M Is FOR MASHUP - July 4th, 2012
Web Of The Mashup Spider
By DJ Useo
Have you ever imagined that there was a DJ from London that could spin live in clubs, make mashups, and also do web design? Someone who has worked in video production, and also played karaoke for Price Harry, et al? Well, you don't need to imagine one, he already exists. DJ Spider is just that kind of DJ, & the best part is he's real! Spider is a unique, but welcome type of mashup producer in that he works exclusively with mainstream artists straight from the top of the charts. That fact alone wouldn't make him unique bar the fact that he unfailingly increases the appeal of whatever he works with. And talk about prolific!, despite his exacting standards, he's literally come up with 230 mashups since 2004.
As if these things weren't good enough, now Spider has put together his favorites out of all the tracxks he's made, and made them available as a two disc download. I was really fortunate that Spider sent me a preview copy. So I've been playing the sneck out of it for over a week.
The first thing I noticed upon listening was that I knew many of the songs, and they were huge favorites already. The second thing I noticed was that the tracks I didn't know were as good as my huge faves. Tracks like 'Just the Way You Are in The Year of the Cat' (Al Stewart vs Bruno Mars) and 'I Can't Go for Sexual Healing' (Marvin Gaye vs Hall & Oats) are ones I've known for a bit & savoured often.
Tracks like 'Ain't No Other Man Brings SexyBack' (Justin Timberlake vs Christina Aguilera) and 'Beat the Boom Boom Pow' (Michael Jackson vs Black Eyed Peas) are new to me but also reveal his skill at elevating the already great. For me, you & your gran this is the perfect record.
The tunes hold up in quality all the way through two discs & how many records can say that. I've no way to measure the number, but I'm pretty sure I've heard most of his released tracks since about 2005. I'm sure going to be crate digging through my files checking out many more of his releases.
Spider is a mixer of such high standards he's sought after for mashup collections assembled by forums & more. It's been my personal pleasure to feature his work a few times on collections I posted like SUMMER BOOTY & such. He also knows the sense of having a cool cover to raise interest in your posts. Of the many bootleg music producers out there, Spider stands with the best when it comes to the audio, the video & the imagery. This best of called 'Spider's Greatest Mash-Up Hits Vol. 01' is
available NOW at
www.djspider.com/ . Now get to downloading before your steaks get overdone. (Who'da thunkit that a London DJ would be the perfect 4th of July tuneage?)
Mashup Tip : With Ableton mixing program you can use a utility device to subtract out the additional loud volume being added by a limiter. Then you can do some A vs B comparison of your mix with & without limiting while at the same volume.
Latest Useo Thing
I'm still posting 'SUMMER BOOTY-The Summer Mashup album'
( www.groovytimewithdjuseo.blogspot.com/2012/06/summer-booty-2012-summer-mashup-album.html ) everywhere I can find to. There's a nice batch of videos to enjoy now as well.
( www.groovytimewithdjuseo.blogspot.com/2012/06/summer-booty-2012-videos.html ) >
Podgornio, The Mashup Psychic Predicts
DJ Amoeba will divide into more of himself during the heat of this Summer. This means more tracks from him than ever before!
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
100 Riffs (A Brief History of Rock N' Roll) (YouTube)
Alex Chadwick plays 100 famous guitar riffs in one take giving you a chronological history of rock n' roll.
The Top 10 Most-Complained About Adverts of all time (Telegraph)
A Kentucky Fried Chicken advert featuring call centre workers singing with their mouths full is the most complained-about UK campaign of all time, the official watchdog has revealed. Here is the full list: …
Roger Ebert: Doing the Right Thing
The Supreme Court has done us all a kindness. Universal Health Care shows the human community working at its best. For me, that's what it finally comes down to. If all of us, even the least fortunate, have access to competent medical attention, isn't that a wonderful thing? The poor, the old, the unemployed, those with pre-existing conditions?
Kenneth Thomas: Health Insurance Rebates Show How Bad Insurers and State Regulators Can Be (Middle Class Political Economist)
I want to focus on one provision the President mentioned in passing, the $1.1 billion in insurance rebates that 12.8 million Americans will be receiving August 1.
The rebates are due to the medical loss ratio or "80/20" rule that insurance companies cannot spend more than 20% of premium dollars on "administration, CEO pay, and profits," as Health Care for America Now (HCAN) summarizes it.
