M Is FOR MASHUP - April 14th, 2021
New Mashup Albums You Already Can’t Get
By DJ Useo
As is always the case, there are lots of mashup albums posting all the time. An expectation of releasing them includes the concern of bootleg censorship. ( the preponderance of which is spurious ) I even got some recent complaints that removed a few of my posts, even though I conform to all the “Creative Commons” laws. ( Now if only they’d tell me what posts were affected )
Over the last two weeks, I was pleased as poncherello to see a fine batch of new mashup comps, but then I was let down when all of them were quickly shut down. You can’t even find them in the major search engines. One comp is particular had my extreme interest due to the notable contributors. Sadly, each link to get the collection vanished as soon as they posted. I chased the release through three freshly dead links & even a torrent that was quickly absent.
It has me a little nervous about a huge group project I’m helping coordinate. If all goes well, you’ll be able to hear it around the beginning of May. Here’s a quick look now at the comps you already can’t get.
01 - “Bootleg Barry’s Best” - Bootleg Barry is a collective of 4 or 5 home producers that attempts to post collections of their best work every so often. I heard one of the albums on Youtube, but it was gone after an hour. The only consolation is I got a copy of the album cover. Tracks contained used the usual top 40 source artists, like Justin Beiber vs Cardi B vs The Weeknd.
02 - “Mella Hocka Locka” is a supposedly themed ( ? ) mashup album with tracks by people even I never heard of. Contributors include Miss Mosh, Beany Joe, The Mad Tweaker, plus 7 more. The tracks use the usual top 40 source artists, like Silk Sonic vs Dua Lipa vs Pop Smoke. It doesn’t make much difference now, since you can’t obtain a copy of the album.
03 - “The MAGA Mashup album” seems to have been released a bit late, as that sad age has clearly passed. The comp was arranged by widely-disliked bootlegger, Trumpinator, & supposedly a few others. Mixers listed include Jerry Mander, DJ Derision, Larry Lackey, & MC Jailbound. The current rumor is all contributors are actually ‘nator ( as he’s called ) himself. The tracks use the usual top 40 source artists, like 24Goldn, Masked Wolf, & Saweetie.
04 - “We Love Pooh Shiesty” brought 12 mashups all using tracks by Pooh. There was a surge of interest for about 23 minutes, before the copyright complaints removed it. I was listening to the 2nd track, & the stream went down. Shuckens! Contributors ( mostly from Austria ) included The Human Lighter, DJ Remote Control, Sir Turntable, & Sperm-Pants. ( Who I advise to change his name ) Tracks contained used the usual top 40 source artists, like Tate McRae, SpotemGottem, Machine Gun Kelly & Gabby Barrett.
Wow! All those comps, & not one track to play you. Maybe next week, I’ll have at least one working link for y’all. Bye for now.
Have the day of good - DJ Konrad Useo
from Bruce
Anecdotes
Work
• When she was in the fourth grade, writer Mary E. Lyons was taken on a field trip to a cotton field. She and the other children picked cotton for half an hour, then they were paid a dime. After paying the children, the owner of the cotton field invited the children to visit his country store. Because picking cotton was hard, hot, thirsty work, young Mary spent her dime on a bottle of Coca-Cola. When she grew up and remembered this experience, she realized that the owner of the cotton field and country store had probably paid a nickel for the bottle of Coca-Cola. He had gotten half an hour’s work from young Mary and also made cash money.
• Karen D. Beatty, RN, has this as her motto: “We’ll get there!” For example, she is an African-American, and occasionally while working as a visiting nurse, she will sense that she is not welcome in some homes because of the color of her skin. Of course, if the patient requests a different nurse, she respects their wishes, but she will also tell herself, “We’ll get there!” Even as a little girl, Ms. Beatty wanted to be a nurse because of one of her aunts who was a nurse. In first grade, she was given the assignment to make a paper doll. She made a paper nurse doll that had a brown face.
• Halle Berry was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and she got her first name because her pregnant mother was shopping in Halle Brothers, a department store, and she decided that she liked the store’s name. Before becoming a model and actress, Halle studied broadcast journalism at Cuyahoga Community College. She decided that this profession was not for her after she started crying while interviewing a family who had just lost their house in a fire.
• Duffy and Sweeney (Jimmy Duffy and Fred Sweeney) were an early vaudeville comedy team. Once, they were fired, so Mr. Duffy and a small boy appeared at the office of the guy who had fired them. Mr. Duffy pointed to the boy and said, “Are you going to let him starve?” The comedy team was rehired, and the guy who had hired, fired, and rehired them never learned that the boy was not Mr. Duffy’s son.
