M Is FOR MASHUP - January 18th, 2012
Never Mash The Punk Rock! O Rly?
By DJ Useo
If you have any past familiarity with this weekly column on mashups, you'll know that the
Sound-Unsound
( sound-unsound.com/ ) mashup forum puts out themed mashup collections every so often. The last one was '
MASH A WAVE"
( groovytimewithdjuseo.blogspot.com/2011/10/sus-mash-wave-new-surf-mashups-album.html ) , a surf mashup album that I came up with the idea for. I regard the album as a huge artistic success, although I was disappointed that many apparently did not find much appeal with the idea of surf music, so they passed it by without listening before judging. Luckily couple thousand others disagreed, & got their rocks off to it.
Moving right along, we were gifted the next album theme of punk rock from SUS Moderator & gifted bootlegger Chocomang. The immediate concensus of the other moderators was 'this is a great album theme'. In fact it eventually became apparent that the lure of the punk style was drawing people outside of the SUS forum. Chocomang gave it an extra boost when he added a facebook page for the album, & invited some great international mashup artists to join in as well.
The record swelled to 2 discs by deadline, with multiple tracks by SUS regulars like mARKYbOY, me & Chocomang. Also offering great tracks were SUS members rillenrudi, G4Gorilla, MaxwellJump, DJ MXR & DJ Petrushka. Then comes the wonderful non-SUS members DJ Schmolli, ToTom, Michmash, MightyMike, & Comar who all devised super mixes that combined some strong element of punk with non-punk bits like hip hop, pop, & rock. All the contributors are worth mentioning, so lets not overlook Envision, Dra'Man, & Fissunix.
There's certainly a few better mashup albums out there, but no way are there better punk mashup albums available. This baby has bits of the Buzzcocks, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Green Day, & the Dead Kennedys, along with many more excellent punk acts. I did a check to see how much it would cost to clear the samples for proper label release. It would be generally around 1800 Simoleon if my figures bear up. Then of course there would be all the other costs associated with releasing any record. The covers, the pressings, the under-the-table bribes. lol. So we aren't releasing it with a label. The good news, then, is the record comes with no cost!
I hope you'll take a moment to download the 2 files that contain the album 'Never Mash The Punk Rock Mashup Album'.
Mirrored links are here
( chocomang.org/mashup/nevermash.htm ) In the time I've been writing this article, I see Chocomang & DJ Schmolli have added videos of two of their tracks. Sweet views indeed. If you like the album, have a great time pogo-ing & slam dancing, & if you didn't like them, there's another SUS themed mashup compilation coming down the pike a couple months from now. See ya then. ;)
Mix Of The Week
Lee Summers has another superb
DJMix.net
( djmix.net/ ) long mix available called '
I Am Out Of Here'
( djmix.net/LeeSummers/IAmOutOfHere/ ) . It's awesome new club tunes from the best new acts like Michael Calfan, Mord Fustang, & Voodoo & Serano. At just over an hour, it's essential listening mixed well by an established talent. You will enjoy!
Mashup Tip : Audacity ( audacity.sourceforge.net/ ) is a freeware audio mixing program that can give you the needed tools to make mashups.
Latest Useo Thing
Jim "Motorhead" Sherwood, aged 69, died last month but left a splendid musical legacy as a member of Frank Zappa's original Mothers of Invention. I would like to pay tribute to his talent with two new mashups I've made. The first is 'No More Mr Peace Corps' (Alice Cooper vs Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention). The second is 'Absolutely Roy' (Elton John vs Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention). I've been told they're massively weird. Haha.
Links posted here
( www.groovytimewithdjuseo.blogspot.com/2012/01/rip-motorhead.html )
Podgornio, The Mashup Psychic Predicts
Mashups will never receive their own category in any award shows. A true tragedy.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Coffee with Jesus
Cartoons and intelligence.
Matt Miller: Romney revives the Big Republican Lie (Washington Post)
Romney's dishonesty here is breathtaking. I used to think Republicans had taken chutzpah to unsurpassable new heights when they refused on principle to lift the debt ceiling last summer - despite having passed the Paul Ryan budget, which added more than $5 trillion in debt over the next decade.
