M Is FOR MASHUP - July 6th, 2011
Long Live Rock 'n' Roll Mashups
By DJ Useo
I grew up on horrible pop music when I was very young.Then I was 'into' classical music.Then I loved punk rock passionately. Finally, I grew to appreciate club music, like 12" extendeds. Lastly, I came to appreciate classic rock music. It was the Doors that did it. Every Sunday the local classic rock station would play seven complete albums in a row. One night out of some curiousity & a lot of boredom, I tuned in to the rock station & found that I really liked STRANGE DAYS album from the Doors. Techno music had been coming on strong in the states during the late nineties, but was quickly fading to make way for horrible pop music. So much derivative regurgitation of what was already derivative. It seemed to me that as I became more familiar with classic rock, the more it offered as far as creativity & personal stylization. I started enjoying many, many bands that I'd previously disliked. Mostly intensely. Rush,Clapton, Led Zeppelin. Man, had I been wrong to ignore them.
Then the epiphany arrived in the form of a mashup I heard of the Monkees vs the Beatles. Damn, was it ever a satisfying listen. The retained elements present in the final mix clearly heightened the track to a point where I actually liked it more than the originals. It made me look around the net to see if I could find more like tracks. Well,who'da thunkit, but there were lots more classic rock mashups. Some with classic rock voices singing over modern tunes & others done in reverse fashion. So, you might hear a track with Beyonce singing over some Steely Dan, or some Bob Dylan warbling above some Dandy Warhols! What a killer effect they had on me. Of course there were tons of mashups that didn't use any classic rock, but a steady stream of tracks that did use it always appeared.
Nowadays the majority of mashups are still dance, techno, pop, or hip hop but alongside them the classic rock influence remains steady. In the last year, a great little site has emerged called
ROCK MASHUPS
( soundcloud.com/rock_mashups ) which features nawt but, you guessed it, Rock_Mashups. A fine person named Rock Mashups contacted me & I found out some of my tracks had been chosen for posting there. Ni-ice, I say. It's also really cool to get in touch with like-minded peeps. There's some fantastic mixes on ROCK MASHUPS. Between the ability of the producers, & the excellent taste of Rock_Mashups the site is chock full of rock mashup goodness.
There's incredible mashups like LeeDM101's 'Barrel of a Queen' (Queen vs Depeche Mode), DJ Morgoth's 'Crawling Supernova (Oomph! vs Linkin Park), & DJ Topcat's 'More Than On Point (Boston vs House Of Pain). Presently there's not only three pages of tracks for listening, or downloading, but there's also some awesome collections available as complete files. There's ROCK MASHUPS Volumes 1, 1a, & 2 just waiting for your right-click! & best of all (at least for me) is the BRAND-SPANKING NEW THE ROLLING STONES: A Mashup Set.(Becuase I got a track chosen for it,hehe) To get a track posted on ROCK MASHUPS it takes favorable votes from at least three members. You know what that means? It means YOU CAN JOIN & DECIDE WHAT MASHUPS GET POSTED! Yup, you get free mashups & the honour of personal selection. Forget about government-style die-bold voting, here your vote counts for something!
Sign up or just enjoy the tracks. Either way you're in for a high time with
ROCK MASHUPS!
( soundcloud.com/rock_mashups )
( www.facebook.com/rockmashups )
Mix Of The Week
Budtheweiser has done it again with his phenomenal mix of the complete
SUMMER BOOTY 2011 mashup project
( www.suprmchaos.com/bcEnt-Thu-062311.index.html ) You won't believe what a fine listen it is. The entire three hours of summery-vibe mashups condensed to 2 1/2 hours! Yeah,it's lo-o-ong, but it's excellent!Find it
here
( official.fm/tracks/272392 http:summerbooty.com )
Mashup Tip : Kiss a freckled fool for mashup inspiration (a spotty dolt will do).
Latest Useo Thing
'Upside Down Drunken Sailor' (The Irish Rovers vs Plastik Funk vs 2Elements) has gotten a big response in comments & downloads. If you think you'd enjoy some Irish techno, this is for you.
( groovytimewithdjuseo.blogspot.com/2011/06/irish-rovers-vs-plastik-funk-vs.html )
Podgornio, The Mashup Psychic Predicts
So many new mashups will be posted next year that all mashup producers will get a raise.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Neil Gaiman Sings About Joan of Arc (YouTube)
Author Neil Gaiman shows his songwriting chops at Minnesota Public Radio's Wits.