Matt Taibbi: "'Fear and Loathing' 40 Years Later" (Slate)
Hunter S. Thompson's outrage-stuffed, anti-cynical campaign masterpiece.
`I Carry A Fresh Newspaper Just In Case I Have To Deliver A Baby` (Chicago Tribune; September 01, 1985)
Recently officials of New York City`s Taxi Drivers` Union Local 3036 were wondering why so many of their cabbies were going for physical examinations. So the union sponsored the testing of 6,000 drivers in 15 taxi garages and discovered that the majority of the drivers had blood pressure well above the national average. Ulysses S. Kilgore III, director of the health center that conducted the testing, was not surprised. ``Driving a cab in New York,`` he said, ``is certainly one of the most stressful jobs in the world.``
Terry Savage: Growth in Home Health Care Offers Opportunities (Creators Syndicate)
Name one of the fastest-growing industries in America - one that has a constantly expanding market for its product and a growing need for employees. In fact, this industry is creating jobs that do not require advanced degrees, much knowledge of technology or an extensive employment history.
Terry Savage: Not Financially Ready for an Emergency? How to Build a Fund (Creators Syndicate)
American finances are running on empty. The new statistics showing how few people have an emergency savings reserve are troubling - but not shocking. Everyone has a friend or family member who has faced tough times over these past few years. And now everyone sees the value of having savings instead of debt.
David Bruce has 42 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $42 you can buy 10,500 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," "Maximum Cool," and "Resist Psychic Death."
wrote:
took the day off.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Michelle is on vacation
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Nearly had supper on the table before the sun popped through.
Perform With US Rockers
Pussy Riot
Russia's Pussy Riot punk band gave a surprise performance at a concert by US rockers Faith No More late Monday as three of itsyoung women members await trial for singing an anti-Putin song in a church.
Five women bounded on stage during a Moscow concert by Faith No More, wearing Pussy Riot's signature brightly coloured balaclavas and yelling an obscenity-laden song calling for a "riot in Russia".
They held up a banner with the date of the jailed women's next court hearing on Wednesday, when supporters plan to hold a street festival.
The band's appearance was introduced with the sound of the Kremlin chimes. Afterwards Faith No More put on balaclavas and Pussy Riot T-shirts to sing their 1980s hit "We care a lot," video footage posted on YouTube shows.
Pussy Riot
NY Philharmonic Gets Gift
Alec Baldwin
Just days after tying the knot with his yoga instructor, Alec Baldwin donated $1 million to the New York Philharmonic.
The gift is in honor of outgoing President and Executive Director Zarin Mehta.
The "30 Rock" actor is a Philharmonic board member and hosts its radio show, "The New York Philharmonic This Week."
The Philharmonic said the gift is a donation of proceeds Baldwin received from a Capital One advertising campaign.
Alec Baldwin
NOAA Issues Statement
Mermaids
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued an official statement denying the existence of mermaids.
"No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found," the statement reads. "Why, then, do they occupy the collective unconscious of nearly all seafaring peoples? That's a question best left to historians, philosophers, and anthropologists."
Discovery News writes that the denial reportedly came after the airing of a recent Animal Planet TV show "Mermaids: The Body Found." The special, which aired as part of the network's annual "Monster Week," apparently fooled a number of viewers with its use of computer imagery to depict the mythical creatures. The faux-documentary seems to have created a big enough splash with its audience that NOAA felt it needed to address questions about the alleged authenticity of mermaids.
Discovery notes this isn't the first time that NOAA has stepped in to address maritime mythology. They've also written on Atlantis (correcting some popular, but inaccurate, Google Earth images) and the Bermuda Triangle.
Mermaids
Another 'Batman'
Patrick Leahy
U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont is renewing his fascination with Batman with a cameo appearance in "The Dark Knight Rises," which will get its first public showing in his home state.
Leahy was invited to be in the movie and says he learned recently he'll appear in a scene with Christian Bale, who plays Batman, and Morgan Freeman.
The movie will be screened July 15 in Williston ahead of its July 20 U.S. premiere.
The Democratic senator has had a lifelong fascination with the Caped Crusader. In 2007, he appeared in "The Dark Knight."
The Vermont showing will benefit a Montpelier children's library and a Burlington environmental education center named for Leahy.