Noah Smith: Seven principles for arguing with economists
Principle 1: Credentials are not an argument.
Example: "You say Theory X is wrong...but don't you know that Theory X is supported by Nobel Prize winners A, B, and C, not to mention famous and distinguished professors D, E, F, G, and H?"
Suggested Retort: Loud, barking laughter.
Calvin Trillin: ACI (Slate)
A new way of measuring pretentiousness.
Dennis Powell: What happens when humans try just about everything? (Athens News)
Think for a moment about coffee. When you read stories of the days of old, of biblical times or medieval times, you're probably impressed or horrified, whatever the proper reaction is to the tale being told. Not me. My first thought is, "And imagine, they did it without benefit of coffee."
Gretchen Rubin: Nine Common Myths About Clearing Clutter (Huffington Post)
One of my key realizations about happiness, and a point oddly under-emphasized by positive psychologists, given its emphasis in popular culture, is that outer order contributes to inner calm. More than it should.
Review by Jason Farago: "Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right; by Thomas Frank"
No figure on the American Left knows more about the American Right than Thomas Frank: columnist, editor, and hawkeyed observer of conservatism high and low. In 'What's the Matter with Kansas?,' his scathing 2004 classic on the politics of the American heartland, he shone a klieg light on the strange triumph of the Right in what was once the epicenter of the American populist movement.
Tom Shone: In Praise of the Golden Globes (Slate)
They're more fun than the Oscars, and they pick better winners, too.
David Bruce has 42 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $42 you can buy 10,500 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," "Maximum Cool," and "Resist Psychic Death."
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Thanks, Bosko!
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny but cold (by local standards).
UK Scientists Find 'Lost' Fossils
Charles Darwin
British scientists have found scores of fossils the great evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin and his peers collected but that had been lost for more than 150 years.
Dr. Howard Falcon-Lang, a paleontologist at Royal Holloway, University of London, said Tuesday that he stumbled upon the glass slides containing the fossils in an old wooden cabinet that had been shoved in a "gloomy corner" of the massive, drafty British Geological Survey.
Using a flashlight to peer into the drawers and hold up a slide, Falcon-Lang saw one of the first specimens he had picked up was labeled 'C. Darwin Esq."
Falcon-Lang's find was a collection of 314 slides of specimens collected by Darwin and other members of his inner circle, including John Hooker - a botanist and dear friend of Darwin - and the Rev. John Henslow, Darwin's mentor at Cambridge, whose daughter later married Hooker.
The first slide pulled out of the dusty corner at the British Geological Survey turned out to be one of the specimens collected by Darwin during his famous expedition on the HMS Beagle, which changed the young Cambridge graduate's career and laid the foundation for his subsequent work on evolution.
Charles Darwin
Opens Archives To Public
Rock Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is giving scholars and fans access to the stories behind the music.
The museum's library and archives are open to the public beginning Tuesday in a $12 million building at Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH'-guh) Community College, two miles from the hall in Cleveland.
Visitors will have the chance to explore photos, albums and covers, oral histories and scrap books that, until now, have been stored away. The Plain Dealer reports (http://bit.ly/yYyCzI ) that the collection includes some 3,500 books, 1,400 audio recordings and 270 videos. The library has a staff of eight full-time employees.
Rock Hall of Fame
Back On The Schedule
"Cougar Town"
Courteney Cox will get a whole lot of love from ABC for Valentine's Day.
The third season of Cox's comedy "Cougar Town" will premiere on February 14 at 8:30 p.m. -- in place of the network's ill-fated cross-dressing comedy "Work It."
Though "Cougar Town" had not yet received a season-premiere date as of late last week, the series' executive producer, Bill Lawrence, hinted at the scheduling move Friday night, tweeting, "Hoping CT's premiere date will be announced Tuesday. Fingers crossed..."
"Work It" lasted just two episodes before ABC pulled the plug. Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender groups ripped it before it even aired, saying it would hurt transgender people.
