Here is part 3 of the Raiders of the Lost Mashups series, a demo – a mashup of Pet Shop Boys ‘Always on my Mind’ vs Thin Lizzy’s “Whiskey in the Jar’.
I don’t usually post demos, I kind of rankle against the idea that people hear my dirty laundry, but in this case the dirt is pretty much not of my doing as there isn’t a clean acapella nor multitrack of the Thin Lizzy track – I so desperately wanted this to work when I first heard it, but alas the guitar won’t seperate and a lovely aside is that ringing tone created I think by the harmonics of said guitar, and a few other lovely clashes because of that….*sigh*. I think though it’s a great idea, and one day….if that acapella / multi ever does pop up, bagsy first go!
The second in this series is a history of many versions dating back to when Röyksopp ft Robyn’s ‘Girl and the Robot’ was current in 2009, mashing it with Blue Monday by New Order and Candi Staton’s You Got The Love…the problem sometimes is you do a mashup and it almost works but something about the acapella bugs you, in this case it’s being driven mad by the bells, the bells! from the Candi Staton original ‘You Got The Love’ acapella. I did toy with using Florence and the Machine’s version but one listen revealed how horribly out of tune she is so I wasn’t going to touch that with a bargepole.
Also in this case I did the demo and stupidly didn’t save that version, so about version 2 or 3 I actually preferred the original, with no way of going back – hence why I include the demo here, it’s less structured and rough but there was something about the production I preferred and had a lot of difficulty trying to recreate! Also included is the Dub version with no Candi Staton…which is the 3rd version, so the timeline is Demo – 1st version, Dub – 3rd version, the final version is 4th. A version excursion so to speak! I’d listen to the final 4th version first…
There are LOTS of mashups I haven’t released for various reasons over the last few years – either they’re not quite there, or they were for things that didn’t happen, or exclusives, or just didn’t get round to posting them. Problem with working in the digital age is you can be a perfectionist, but sometimes that really gets in the way, Kate ‘Decade per album’ Bush style.
So I’m having a clear out of my Mashup Cupboard, My OOK of the Convenant (hoho) – the quality will range from 99% there or perfectly playable to more rougher ideas and demos I won’t probably finish.
First up is Dubble Blow Job from 2009 – a mashup I did on spec for an Outsider Music mashup album that someone was arranging which never seemed to happen (?) – I’m a massive Bruce Haack freak and so jumped at the chance to use on of my favourite ‘outsider’ musicians, mashing his Blow Job from his last posthumously released Haackula album with RAH Band’s ‘Is Anybody There?’ which is also a rather odd attempt at synth-dub from their first LP and Disrupt’s ‘Jah Red Gold and Green’ from the excellent Foundation Bit 8-bit dub album.
It works although still not happy with the mastering, it really does have a nice curiously traditional dub reggae feel to it, it’s close in feel to White Witch Dub – loads of effects and filter sweeps and the like.
New video for my Scissor Sisters vs FGTH mash ‘The Light of Pleasure’ – I’ll save you the bumf about how and why, apart from it features one of my favourite directors, Kenneth Anger and some Len Lye influenced jiggery-pokery from Instamatic…which is also me! Confusing this multiple alias lark…
Captain Obvious has taken Avril Lasagne sorry Lavigne’s “What the Hell’ and inspired by that organ part has added 100% new Ravril, the Pop Extract that Gives You Rave!
Ingredients:
SL2 – On a Ragga Tip (E101, E303, E-e-e)
Avril Lavigne – What the Hell (organic, slightly tofu flavoured)
Tongue in cheek (Silly, stupid and oh so obvious, but fun!)
Serving suggestion: on discerning dancefloors everywhere.
Here’s another bit of quick throwaway silliness for the GYBO Weekend challenge (and seems to have gone down there well – please vote if you like it!)…yes there are proper tracks coming but most are still in the ‘need to tweak’ or ‘finished someday’ category!
The challenge was to do something with Freeland’s (quite disappointing really) ‘Do You’ so taking some early Sputnik age space samples and mixing with some Indian-space-disco (yes it exists!) from Babla Orchestra ‘Aye Mere Dil Kahin Aur Chal’* we have ‘Bollywood in Space (Do it in Zero G)‘.
EDIT: Like the Fela Chippy track before it, this won the GYBO Weekend challenge against some stiff competition! Winner gets to be regal for a week and gets to choose an acapella and instrumental – I chose Pet Shop Boys ‘Always on my Mind’ for instrumental and Thou Shalt Always Kill for acapella…and by that choice directly inspired 2 great tracks from Dunproofin and LV15
* this is a space disco cover of a 1952 Bollywood track:
I discovered this old Northern Soul gem on ‘Shoot the Piano Player’ records down the charity shop – who knew that Marvin Gaye and Mayer Hawthorne ripped this poor guy off? I ripped it from the original 7″ in glorious original mono just for y’all.
Third act: Our hero Captain Obvious travels to Ancient Greece and Babylon in search of Dionysus, Apollo, Silenus and Bacchus for a Bacchanal and to Xanadu where did Kublai Khan a pleasure dome erect (trans: a right royal knees up).
OK it’s not as pretentious as it sounds, but then again not many bootlegs contain quotations from Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy, Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, Dionysus, Babylon, Geoffrey Palmer AND Ian McKellen? Actually it’s a party record containing the new Scissor Sisters track ‘Invisible Light’ which is obviously a rip of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s ‘Welcome to the Pleasuredome’ – even down to the speaky bit. So I’ve reunited them via the Thomas Shumacher and Fruitness mixes of FGTH, and the Siriusmo and original mixes of Invisible Light in two parts.
First is the shorter radio* mix without the intros, slightly different structure at 4:40 – enter stage left the Silenus in Shorts mix:
And the finale is my homage to the ZTT production team and their long extended DJ mixes I grew up with, usually including quotations (hence the Birth of Tragedy from the Fruitness mix – but both songs mention Dionysus/Bacchus too interestingly) so this at 7:33 is the Dionysus vs Apollo full length DJ mix.
* if I ever got played on radio that is…hurrumph. Actually the first Captain Obvious track was played on German radio on Mash Up Your Boots radio – thanks Dr Waumaui / Morgoth!
Another slice of cheesy rather obvious dancefloor fun from Captain Obvious – this time inspired by DJ Schmolli’s excellent Joan Jett vs Crookers ft Yelle mashup, I’d not heard the Crookers track before and immediately thought Laura Branigan’s hand-punching classic ‘Self Control’.
So here it is – not exactly genre-defining, full of cheese du guilt and probably not that original. I’d store it behind the breadbin and only get it out secretly on Sundays if I were you.
Oh I hope you like the artwork, again by the legendary JCBF Productions – last seen on those classic compilation cassettes in the early 90′s, they’ve come out of retirement just for the ol’ Cap’n.
First quickie mash as part of Jez CMP’s Weekend Challenge (to create a bootleg in a weekend) and as I don’t release things enough (sit on them for months > years) I thought like the CO bootleg to just get this out there to the usual deafening silence
The instrumental given was Hot Chip’s ‘One Pure Thought’ and it’s afrobeat drums reminds me of Fela Kuti, the king of Afrobeat, so here it is mashed with ‘Lady’ and a little bit of ‘Schuffering and Schmiling’. Given the sources probably about 0.5 people will get it, but if it makes one person (or 0.5 of one) check out Fela’s back catalogue such as Black President then job’s a good ‘un.
