Thoughts on Mash ups

Warning - I think every video below is NSFW.
Mash-ups seem to go horribly, horribly wrong a good 90% of the time. It's a statistic (that I made up) I try to keep in mind while trolling the internet for mash-ups because despite the frequent horror shows out there I do enjoy a good mash-up. I've posted about Girl Talk several times and I'm pretty sure I've said before that I don't consider what he does a "mash-up", he is creating music with found sounds. So for this discussion, Girl Talk in all his danceable brilliance is out.
How many times have I thought, "I love Jane's Addiction and M.I.A., this will be an awesome song!" only to be subjected to a poorly synced, roughly mixed piece of crap. There is no set rule to follow when you are looking for mash-ups. Two bands that don't sound anything alike from completely different genres can mash up into something amazing as can two bands from the same genre and time period. A large part of a good mash-up is the masher knowing what he or she is doing. Apparently technologie has made it much to easy for just about anyone to mash-up anything they like and making it sound like they actually hate the mashees.

My biggest problem with most mash-ups, even the good ones, is that they are fun to listen to once or twice but they lose their shine pretty quickly. The whole novelty of hearing Madonna sing on top of a prodigy song is mind blowing the first time but not so much the next. But there are some mash-ups that have held my attention for quite awhile.
Everyone remembers when Danger Mouse mashed the Beatles White Album with Jay-Z's black album. The entire Grey album was pretty amazing. One of the standout tracks Was 99 problems mashed with helter skelter. It seems like just after that a ton of people took a crack at 99 problems and the best by far was DJ Tim G who did a flawless mash of 99 Problems and Jimi Hendrix. I've been listening to it for years, you can check it here.
Another mash-up that I listen to regularly is a Monkees/Iron Maiden mix. Check out the awesome performance video below.

All that having been said, I have been obsessed with Wugazi for the last couple of weeks. Wu-tang Clan and Fugazi mashed-up? Yes please. Check out my favorite track from the album 13 Chambers(yes that is 13 Songs by Fugazi mashed with 36 Chambers), Forensic Shimmy. Added Bonus, the video is made up of old kung fu clips, I think the Wu would approve.

Anyone know of a great Mash-up I should listen to?

That's not right

Cool Video: Iron & Wine Godless Brother

Iron & Wine released another great video from one of my favorite albums of last year.

While watching this video I kept thinking, "This could easily be the kids from the Smashing Pumpkins 1979 video a few years on if they had a wistful Asian and not quite so many assholes in their group."


And for no reason except the song is amazing, Kathyrn Calder.

Top 25

I just checked my itunes and here are the 25 songs I listened to the most in 2011.

1. Generator^Second Floor - Freelance Whales
2. God Made the Automobile - Iron & Wine
3. Belated Promise Ring - Iron & Wine
4. On Melancholy Hill - Gorillaz
5. Tree By the River - Iron & Wine
6. Generator^First Floor - Freelance Whales
7. Kilojoules - Freelance Whales
8. Big Burned Hand - Iron & Wine
9. In Step - GirlTalk
10. Newport News - Pernice Brothers
11. Calgary - Bon Iver
12. Tony the Beat - The Sounds
13. Goshen - Beirut
14. Finish Line - Fanfarlo
15. Bottled in Cork - Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
16. Half Moon - Iron & Wine
17. Carolina - Ben Gibbard and Andrew Kenny
18. Port of Call - Beirut
19. Can't Relax - The Dead Milkmen
20. Let it Out - GirlTalk
21. L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. - Noah and the Whale
22. Godbird - Sufjan Stevens
23. The High Road - Broken Bells
24. Superfast Jellyfish - Gorillaz
25. East Harlem - Beirut

Haha

I found this over at The Chive and I've been laughing about it all morning.

Coeur De Pirate

A couple of cool videos for cover songs by Coeur De Pirate and then an original. The covers are pretty awesome because she usually sings in french. I've only listened to her new album once and it sounds pretty good but her last album was great, even if you don't know a word of french.

Cool Site: Minor Thread

I came across this awesome site called Minor Thread last week. The idea behind it is that the blog's author wears a different shirt everyday, he estimates that he can do 500 with no repeats. Most of his shirts are music related and you can glean from some of his statements that he has a long history of promoting shows. Today he is on number 146. He also writes up a little something about the shirt most days. His spelling and grammar are so bad that it must be done on purpose. I'm in love with the site, i managed to read through every post in the last week.

I can relate to the guy to a certain extent. I used to feel compelled to buy a shirt at every show I attended. Over the years the price of shirts has grown. I clearly remember buying a few $10 shirts and once picket up a Robert Randolph shirt for my wife for only $8. For the longest time it seemed like shirts stayed at $20 but now $25 or $30 seems to be the norm. I've been able to break the habit or at least limit it to buying only really kick ass shirts although I still reflexively reach for my wallet when I see a shirt with tour dates on it. The short run tour date shirt is another thing that seems to have fallen by the way side. The tour shirt is one of the big draws of buying a shirt, it screams "I was there and are therefore cooler than you." Now it seems like bands don't want to do the small run anymore. I'm sure it's a lot cheaper to order thousands of a design that you can sell wherever you are instead of ordering a few hundred that are specific to that tour but damn those tour shirts were cool.

Before we moved to Vermont and again when we moved to Paris my wife made me get rid of a lot of my shirts. I ended up cutting the designs off the shirts that were ripped, stained or I just didn't wear anymore for a project. I hope to eventually turn them into a quilt/blanket. We'll see if it ever gets done but each shirt represents a pretty awesome night and hopefully will make a warm blanket.