M Is FOR MASHUP - RERUN from July 6th, 2009
JULY 2009 - THREE SPLENDID MASHUP COLLECTIONS
By DJ Useo
I know you are all (mostly) getting outside & enjoying the Summer sun's rays (work willing). If you have, you've noticed that there's a feeling under the sun this year that is the feeling of hope. I know you've felt it, I certainly have. I think you should take along the latest mashup comps in your mp3 players & enjoy the outdoors July mashup mood. It's been an amazing season for mashup collections with the recent SUMMER BOOTY 2009 & MICHAEL JACKSON compilations, but there's no holdup in great releases as some more big bootleg names sidle up to the bar & present 3 awesome records! All three contain the familiar gone astray, the tame made wild, & the mixer's dream realized. That's the true substance of the hope this Summer. The realized concepts shining in the sun. Pure hope.
First up is a collection that looks at one set of artists, & what a well-known set! What an unlikely choice it seems at first to spotlight the MUPPETS for a mashup comp, but considering their enduring popularity & the twin history of Muppet musical success, you will understand the reasoned approach to this set. DJ BC, he of many a popular past mashup compilation has coordinated & brought into being 'MUPPET MASHUP' ( djbc.net/muppetmashup/ )
This is a record you can enjoy for the glee of the MUPPETS or just as much for the performance of the mixers. The lure of the felt ones is strong & has brought crowd-pleasing names like Dunproofin, McSleazy & Atom onto this project. Once you experience the musi-combo delights of tracks like Martinn's 'The Muppet Strut' (The Muppets vs The Stray Cats) & RIAA's 'Spinning Rubber Sing Thing', you'll be glad you did. I hope they continue this one every year.
Next up is a collection called "It's Britney, Mixed!" / The Britney Spears viral pop tribute. Prepare yourself for seventeen mellifluous mashups that focus in on the Queen of Pop by 9 mixers of considerable ability. Britney has held a fast appeal with the fans & the mixers follow that pattern here with a large batch of bastard pop tunes that build on her appeal. You will hear fantastic mashups like WORLD FAMOUS AUDIO HACKER's 'If You Seek Lucretia' (Britney vs The Sisters Of Mercy), & you will find remix's like TIGER MENDOZA's 'Slave 4 U'. Names of contributors like TEAM 9, Elvis Of Dallas, OSCAR TG, & ARRATIK conjure much past pleasure in the mashup fan. Here they fulfill that promise & that's with using the music & talent of Britney, an artist that admittedly some have percieved as over-played. You won't notice that perception with this release. Get yours now before the bandwidth dissipates ( britney.audiohacker.com/ ) (Don't miss the 2 vids as well)
Now comes a dream bootleg compilation. Not only because of the mixers involved, although they are dream mixers, but because this collection takes a major musical moment in human history & gives us a stunningly new approach to it. Here is the record you never thought would be done - DJ Zebra's 'BOOTSTOCK : Bootlegs From The Original Soundtrack And More'. That's right, you get to hear mashups with COUNTRY JOE And THE FISH, CANNED HEAT, JIMI HENDRIX, THE WHO, & all the rest! This collection was first broadcast on July 4th 2009 in the Zebramix radio broadcast, on Virgin Radio France. I signed up for the show in itunes as a podcast, & I was impressed immediately with the mixing execution of DJ Zebra & his compilation cohorts, Electrosound, Mighty Mike and Totom. DJ ZEBRA's "Wooden Ships On The Moon", ELECTROSOUND's "Who's Zooming The Who", & TOTOM's "Street Sweeper Social Volunteers" are just the tip of the Icestock with this release. If you know of WOODSTOCK, or if you don't (!!!) this is a batch of bootlegs you'll bop to all Summer.
Get yours here ( djzebra.free.fr/Bootstock.html )
Now that'sa some'a great Summer mashup, eh? Thanks for reading & drop me a line if you have a thought to share.