"Cougar Town"
Unions Agree To Merger
Hollywood
Two film industry unions are closer to merging.
The Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists announced Monday they have agreed to a plan to combine their unions. The announcement comes after nine days of talks between the unions in Hollywood and two years of negotiations between the groups to join forces in a bid to gain more leverage in contract negotiations.
SAG represents 125,000 actors, while AFTRA represents 70,000 professional performers, broadcasters and recording artists. Some 45,000 of AFTRA's members also belong to SAG. AFTRA supported a merger with SAG in 1998 and 2003 only to see those efforts fail.
SAG and AFTRA split acrimoniously in 2008 and decided to negotiate deals with the studios separately for the first time in three decades. The rift hurt SAG as TV studios sent most of their new work AFTRA's way. SAG maintains exclusive jurisdiction over feature films.
Hollywood
Returning In May
Valiant Comics
Valiant Comics is bringing its premiere hero back to the pages of comics after a nearly decade-long absence, debuting X-O Manowar in May and promising a hero that longtime fans will know but with new adventures that will carry him to new heights.
"Plenty of foundation was laid in the original X-O Manowar run, and when I went back and read those stories, the possibilities leapt out at me," writer Robert Venditti told The Associated Press on Tuesday. He said his goal is to "build upon the foundation that has already been laid. Of course, new characters and story elements will be introduced, but it will always be done with the aim of staying true to what has made X-O such a beloved character."
An X-O Manowar book was last on store shelves in 2002, which capped a decade-long run for the fifth century Visigoth who was ultimately kidnapped by aliens and taken into space. After donning a suit of sentient armor, he returned to 20th century earth where he became a hero.
During its heyday, Valiant, founded in 1989, sold 80 million comics with characters such as Shadowman, Armorines and Ninjak. It was later acquired by videogame maker Acclaim Entertainment, which used the characters for its games before it went out of business in 2005.
Valiant Comics
Fans Plan Last Vigil
Edgar Allan Poe
Is the "Poe Toaster" nevermore?
Edgar Allan Poe fans are planning one last vigil to watch for the mysterious person who for decades visited the gothic writer's grave on the anniversary of his birth.
The rose and cognac tributes of an anonymous man in black are thought to date to at least the 1940s. Notes left with the tributes indicate that the tradition passed to a new generation in the 1990s. But the visitor, dubbed the "Poe Toaster," hasn't appeared since 2009.
Poe House and Museum Curator Jeff Jerome says he'll wait one last time overnight Wednesday before calling an end to the tradition. He'll host a reading of Poe tributes Thursday, an event that may become a new tradition to mark the macabre writer's birthday.
Edgar Allan Poe
Takes A Satirist...
Hacking
A respected editor laid the blame for the country's phone-hacking scandal at the door of politicians and police on Tuesday, and said journalists did not need new rules but merely to observe existing ones.
Ian Hislop, editor of the satirical and investigative Private Eye magazine told a government-ordered inquiry into press standards that legislation was not needed because many of the tricks exposed by the hacking scandal were already illegal.
Hislop was appearing at the Leveson inquiry along with editors from the Times, Sunday Times and Guardian to urge the presiding judge to protect the country's cherished free press and show caution when considering new legislation.
"Most of the heinous crimes that came up and have made such a splash in front of this inquiry have already been illegal," he said. "Contempt of court is illegal, phone-tapping is illegal, policemen taking money is illegal. All of these things don't need a code, we already have laws for them.
"The fact that these laws were not rigorously enforced is again due to the failure of the police, the interaction of the police and News International -- and let's be honest about this, the fact that our politicians have been very, very involved in ways that I think are not sensible with senior News International people."
Hacking
New Movie
Kathryn Bigelow
A government watchdog group is suing the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency, claiming the agencies are refusing to release details of their alleged meetings and communications with director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal.
It has been alleged that Bigelow and Boal -- in preparation for the script to their Annapurna Pictures movie about the killing of Osama Bin Laden -- received classified information regarding his death.
Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act complaint -- which was obtained by TheWrap -- in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. The group says the DoD and CIA have not complied with its FOIA requests within the legally required 20 working days.
The DoD and CIA acknowledged they received the requests but said they couldn't release the alleged information, according to Judicial Watch. The DoD cited "unusual circumstances which impact our ability to quickly process your request," the suit says. The CIA said the agency was inundated with FOIA requests and couldn't respond within the legally required 20 working days, Judicial Watch claims.
Kathryn Bigelow
'Spider-Man' Producers Punch Back
Julie Taymor
Producers of Broadway's "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" have fired back in their legal fight with one-time director Julie Taymor, claiming the woman who they once called a visionary later failed to fulfill her legal obligations, wrote a "disjointed" and "hallucinogenic" musical, and refused to collaborate on changes when the $75 million show was in trouble.
In a countersuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Taymor and her company, LOH Inc., the producers argued that the show "is a success despite Taymor, not because of her."
The lawsuit, which quotes from several private emails from members of the creative team, further exposes the deep rift that has opened between former collaborators who seemed to have reconciled - at least through forced smiles - on the red carpet this summer when the musical finally officially opened.
Taymor, who had been the original "Spider-Man" director and co-book writer, was fired from the musical in March after years of delays, accidents and critical backlash. The show, which features music by U2's Bono and The Edge, opened in November 2010 but spent months in previews before officially opening a few days after the Tony Awards in June.
In the new filing, the producers' counterclaims assert the copyright claims are baseless. They also argue that although Taymor was paid to co-write and collaborate on the musical, she refused "to fulfill her contractual obligations, declaring that she could not and would not do the jobs that she was contracted to do." They claim Taymor repeatedly refused to work on changes with other members of the production team.
Julie Taymor
Sets New Conditions
Los Angeles
Actors in adult movies filmed in America's pornography capital would be required to use condoms under an ordinance granted final approval Tuesday by the Los Angeles City Council.
The measure, adopted 9-1, next goes to the mayor for his signature. Before it can take effect, however, the City Council has ordered police officials, the city attorney and others to hold meetings to figure out how it might be enforced.
The council's second and final vote to approve the law was taken without public discussion on a day when most of the porn industry's major players were in Las Vegas preparing for Wednesday's opening of the Adult Entertainment Expo, their industry's largest trade event.
Several industry officials condemned the move as being an unneeded exercise in political correctness that cannot be enforced.
Los Angeles
UK Museum Attacked Over Links
Natural History Museum
Experts at a leading British museum should pull out of a European-funded study into tiny particles because one of their partners is an Israeli company that operates in the occupied West Bank, British scientists and public figures said Tuesday.
More than a dozen scientists, some from leading British universities, wrote an open letter with film-makers Mike Leigh and Ken Loach calling on the Natural History Museum in London to stop working with Israel's Ahava, which makes skincare products from Dead Sea minerals.
The group said Ahava works on Israeli-occupied land on the West Bank, "where it extracts, processes and exports Palestinian resources to generate profits that fund an illegal settlement."
Most countries say Israel's West Bank settlements are illegal, but Israel disputes this. The argument plays a central part in the stalled peace talks in the region.
"It is extraordinary, but true, that one of our great national museums is co-ordinating an activity that breaks international law," the group wrote in the letter published in Britain's Independent newspaper.
Natural History Museum
Wants Money Back
Garth Brooks
Country music star Garth Brooks is suing an Oklahoma hospital, saying it reneged on a promise to name a building after his late mother in exchange for a $500,000 donation.
Brooks' lawsuit against Integris Canadian Valley Regional Hospital in Yukon seeks the return of the December 2005 donation. The trial began Tuesday.
Brooks says hospital officials showed him mock-ups of buildings bearing Colleen Brooks' name and told him his donation was earmarked for such a project.
The hospital denies any wrongdoing and in court filings says Brooks' donation was "anonymous and unconditional."