225,000 Killed; $3.2 - 4 Trillion (Costsofwar.org; Brown University)
The President of the United States has told the American people and the rest of the world that even as the U.S. withdraws some troops from Afghanistan and continues to withdraw from Iraq, the wars will continue for some years. The debate over why each war was begun and whether either or both should have been fought continues.
Connie Schultz: He Supports a Woman's Right to Privacy -- Just This Once (Creators Syndicate)
On Saturday, April 23 - in the wee hours of the morning after Good Friday - an Indiana state trooper pulled over Mecklenborg, who was driving with temporary Kentucky license plates. The officer stated in his report that he had stopped Mecklenborg for a burned-out headlight but then suspected Mecklenborg was intoxicated after he smelled alcohol and noticed the state rep's "glossy, bloodshot eyes."
Francis Beckett: Maimed by a police dog - for being a football fan (Guardian)
… the two of them were forced to watch as officers handcuffed Tony's older son, 20-year-old Leeds University student Tommy, forced him on to the ground, and set a police dog on him. The dog bit fiercely into Tommy's face - he couldn't even raise his handcuffed hands to protect himself. The injuries will be with him for the rest of his life, partly because the police refused him access to antibiotics for 14 hours, by which time infection had taken hold.
Paul Krugman's Column: Corporate Cash Con (New York Times)
Watching the evolution of economic discussion in Washington over the past couple of years has been a disheartening experience. Month by month, the discourse has gotten more primitive; with stunning speed, the lessons of the 2008 financial crisis have been forgotten, and the very ideas that got us into the crisis - regulation is always bad, what's good for the bankers is good for America, tax cuts are the universal elixir - have regained their hold.
Patrick Kingsley: Keeping snappers out of the picture (Guardian)
A new software program aims to prevent the authorities tracking down photographers at demonstrations.
JOE QUEENAN: Buds in Ears, Nothing Between Them (Wall Street Journal)
The time has come for men and women of good will to begin playing an exciting new game called earphone keggling. The idea is to line up people standing in front of you with those ubiquitous little buds jammed into their ears-people who are blocking the sidewalk or the subway entrance or the stairway, people who are making it impossible to get through a revolving door because they are fiddling around with their MP3 players-and try to knock them over.
Henry Rollins: The Brutality, the Humanity, the Tour (LA Weekly)
I am in the middle of this Dinosaur Jr. juggernaut. Every night a show in a different city. So far, it's been great. The band has played really well and the audiences have been into it.
George Varga: Eddie Vedder Finds New Musical Pearls With Ukulele Songs (Creators Syndicate)
In music, as in life, knowledge and experience can be valuable tools for growth. But for Eddie Vedder, knowing next to nothing about Hawaii's most famous stringed instrument proved invaluable when he made his endearing new solo album, "Ukulele Songs."
Jools Holland: why I'm happy just to play the blues (Guardian)
I don't want to be a BBC boss, the 'Later' host tells Vanessa Thorpe.
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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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Hot, humid and cranky.
Asks Hugo Chavez To Release Judge
Noam Chomsky
One of President Hugo Chavez's most well-known inspirations, leftist intellectual Noam Chomsky, is challenging the Venezuelan leader on a key human rights case by asking him to release a judge detained since 2009.
In a public letter released over the weekend, Chomsky condemned the "degrading treatment" suffered by Judge Maria Lourdes Afiuni and declared himself in "total solidarity" with her.
Chomsky said he didn't believe the judge's case was part of a larger trend of repression against government critics in Venezuela. Human Rights Watch found that the Venezuelan government "systematically undermined journalistic freedom of expression" and the independence of the country's judiciary.
"I don't think it's isolated," Chomsky said, referring to the Afiuni case. "But I'm not convinced there's a larger trend."
"I can't think of a country where there's no illegal repression, including in the United States," Chomsky said.
Noam Chomsky
Comedy Central Roast
Charlie Sheen
After a year in the headlines for his wayward behavior, Charlie Sheen is up for some more laughs at his own expense.
The fired "Two and A Half Men" actor will be the star of Comedy Central's next roast in September, the network announced on Tuesday.
Kent Alterman, head of original programing at Comedy Central, said that "Charlie has assured us that nothing will be off limits in this Roast...which scares even us."
The cable network said the Charlie Sheen Roast will be recorded in Los Angeles on September 10 and broadcast on Comedy Central on September 19.
Charlie Sheen
Cancels Tour
Duran Duran
Veteran New Romantic band Duran Duran has called off its summer tour because frontman Simon Le Bon is recovering from voice problems.
The European tour had been due to start in Dublin next week and continue through mid-September.