Activism
• Anna Rosenberg, who gave President Franklin Delano Roosevelt the idea for the G.I. Bill of Rights, learned the importance of activism early in life. When she was 14, she was a student at Wadleigh High School in New York City, and she and other students were annoyed because they had to attend school in shifts and share desks because of a lack of desks and other proper facilities. Therefore, she and the other students paid a visit to the city aldermen (politicians), who ignored them because they were a bunch of students. The aldermen even started to leave the room the students were in. However, young Anna yelled after the aldermen, “Very well, gentlemen, you may have heard enough, but now you will hear from our parents, who are your constituents.” The aldermen paid attention to the students after that, and Anna told them exactly what the school needed. The next year, each of the students at the school had a desk and attending school in shifts was no longer necessary.
• When African-American poet Nikki Giovanni was a teenager in Knoxville, Tennessee, people gathered together to protest a hate crime. Nikki’s grandmother explained that she and Nikki’s grandfather were too old to march in the protest — so to take their place in the march they had volunteered Nikki.
Animals
• One of the many dogs in author Gary Paulsen’s life was Cookie, the lead dog on his sledding team both in Minnesota and during the 1,049-mile Iditarod Sled Dog Race in Alaska. Cookie arrived in Mr. Paulsen’s life lean and hungry, and during his first two days with Mr. Paulsen, Cookie ate a 75-pound beaver carcass. It’s a good thing Cookie came into Mr. Paulsen’s life. She saved his life at least three times, including once when the ice broke under him and he plunged into an icy lake — Cookie roused the other dogs and they pulled Mr. Paulsen from the water. After Mr. Paulsen decided to give up running sled dogs, he invited Cookie into his house. One of the first things Cookie did was to eat Mr. Paulsen’s wife’s pet cat. After Cookie died in 1989, Mr. Paulsen dedicated his book Woodsong to her.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
The Funniest People in Neighborhoods — Buy
The Funniest People in Neighborhoods -- Buy The Paperback
The Funniest People in Neighborhoods -- Kindle
The Funniest People in Neighborhoods -- Apple
The Funniest People in Neighborhoods -- Barnes and Noble
The Funniest People in Neighborhoods -- Kobo
The Funniest People in Neighborhoods -- Smashwords: Many Formats, Including PDF
*******
The Funniest People in Relationships — Buy
The Funniest People in Relationships -- Buy The Paperback
The Funniest People in Relationships -- Kindle
The Funniest People in Relationships -- Apple
The Funniest People in Relationships -- Barnes and Noble
The Funniest People in Relationships -- Kobo
The Funniest People in Relationships -- Smashwords: Many Formats, Including PDF
Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. was first, and correct, with:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Bagfoot Run"
Album: INCOGNITO
Artist: The Armoires
Artist Location: Burbank, California
Info: This album also has a good cover of “Senses Working Overtime.” Apparently, it was one of the songs the band recorded under a series of pseudonyms. This song was recorded under the name of The Yes It Is.
“INCOGNITO is the culmination of a six-month ‘secret project’ that saw the Burbank quintet release a series of singles under fictitious band names, experimenting with their own identity in order to rediscover themselves. It's fifteen brand-new tracks encompassing originals, covers, and the dazzling variety of styles and genres the band explored while working undercover. The record is sprawling and experimental, but anchored to the singular harmonies of founders CHRISTINA BULBENKO and REX BROOME, and sounding unmistakably like THE ARMOIRES.”
THE ARMOIRES, generally speaking, are:
CHRISTINA BULBENKO: Vocals, Keys
REX BROOME: Vocals, Guitar
LARYSA BULBENKO: Viola, Violin, Backing Vocals
JOHN BORACK: Drums
CLIFFORD ULRICH: Bass, Backing Vocals
Price: $1 (USA) for track; $12 for 18-track album
Genre: Rock. Pop. Surf.
Links:
INCOGNITO
The Armoires on Bandcamp
Big Stir Records
The Armoires YouTube Channel
Big Stir YouTube Channel
Other Links:
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Stephen Suggests
Twofer
New Venture
Michael Egan
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
What is Biden even doing?
NOT having a tantrum on twitter every five minutes or regurgitating his worthless thoughts as if they're gold! In other words, working like an adult.
Evan says it well:
How can we even tell if Joe Biden is in charge of being president if he's not constantly begging us for our attention and validation? Because we guess in four short years, Donald Trump, at least for Republican electeds, so debased what the presidency is supposed to be that when people like Cornyn don't hear the president having a public temper tantrum at all times, they assume that means maybe the president isn't really "in charge."
