M Is FOR MASHUP - May 27th, 2008
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By DJ Useo
As often as I hear the words "MASHUPS ARE DEAD" (they aren't), I hear people say "Beatles mashups are played out" (not by a long shot). It's not hard at all to direct your attention to tons of great new tracks that feature the four lads from Liverpool. Elocnep ( www.elocnep.com/Bootlegs/2009/ ) has managed a very popular track with his 'Queens Of The Stone Age vs The Beatles'. Titans of bootleg Loo And Placido ( www.looandplacido.com/home.php?lang=en ) rocked everyone's world with 'Safari Love' (The Beatles vs Elton John vs Aretha Franklin vs Placido singing The Pixies). Even Masters of mashup Team9 ( www.team9.net/ ) have veered into the world of the Fab Four using The Beatles 'Back in the USSR' vs. Digitalism's 'Zdarlight'. These top mixers all enjoy an occasional use of the Beatles, but there's an entire site where only Beatles Mashups dwell.
The Beatles' Remixers forum claims a good community of posters where every track has at least one of the Beatles in it & generally all four. I've even heard a few with Yoko Ono. :) Reigning from his position of experience with Beatles' mashups is MP3J ( mp3j.podomatic.com/ ). Through his dedication & endlessly-inspired creativity he has thrilled countless with a large back catalogue & even provided a fine home to like-minded mixers. None of them claim any rights to the tunes they produce, instead allowing them to stand as examples of mixing skill, while consistently touting the thrill of the Beatles' releases. Many is the time I heard from a mashup fan who, once exposed to their music through a mashup, proceeded to pick up the official releases.
MP3J began his lengthy bootleg career in the early days of GET YOUR BOOTLEG ON ( www.gybo5.com ) & mainly confined himself to tracks that cut & sampled the Beatles while contrasting them with modern artists like Eminem, Bloc Party & Coldplay. Despite the passage of time, he continues to provide amazing examples of his advanced ability to hear the commonalities between the Beatles' output & other artists. The clearest examples of his success in the genre is his outstanding 'WTF' series, which has reached the astonishing number of 55! The 'WTF' series brings you over an hour of MP3J Beatles' boots combined into one long sequence & manages to get better & better as they continue. Rather than becoming rehashes of played-out music as some naysayers have said to me, the series never lets up in it's finely-mixed & inspired pairings.
Sometimes it's intimidating to follow in his large footsteps, but he has lured many other talented mixers of the Beatles to the Beatles' Remixers forum. Upon arriving at BR (as many call it) you will bear witness to the regular posts of BDJ ( bdj.podomatic.com/ ) , Patamixical Science ( patamixicalscience.podomatic.com/ ), & Phatbuzz ( phattbuzz.podomatic.com/ ) amongst others. Other great mixing members include Voicedude, Phil Retrospector, & DJ Not-I. It's a good close-knit community with over 150 members. None of it would exist without the pioneering mixing of MP3J. To tell the truth, there doesn't look to be any let-up in the Beatles' mashing anytime soon.
An active part of MP3J's site is the monthly Beatles' track challenge where a single track is chosen & the members are encouraged to try their hands at it. It's not easy to be assigned a track to mix. Many bootleggers never even attempt it. It's hard enough to do a GYBO challenge where the type of music is determined for you. With the BR challenge, you have to use a specific track.
This recent month the track is harder than most. Mixers must employ the unreleased Beatles' track, 'Sour Milk Sea'. I barely knew the track existed, let along entertained dreams of mashing it. Check out the variations for yourself with a visit to the forum. You can even find a link to my new track 'Sour Milk Relax' (Beatles vs Mika).
It's a never-ending parade of Beatles' chocolate goodness wrapped up in marshmallow mashup madness at BR. I firmly believe if you try one Beatles' mashup, you will look back after a few years to find you have enjoyed a lot of them & even picked up some classic Beatles' records from the fine folks at Apple Corps.
mp3j.synthasite.com/
mp3j.podomatic.com/
mp3j62.blogspot.com/
beatlemixmp3j.multiply.com/
mp3j.proboards.com/index..cgi?
Mix Of The Week - MP3J's latest 'WTF' is a mighty fine 72 minute piece & even comes with a bonus set of 24 more minutes. It's got all new mashups by MP3J including 'Imagine A Bow' (Rhianna vs John Lennon), 'If 6 Were Electronic' (Jimi Hendrix vs George Harrison), & 'Jet and the Walrus' (Wings vs The Beatles). Get yours now before it vanishes forever!!!!
beatlesremixers.freeforums.org/wtf-55-t351.html
Mashup Tip : A child of five would understand how to mash. Send someone to fetch a child of five.