Le Bon said Tuesday he had damaged muscles controlling his vocal cords, leaving him unable to hit top notes, and had been advised to undergo physical therapy.
He said it was unclear how long he would take to recover. But he added: "I am doing everything I can to work through this and get back on track as soon as possible."
Duran Duran
Hospital News
Harold Camping
The California radio preacher who predicted the world's end on May 21 is recovering from a stroke at a nursing home.
Harold Camping's daughter confirms her father recently moved from an area hospital to a skilled nursing facility, where he is undergoing rehabilitation to regain his strength after suffering a stroke last month.
Camping's Family Radio network is working to replace the 89-year-old's show, Open Forum, with interim programming. The station has been playing repeats since his stroke.
Camping predicted Judgment Day would occur, first in 1994 and again in May. His media empire spent millions of dollars, some culled from followers' donations, over seven years on billboards and other publicity for his 2011 predictions about the spiritual Rapture in May and the end of the world in October.
Harold Camping
New Hacking Allegation
Rupert
Prime Minister David Cameron led a chorus of condemnation on Tuesday over allegations a top-selling British newspaper from Rupert Murdoch's global media empire hacked the voicemail of a missing schoolgirl who was later found murdered.
Suggestions that in 2002 a News of the World investigator listened in to, and deleted, messages left for the cellphone of the 13-year-old, misleading police and her family, caused uproar in parliament, where the tactics and power of the tabloid press, many of them Murdoch titles, have long caused controversy.
The gravest accusations yet drove the long-rumbling scandal into the heart of Murdoch's News Corp: it came as it seeks official approval to take over broadcaster BSkyB; and forced Rebekah Brooks, a Murdoch confidante who was the News of the World editor at the time, to plead ignorance and say she would not resign as head of News Corp's British newspaper arm.
Suggestions that the News of the World's activities might have hampered police and given false hope to the family of the murdered teenager, Milly Dowler, caused uproar in Britain and moved Cameron to comment while on a visit to Afghanistan.
Cameron had until now said little about the phone hacking scandal, which forced the resignation earlier this year of his own spokesman, another former editor of the News of the World.
Rupert
Bolting Rupert's Newspaper
Advertisers
Car maker Ford has suspended advertising in Britain's News of the World due to allegations of hacking by the newspaper, while lender Halifax joined a growing band of companies reviewing their policies.
"Our Marketing Director is considering our options regarding advertising in the News of the World," Halifax, which is owned by Lloyds Banking Group, said on Tuesday via its official Twitter feed.
The moves by companies to distance themselves from the newspaper, which is part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., came after allegations that the tabloid hacked the voicemail of a missing schoolgirl who was later found murdered.
Elsewhere on Twitter, where many companies faced a barrage of messages from consumers demanding that they boycott News of the World, mobile telephone operator T-Mobile UK said it was reviewing its advertising position with News of the World.
Advertisers
Lawyers Blast
Cable News
No sooner had Casey Anthony been acquitted on charges of killing her daughter than her attorneys lashed out against cable news coverage that they said unfairly cast the verdict as shocking.
Shortly after the jury's decision was announced, one of Anthony's lawyers, Cheney Mason, said he hoped the verdict was a lesson to those who had "indulged in media assassination" during the three years between 2-year-old Caylee Anthony's disappearance and her mother's acquittal for murder.
Mason did not mention anyone by name, but his remarks seemed aimed at Nancy Grace of the HLN network, which has seen its fortunes soar with extensive coverage of the trial.
Grace, the former prosecutor with a primetime show, began covering the Anthony story in 2008 as a missing persons case and has made little secret of her belief in Casey Anthony's guilt.
Cable News
Pleads Not Guilty To DUI
Rick Springfield
Prosecutors say an attorney for Rick Springfield has entered a not guilty plea on the rocker's behalf in a drunken driving case.
Los Angeles County district attorney's spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons says Philip Cohen entered the plea during a hearing Tuesday in Malibu.
Springfield was arrested May 1 by a sheriff's deputy who stopped him for allegedly speeding in his 1963 Corvette on Pacific Coast Highway.
The sheriff's department said Springfield's blood alcohol content was 0.10 percent. That's over the 0.08 percent limit in which a person is presumed to be too drunk to drive.
Rick Springfield
Blamed For Europe E. Coli
Fenugreek Seeds
Egyptian sprout seeds blamed for a massive and deadly E. coli outbreak are still on the market and were shipped to more European countries than was previously believed, officials said Tuesday, as the EU announced a ban on further imports.
