M Is FOR MASHUP - June 6th, 2012
Various Comments Concerning Mashups
By DJ Useo
There sure are a lot of worthy mashups posted nowadays. If I hear a mashup I don't always, but I usually leave a comment. Generally, I say 'thanks' & as I listen I type what observations occur to me. I must do ok with my commenting if you judge by the amount of people who click the quote button on my comment & add 'plus one'. I don't comment to please me so much as a way of encouraging the mixer & expressing my appreciation. In fact, I'd rather read others reactions than my own, as I already know what I think. So, in todays 'M Is For Mashup' column I present to you some new mashups accompanied by the sort of comments you often see if comments are left at all. Lets begin---
01 - LeeDM101 had a splendid track featured on Envisions recent mashup compilation 'The 4th Point Of Procrastination' called 'Crazy Rabbit' (Seal vs Radiohead vs The Doors) . It's an awesome mix that's nearly irresistible. As if proof was needed, Lee got a wonderful comment from John Sakamoto of the Toronto Star Anti-Hit List, a dream list to make for mashup producers. John said '"This radical recasting by the mash-up artist known as LeeDM101 takes the throbbing heart of Seal's "Crazy" and transplants it into the body of UNKLE's downtempo "Rabbit in Your Headlights." Then he takes it up a notch by layering in the keyboards and rhythm section from The Doors' "Break on Through" and tops it off with a trumpet solo by Miles Davis. Unusually daring stuff."
( soundcloud.com/leedm101/leedm101-crazy-rabbit-seal )
02 - Chocomang has a breakout track from Sound-Unsounds' 70s Mashup Album called 'Burn the Money' (Deep Purple vs Steve Miller Band). The track is mighty fine & managed to elicit a splendid response from master producer Rhythm Scholar . "Oh yeah. That music is a great backing track. Probably has a lot to do with those drums that I love so much, and having heard them under so many funky tunes throughout the years. It doesn't even seem like Steve Miller once it gets rolling."
( soundcloud.com/rock_mashups14/deep-purple-steve-miller-mash )
03 - Martinn whipped up a winner of a track with 'Criminal Down' (Michael Jackson vs Men At Work). He's no novice to the scene with many a popular track over about seven years & this new mix reveals why he thrives. He received a fine thanks comment from uber-mixer Qubic. "Other than the start of this track, it didn't sound like Smooth Criminal instrumentals. It was an interesting surprise to hear how well the vocals worked with the instrumental.Overall, the arrangement and production quality on this track was top notch."
( new.official.fm/tracks/4Bfs )
04 - thehomogenicchaos mashup 'Gained The Perfect World' (Gossip vs Morcheeba) continues ThC's progression of cool mashup gems. He got semi-professional commenter Bigsammy to say "3rd version within 20 minutes... and after two good remixes surprisingly the best and awesome one here as a mashie. Your "slower" version with some kind of weird vibrato made this track special and me nearly cry, WTF, it is so beautiful. Linked it to my fb, I love it!"
( thehomogenicchaos.blogspot.com/ )
05 - Dan Mei's 'Run To The Uprising Sun' (Muse vs The Blue Van) is a marvelous demonstration of why people literally urge Mr. Mei to make more mashups. Why would he feel otherwise when he elicits comments like this one from Phil Retrospector - "Hell Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!" When you get that many exclamation points you know you're doing great work.
( danmeiproductions.com/2012/04/03/run-to-the-uprising-sun-april-2012/ )
After these kinds of comments, you get your typical assortment of thanks, cranks & emoti-thanks. They're all preferable to zero words, although receiving large numbers of downloads is a good reward as well. As you know, we can't charge for our mixes, so comments are the common currency we crave. I hope you enjoyed these tracks & the guest responses.
Mix Of The Week
I asked y'all last week if you wanted more long mix posts & the word was unanimous for more! As a gift for communicating I give you now a mashup dance long mix from someone you're likely to be somewhat familiar with…ME! '
DJ Useo Dance Mashup Mix' is a full disc of foot-inspiring Useo dance mashups done up in a fashion intended to make you sweat. It has tracks like 'She Blinded Me With Wirdo Birdo' (Thomas Dolby vs Flyby), 'I Will Groove You' (Madonna vs Queen), and 'Club Cant Disgust Me' (Flo Rida f/ David Guetta vs Manila Presents Partytrooperz). The beats are matched & if that wasn't enough, if you're very observant you'll spot the naked lady on the cover. : )
( www.groovytimewithdjuseo.blogspot.com/2012/05/dj-useo-dance-mashup-mix.html )
Mashup Tip : Do your own thing. Copying someone elses mix style is ultimately unsatisfying.