DJ Useo's Podcast
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: State of Paralysis (nytimes.com)
The Golden State's political system has been unable to deal with the recession. Does California's political paralysis foreshadow the future of the nation as a whole?
AMY CHOZICK and KELLY CROW: Changing the Art on the White House Walls (wsj.com)
Barack Obama is taking on health care, financial regulation, torture and environmental policy. He's also revamping the White House art collection.
STEVE MOYER: British Modernism's Many Manners . . . and its American Admirers
Bloomsbury, the group of innovative writers and artists, came out of its embryonic phase around 1910 as the Victorian era finally expired with the funeral of Edward VII. Its young mix of writers, thinkers, and artists stood at the vanguard of a shift in manners away from nineteenth-century formality and reticence and toward twentieth-century candor and playfulness.
Siouxsie Sioux is still a vital force (timesonline.co.uk)
The ultimate Banshee and queen of punk reckons that age has mellowed her. Paul Burston meets her and isn't so sure.
Owen Vaughan: The real origin of Wolverine (timesonline.co.uk)
They're the best at what they do ... meet the comic creators who gave the clawed superhero his edge.
Alan Jackson: "Words from the wise: Tony Curtis, 83" (timesonline.co.uk)
The Hollywood legend on using your gifts and growing old gracefully.
David Hayles: : Ernest Borgnine - one of the Wild Bunch (timesonline.co.uk)
The world as listed by the busy Hollywood legend who, at 92, is sprightly, chatty and sharp as a tack.
Roger Ebert's Journal: "Cannes #10: And, at last, the winners are..."
Now I understand why Cannes 2009 opened with Pixar's "Up." They knew what was coming. Has there ever been a more violent group of films in the Official Selection? More negative about humanity? More despairing? With a greater variety of gruesome, sadistic, perverted acts? You know you're in deep water when the genuinely funniest film in the festival is by a Palestinian in today's Israel, whose material includes a firing squad, a mother with Alzheimers, and a hero with dark circles under his eyes who never utters a single word.
Antichrist trumps even the most shocking films (timesonline.co.uk)
Lars von Trier's Antichrist has raised the bar even higher on what is and is not acceptable on film.
The Weekly Poll
The 'Guilty TV Pleasures' Edition...
Are there any TV programs that you secretly feel sheepish about watching regularly, but do so anyway because you REALLY like them? C'mon now, fess up! I will!
I double-dog dare ya, haha!
Send your response to
replied:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Beautiful weather for such am ugly day.
Man Booker International Prize
Alice Munro
Canadian short story writer Alice Munro won the 60,000-pound ($96,000) Man Booker International Prize on Wednesday.
The 77-year-old became the third author to win the biennial prize, the international version of Britain's top literary award, the Man Booker Prize.
"I am totally amazed and delighted," said Munro, best known for her short stories and one of Canada's most celebrated writers. She beat competition from shortlisted authors including V.S. Naipaul, Peter Carey and Mario Vargas Llosa.
The panel of judges said in a statement: "Alice Munro is mostly known as a short story writer and yet she brings as much depth, wisdom and precision to every story as most novelists bring to a lifetime of novels.
Alice Munro
40 Years Ago
Bed-In For Peace
The hotel room where John Lennon and Yoko Ono created a watershed moment for the peace movement at the height of the Vietnam War is a little smaller now.
Part of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel suite, which has a gold plaque on the door noting its history, went to the installation of a panoramic elevator on the floor.
But that hasn't dimmed the aura of the place where the ex-Beatle and Ono staged their bed-in for peace between May 26 and June 2, 1969, and recorded the iconic antiwar anthem "Give Peace a Chance" the day before they left.
"The furniture has changed because of course it's 40 years ago and we do renovate every five to 10 years," hotel spokeswoman Joanne Papineau said as she gave a tour of room 1742 on Tuesday.
Bed-In For Peace
Record Ticket Sales
Broadway
Broadway theaters defied the recession to post record ticket sales in the 2008/09 season in what the Broadway League attributed to a need for escapism.
The trade association representing theater owners, operators and producers said in the 12 months to May 24, paid attendance on Broadway in New York was 12.15 million tickets, slightly lower than the 12.27 million the previous season.
But producers still managed to raise gross takings by $6 million, or 0.6 percent, to $943.3 million, beating the previous record set in the 2006/07 season of $938.5 million.
The season saw the opening of 43 new shows, the highest number since the 1982/83 season.
Broadway
Another Auction
Marilyn & Elvis
Marilyn Monroe's coffee table and Elvis Presley's prescription bottles are going up for auction.