Mix Of The Week - DJ Nak _Freddy M_ - June 09 Summer Mix holds lots of Summery vibe & shares it generously over it's half hour of mixing.
( www.imeem.com/freddy08/music/_C8pU6rI/dj-nak-freddy-m-june-09-summer-mix-dj-nak/ )
Mashup Tip : Share all your pellas & if you know how to make more, do that, too. It will come back to you tenfold.
DJ Useo's Podcast
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Susanne Sternthal: Moscow's stray dogs (Financial Times)
In Moscow, stray dogs have recovered their genetic wolf roots. They have also learned how to board subways and where to step off. All by themselves...
Scott Burns: Can You Hear Me Now? (assetbuilder.com)
Once upon a time, in a universe far, far away, there was an empire called American Telephone & Telegraph. If you used a telephone, you were a subject of the empire. The people hated the tyranny of the empire. They worked and innovated to overthrow it.
No Longer Their Golden Ticket (nytimes.com)
As the [law] profession lurches through its worst slump in decades, with jobs and bonuses cut and internal pressures to perform rising, associates do not just feel as if they are diving into the deep end, but rather, drowning.
Oline H. Cogdill: Q&A with 'The First Rule' author Robert Crais (Sun Sentinel)
Robert Crais doesn't follow fads. If he did, his debut novel, "The Monkey's Raincoat," might never have been published in 1987. At the time,...
"God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215" by David Levering Lewis: A review by John Leonard
There is no doubt that David Levering Lewis, with 'God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe; 570-1215," will ruffle the feathers of some scholar-birds, especially those right-wing one-notes who can be counted on to sing 'The Song of Roland' at pep rallies for Holy War and regime change.
Emily Drabinski: Biting Wit (advocate.com)
Author Michael Thomas Ford sinks his teeth into Jane Austen.
George Varga: The Other Stream: Some Standouts of 2009 (creators.com)
Since its inception in 1998, "The Other Stream" has been devoted to exploring and showcasing eclectic artists who strive for excellence and whose work is distinguished by a respect for both tradition and innovation.
Paul Morley: On gospel, Abba and the death of the record: an audience with Brian Eno (guardian.co.uk)
He's been a Roxy original, the inventor of 'ambient', Bowie's muse, the brain in Talking Heads and U2's 'fifth man'. Now Eno tells Paul Morley where he's heading next.
Dan Cairns: Ingrid Michaelson is going her own way (timesonline.co.uk)
The singer-songwriter has rebuffed big money offers from major record companies, and instead releases her music on her own label.
Ryan Gilbey: Clive Owen on shooting 'The Boys Are Back' (timesonline.co.uk)
The British heart-throb talks about his new film 'The Boys Are Back' and the challenge of playing an emotional single father.
MAUREEN DOWD: The Biggest Loser (nytimes.com)
How does the president of NBC keep rising while the fortunes of the network keep falling?
Dana Stevens: 'Fish Tank' (slate.com)
An unsettlingly good British film about a teenage girl in a housing project.
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'LOL in the Boardroom' Edition
President Barack Obama told banks Thursday they should pay a new tax to recoup the cost of bailing out foundering firms at the height of the financial crisis. He said...
"My commitment is to recover every single dime the American people are owed. And my determination to achieve this goal is only heightened when I see reports of massive profits and obscene bonuses at some of the very firms who owe their continued existence to the American people...We want our money back, and we're going to get it."
Citing 'obscene' bonuses, Obama to tax banks - U.S. business- msnbc.com
How confident are you that Obama will be able to recover those funds?
1.) Very - 'The Man' will be on 'em like a pit bull...
2.) Somewhat - We'll get back just enough so 'The Man' can claim success, but not nearly the total of what they scammed from us...
3.) Yer kiddin' me, right? I'm laughing with 'The Board'...