Patrick Leahy
Polonium Found In Effects
Yasser Arafat
Traces of the poisonous element poloniumhave been found in the belongings of late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, a Swiss institute said on Wednesday, and a television report said his widow had demanded his body be exhumed for further tests.
Arafat died at a hospital in France in 2004, after a sudden illness which baffled doctors. Many Palestinians have long suspected he was poisoned.
Darcy Christen, spokesman for the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, told Reuters on Tuesday it had found "surprisingly" high levels of polonium-210 in Arafat's belongings.
But he stressed that clinical symptoms described in Arafat's medical reports were not consistent with polonium-210 and that conclusions could not be drawn as to whether the Palestinian leader was poisoned or not.
The Qatar-based Al Jazeera satellite channel said the institute had tested Arafat's personal effects, given them by his widow. Its documentary said they showed that his clothes, toothbrush and kaffiyeh headscarf contained abnormal levels of polonium, a rare, highly radioactive element.
Yasser Arafat
Republican Family Values
Carlos Bustamante
A Southern California city councilman has been arrested and charged with sexual offenses, accused of acting as a sexual bully toward women with whom he worked when he was a public works executive in Orange County, a prosecutor said on Tuesday.
The allegations against Santa Ana City Councilman Carlos Bustamante, once seen as a rising star in California Republican circles, have caused a scandal in the town 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles where he worked and was a councilman.
Bustamante, 47, was arrested on Monday and charged with six counts of false imprisonment, three counts of assault with the intent to commit a sexual offense, stalking, attempted sexual battery by restraint, and misdemeanor counts of battery, assault, sexual battery and attempted sexual battery.
Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said the charges against Bustamante, who is married, stemmed from seven women who were employees at Orange County Public Works.
Rackauckas said Bustamante groomed certain women who were emotionally vulnerable and "wore them down" by making advances. He would call them into his office, grope them and sometimes masturbate in front of them, the prosecutor said.
Carlos Bustamante
"Highless" Marijuana
Avidekel
They grow in a secret location in northern Israel. A tall fence, security cameras and an armed guard protect them from criminals. A hint of their sweet-scented blossom carries in the air: rows and rows of cannabis plants, as far as the eye can see.
It is here, at a medical marijuana plantation atop the hills of the Galilee, where researchers say they have developed marijuana that can be used to ease the symptoms of some ailments without getting patients high.
"Sometimes the high is not always what they need. Sometimes it is an unwanted side effect. For some of the people it's not even pleasant," said Zack Klein, head of development at Tikun Olam, the company that developed the plant.
Tikun Olam began its research on CBD enhanced cannabis in 2009 and about six months ago they came up with Avidekel, Klein said, a cannabis strain that contains 15.8 percent CBD and only traces of THC, less than one percent.
Avidekel
Record Price
"The Lock"
An important work by British landscape artist John Constable at the centre of a bitter feud within a Spanish aristocratic family sold for 22.4 million pounds ($35 million) at Christie's on Tuesday, a new auction record for the painter.
"The Lock" is one of a celebrated series of six large-scale canvases that also includes "The Hay Wain", arguably Constable's most famous work that hangs in Britain's National Gallery in London, and had been expected to fetch 20-25 million pounds.
"The Lock" was the last of the Constable series still in private hands, and was sold from the collection of Baroness Carmen "Tita" Thyssen-Bornemisza - a decision that drew public criticism from a member of her family and a leading figure in the art world.
The baroness, a former Miss Spain, was the fifth wife and widow of Swiss billionaire industrialist Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, who amassed a huge private art collection before his death in 2002.
"The Lock"
1Billion Hours
Netflix
Netflix says its subscribers watched more than 1 billion hours of online video last month as the advent of high-speed Internet connections and high-powered mobile deviceschange people's viewing patterns.
The milestone announced Tuesday is the latest sign that the Internet video service may be starting to reduce the amount of time its 26.5 million streaming subscribers spend watching advertising-supported entertainment bundled in more expensive cable-television packages. Netflix Inc. sells the service for $8 per month.
The rising usage of Netflix also indicates that the company's recent efforts to expand its Internet video library are paying off.
The 1 billion hours of collective viewing during June works out to a monthly average of 38 hours per streaming subscriber. That's up from an estimated 28 hours per customer in December.
Netflix
Industry In Big Slump
Fireworks
As millions of Americans celebrate Independence Day on Wednesday, there are some whose holiday won't be going off with a bang.