Julien's Auctions will also sell clothing, autographed photos and other Monroe memorabilia, including items from her Brentwood, Calif., home, and jewelry, books and other items that Presley gave to his longtime personal physician, Dr. Nick.
The items will be on view at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas before the auction begins June 26. Bids will be accepted in person, by phone and online at juliensauctions.com.
Marilyn & Elvis
Wedding News
White - Smith
White Stripes drummer Meg White has married fiance Jackson Smith in Nashville.
The rock drummer's publicist said in a statement Tuesday that the ceremony was part of a double wedding Friday in the backyard of White's musical partner, Jack White.
Smith is the son of punk singer Patti Smith and the late guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith of the rock band MC5. The younger Smith is also a rock guitarist.
The other couple that wed Friday was Jack Lawrence and his girlfriend Jo McCaughey.
White - Smith
Settles Lawsuit
Ed McMahon
Ed McMahon has ended his civil case against those he blamed for his broken neck.
Attorneys for the former "Tonight" show sidekick have in recent weeks settled lawsuits against the hospital and doctors that McMahon claimed had failed to spot his broken neck and then failed to properly repair it.
On Thursday, attorneys for the 86-year-old TV personality filed for dismissal of his lawsuit against billionaire Robert Day and his wife. McMahon blamed conditions at the Days' home for his fall in March 2008.
Terms of the settlements haven't been disclosed in court records.
Ed McMahon
Appeals Conviction
OJ Simpson
O.J. Simpson has appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court to overturn his convictions for armed robbery and kidnapping during a a Las Vegas hotel room confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers.
The former football star, actor and advertising pitchman asks the high court to throw out his conviction on grounds that include judicial misconduct, insufficient evidence, a lack of racial diversity on the jury and errors in sentencing and jury instructions.
The document criticizes the trial judge, Clark County District Court Judge Jackie Glass, and accuses prosecutors of improperly asking questions about allegations of witness intimidation in front of the jury.
OJ Simpson
Estate Settled
James Brown
More than two years into a protracted battle over how to parcel out James Brown's wealth, a South Carolina judge on Tuesday approved a settlement that gives nearly half of his assets to a charitable trust, about a quarter to his wife and young son, and the rest to Brown's adult children.
The settlement was a contrast to Brown's will and trust, which were called into question soon after the Godfather of Soul died of heart failure Christmas Day 2006. His surviving spouse challenged the will when she was left out and Brown's children claimed the estate was mismanaged by trustees.
Brown's six adult children bickered with the singer's widow as each fought for a share of his fortune. Ultimately, Brown's grandchildren and needy kids in South Carolina and Georgia will likely get the biggest payback - Brown set up a charitable trust to pay for their education.
The settlement establishes that Tomi Rae Hynie Brown, a former backup singer to Brown, is the surviving spouse and her son, James Brown II, is his child. Brown's lawyers had claimed she was not Brown's widow because she was still married to another man when she and Brown said their vows in 2001.
James Brown
Odd Side Effect
Fingerprints
When a cancer patient from Singapore traveled to the United States last year, he discovered an unusual side effect of his medication: missing fingerprints.
The 62-year-old man was taking capecitabine, or Xeloda, to treat head and neck cancer. Upon arriving in the U.S., immigration officials asked him for his fingerprints. But the drug had caused so much redness and peeling to his fingers that the patient, identified only as Mr. S., had none.
Customs officials held Mr. S. for four hours before deciding he was not a security threat, according to the case published Wednesday in a letter to the Annals of Oncology journal.
After returning home, Mr. S. asked his oncologist, Dr. Eng-Huat Tan at the National Cancer Centre in Singapore, to write a letter certifying he was on capecitabine.
Surprised by Mr. S.'s predicament, Tan recommended in his letter to the journal that patients taking capecitabine carry a similar doctor's note if they are traveling to the United States.
Fingerprints
Early Leper
Balathal
Leprosy is one of mankind's most ancient scourges, mentioned in writing from ancient India to the Bible to the Middle Ages. Now researchers have uncovered what they say is the oldest case of the disease yet found. Analysis of a 4,000-year-old skeleton from India shows traces of leprosy, researchers report in Wednesday's edition of PLoS One, a publication of the Public Library of Science.
The skeleton was buried about 2000 B.C. at the site of Balathal, a large settlement in what is now Rajasthan, according to Gwen Robbins, an anthropologist at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C.
Scientists have speculated that leprosy originated in India or Africa and may have spread from Asia to Europe with the returning army of Alexander the Great.
Previous skeletal evidence for the disease has been dated to 300 to 400 B.C. in Egypt and Thailand.
Balathal
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