Send your response to
wrote:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
Musical Thrills German Audiences
"Hope"
A musical version of Barack Obama's rise to the White House has opened in Frankfurt, with the 'president' thrilling audiences with a rousing chorus of "Yes We Can" in a country still charmed by his message of hope.
"I'm fascinated by Obama," spectator Cornelia Hirschfeld, 55, told AFP half-way through "Hope - The Obama Musical Story."
Obama underscored his trademark theme with a chorus of "Yes We Can" and sang a lover's duet with his wife Michelle in a show producers hope to take one day to the United States.
Actors playing Obama's Republican opponents John McCain and Sarah Palin did numbers of their own, the latter singing "Ich bin ein Pitbull" (I'm a Pitbull) in a musical that was uneven but which gained steam in the second act.
"Hope"
Mystery Visitor Didn't Show
Poe 'Toaster'
A mysterious visitor who left roses and cognac at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe each year on the writer's birthday failed to show early Tuesday, breaking with a ritual that began more than 60 years ago.
"I'm confused, befuddled," said Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum. "I don't know what's going on."
The tradition dates back to at least 1949, according to newspaper accounts from the era, Jerome said. Since then, an unidentified person has come every Jan. 19 to leave three roses and a half-bottle of cognac at Poe's grave in a church cemetery in downtown Baltimore.
The event has become a pilgrimage for die-hard Poe fans, some of whom travel hundreds of miles. About three dozen stood huddled in blankets during the overnight cold Tuesday, peering through the churchyard's iron gates hoping to catch a glimpse of the figure known only as the "Poe toaster."
Poe 'Toaster'
More Flattering Portrait
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe's fertile imagination has endured for more than 150 years - and so has his pale, death-haunted image, with his sunken eyes, a trim mustache and unruly mop of curly hair.
However, scholars say Poe looked far more vigorous, perhaps even dashing, in his earlier years than he does in the well-known series of daguerreotypes taken in the final years of his life.
The more robust Poe is captured in a small watercolor by A.C. Smith, one of just three surviving portraits of the author, which will be shown publicly for the first time Saturday and is expected to fetch tens of thousands of dollars at auction.
Poe sits at a desk with pen and paper in hand, seemingly at the height of his creative powers. His upper lip is clean-shaven, though he sports long, bushy sideburns. And there's the slightest hint of a smile on his face.
Edgar Allan Poe
Building Theme Park In S.Korea
Universal Studios
US film giant Universal Studios Tuesday signed a deal with South Korean partners to build its largest theme park in Asia at a cost of around three trillion won (2.67 billion dollars).
Universal Parks and Resorts and 14 South Korean partners, including Lotte Group and a subsidiary of steel giant POSCO, signed the framework agreement to develop the park at Hwaseong by 2014.
Universal Studios also operates theme parks in Hollywood, Orlando in Florida and Japan, and a park on Singapore's Sentosa Island is nearing completion.
When completed, the South Korean resort 40 kilometres (25 miles) southwest of Seoul will be larger in area than all four combined and will create more than 40,000 jobs, according to Kim Moon-Soo, governor of Gyeonggi province.
Universal Studios
'Focus on the Family' Buys In
Super Bowl Ad
Focus on the Family, a "Christian" non-profit taxed group, said it will air its first Super Bowl spot during the upcoming game.
The 30-second ad will feature Tim Tebow, a former quarterback with the University of Florida's Gators and 2007 winner of the Heisman Trophy, along with his mother Pam.
The Tebows decided to participate in the ad "because the issue of life anti-choice is one they feel very strongly about," the Colorado-based organization said in a press release.
Focus on the Family is opposed to abortion "under all circumstances, except in the rare instance when the mother's life is threatened by continuing the pregnancy, and even then...," according to the organization's web site.
Super Bowl Ad
More Charges
Joseph Brooks
Prosecutors say they've found two more women who say they were molested by The Academy Award-winning songwriter of "You Light Up My Life." Joseph Brooks was already accused of forcing himself on a series of women lured to his Manhattan apartment for supposed acting auditions.