And if he isn't hitting us, does he even love us?
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Marine layer so dense it never burned off.
Cast Reunion
‘ER’
George Clooney, Noah Wyle, Julianna Margulies and Anthony Edwards will reunite with other cast members of NBC’s classic hospital drama ER for a special Earth Day episode of Stars in the House, the YouTube series benefitting The Actors Fund.
The ER reunion episode is set for Thursday, April 22 at 8pm ET.
The episode, another in the series’ popular TV cast reunions, will benefit Waterkeeper Alliance, the global clean water nonprofit. The idea for the benefit reunion came from actress Gloria Reuben, who portrayed ER‘s physician assistant Jeanie Boulet and now serves as the President of Waterkeeper Alliance.
Also joining the virtual reunion: Laura Innes (who played Kerry Weaver), Alex Kingston (Elizabeth Corday), Goran Visnjic (Luka Kovac), Paul McCrane (Robert Romano), Ming-Na Wen (Jing-Mei Chen), Laura Cerón (Chuny Marquez), Yvette Freeman (Haleh Adams), Conni Marie Brazelton (Connie Oligario), and CCH Pounder (Angela Hicks).
ER, which ran on NBC from 1994-2009, was a cornerstone of the network’s Must See TV Thursday night programming, scored 22 Emmy Awards out of 124 nominations and launched the careers of Clooney, Wyle, Margulies, Visnjic and others.
‘ER’
Pandemic Anthem
Mick Jagger and Dave Grohl
Mick Jagger and Dave Grohl have teamed up for a hard-rock pandemic anthem called “Eazy Sleazy.”
“It’s a song that I wrote about coming out of lockdown, with some much needed optimism,” Jagger said in a statement Tuesday. “Thanks to Dave Grohl for jumping on drums, bass and guitar. It was a lot of fun working with him.”
The duo recorded the song and video in different studio locations — Jagger at home and Grohl in the Foo Fighters studio — and the lyrics mention “prison walls,” “virtual premieres,” numbers that are “grim” and Zoom calls. Jagger complains: “I’ve got nothing left to wear.”
The song also name-checks Bill Gates, lampoons conspiracy theories and those who deny climate change and gleefully reveals “There’s aliens in the deep state.”
Mick Jagger and Dave Grohl
Ratings
Nielsen
People have been stuck at home for a year due to COVID-19 restrictions, with movie theaters closed, concert venues closed, restaurants closed, sports attendance restricted — yet television viewing is down?
Through the trade group Video Advertising Bureau, the networks are perplexed by Nielsen statistics that show the percentage of Americans who watched their televisions at least some time during the week declined from 92% in 2019 to 87% so far this year.
CBS was the most popular network last week, averaging 5.9 million viewers in prime time. NBC had 3.46 million, ABC had 3.45 million, Fox had 1.8 million, Univision had 1.3 million, Telemundo had 1.1 million, Ion Television had 1 million and the CW had 720,000.
ABC’s “World News Tonight” won the evening news ratings race, averaging 8.2 million viewers last week. NBC’s “Nightly News” had 6.6 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 4.9 million.
For the week of April 5-11, the 20 most-watched programs, their networks and viewerships:
1. NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship: Baylor vs. Gonzaga, CBS, 16.92 million.
2. “NCIS,” CBS, 10.26 million.
3. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 8.74 million.
4. “FBI,” CBS, 8.07 million.
5. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 6.95 million.
6. “Chicago Med,” NBC, 6.88 million.
7. “Chicago Fire,” NBC, 6.65 million.
8. “FBI: Most Wanted,” CBS, 6.44 million.
9. “Blue Bloods,” CBS, 6.35 million.
10. “NCAA Basketball Pregame Show,” CBS, 6.21 million.
11. “American Idol,” ABC, 6.09 million.
12. “The Voice,” NBC, 6.02 million.
13. “Chicago PD,” NBC, 5.8 million.
14. “Magnum, P.I.,” CBS, 5.61 million.
15. “United States of Al,” CBS, 5.38 million.
16. “Mom,” CBS, 4.93 million.
17. “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” ABC, 4.92 million.
18. “Law & Order: SVU,” NBC, 4.9 million.
19. “Station 19,” ABC, 4.87 million.
20. “Law & Order: Organized Crime,” NBC, 4.84 million.
Nielsen
Denies Permit
Stone Mountain Park
The Stone Mountain Memorial Association has denied a gathering permit from the Sons of Confederate Veterans, who were looking to host their annual Confederate Memorial Day service at Stone Mountain Park outside Atlanta.