The European Food Safety Authority confirmed in a report that one lot of contaminated fenugreek seeds from Egypt was probably the source of the recent food poisoning outbreaks in Germany and France. But the number of European countries that received parts of the suspected lot is "much larger than previously known," and includes Austria, Britain and Spain, it said.
Fenugreek seeds from the suspect Egyptian lot - about 15,000 kilograms - were imported to one large German distributor, the agency said. Those seeds were then sold to 70 different companies, 54 of them in Germany, the center of the outbreak, and to 16 companies in 11 other European countries.
Fenugreek is a clover-shaped plant whose leaves are commonly used as an herb and also in Indian curries. The seeds are often sold dried, and if they are contaminated with E. coli, the bacteria can survive for years.
Fenugreek Seeds
Opens Archives
Vatican't
The Vatican will be displaying 100 select documents from its Secret Archives at an unprecedented exhibit next year, including previously unpublished papers on its World War II-era pope.
The Vatican No. 2, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, unveiled plans for "Lux in Arcana: The Vatican Secret Archives Revealed" at a briefing Tuesday.
The exhibit, which runs from February to September at Rome's Capitoline Museums, marks the first time such precious documents, manuscripts and parchments have been allowed out of the Vatican vaults for view by the general public. The occasion is the Archive's 400th anniversary.
Officials said some of the previously unseen documents concern Pope Pius XII, accused by some Jews of failing to speak out enough to stop the Holocaust.
Vatican't
Horse Painting Fetches $36 M
George Stubbs
A horse painting by George Stubbs fetched 22.4 million pounds ($35.9 million) at Christie's in London on Tuesday, the third most valuable old master painting to be sold at auction, the company said.
"Gimcrack on Newmarket Heath, with a Trainer, a Stable-Lad, and a Jockey" had been expected to fetch 20-30 million pounds excluding fees. The sale price included buyer's premium.
The work was painted by Stubbs, renowned for his anatomically precise portrayals of horses, in 1765, and was described by the auctioneer as "a true masterpiece."
It depicts Gimcrack, one of the most admired 18th century racehorses which won 28 of his 36 races and finished unplaced only once.
George Stubbs
ESPN Acquires U.S. TV Rights
Wimbledon
ESPN has acquired the exclusive U.S. television rights for Wimbledon for the next 12 years, ending 43 years of NBC airing the Grand Slam tournament.
ESPN announced Tuesday that the All England Club, which presents the tournament, had granted it the rights. The network promised in a statement that "comprehensive coverage from start to finish across a variety of platforms will result in more tennis for fans and all of it live."
ESPN already had the rights to air the early rounds of Wimbledon. NBC played "Breakfast at Wimbledon" broadcasts of the finals.
The deal was the second long-term, major agreement for sports TV rights in the last month: NBC lost Wimbledon after outbidding ESPN and Fox to keep the rights to the Olympics through 2020.
Wimbledon
Fewer Pets Killed
Spay / Neuter Programs
When Stephen Zawistowski got his first dog 50 years ago, she was the only dog in the neighborhood that was spayed.
"She had an incision that must have been a foot long and was sewn up with what looked like piano wire," says Zawistowski, science adviser for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
It took years of campaigning to change thinking about sterilizing pets, but it has paid off. This year fewer than 4 million unwanted dogs and cats will be euthanized, down from as many as 20 million before 1970.
There are several reasons: Aggressive adopt-a-pet campaigns are carried out every day in cities all over the country and breed rescues save many dogs. But animal experts believe spaying and neutering has played the biggest role in saving so many lives.
Nearly every public shelter, private rescue or animal welfare organization in the country donates money, space or time to low-cost spay and neuter clinics.
Spay / Neuter Programs
In Memory
Anne LaBastille
Anne LaBastille, the environmentalist, sometime hermit and author whose "Woodswoman" autobiographies inspired others to venture into the wilderness, has died at a nursing home in Plattsburgh. She was 75.
The city clerk's office confirmed a death certificate was filed for LaBastille but would not release other details.
Friends said she was ill the past few years but still owned a farm near Lake Champlain, as well as the cabin that she and friends built on Twitchell Lake in the western Adirondacks.
Her autobiographies began with "Woodswoman," a 1976 account of cabin life on what she euphemistically called Black Bear Lake. It has sold more than 100,000 copies.
LaBastille wrote a dozen books, as well as articles and essays for National Geographic and other magazines. She cut a striking figure with long blonde, later white, hair and often was accompanied by her German shepherds.