Latest Useo Thing
I've got a good-sized batch of new Beatles mashups on my blog. You'll hear them matched against Lit, Squeeze & Queen, but for a change of pace I posted a really awful one that I thought was funny. It's the Beatles 'Hey Bulldog' with that popular YOUTUBE cat that says 'Oh Long Johnson'. LMAO. I threw in some extra cats doing some backup cat vocals, but beware, if you play this track in the presence of actual cats they get very agitated & will start fighting. I know because my cats did that. 'Hey Bullcat' (Oh Long Johnson vs The Beatles) can be found here
( www.groovytimewithdjuseo.blogspot.com/2012/06/oh-long-johnson-vs-beatles.html )
Podgornio, The Mashup Psychic Predicts
Adele mashups will be banned by Autumn 2012, when it is discovered the sheer weight of their numbers is affecting the earths' rotation.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
A Magical Mermaid Miscellany (Kuriositas)
The Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen, Denmark, has entranced onlookers since it was erected in 1909. Yet there are statues of mermaids the world over - a testament to the way in which these alluring ladies of the sea have embedded themselves in global popular culture. Let's take a tour around the world and visit some of the best.
Stephen Colbert on President Obama's "Extrajudical Killing" Spree
Two birds with one drone.
JCPenney Responds to Homophobic Boycott Calls with Gay Father's Day Ad (Gawker)
In what appears to be a direct response to the failed boycott campaign of anti-gay group One Million Moms, JCPenney yesterday unveiled a new Father's Day ad featuring a same-sex couple playing with their children.
Neil Gaiman: Make Good Art (Zen Pencils)
An Excerpt in Comic Book Form from Neil Gaiman's Commencement Speech.
Neil Gaiman: Popular Writers: A Stephen King interview
I interviewed Stephen King for the UK Sunday Times Magazine. The interview appeared a few weeks ago. The Times keeps its site paywalled, so I thought I'd post the original version of the interview here. (This is the raw copy, and it's somewhat longer than the interview as published.)
Sarah Crompton: Harry Belafonte at the Hay Festival 2012 (Telegraph)
The singer and legend Harry Belafonte held his Hay Festival audience in the palm of his hand.
Dave Simpson: 76 minutes with … John Lydon (Guardian)
The former Sex Pistols frontman on singing through Cilla Black's tights, modern-day anarchy and maintaining marital bliss.
David Bruce: Wise Up! Death (Athens News)
After Calvin Trillin's beloved wife, Alice, died, he received many, many touching letters, including some from people who had not even known Alice. One woman who had not known Alice wrote that when she looked at her boyfriend, she sometimes thought, "But will he love me like Calvin loves Alice?"
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."
wrote:
said:
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
BadtotheboneBob
Whitney Houston
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny by noon and very windy.
$30 Million Donation
Diller & von Furstenberg
For all its glamour, Hollywood also has its hardship. Hundreds of industry workers struggle with tough times each year and for 90 years, the Motion Picture & Television Fund has been there to help. Now, a celebrity couple is giving some sizeable help back to the Fund
MPTF board member George Clooney announced Tuesday that the family foundation of media titan Barry Diller and his wife, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, has donated $30 million to the MPTF.
"Seems impossible to me to have had success in the entertainment industry and not strongly support the MPTF," Diller said in a statement.
Besides providing health and social services, the Fund operates its historic Woodland Hills, Calif., retirement home, where Mary Astor, Hattie McDaniel, Johnny Weismuller and other stars of Hollywood's golden past once resided.
Diller & von Furstenberg
Setting Their Own Nutrition Standards
Disney
Disney says its programming will no longer be sponsored by junk food.
The Walt Disney Co. said Tuesday that it will become the first major media company to ban such ads for its TV channels, radio stations and websites intended for children. That means kids watching Saturday morning children's shows on Disney's ABC network will no longer see ads for fast foods and sugary cereals that don't meet company's nutrition standards.
The guidelines won't go into effect until 2015 because of existing advertising agreements.
At an event announcing the push, First Lady Michelle Obama called the announcement a "game changer."
Disney
The Disney Channel was commercial free for the first 10 years. Then they got greedy.
Hospital News
Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Crow revealed that she has a benign brain tumor, but her rep says it's nothing to be alarmed about.
The 50-year-old told an audience about her condition at a recent concert, but her representative, Christine Wolff, said it's very common.
The tumor is a meningioma, and it's typically benign and develops from the protective linings of the brain and spinal cord.
Crow battled breast cancer several years back. She's currently on a nationwide tour.
Sheryl Crow
Marian Anderson Award
James Earl
James Earl Jones has been named the 2012 recipient of the Marian Anderson Award, which honors artists whose leadership benefits humanity.
The critically acclaimed stage and screen actor will accept the award at a Nov. 19 gala at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.
Pamela Browner White, chairwoman of the award's board of directors, says Jones is an actor of intelligence and dignity who inspires others to pursue their dreams.
The Marian Anderson Award is named for the celebrated contralto and Philadelphia native, who in 1955 was the first black soloist at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She died in 1993 at age 96.
James Earl Jones
DVD Royalties
'Happy Days'
A judge has denied a motion by the makers of "Happy Days" to dismiss claims by several former cast members that they are owed royalties on DVD sales.
Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Allen White's ruling Tuesday clears the way for a trial on whether actors Anson Williams, Marion Ross, Don Most, Erin Moran and the widow of Tom Bosley may still be owed royalties on the use of their images in DVD packaging.
CBS Studios and Paramount Pictures sought to have their claims dismissed, arguing the group was properly paid.
Attorney Jon Pfeiffer says the group has received payments for several other types of merchandise since they sued in April 2011. He says the unpaid royalties are worth an estimated $250,000 to $500,000.
'Happy Days'
Faces Drug Charges
'Billy the Exterminator'
William "Billy" Bretherton, star of the A&E reality TV show "Billy the Exterminator," was arrested on drug possession charges in his home state of Louisiana.
Bossier City spokesman Mark Natale said Tuesday that a warrant was issued last week for Bretherton and his wife, Mary, after items recovered from their hotel room tested positive for synthetic marijuana. They surrendered to authorities Friday, posted $6,000 bond each and were released later that day, Natale said.
The reality show follows Bretherton, a pest control specialist in north Louisiana, as he responds to calls to wrangle, trap or kill various critters and pests, among them bees, snakes and cockroaches.
Natale said police were called on April 28 to a Bossier City hotel following a 911 hang-up call from the room. He said police found the Brethertons, both of Benton, La., with suspected synthetic marijuana and a device commonly used to smoke narcotics.
'Billy the Exterminator'
Charged With DUI
Amanda Bynes
Los Angeles prosecutors have charged actress Amanda Bynes with driving under the influence roughly two months after authorities say she grazed a sheriff's patrol car in an early morning accident.
The 26-year-old will be arraigned Wednesday morning in Beverly Hills but doesn't have to attend the hearing. Instead, she can have a lawyer enter a plea.
Bynes was arrested April 6 after authorities say she scraped a patrol car making a turn.
The misdemeanor complaint filed Tuesday alleges she refused to take a test at the time that could've determined whether she was drunk or under the influence of drugs. Because of her refusal, authorities may suspend her driver's license for a year.
Amanda Bynes
NYPD Blues
Scout Willis
New York City police say the underage daughter of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis was caught drinking in public and carrying fake identification.
The New York Police Department said Tuesday that officers found 20-year-old Scout Willis sipping a beer Monday evening in Union Square in violation of an open-container law. Police say she also showed them a fake ID - a misdemeanor.
Willis was arrested and taken to a local police station and released with a ticket ordering her to appear in court on July 21.
Scout Willis
Tiny Remnants Of War Found In Sand
Omaha Beach
When Texas geologist Earle McBride visited Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, in 1988, four decades after D-Day, the visible remnants of the Allied Forces' invasion there had long ago vanished.
But he and a colleague would later discover the history of the June 6, 1944, invasion of Normandy's beaches - which marked a turning point in World War Two - lingered in the sand in the form of tiny pieces of shrapnel only visible under a microscope.
It wasn't a discovery that McBride and colleague Dane Picard of Utah set out to make during their tourist visit to Omaha Beach, where U.S. forces suffered their greatest casualties in the assault against heavily fortified German defenses.
"We didn't think about, 'Hey, there should be shrapnel here?'" said McBride, 80, a professor emeritus at the University of Texas who retired in 2005 but still goes to his office five hours a day to study rocks.
But the geologists did what long ago became their habit when they visit a beach anywhere in the world: they put a bit of sand in a plastic bag and took it home.
Omaha Beach
Doctor's Report
Abraham Lincoln
The first doctor to reach President Abraham Lincoln after he was shot in a Washington theater rushed to his ceremonial box and found him paralyzed, comatose and leaning against his wife. Dr. Charles Leale ordered brandy and water to be brought immediately.
Leale's long-lost report of efforts to help the mortally wounded president, written just hours after his death, was discovered in a box at the National Archives late last month.
The Army surgeon, who sat 40 feet from Lincoln at Ford's Theater that night in April 1865, saw assassin John Wilkes Booth jump to the stage, brandishing a dagger. Thinking Lincoln had been stabbed, Leale pushed his way to the victim but found a different injury.
"I commenced to examine his head (as no wound near the shoulder was found) and soon passed my fingers over a large firm clot of blood situated about one inch below the superior curved line of the occipital bone," Leale reported. "The coagula I easily removed and passed the little finger of my left hand through the perfectly smooth opening made by the ball."
The historians who discovered the report believe it was filed, packed in a box, stored at the archives and not seen for 147 years. While it doesn't add much new information, "it's the first draft" of the tragedy, said Daniel Stowell, director of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln.
