Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
Music is a necessity. Though I focus mostly on alternative/industrial/EBM/electronic styles, my tastes are eclectic and wide-ranging.
About a year and a half ago, I put up a post about Billy Idol’s Cyberpunk album and included an OS X disc image of the floppy that came with the special edition package. Antonio Exposito was kind enough to e-mail me today and let me know that the disc image was corrupted — so thanks to Kinko’s keeping floppy drives attached to their rental Macs, there’s now a new, freshly-created disc image available for download.
“Happiness (Dub)” by Front 242 from the album Mut@ge.Mix@ge (1995, 6:10).
Plans for April 30th are afoot, courtesy of Mr. Jason Webley…
Camp Tomato!
An afternoon of fun and games beginning at Woodland Park and ending with a concert in Ballard. The day begins with a potluck picnic at 1 pm. Various tomato activities will follow. After a dinner break, Jason will give a concert at the new Paradox Theater. Tomato, tomato, wheee!
The Paradox Theater
1401 NW Leary Way
8 pm – All Ages – $9
“I Am Calling Out (L’Alta)” by Master Musicians of Jajouka from the album Brian Jones pres. the Pipes of Pan at Jajouka (1995, 5:54).
Prairie just pointed out this list of the top ten favorite funeral songs in Europe:
- Queen’s “The Show Must Go On”
- Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”
- AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”
- Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”
- Mozart’s “Requiem”
- Robbie Williams’ “Angels”
- Queen’s “Who Wants to Live Forever”
- The Beatles’s “Let It Be”
- Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters”
- U2’s “With or Without You”
I’m finding the mental image of a full congregation of mourners standing in a cathedral, colored shafts of light cast through the stained glass windows slowly moving across their faces, sadly and somberly intoning AC/DC’s ‘Highway to Hell’ to the accompaniment of a church organist and choir far too amusing for my own good.
“Firemission” by Noxious Emotion from the album This Hallowed Ground (1995, 5:27).
About a week ago, Mike Whybark attended a small event involving local performer Jason Webley), and subsequently posted a video of fellow accordionist Aaron Seeman leading the accordion class in a rousing rendition of the Dead Kennedys‘ ‘California Über Alles‘.
In an entertaining little bit of synchronicity, while driving around on Saturday afternoon Prairie and I happened to catch the last half of this week’s This American Life show on the local NPR station. The show (at least in this latter half) was a fascinating look at Michael Guarino, most notorious for being the prosecuting lawyer in the 1986 obscenity trial against Jello Biafra and the Dead Kennedys over their 
_Frankenchrist_ album and the H. R. Giger print included with it.
From the Alternative Tentacles website:
When a San Fernando Valley mother complained that her 13- year old daughter had purchased the record as a gift for her 11-year old brother (at a Wherehouse Records outlet in a large mall), the LA City Attorney’s Office decided to prosecute the case. Deputy city attorney Michael Guarino, the prosecutor in the case, admitted they chose to prosecute the DKs because it would be a “cost-effective” way to send a message to other musicians, record companies and fans. Guarino had been considering prosecuting several other groups when this case came along, and he thought he could win this one.
…
Charged in the case were Biafra, and four others, including the 67-year old man whose company pressed the Frankenchrist disc. Conspicuously not charged were Wherehouse Records which sold the offending album. They had agreed to stop selling Frankenchrist and all other Dead Kennedys albums when the controversy first surfaced.
Biafra and the others decided to fight the charges of distributing harmful matter to minors, and set up the No More Censorship Defense Fund…
Finally, after months of delay, during which Biafra’s time was taxed enough that he had no time to work on his music, the case went to trial. After a week-long trial in which witnesses such as Greil Marcus testified on the group’s behalf, and a respected art teacher attempted to show how the poster was an integral part of the Frankenchrist package, the jury came out deadlocked (7-5 in favor of acquittal), and the judge dismissed the case.
Jello has talked about this case many times over the years at spoken word performances, some of which have been recorded and released as albums. I first learned about the case from Jello’s spoken word album 
No More Cocoons, and have heard it referenced quite a few times over the years since.
Apparently, though, Mr. Guarino has come to see his zealous attack against the Dead Kennedys as a mistake — and has since come to gain an appreciation for the causes that Jello supports. From a 1997 Music News of the World article:
In fact, Guarino, whose son is a big fan of Biafra, said he now appreciates a lot of what the punk poet has to say in his spoken-word rants.
“In retrospect,” Guarino, the Director of Clinical Programs at JFK University in Orinda, Calif., told ATN last week, “I think it’s more important for (District Attorneys) offices and US Attorneys offices to focus on the tremendous amount of conflict of interest at the top, the accountants, the lawyers, the politicians, and get out of the area of freedom of expression.”