Brooks pleaded not guilty Tuesday to additional charges including predatory sexual assault, which carries a potential life sentence. He's now accused of abusing 13 women.
Prosecutors want a court to boost his $250,000 bail. Defense lawyer Jeffrey Hoffman says that's unwarranted because the 71-year-old Brooks has consistently come to court.
Brooks won an Oscar for best original song for the Debby Boone ballad "You Light Up My Life." He also wrote and directed the eponymous 1977 movie.
Joseph Brooks
LA D.A. Playing Politics
Roman Polanski
Lawyers for Roman Polanski said Tuesday he should be sentenced in absentia to time served and accused the district attorney of playing politics with the case.
In a legal brief filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the attorneys urged a full hearing with witnesses testifying about allegations of official misconduct in the handling of Polanski's 32-year-old sex case.
Attorneys Chad Hummell and Bart Dalton accused prosecutors of misleading the Los Angeles court as well as Swiss authorities weighing whether to extradite Polanski to the United States.
They accused District Attorney Steve Cooley (R-Showboater) of "directing or at least condoning his office presenting a false record to the Swiss government, all in an attempt to extradite Mr. Polanski without revealing facts that render extradition impermissable."
Roman Polanski
Rejects US Apology
Gaspar Llamazares
A Spanish lawmaker on Tuesday angrily rejected the United States' apology for the FBI's using a photo of him to create a poster showing what Osama bin Laden might look like today.
Gaspar Llamazares, of Spain's communist-run United Left party, demanded the U.S. investigate the incident and take appropriate action.
The FBI used parts of a photo of Llamazares taken from Google Images to create a digitally modified image of the al-Qaida leader for a new wanted poster, which appeared on the State Department Web site and offered a reward of up to $25 million.
The FBI has since removed the doctored photo of bin Laden from the site, but Llamazares said he wanted guarantees that the images were not still in the hands of intelligence services at airports or other places abroad.
Gaspar Llamazares
Egyptian Cat Goddess Temple Found
Bastet
Archaeologists have unearthed a 2,000-year-old temple that may have been dedicated to the ancient Egyptian cat goddess, Bastet, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said Tuesday.
The ruins of the Ptolemaic-era temple were discovered by Egyptian archaeologists in the heart of the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C.
The city was the seat of the Greek-speaking Ptolemaic Dynasty, which ruled over Egypt for 300 years until the suicide of Queen Cleopatra.
The statement said the temple was thought to belong to Queen Berenice, wife of King Ptolemy III who ruled Egypt in the 3rd century B.C.
Bastet
In Memory
Kate McGarrigle
Canadian folk singer and songwriter Kate McGarrigle, best known for performing with her sister Anna, has died of cancer. She was 63.
McGarrigle's brother-in-law, Dane Lanken, said the singer died at her Montreal home Monday night surrounded by her sisters, Jane and Anna, and her children, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, also singers.
He said McGarrigle had been battling cancer since the summer of 2006. He said the cancer started in her small intestine and spread to her liver.
Kate and Anna, known as the McGarrigle Sisters, began their careers performing at Montreal coffeehouses in the 1960s with a group called the Mountain City Four. They got their break in the 1970s, when their songs were covered by numerous artists, including Linda Ronstadt, who used "Heart Like a Wheel" as the title song to one of her albums.
In 1975 they made their first record, "Kate and Anna McGarrigle," which brought them critical acclaim and additional famous covers by artists including Emmylou Harris, Judy Collins and Billy Bragg.
Kate McGarrigle received the Order of Canada in 1994, one of the country's highest honors.
McGarrigle was once married to American singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III. Her son, Rufus Wainwright, recently canceled an upcoming tour, citing an illness in the family.
Born in Montreal, the famous singing duo grew up in the Laurentian Mountains village of Saint-Sauveur-des-Monts, Quebec. There, they learned the piano from the village nuns.