Born in Montclair, N.J., in 1935, LaBastille earned a Ph.D. from Cornell in wildlife ecology. She was married for several years to Major Bowes, proprietor of Covewood Lodge on Big Moose Lake, where she worked.
LaBastille was a commissioner of New York's Adirondack Park Agency for 17 years, with an unpaid seat on its board from 1975 to 1993. The APA regulates land use in the 6-million-acre Adirondack Park.
In a 2007 interview with The Associated Press, LaBastille said the environmental and feminist movements began around 1970, but her interest in nature and science studies at Cornell began earlier. "That was the best thing in my life," she said. "I was studying biology and ornithology and all of the things that could be taken in with nature. On the back of that ... I was going to be some kind of explorer, and it came true more or less."
Her thesis research was the ecology of the giant pied-billed grebe, a flightless bird that was then found only at Lake Atitlan in the Guatemalan highlands and now is extinct. It was a subject she revisited in several articles for scientific journals.
Isabella Worthen, a longtime friend and director of the Old Forge Library, where LaBastille led writing workshops and environmental seminars, said a memorial service is planned at a later date.
Anne LaBastille
In Memory
Cy Twombly
Celebrated American painter Cy Twombly, whose large-scale paintings featuring scribbles, graffiti and references to ancient empires fetched millions at auction, died Tuesday. He was 83.
Twombly, who had cancer, died in Rome, said Eric Mezil, director of the Lambert Collection in Avignon, France, where the artist opened a show in June. Twombly had lived in Italy since 1957.
"A great American painter who deeply loved old Europe has just left us," French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said in a statement. "His work was deeply marked by his passion for Greek and Roman antiquity, and its mythology, which for him was a source of bottomless inspiration."
Twombly was known for his abstract works combining painting and drawing techniques, repetitive lines, scribbles and the use of words and graffiti. He is often linked to the legendary American artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, whom he met as a student in New York in the early 1950s.
Though recognition came late for his work - and he was often overshadowed by the famous company he kept, like Johns and Rauschenberg - Twombly was asked to paint a ceiling of the Louvre museum in Paris in 2010, the first artist given the honor since Georges Braque in the 1950s.
An untitled Twombly painting set an auction record for the artist at a 2002 Sotheby's sale, fetching euro5.6 million. Before that, a 1990 Christie's auction set a record for Twombly, with his 1971 untitled blackboard painting going for $5.5 million.
His canvases also ignited the passions of his followers. In 2007, a woman was arrested in France for kissing an all-white canvas he painted, worth about $2 million. Restorers had trouble getting the lipstick off, and she was ordered to pay hundreds of dollars to the owner and the gallery - and $1.50 to the artist himself.
Born Edwin Parker Twombly in 1928, the artist got his nickname from his father, who was a baseball player for the Chicago White Sox and had been called Cy after another famous slugger, "Cyclone" Young. Eventually Twombly Jr. got the same nickname.
Between 1942-46, he studied modern European art under Pierre Daura, a Spanish artist who was living in his hometown of Lexington, according to a catalog for a 2009 Twombly exhibit in Rome organized by the Tate Modern and Rome's National Museum of Modern Art.
In 1950, he won a scholarship to the Art Students League in New York, where he was exposed to the works of Rothko, Pollock and others. There he met Rauschenburg, a few years his senior but also a student at the League. On Rauschenburg's advice, Twombly enrolled at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, the experimental school whose alumni are a Who's Who of contemporary arts.
He opened his first solo exhibit at the Seven Stairs Gallery in Chicago in 1951 and a year later sailed from New York with Rauschenburg for his first trip to Europe - which would eventually become his home - and North Africa, the catalog said.
In 1954, he was drafted and trained as a cryptographer in the U.S. Army. While serving, he would draw in the dark - following a Surrealist technique - and the practice was later evident in his work.
Three years later he moved to Rome and never really left. Later in life, he spent more time in the seaside town of Gaeta south of the Eternal City.
In 1959, he married Luisa Tatiana Franchetti and they had a son, Alessandro Cyrus, the catalog said.
Twombly, who had a gallery in his name at the Menil Collection museum in Houston, Texas, won a series of awards, including a knight in France's Legion of Honor bestowed at the inauguration of the Louvre ceiling.
He won Japan's highest and most prestigious art award in 1998, the Praemium Imperiale prize, which honors fields not covered by the Nobels.
In 2001 he snapped up the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale, where he first exhibited his work in 1980.
The same year, he opened his first major sculpture show at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The exhibit was still able to ignite the old controversy about whether what he made was really art and whether what he possessed was really talent.
Cy Twombly
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