…
In one of life’s great ironies, Guarino said his teenage son “idolizes” Biafra and constantly listens to the punk poet’s CDs of spoken-word rants. “I keep trying to tell him that there’s much more to all of this than what Jello talks about, but he is definitely right about a lot of stuff,” Guarino said about Biafra’s conspiratorial rants. “He’s an interesting guy, but he only sees what he’s in a position to see and he can’t get beyond a quarter-inch or so of what’s going on. In some cases, it’s much worse than he could ever imagine.”
Towards the end of the This American Life segment, interviewer David Seagal (sp?) has called Jello and gotten the two men to talk. Not only do they end up talking about the nearly two-decade old case, but they go on from there, finding more common ground than might be expected and chatting like old friends.
It was an incredibly interesting bit of radio to randomly stumble across. The show (Know Your Enemy) isn’t available online yet, but according to the This American Life website, it should be downloadable in about a week or so. Consider it highly recommended listening.
“California Über Alles” by Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, The from the album Hypocrisy is the Greatest Luxury (1992, 4:13).
Okay, folks — for better or for worse (but hopefully not too much worse), I spent some time playing around in GarageBand over the past couple of days. The result: Depeche Mode’s ‘Flexible’ and ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ plus Prince’s ‘1999’ equals DJ Wüdi – Just Can’t Get Flexible in 1999 (7.8Mb MP3).
It’s my first attempt at creating a mashup rather than just listening to ’em. Probably not likely to make it to the top of the charts, but I don’t think it’s too terribly bad for a first try.
Give it a listen, and feel free to let me know what you think (good or bad)!
Update: I’ve made some slight tweaks to the track (mostly moving the rap section back by a few bars, it was coming in too early in the first version) and replaced the download file with v2. If you haven’t downloaded this yet, you’re set, otherwise feel free to re-download the updated mix.
Update 5/2/2008: Mini-review by Mashuptown: “wow! floor filla’. quite splendid indeed.” Sweet!
Lately I’ve been getting more and more into Mashups — songs created by taking two or more different songs and “mashing” them together into one. While some aren’t much more complex than the simple beatmatching I did while I was dj’ing, others I’ve found are jaw-droppingly cool, with layers of multiple tracks that really shouldn’t work together as well as they do.
The first one I can remember finding I stumbled across a few years ago, long before the term “mashup” gained popularity. A fairly simple mashup, it laid the vocal track from Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise” over the acid electronica of Winx’ “Higher State of Consciousness”.
Over the past few months, as the mashup trend has become more and more mainstream, I’ve been able to find a lot of really good stuff, often thanks to links on either Boing Boing or Waxy.
The Kleptones‘ “A Night at the Hip-Hopera“, for instance, combines Queen’s music with a lot of old- and new-school hip-hop. More recently, they’ve released “From Detroit to J.A.“, which plays similar tricks with a ton of old Motown tunes.
DJ Danger Mouse‘s “Grey Album“, combining vocals from Jay-Z’s “Black Album” with The Beatles’ “White Album” got a lot of attention last year, leading to the “Grey Tuesday” campaign. It also led to more experiments with Jay-Z’s vocal tracks, including Cheap Cologne’s “Double Black” album using Metallica’s “Black Album” as the musical background.
The Beatles have proven to be a favorite of the mashup scene (much to the consternation of their record company and the RIAA). DJ BC combined the Beatles and the Beastie Boys to create The Beastles; and ccc just released Revolved, a re-working of their Revolver album.
The Who Boys is a mashup of The Who and The Beach Boys — not one of my personal favorites of the mashups I’ve found, but still interesting.
I also just grabbed a torrent of tracks from DJ Earworm that has some incredible work.
So, then, I’m curious about two things.
Firstly — is there anyone else dropping by here that’s been following this trend? If so, are there any mashup artists or particular tracks that you’d recommend?
Secondly — all the “how-to” tutorials I’ve seen for creating mashups so far have been PC-oriented. I poked around a little bit at GarageBand, but it doesn’t seem to be the best tool for this kind of work (specifically, while I can easily import tracks from my music library, there doesn’t seem to be a way to time-stretch or -compress imported audio to ensure that the tempos match). Any recommendations for Mac-specific audio software or tutorials in this realm? I may not actually be able to come up with anything, but there are a couple of ideas floating around my head that might be fun to play with.
“Policy of Sweet Dreams” by Depeche Mode/Eurythmics from the album www.djearworm.com (2004, 4:43).
The Seattle Times has announced the 5th Ave. Theatre‘s 2005-2006 season. Lots of good stuff coming up, including The King and I, but the one that’s really catching my eye is 
Sweeney Todd.
I’ve seen Sweeney Todd on stage once before, years ago in Anchorage, and just recently was thrilled to see it heavily referenced in Kevin Smith’s Jersey Girl. Should be fun to get a chance to see it again, it’s just the sort of twisted stuff I get a kick out of.