Garth Brooks
German State Questions Publication Plan
Mein Kampf
A state government in Germany is looking at legal measures to prevent a British publisher's plans to reproduce excerpts from Adolf Hitler's infamous memoir "Mein Kampf" in Germany.
The Finance Ministry of the German state of Bavaria said Tuesday that publisher Peter McGee's plans to reproduce three 16-page segments of "Mein Kampf" with critical commentary, starting next week, may violate the copyright on the book, which it holds.
The ministry said in a statement that it believes the segments are too long to be considered excerpts not covered by copyright.
McGee told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from London that his attorney has advised him otherwise, and that he plans to go ahead with the publication of the segments as an insert to his weekly "Zeitungszeugen" magazine. The magazine, a play on words mixing the German for "newspaper" and "eyewitness," reproduces historical newspapers from the Nazi era alongside expert commentary.
"Mein Kampf" is not banned in Germany as commonly believed, but Bavaria has used its ownership of the copyright to prevent its publication so far.
Mein Kampf
Gets Jail For Fake Appraisals
Richard Silver
A New York City man who was victimized in an art fraud but then committed his own forgery has been sentenced to 60 days in jail.
Richard Silver paid $84,000 in restitution before his sentencing Tuesday in Manhattan.
Silver unwittingly bought what turned out to be fake prints by British artist Damien Hirst. The Irvine, Calif.-based seller went to prison for the scam.
Silver admitted he then falsified appraisals as he resold the pieces. Defense lawyer Vinoo Varghese says Silver altered legitimate appraisals for some prints to match other works so he could ship them quickly.
Richard Silver
Calligrapher Creates World's Largest
Koran
An Afghan calligrapher has worked for five years to create the world's biggest Koran, a bid to show the world that Afghanistan's rich cultural heritage and traditions have been damaged but not destroyed by 30 years of war.
The lavish book has pages 2.28 meters (90 inches) by 1.55 meters (61 inches) in size, and has been certified as the world's largest by the Afghan ministry of Haj and Religious Affairs, according to the Kabul cultural centre that houses it.
The previous claim to the title was for a 2 meter by 1.5 meter copy unveiled last year in Russia's Tatarstan region.
The Afghan Koran weighs 500 kg (1,100 lb) and its 218 pages of cloth and paper, bound inside an embossed leather cover made from the skins of 21 goats, cost half a million dollars to create.
Mohammad Sabir Khedri, the master calligrapher behind the project, worked with nine students on a design that combines gold script with millions of tiny colorful dots, forming highly symbolic decorations around the giant pages.
Koran
In Memory
Jimmy Castor
Jimmy Castor, a New York funk and soul saxophonist, singer and songwriter whose tune, "It's Just Begun," morphed over 40 years into an anthem for generations of hip-hoppers and mainstream musical acts, died of apparent heart failure in a Las Vegas hospital, family members said Tuesday. He was 71.
Castor's music, including another 1972 hit, "Troglodyte," spoke for itself thousands of times in riffs and samples by groups like N.W.A., the 2 Live Crew, Kanye West, Ice Cube and Mos Def, as well as acts such as the Spice Girls, Christina Aguilera and Madonna.
His son, Jimmy Castor Jr., 45, a filmmaker from Redondo Beach, California, told The Associated Press he's seen instant recognition hundreds of times at the first sax chords of "It's Just Begun" - even before the lyrics begin. ("Watch me now. Feel the groove. Into something. Gonna make you move.")
"No matter what country you're in, no matter what language you speak, everyone knows it," Jimmy Castor Jr. said in Las Vegas.
Jimmy Castor was hospitalized in November after suffering a heart attack, and underwent quadruple bypass surgery. He died Monday at Saint Rose Dominican Hospital, his son said.
Castor, head of the musical group the Jimmy Castor Bunch, lived with his wife, Sandi, in suburban Henderson near Las Vegas.
His work was sampled by other artists more than 3,000 times, his son said, and he continued to work and perform until last August, when he played at the Long Beach Funk Festival in California. Jimmy Castor Jr. said his father had booked dates for a European tour this year.
Jimmy Castor
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