One of America's top fireworks firms said the industry, still suffering due to the nation's economic woes, is experiencing its toughest times since the Vietnam War era when the country was divided over such flashy displays of patriotism.
About $217 million will be spent on an estimated 14,000 Fourth of July fireworks displays across America, a Grucci spokesman said. But 70 percent of those shows will be at private or corporate events in premier locations like the Hamptons, Malibu, Lake Tahoe and the Jersey Shore, according to Grucci.
Tight local budgets - as well as wildfire threats - have forced at least 100 communities from Tanglewood Park, North Carolina, to Half Moon Bay, California, to forego the traditional Fourth of July razzle dazzle.
Fireworks
Prime-Time Nielsens
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for June 25-July 1. Listings include the week's ranking and viewership.
1. "America's Got Talent" (Tuesday), NBC, 11.67 million.
2. "America's Got Talent" (Wednesday), NBC, 10.66 million.
3. "America's Got Talent" (Monday), NBC, 10.45 million.
4. "U.S. Olympic Trials" (Sunday, 9 p.m.), NBC, 10.02 million.
5. "60 Minutes," CBS, 8.44 million.
6. "NCIS," CBS, 8.0 million.
7. "U.S. Olympic Trials" (Sunday, 8 p.m.), NBC, 7.87 million.
8. "U.S. Olympic Trials" (Friday, 9 p.m.), NBC, 7.79 million.
9. "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 7.7 million.
10. "U.S. Olympic Trials" (Wednesday, 9 p.m.), NBC, 7.09 million.
11. "The Bachelorette," ABC, 7.03 million.
12. "U.S. Olympic Trials" (Tuesday, 8 p.m.), NBC, 6.96 million.
13. "U.S. Olympic Trials" (Monday, 8 p.m.), NBC, 6.93 million.
14. "U.S. Olympic Trials" (Saturday, 9 p.m.), NBC, 6.54 million.
15. "Person of Interest," CBS, 6.53 million.
16. "Criminal Minds," CBS, 6.5 million.
17. "NCIS: Los Angeles," CBS, 6.42 million.
18. "The Mentalist," CBS, 6.27 million.
19. "U.S. Olympic Trials" (Thursday, 8 p.m.), NBC, 6.2 million.
20. "Wipeout" (Thursday), ABC, 6.16 million.
Ratings
In Memory
Andy Griffith
It was all too easy to confuse Andy Griffith the actor with Sheriff Andy Taylor, his most famous character from "The Andy Griffith Show."
After all, Griffith set his namesake show in a make-believe town based on his hometown of Mount Airy, N.C., and played his "aw, shucks" persona to such perfection that viewers easily believed the character and the man were one.
Griffith, 86, died Tuesday at his coastal home, Dare County Sheriff Doug Doughtie said in a statement.
Although Griffith acknowledged some similarities between himself and the wise sheriff who oversaw a town of eccentrics, they weren't the same. Griffith was more complicated than the role he played - witnessed by his three marriages if nothing else.
Griffith had a career that spanned more than a half-century and included Broadway, notably "No Time for Sergeants;" movies such as Elia Kazan's "A Face in the Crowd"; and records.
"No Time for Sergeants," released as a film in 1958, cast Griffith as Will Stockdale, an over-eager young hillbilly who, as a draftee in the Air Force, overwhelms the military with his rosy attitude. Establishing Griffith's skill at playing a lovable rube, this hit film paved the way for his sitcom.
He was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts Hall of Fame in 1992 and in 2005, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the country's highest civilian honors.
His television series resumed in 1986 with "Matlock," which aired through 1995.
In 2007, Griffith said "The Andy Griffith Show," which initially aired from 1960 to 1968, had never really left and was seen somewhere in the world every day. A reunion movie, "Return to Mayberry," was the top-rated TV movie of the 1985-86 season.
Griffith set the show in the fictional town of Mayberry, N.C., where Sheriff Taylor was the dutiful nephew who ate pickles that tasted like kerosene because they were made by his loving Aunt Bee, played by the late Frances Bavier. His character was a widowed father who offered gentle guidance to son Opie, played by little Ron Howard, who grew up to become the Oscar-winning director of "A Beautiful Mind."
Don Knotts was the goofy Deputy Barney Fife, while Jim Nabors joined the show as Gomer Pyle, the cornpone gas pumper. George Lindsey, who played the beanie-wearing Goober, died in May.
