AUDIO SHRAPNEL

KID SISTER DROPS INTO DRAGONS DEN TO GET HER NAILS DID

2008-09-12T10:06:00.000-07:00

This is how my brain works:
Take one tune by KID SISTER:

and the theme tune to a BBC TV show that's definitely NAGAIUTB:

Notice the similarity?
Well, I did!!
For all those fans of the Jeremy Kyle/Justice mashup - voila...
LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD HERE
It's even got the REGGAE REGGAE SAUCE guy in there!

SOMEONE OUT THERE LIKES ME!!

2008-09-11T07:35:00.000-07:00

'Boots Manuva' is a "fooking tune" - it's official!
That's according to DIRTYSEXYMUSIC blog who wrote some very nice words about yours truly. Got a mention at AUDIOPORN CENTRAL too!!

Thanks muchly chaps for showing 'mad love'.

BOOTS MANUVA

2008-09-09T05:30:00.000-07:00

Saw ROOTS MANUVA performing in-store at HMV Oxford Street last week.
It was cool.
He did four songs from the new album 'Slime & Reason' and stuck around a bit at the end to sign stuff.
Roots is a nice guy.
I told him back in the 60s my grandad was a caretaker at Woodmansterne Primary School where the 'Witness' video was filmed (which is true) and he told me he didn't REALLY go to school there. Ah well, that's my 'Six Degrees' theory fucked.
'Buff Nuff' is the real stand-out track on the album and clearly a favourite with the crowd who turned up to see him in HMV. Discovered there's an acapella floating around too. Started messing around with that and The Cure's 'Close To Me' which fits really well but seemed a bit overplayed so that got scrapped and replaced with something else I've been listening to a lot recently - 'Meddle' by LITTLE BOOTS.
Which gave me some great mash-up titles: 'Little Roots', 'Buff Boots' etc. but this is the most obvious one:
'BOOTS MANUVA' (click here to listen/download).

TOO LATE TO FLUXOGISE...

2008-09-03T09:33:00.000-07:00

It was almost worth doing this just for the dumb picture I ended up creating!
Well, this one is long overdue. It must have been a year ago that NME gave away a free Bloc Party CD complete with a U-MYX version of 'Flux' where you can mute or solo each element of a song (they call it 'remixing' but it ain't REALLY, not what you and I would call remixing. Great for this kinda thing though).
So I'm listening to this track over and over, trying to find something that might go with the BP acapella and I got nuttin - brain is dry. Meanwhile, Xmas 07 is looming and 'Apologize' is getting heavy radio play. I must be hearing it four or five times a day at work. Now I can't even say I LIKE the song but eventually it becomes like wallpaper and the two songs start merging in my head (coz that's how my brain works now) and it becomes clear, like it or not, this HAS to be done! But I can only find a crappy karaoke instrumental and it's the Onerepublic version anyway, not Timbaland's which kinda defeats the object.
Give up.
Another one on the scrapheap.

Fast forward to this weekend: I'm digging around the hard drive, going through all my half-finished shit and there it is... "Fluxogise". In one Sunday afternoon, I managed to grab the proper instrumental from the promo CD AND a DIY acapella - I'm as happy as a dog with two dicks!
So I ended up with two versions...

'FLUXOGISE (Bloc Party over Timbaland's beats)
To be honest, I prefer this one coz that's what I could hear in my head.

'APOLOFLUX' (Onerepublic whining all over Bloc Party)
I mean, this one's alright but the DIY pella leaves it lacking something.
What do you think, kids?
Answers on a postcard please...

I CURED A GIRL

2008-08-27T13:14:00.000-07:00

I was never a massive fan of THE CURE but the few songs of theirs that I like, I REALLY fuckin like if you know what I mean? I used to have a 'Boys Don't Cry' T-shirt back when I was at college which I thought was just the coolest thing EVAH! Until I realised a T-shirt like that attracts dickheads and before you know it, you're hanging round with bloody goths and stinking of patchouli oil.
Anyway, GYBO is running a Cure mashup challenge at the moment so I figured I should have a bash.
There are plenty of mashups which have used 'Love Cats' or 'Close To Me' and there was that amazing PartyBen mashup with 'In Between Days' and 'Everybody' by Black Box (!) but I don't think anyone's used 'Lovesong' before?

So I'm humming the song in my head over the weekend and that darn Katy Perry record appears from nowhere. And, in my brain at least, I'm thinking "that doesn't sound too bad. Everyone and his dog has at least ONE Katy Perry mashup in them so fuck it, why not".
That's what I thought.
Well blow me down - they fit beautifully.
Didn't even have to adjust the pitch of the vocal.

TAKE A LISTEN

HOW FOOLISH OF ME

2008-08-20T08:33:00.000-07:00

There's this TV ad at the moment for E.On or something and the tune they're using is driving me MAD!
It's so irritatingly catchy!
Take a listen...