Kate McGarrigle
In Memory
Robert Parker
Robert B. Parker, the blunt and beloved crime novelist who helped revive and modernize the hard-boiled genre and branded a tough guy of his own through his "Spenser" series, has died. He was 77.
Prolific to the end, Parker wrote more than 50 novels, including 37 featuring Boston private eye Spenser. The character's first name was a mystery, with his last name emphatically spelled with an "s" in the middle, not a "c."
The character was the basis for the 1980s TV series "Spenser: For Hire," starring Robert Urich. Parker later said the only thing he liked about the program was the residual checks.
Parker admired Raymond Chandler and other classic crime writers and helped bring back their cool, clipped style in the first "Spenser" novel, "The Godwulf Manuscript," from 1973. Within a few years, with "Looking for Rachel Wallace" and "Early Autumn," he was acclaimed as a master in his own right.
Parker also was known for his Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone series. His other books included a novel inspired by the life of Jackie Robinson, "Double Play"; the Westerns "Appaloosa," "Resolution" and "Brimstone"; and "Perchance to Dream," a sequel to Chandler's "The Big Sleep."
Parker won two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America and a Grand Master Edgar in 2002 for lifetime achievement. A new Jesse Stone novel, "Split Image," is scheduled to come out next month, and several other books, including some Spenser novels, are "in the pipeline," according to Chris Pepe, his editor at G.P. Putnam's Sons, an imprint of Penguin Group.
A native of Springfield, Mass., Parker studied as an undergraduate at Colby College and received a Ph.D. in English from Boston University, where his dissertation was on Hammett and Chandler, whom he made no secret of imitating. He was teaching at Northeastern University when he created Spenser, observing later that he was inspired in part because Chandler was dead and he missed his famous detective, Philip Marlowe.
Admirers credit Parker with not only honoring the hard-boiled style, but also with updating it. Unlike Marlowe and other classic characters, Spenser was not a confirmed loner, but in a solid relationship. Parker's stories also included blacks, Latinos and gays.
Robert Parker
In Memory
Erich Segal
Erich Segal, the Ivy League professor who attained mainstream fame and made millions sob as writer of the novel and movie "Love Story," has died of a heart attack, his daughter said Tuesday. He was 72.
Francesca Segal said her father died Sunday at his home in London. She said he had suffered from Parkinson's disease - a neurological condition that affects movement - for 25 years. His funeral was held in London on Tuesday, she said.
Segal was a Yale classics professor and screenplay writer when he turned a proposed movie about two college students - preppy Oliver and smart-mouthed Jenny - into a novel. Published in 1970, "Love Story" was a weeper about a young couple who fall in love, marry and discover she is dying of cancer. It was a million seller guaranteed to make readers cry and critics scream.
A much bigger audience caught up with the film version, which starred Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw. Directed by Arthur Hiller, with a plaintive, Henry Mancini-composed theme song that wouldn't quit, "Love Story" gained seven Oscar nominations - including one for Segal for writing the screenplay, as well as for best picture, best director and best actor and actress. It won one Oscar, for best music.
Segal also wrote a sequel, "Oliver's Story," published in 1977, and made into a film, with O'Neal again in the lead male role. Segal would later say that Oliver was based in part on a couple of Harvard undergraduates who later became quite well known: Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones. (He disputed reports that Jenny was based on Gore's future wife, Tipper).
A rabbi's son, born in New York City in 1937, Segal also had a long, distinguished academic career in classics, gaining a doctorate at Harvard and teaching at Yale, Princeton and Dartmouth while writing era-defining screenplays and novels. He worked on surreal popular works like the 1968 screenplay to the animated Beatles film "Yellow Submarine" while also publishing works on Greek tragedy, Latin poetry and ancient athletics.
He is survived by his wife, Karen James, and daughters Francesca, 29, and Miranda, 20.
Erich Segal
In Memory
Wheely Willy
Farewell to Wheely Willy
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