My newest obsession...
My newest obsession…
Is with Mashup music. Mashups are distinct, I think, from the cutups that are usually found on the Hour of Slack If you don’t listen to it, I suggest you at least try a couple. For one thing, the digital antics of Fernandinande Lemur and Norelpref are usual contributors of mixed up “PR News” and many other remixes where most often just one piece of music is broken up and remixed into other stuff. In 1986 I did a cutup from the Wizard of Oz using a VCR copy of the movie recorded from TV and two cassette decks to make a 45 second cutup. It was done in macintosh format, I might still have a copy of it around somewhere.. Another good use of cutups is The Evolution Control Committee, especially their song “Rocked by Rape”, which features an AC/DC guitar backdrop with clips of Dan Rather from the CBS Evening News, which go like “Death.. rape.. sorrow.. suffering..”, the chorus is “Rocked.. rocked.. rocked by rape” Mashups, on the other hand, are where someone, using a computer with sound-editing software, combines two or more sound sources to make something new. My favorite mashup artist is currently DJ Earworm, and I’ve enjoyed a lot of what I have heard from the folks linked from his site. If you don’t listen to anything else, you have to download his “Stairway to Bootleg Heaven”, which combines 22 different samples ranging from The Eurythmics, Dolly Parton, The Beatles, Laurie Anderson, Pat Benatar and more.. Local radio station KBCO occasionally plays a mashup of Ray Charles backing up the Foggy Mountain Boys from “Brother where art thou”. Another recent really cool find is this 59 minute program called “Raiding the 20th Century”, which is essentially a history of sound cutups and mashups, including some of the earliest experiemnts with tape recorders in the 40’s, an interview with John Lennon about how they made “revolution no. 9” (an early mashup).