The gathering was slated for Saturday but a March 31 letter from memorial association CEO Bill Stephens denied the necessary permit, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Stephens listed three reasons for the denial including safety concerns, specifically the pandemic and racial tensions.
Stone Mountain Park has been a gathering spot for white supremacists and has centuries-old ties to the Ku Klux Klan. The park has the largest Confederate monument ever crafted, featuring sculptures of Gen. Robert E. Lee, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson carved into the mountainside. The monument has special protection enshrined in Georgia law.
Stone Mountain Park
Defamation Lawsuit
Smartmatic
Smartmatic Voting Systems argued in a court filing Monday that Fox News should not have legal protections normally given to journalists, arguing that its defamation lawsuit should move forward.
Smartmatic's 137-page filing rejects Fox News' defense that it was simply reporting on the dispute between the election technology company and conspiracy theorists who falsely said it played a role in rigging the 2020 presidential election against Donald Trump.
It argues that Fox News anchors shouldn't be protected by what's called "neutral reporting privilege," a legal doctrine that sometimes protects news organizations that publish accusations against public figures from libel lawsuits.
"The First Amendment does not give anyone, even news organizations, a free pass to defame a private company," Smartmatic attorney J. Erik Connolly said in a statement.
Smartmatic
Caught On Audio
Mar-a-Largo
Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) reportedly mocked former first lady Michelle Obama for her looks in front of a group of racist Republican donors on Saturday, and once again referred to former president Barack Obama by his middle name, “Hussein”.
The remarks by Mr Trump were part of speech at Mar-a-Lago for Republican party donors, who reportedly “laughed uproariously” at the former president
According to the Washington Post, who obtained an audio of the speech, the former first lady was ridiculed for supporting Stacey Abrams, another black woman and a Democratic opponent of Georgia governor Brian Kemp — a Republican with whom Mr Trump has fallen out.
An audio of the address reveals that sponsors were wrongly told by Mr Trump that Oprah Winfrey, the television personality and another black woman, “camped out in Atlanta” in support of Ms Abrams during the election in 2018.
Mr Trump went on to say that Ms Winfrey was in the city for “months,” before turning on former president Obama and Ms Obama.
Mar-a-Largo
New Focus On Inclusivity
Di$ney Park$
Disney Parks, Experiences and Products Chairman Josh D’Amaro announced on Tuesday that Disney properties were making changes and “creating a place where everyone is welcome.”
D’Amaro wrote in a blog post, “Every Disney Parks cast member is familiar with our longstanding tradition of The Four Keys – Safety, Courtesy, Show and Efficiency – which have guided our approach to guest service for more than 65 years.” He announced that “Inclusion” would become the Fifth Key which, along with the others will “guide us as we interact with guests, collaborate together, create the next generation of Disney products and experiences, and make critical decisions about the future of our business.”
Disney Parks are “reimagining our attractions to be more inclusive…celebrating the diverse and inspiring stories of our cast and fans…looking at ways we can support and uplift our communities through programs like our Disney Dreamers Academy mentorship programs, and we’re including more diverse companies in our supply chain,” wrote the parks Chairman.
“We’re looking at other traditions, too,” wrote D’Amaro, “including the policies that guide how our cast members show up for work. Our new approach provides greater flexibility with respect to forms of personal expression surrounding gender-inclusive hairstyles, jewelry, nail styles, and costume choices; and allowing appropriate visible tattoos. We’re updating them to not only remain relevant in today’s workplace, but also enable our cast members to better express their cultures and individuality at work.”
Di$ney Park$
Translated Into Music
Spiderwebs
Spiders rely quite significantly on touch to sense the world around them. Their bodies and legs are covered in tiny hairs and slits that can distinguish between different kinds of vibrations.
Prey blundering into a web makes a very different vibrational clamor from another spider coming a-wooing, or the stirring of a breeze, for example. Each strand of a web produces a different tone.
A few years ago, scientists translated the three-dimensional structure of a spider's web into music, working with artist Tomás Saraceno to create an interactive musical instrument, titled Spider's Canvas. Now the team has refined and built on that previous work, and added an interactive virtual reality component to allow people to enter and interact with the web.
This research, the team says, will not only help them better understand the three-dimensional architecture of a spider's web, but may even help us learn the vibrational language of spiders.
"The spider lives in an environment of vibrating strings," said engineer Markus Buehler of MIT. "They don't see very well, so they sense their world through vibrations, which have different frequencies."
Spiderwebs
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