Abraham Lincoln
Only $30,000 (Plus S&H)
"Game of Thrones"
Want to own the Iron Throne from "Game of Thrones"? You can travel to the fictional land of Westeros, sack Kings Landing, and kill its current occupant, Joffrey Baratheon. Or you can click over to the HBO store and pay $30,000 for a very nice replica.
The latter way is probably easier, if a little less brave. Also, winning the throne in battle will make you the envy of all your friends, and putting it on your AmEx will make you look like a dork with rich parents - kind of like Joffrey.
HBO says no one has stepped up to claim a throne yet, but the replicas just went on sale Tuesday. And, yes, the network says this is real.
Each throne is made to order, but does not include a cushion.
Finally, if you're seriously considering this, shipping and handling is $1,800. As if that would stop you at this point.
"Game of Thrones"
'Sluts' Unite
Women's rights activists are banding together to "Rock the Slut Vote" in an online effort to register women to vote and cast their ballots against Republicans in 2012.
"If the GOP thinks that throwing the word 'slut' at us at this point is going to silence women they have another thing coming," said Susan McMillan Emry, the site's founder.
Conservative radio host Rush "Pigboy" Limbaugh (R-Viagra-Dependent Sex Tourist) thrust the derogatory word into the political arena in February when he called law student Sandra Fluke a "slut" for testifying before Congress in support of contraceptives.
The site aims to "re-appropriate" the word "slut" so that Limbaugh and other Republicans cannot use it to "bully and silence women," Emry said.
"It's really about taking the power away from that word more than it is about Rush Limbaugh," she said. "He gave the word the notoriety but we are trying to take it back."
'Sluts' Unite
Prime-Time Nielsens
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for May 28-June 3. Listings include the week's ranking and viewership.
1. "America's Got Talent" (Tuesday, 9 p.m.), NBC, 11.51 million.
2. "NCIS," CBS, 10.25 million.
3. "America's Got Talent" (Monday), NBC, 9.96 million.
4. "60 Minutes," CBS, 9.77 million.
5. "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 8.79 million.
6. "America's Got Talent" (Tuesday, 8 p.m.), NBC, 7.428 million.
7. "Person of Interest," CBS, 7.425 million.
8. "The Mentalist," CBS, 7.27 million.
9. "So You Think You Can Dance," Fox, 7.15 million.
10. "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 7.06 million.
11. "20/20" (Tuesday, 9 p.m.), ABC, 6.92 million.
12. "NCIS: Los Angeles," CBS, 6.8 million.
13. "Dogs in the City," CBS, 6.72 million.
14. "Rules of Engagement," CBS, 6.43 million.
15. "Miss USA 2012," 6.29 million.
16. "Adele Live in London," NBC, 6.22 million.
17. "Dateline NBC" (Friday), NBC, 6.06 million.
18. "48 Hours Mystery" (Tuesday), CBS, 5.98 million.
19. "Duets," ABC, 5.92 million.
20. "Two and a Half Men, CBS, 5.89 million.
Ratings
In Memory
Herb Reed
Herb Reed, the last surviving original member of 1950s vocal group the Platters who sang on hits like "Only You" and "The Great Pretender," has died. He was 83.
Reed died on Monday in a Boston area hospice after a period of declining health that included chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, manager Fred Balboni said.
Reed was a Kansas City, Mo., native who founded the Platters in Los Angeles in 1953. Then a quartet, the group won amateur talent shows, and performed nights and weekends up and down the California coast while the members worked days at a car wash and at other odd jobs.
Reed came up with the group's name, inspired by '50s disc jockeys who called their records platters.
The group underwent several lineup changes, even adding a woman singer to become a quintet, before signing their first major recording contract in 1955.
Reed sang bass on the group's four No. 1 hits, including "The Great Pretender," ''My Prayer," ''Twilight Time" and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes."
The Platters were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998. Their recordings are in the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Reed credited his survival in the music industry to the poverty he experienced as a child in Kansas City. While other members of the group spent frivolously, he used his first big royalty check to buy a house.
"I never thought that it would keep going, and I never wanted to assume we'd keep getting checks," he said earlier this year.
Reed also waged long legal battles with other artists who performed and recorded under the name the Platters. He finally won a court decision in Nevada last year giving him rights to the name. He called the court victory every bit as big as the gold and platinum records he had earned, Balboni said.
Reed had homes in Atlanta and Miami but had called the Boston area home since the 1970s "because the people were always so nice to me," he told a biographer. He had most recently living in Arlington.
Reed was the only member of the group to appear on all of their nearly 400 recordings. He continued touring, performing up to 200 shows per year, until last year, often performing with younger singers under the name Herb Reed and the Platters or Herb Reed's Platters.
Reed is survived by a son and three grandsons.
Herb Reed
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