The show became one of only three series in TV history to bow out at the top of the ratings (the others were "I Love Lucy" and "Seinfeld."). Griffith said he decided to end it "because I thought it was slipping, and I didn't want it to go down further."
Griffith and Knotts had become friends while performing in "No Time for Sergeants," and remained so until Knotts' death in 2006 at 81.
When asked in 2007 to name his favorite episodes, the ones atop Griffith's list were the shows that emphasized Knotts' character.
"The second episode that we shot I knew Don should be funny and I should play straight for him," Griffith said. "That opened up the whole series because I could play straight for everybody else. And I didn't have to be funny. I just let them be funny."
Letting others get the laughs was something of a role reversal for Griffith, whose career took off after he recorded the comedic monologue "What It Was, Was Football."
That led to his first national television exposure on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1954, and the stage and screen versions as the bumbling draftee in "No Time for Sergeants."
In the drama "A Face in the Crowd," he starred as Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, a local jailbird and amateur singer who becomes a homespun philosopher on national television. As his influence rises, his drinking, womanizing and lust for power are hidden by his handlers.
His role as Sheriff Taylor seemingly obliterated Hollywood's memory of Griffith as a bad guy. But then, after that show ended, he found roles scarce until he landed a bad-guy role in "Pray for the Wildcats."
More recently, Griffith won a Grammy in 1997 for his album of gospel music "I Love to Tell the Story - 25 Timeless Hymns."
In 2007, he appeared in a critically acclaimed independent film, "Waitress," playing Joe, the boss at the diner. The next year, he appeared in Brad Paisley's awarding-winning music video "Waitin' on a Woman."
Griffith was born June 1, 1926, and as a child sang and played slide trombone in the band at Grace Moravian Church. He studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and for a time contemplated a career in the ministry. But he eventually got a job teaching high school music in Goldsboro.
His acting career began with the role of Sir Walter Raleigh in Paul Green's outdoor pageant, "The Lost Colony," in Manteo. The pageant was about Raleigh's failed attempt to establish an English colony on Roanoke Island, where Manteo is located.
He and his first wife, Barbara Edwards, had two children, Sam, who died in 1996, and Dixie. His second wife was Solica Cassuto. Both marriages ended in divorce. He married his third wife, Cindi Knight Griffith, in 1983.
Griffith also suffered over the years with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that can cause sudden paralysis. In 1987, he told the Associated Press that he wore plastic leg braces during the making of "Return to Mayberry."
He had suffered a heart attack and underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 2000.
Andy Griffith
In Memory
Sergio Pininfarina
Sergio Pininfarina, whose family companydesigned almost every Ferrari since the 1950s and whose name is still synonymous with some of the world's most glamorous cars, has died aged 85.
Pininfarina had been groomed by his father Gian Battista, a onetime Turin carriage maker who founded the influential car design house in the 1930s, to succeed him in the business since he was a child.
Born in 1926, he joined the family firm after graduating in mechanical engineering from Turin's Polytechnic University, became chief executive in 1961 and then chairman when his father died in 1966.
By then, the company had already risen to prominence through a knack for making the latest aerodynamic design trends attractive to a broader public.
The family's prestige in Italy was such that it was allowed to change its name to Pininfarina from the original Farina - Pinin, meaning "the little one" in Piedmont, was Gian Battista's nickname - with a presidential decree in 1961.
The ground-breaking 1947 Cisalfa coupe, designed by Gian Battista "Pinin" Farina after World War Two, now sits in New York's Museum of Modern Art. It was one of Sergio's favorite models.
Gian Battista also initiated the Ferrari connection in 1952, but Sergio ended up managing most of their common projects and turned the business from craftsman level into a world renowned name.
In his half-a-century reign at Pininfarina, the company's automobile production rose from 524 units per year to more than 50,000.
Besides the historic partnership with Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Maserati (all owned by Fiat), Pininfarina also designed cars for Rolls-Royce and other non-Italian brands.
The 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Rondine, 1986 Cadillac Allante, the 1995 Bentley Azure and the 1996 Peugeot 406 Coupe (designed by Sergio) all wore the Pininfarina badge.
Sergio also designed the 1986 Fiat 124 Spider, the 1984 Ferrari Testarossa, the 2002 Ferrari Enzo, the 2003 Maserati Quattroporte and the 2004 Ferrari Scaglietti.
Sergio Pininfarina
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