free time. I appreciate that they are not taking over your life so, instead of sending you an unsolicited e-mail every five seconds about something new I've done, I'm using this blog as an outlet for my compulsion.Make no mistake--I strongly dislike blogs. I am fully aware of their literary limitations (and my own). I'm not trying to take the "blah" out of blogs--I'm not sure it's possible. However, I want to keep the design of my mashup page clean, and put all the useless information over here, where it belongs. Not to mention that Google does not look for personal Web pages like the one I use. But maybe Google will find it if I use it's blog and link it all up.So, the mashup page is here (http://noddables.cannedoxygen.com/). I'll be updating it and providing the running commentary at this blog. I sincerely hope you enjoy it.