To me, it sounds like Radiohead meets Penguin Cafe Orchestra (another favourite of the ad men!)

but it's neither of them - it's "Get Up And Go" by a group called BROADCAST 2000 who I don't really know much about. Anyway, after acquiring said choon, I realised it's only the intro I like and is therefore perfect for looping and messing about with!
So it's in 7/8 time? Hah! Repeat a section and shove a beat over it to make it 4/4. Now what shall we go with?
Rap pella? Nah, too easy.
R & B pella? Yeah!
Quick check through the 'Acapellas' folder and I got as far as 'A'... Ashanti. That'll do.
Bugger me, it's in tune.
Now I don't know if anyone else has experienced this but the versions of the 'Foolish' acapella available by nefarious means over the web are all cocked up. The one I had went a bit wonky at the 2.30 mark so I tried downloading another and that was even worse! Skipping and glitching all over the damn place! So I've made a patch up job using both of them but there is a whole section of the song that I had to snip, although I don't think the result suffers too much.
Anyway, waffle waffle waffle...
This is (for want of a better title) "FOOLISH GET UP"

Think I'll go work on something a bit more uptempo next.

CARIBBEAN BOY (Radio-friendly version)

2008-08-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

Some dude on GYBO asked for a radio-friendly version of this and I thought "Fuck it, why not? It's only one 'fuck' to remove. How fuckin hard can it be?"
So HERE IT IS

TELL EM WHA GWAN BLUD

2008-07-30T14:09:00.000-07:00

My fifth post of 2008!!???
And it's only the end of July!!???

"SLACKER!"

I know, I know.

OK, so this one is really straight-forward... 'American Boy' meets 'Caribbean Queen'.
Geddit?
I've had the Estelle acapella for months but after trying it with a dozen different records, this is the first one that felt right.
Good old Billy Ocean.
This is actually an edited post coz the people at GYBO pointed out the chorus was slightly out-of-key (which is true - it was!). The amended version of 'Caribbean Boy' is at the link below...

DOWNLOAD HERE

"RUUUUUUUUBBISH!"

GET OFF MY STAGE!

2008-05-04T12:49:00.000-07:00

I'll admit I love the Jeremy Kyle show.

It's not even a guilty pleasure any more, I just genuinely LOVE it.

The US has its fair share of outrageous daytime talk shows but JK has proved there's a niche market in the UK for white trash scum to have free DNA tests and lie detector results paraded for all to see. And it wouldn't be nothing without Kyle himself: the shouting, the sitting-on-stage, the goading, the catchphrases ("get off your backside and get a job", "it says Jeremy Kyle up there and it's my stage" etc.) and the ego-mania.

But the one thing that cracks me up are the opening credits.
There he is walking through crowded streets, contemplating the world around him and looking not unlike Paul Morley when he turned up in the middle of an episode of 'Hitman & Her' (couldn't find a Youtube clip but if you saw the show, you'll know what I mean).

The only thing letting it all down is the shitty theme tune: Farty pre-set brass stabs over a below-par Propellerheads B-side... Urrrghhh!

So when GYBO began it's 'TV Theme Challenge' last month, it inspired me to come up with THIS

The Jeremy Kyle Theme mashed with MSTRKRFT's Remix of 'D.A.N.C.E.' by Justice.

Oh yes.

KT TUNSTALL-TON... KT CAPLETON-STALL... ?

2008-03-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

Don't they look happy together?

So I hold my hands up and admit I hadn't even heard KT Tunstall's 'Hold On' until I saw the vid on TV a few weeks ago and the first thing that struck me was "that could be a ragga track!".

Quick scan thru my ragga pellas... Capleton, that'll do. Et voila!

"Caple-Tunstall" (although I could have just called it "Everybody Hold On" I suppose?)

Download here

HAPPY NEW YEAR??!!??

2008-03-09T04:51:00.000-07:00

I can't BELIEVE it's been nearly four months since I posted anything on here. That is DISGUSTING behaviour!! Well, I'm sorry but I HAVE been busy and I now have around a dozen half-finished mash-ups and ideas for things (honest!) that will be posted here very soon.
In the mean time, a very clever guy calling himself VJ Brewski has made a video for my Paul Young / Nelly Furtado thing!
The two visuals do work well together in a strange sort-of way, although you can't ignore the fact that the Furtado vid must have cost a thousand times the budget of the Paul Young promo. But at least Paul's tells a little story and he gets to do some acting, not just fanny about in front of a helicopter...

COME BACK AND SAY IT RIGHT

2007-11-19T13:27:00.000-08:00

I'd been looking for a 12" version of Paul Young's "Come Back And Stay" since I first heard "Say It Right" and eventually found a copy in one of Notting Hill's second-hand establishments, for the gargantuan sum of 10p!

That's right, TEN WHOLE PENCE!!

I can't think of a single thing that costs 10p, not even nasty little cheapo sweets! There's not a scratch on it either!
The downside, however, is it's awful.

I was hoping there would be some nice instrumental sections or maybe a few Pino Palladino licks but this is one of those 1983 extended-remix-for-the-sake-of-it type things: horrible out-of-time delay on the snares, some nasty farty bass sound and any empty parts are filled with s-s-s-sampled vocal snippets by the backing singers (who were called 'The Fabulous Wealthy Tarts' - what's THAT all about?).

Now, I could probably use some of these sections but they're technically so badly done, you might think it was ME and I can't have that! The addition of a little breakbeat helps move things along a little and here's the finished result:
Download here

SUPER-SOULJA

2007-10-11T04:15:00.000-07:00

The pic says it all...
Download here: