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DJ Schmolli vs. the Johnny Cash & His All-Star Band - God's Gonna Cut You Down

I can't decide whether this one is going to gain or lose followers for themusic, so I'm just going with it and hope for the best. Yesterday I saw the following exchange on Twitter:

povertyjetset: listening to Sigur Ros Vs. Mobb Deep - Shook (Emancipator Mash Up) http://hypem.com/track/803842

jimshreds: @povertyjetset what's next mashing up johnny cash?

povertyjetset: @jimshreds it's really not bad! but yeah, I hear you. some things are sacred. lulz

As anyone who's checked out my last.fm stats knows, I (and my 4 year old daughter) have a healthy obsession with Johnny Cash...but it's a good question: can the awesome power that is Johnny Cash come through a mashup?

What if, for example, the mashup has the man in black singing over a riff created from Led Zeppelin, the Beastie Boys, Ted Nugent, and the Beatles? I mean, if you're going to attack the sacred, why not go all the way, right?

Judge for yourselves, and happy Friday, all.

[themusic]

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Mike Watt - In The Engine Room

I don't actually know what Watt the Widow Babies had in mind when they wrote the song Mike Watt Created the Universe with a Bass Solo for their Mike Watt EP, but the riff that opens this track (and Watt's album Contemplating The Engine Room) is what comes into my head.

Variously described as a punk rock opera [Watt's term], a concept album, and a song cycle, the songs that make up Contemplating The Engine Room explore Watt's personal history, from his home and his father's life in the Navy through the relationships that made up the Minutemen and Firehose.

In 1997 I saw Watt perform the album before I'd actually heard the recording, and the bass riff that starts In The Engine Room, which returns throughout the album, was immediately fixed in my memory.

If this is a new one to you, give yourself a little time to adjust to Watt's voice, listen a couple of times, and then sit down and soak up the entire album. I made the happy discovery that the live show I saw is available from the Internet Archive, so give it a listen. Please.

[themusic]

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Leadbelly - Goodnight, Irene

Goodnight, Irene was first recorded by Huddie Ledbetter in the early 1930s.  By most accounts, Leadbelly learned this American folk song from an uncle before landing in prison, first for murder and later for assault.  He developed and recorded Goodnight, Irene at Louisiana State Pen. I discovered this song when I picked up Ken Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion in middle school.  I opened the cover and the epigraph read:

Sometimes I live in the country Sometimes I live in town Sometimes I take a great notion To jump in the river and drown

The song is commonly described as a story of a troubled love and a murky past.  For me, it's always been about wanting to do it all and feeling overwhelmed with having to choose between experiences that will never be the same. I want to live in the country and I want to live in the city, I want to be everywhere while I'm young, I don't understand a reality that makes me choose, and sometimes the frustration feels like too much to take.  That made my head explode as a teenager and is still a kick in the gut half a lifetime later. Lead Belly's vocals + twelve strings = one plus one.

[themusic]

Call & response #2: Kruder & Dorfmeister (1993) channel Simon & Garfunkel (1968) .

[themusic]

A great musical tradition: call and response.

[themusic]

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Gomez - Las Vegas Dealer

Gomez has gotten a fair amount of blog love for their just-released album, and rightly so: they're a good band. They're also a band that I spent much of the last dozen years completely ignoring.  I honestly don't know why, in retrospect, there was just something that bugged me about their music.

Then a year or two ago a friend passed me a mix that had Las Vegas Dealer on it. The song absolutely grabbed me and so I started digging back into their albums...and was totally unable to remember why I didn't listen to them. Give this track a try and see whether you want to hear more -- I don't think you'll be disappointed.

[themusic]

Eclectic Method - A Rock Mix

Not just a "mashup"--this is a decade-spanning audio-visual megamashup. Sweet, and I think we can expect to see this all over the Internet for the next 72 hours. Just remember that you saw it here before you were tired of it!

[themusic]

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Death - Freakin' Out

Since Death was written up in the NY Times this may now (happily) be a stretch for an "obscura" post, but it's great music and a great story: three brothers formed the band Death in the post-MC5 Detroit of the mid-1970s, almost-but-not-quite got a record contract, and then split up and went on to other things. Their total output was a lone self-released 7" single.

Thirty years later: one of their kids heard that single (which had become a cult collector's item as very early punk), his dad dug out some of Death's old demo tapes [packrats FTW!], the kid mentioned the demo tapes online which got the attention of a record collector with connections to Drag City...and then, 30 years after they broke up, Death's album was released.

In an alternate universe these guys could and should have been sharing bills with the Stooges and the Voidoids. Listen.

[themusic]

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Billy Bragg - Saturday Boy (live)

I do not--I can not--blame Billy Bragg the the generations of emo singer/songwriters he begat. His album Back To Basics is a showcase of earnest, personal, beautiful songwriting...and yes, I listened to the album virtually nonstop for a long period in the mid-1980s.

This live recording from 2006 shows off a Billy Bragg who is much older than the one who wrote this song, but who can still perform it with the same conviction he had on the record, while letting in the perspective and humor that the years have brought. Listen.

[themusic]

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3 Simmons - You Are my Dream (School Time)

This isn't a particularly timely track, but as I hear it for the first time I feel a strong complusion to spread the joy.  This is just a feel great track, and I'll place a bet that it makes you smile.  I just looped and I'm loving it even more the 2nd time.

From Numero Group's "Home Schooled":

Home Schooled, the 16th record in Numero’s library of the lost, looks at the unknown side of the early 70s kid soul revolution. Beyond the Osmonds, the Five Stairsteps, and the Brighter Side of Darkness lay hundreds of aspiring children (or parents) bent on becoming the next Michael. Numero has selected seventeen of our favorites. A detailed and photo stuffed booklet breaks down the history of the phenomena, while the disc straddles the line between historical artifact and wild mix tape.

[themusic]

Andrew W.K. - I Get Wet

One of the great album covers of the decade. You know it's good when you're sure the joke is on you and you still can't look away. Andrew WK puts an irresistible spin on ironic self-reference. Postmodernism is dead. Long live postmodernism!

[themusic]

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Ornette Coleman - Space Church (continuous services)

Its time for some Ornette Coleman.  The free jazz pioneer's output is so rich with beauty, and so varied in texture, that each period of his long career is ripe with astonishment.  From 1987's "In All Languages", a brilliant double album containing half quartet, half Prime Time recordings, here is the quartet version of "Space Church".  One of his many slow haunting melodies, this track is given an extra 'spacey' feel by the faster tempo of the rhythm section, the jangling background (not sure what that is), and the strange bending electronic sound that pops up a few times to great effect.

Ornette Coleman was 56 when this was recorded, but as always his playing and composition show incredible creativity and vitality.  The late Don Cherry on trumpet, and the untouchable rhythm section of bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Billy Higgins round out the quartet.

[themusic]

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Tom Waits - There's Only Alice

I'm not sure if the alternate song title was a working name, or just what ended up in the tags of my mp3 - I'll let you decide.

Here is another demo from Alice.  Raw, and beautiful.  Tom Waits is just that good.

[themusic]

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Ponytail - Beg Waves

When you come down to it, there are just two kinds of people in the world. On the one hand you've got the folks who sit around wondering "what would it sound like if Sigur Ros were a little more, you know...punk rock?" On the other hand, you've got the people who have heard Ponytail's Beg Waves.

Kicking off 2008's Ice Cream Spiritual, this track is accessible--for Ponytail, anyway--while still showing off what's most wonderful about the band. These are people who flat out love noise, but have the musicianship to make it work. It's structured, epic noise: I dare you to get through the last, power chord filled minute of Beg Waves without feeling a powerful desire for some air guitar.

What you really need to do is get out and see Ponytail live (if you're in New York they're playing tomorrow), but short of that full experience Ice Cream Spiritual is a decent second choice.

[themusic]

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Ruby Isle - Skinny Love (Bon Iver)

Yeah, I know, there's been so much Bon Iver worship on the Internet in the last few months that it's getting a little hard to take, but still...think back to the moment when the raw beauty of Skinny Love first worked into your ears. Click through that link and listen to it again, if you want.

Got that moment now? Good.

Now listen to the Ruby Isle cover of Skinny Love.

This may be the inappropriate cover against which all others will be measured.

[themusic]

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Blind Willie Johnson - Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground

Google this song and you get lots of "greatest song of all time" type results.  Who really knows?  It is, however, one of the most unique, haunting songs ever recorded, this from sometime in the late 1920s.

[nostrich]

[themusic]

nostrich:

Another year, another excellent Best of Bootie compilation. For the uninitiated: Best of Bootie is a yearly compilation of the year’s best mashups, presented in continuous mix form. You’ll probably recognise names like DJ Earworm, Divide & Kreate, and The Hood Internet, but there are plenty of lesser known gems on there too. On top of that, there are 13 bonus tracks “that didn’t quite fit” for your downloading pleasure.

And if you’re new to the Best of Bootie compilations, I suggest checking out the previous three years’ compilations too.