A bigger stretch for Armstrong and his audiences is a planned 5th Avenue mounting (Oct. 25-Nov. 13) of composer Sondheim and writer Hugh Wheeler’s macabre, musically daring epic about a barber’s bloody one-man crusade against the injustices of Victorian England.
“The show is so layered and amazing in its writing, themes and score,” says Armstrong, who’ll direct. ” ‘Sweeney Todd’ was on Broadway recently in a chamber version, but we’ll have a full orchestra for this. And big theater voices to handle the songs.”
“Suck (Double Dipped and Plastered)” by Pigface from the album Feels Like Heaven, Sounds Like Shit (1996, 6:17).
A few years ago, the radio at work was tuned into one of the Anchorage “adult contemporary” stations — brainless background work-safe music that I wasn’t really paying much attention to. One song came on that caught my ear, so I stopped to take a closer listen to it. I had no idea what it was or who was singing, but the more I listened to it, the more a certain suspicion grew.
So I called up the radio station.
“Mix 103.1, what can I do for you?”
“I just need to know what the song you just played was — but before you tell me, I want you to check something out for me. By any chance was that song written or produced by Jim Steinman?”
“What? I haven’t got a clue.”
“Could you check?”
“Um…sure, hold on.” The DJ must have thought that I was nuts. A moment later, he got back on the phone. “Actually, yeah, you’re right. Written and produced by Jim Steinman. How did you know that?”
I laughed. “It just sounded like him. He’s the guy who wrote and produced both of Meat Loaf‘s big albums, Bat out of Hell and Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell. Whatever that song was, it sounded like a Meat Loaf song, only it was someone else singing, so I figured it was probably Steinman.”
“Not bad.”
“Thanks. So who was it?”
“Celine Dion. It’s All Coming Back To Me Now.”
“Oh. Crap, I just liked a Celine Dion song?”
(Sigh.)
So, yeah. There’s one Celine Dion song that I do have to admit to liking. In my defense, though, it has nothing to do with Celine — it’s all about Jim Steinman. Overproduced, bombastic, and very often tongue-in-cheek rock and roll. I love it when Meatloaf’s singing it, and I even like it when Celine’s singing it.
Just another addition to my many guilty pleasures.
(This confession inspired by a MeFi pointer to this list of parody Steinman song titles, which isn’t really as amusing as I’d hoped it would be.)
“You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)” by Meat Loaf from the album Bat Out of Hell (1977, 5:05).
Another music meme, this one being started by Terrance: Cover Me.
Here it is. Do these three things, either in the comments on this post or in a post on your own blog that trackbacks to this post.
This one’s not easy, especially given the size of my music library. I’ll try, though…
List your three favorite cover versions of previously recorded songs.
(This is by no means a “final” or “definitive” list. Trying to pin down just three of all the ones that kept popping into my head was difficult enough, and I know that there are tons that I didn’t think of. I’ll be coming up with more and kicking myself for the next week. I’m already coming up with more possibilities — there are a ton of good covers of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, for instance, and I don’t think I’ve heard a bad version of The Temptations’ ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone’, not to mention Tom Jones and the Art of Noise taking on Prince’s ‘Kiss’, or Sid Vicious ripping his way through ‘My Way’…argh!)
List three songs you’d like to hear cover versions of, and the artists you like to hear perform them.
I know we’re supposed to come up with three here, but this particular dream has been in my head for so long that it’s the only one I ever seem to come up with. Take a fun fast country song, re-do it with Ministry’s trademark high-speed distortion-heavy guitar work, and throw Les doing his best country bumpkin patter over the top of it. I’d pay good money for this to become a reality.
List three songs you would like to cover, if you could. (Assume you would have the musical abilities to do it well.)
(Again, hardly a definitive list. One of these days I’ll actually get suckered into Karaoke, and then we’ll see what I can actually come up with…)
“Stagger” by Underworld from the album Second Toughest in the Infants (1996, 7:37).
Since I’ve kind of slacked off on my ‘Gallimaufry’ meme posts over the past few weeks, here’s a music meme from Don to play with.
How many songs?
15,293 songs, 69.10 GB, 51 days 11 hours 46 minutes 42 seconds total playing time.
Sorted by song title, the first and last songs:
Sorted by artist, the first and last songs:
Sorted by album, the first and last songs:
Top 10 most-played songs (Most-played song at No. 1):
(Um…yeah. I’ve been listening to this a lot recently.)
Last 10 recently played songs (Most recently played at No. 1):
Find “sex”; how many songs?
Find “death”; how many songs?
Find “love”; how many songs?
Find “peace”; how many songs?
”To Strong (Cosmic)“ by Ultimate from the album Tripnotized Vol. 3 (1996, 6:33).