of sorts.
Welcome! It’s not all art and pictures! Very rarely, I knock up a track. Like me, it’s a mixed bag, mainly in a dancey vein, but always fun. Here’s the story behind what I do, why I do it and a few examples of my style of soundmaking and mashing it up.
Back in the day.
Growing up, I always seemed to make friends with people who liked music, which helped me listen to a wide variety.of genres from my friends and sometimes their families. My family wasn’t a sporty type of family, but Mum and Dad had collected quite a few singles, albums and tapes, plus, the radio was always on. Top of the Pops was also on every week without fail (then later, video-recorded and re-watched over and over!) and like many people, I would tape the charts every sunday, so I could play your favourites to death until I could get to Woolworths or the record shop to buy the original, or the latest single or 12″ remix!
I love almost every genre of music, from all sorts of cultures, countries, types and ages. That being true, I still gravitate towards up-tempo creations, especially being a child of the 70s, I loved disco. Rap, beatbox and the Hip-Hop scene in the early eighties was fantastic, then as soon as me and a pal discovered The House Sound of Chicago, from vol 1 right through to the last, it was like growing through music. House, then Acid House, it all happened so fast, Trance, Techno, Garage, Jungle all within a few years, music was growing FAST! I still listened to everything else in every form, but dance music was kind of in my blood, in my soul. This is still true today, even though music is ever-changing.
Rewinding back to before the days of house, when sampling was in it’s infancy, music such as The Buggles ‘Video killed the radio star’, Herbie Hancock’s ‘Rockit’ and The Art of Noise were already in my system and a bit later, in 1987, I used my birthday money to buy a ‘Boots’ double tape deck portable stereo and discovered that it played both tapes at once, and THEN discovered that if I put a double jack from it’s headphone jack to my mum’s stereo system mic, I could ‘mix’ two songs at the same time AND record the outcome!
Needless to say, it was just like Paul Hardcastle’s ’19’. If Paul Hardcastle’s ’19’ was made with no keyboards, no musical talent, just repitition and almost funny timing. I’m glad none of those mixes still exist. They were t-t-t-t-terrible. ble. ble.
Just after that, I yearned to become a DJ, my mate had a set of turntables etc, so we’d mess about for hours, but I wasn’t earning much at the time, so just thought ‘perhaps in the future’.
Fast forward to the late 90s, I’d been married for 5 yrs, we’d just had our first child and about the same time, a P.C. that had music editing software packaged with it. BANG! This opened up so many possibilities, it was like having my tape decks back, but now, timing wouldn’t be an issue!
Some of my older stuff concentrated on sampling other’s genius together, I’d never STEAL other’s property and make money from it.
I wish that years ago, when sampling and borrowing other’s genius was big, that there had been a better deal regarding copyright and sampling, royalties etc, because there were SO many great tunes that broke the rules, but once the lawyers got heavily involved, it killed the initial buzz. I know it’s still done, very excellently too, but if you were around that time, I think you’ll know what I mean.
Anyway, back to me mixing samples together…. If I liked it, I’d sample a bit of the tune as a WAV and mash it all together. Just for fun, I’ve never made any money. There’s obviously a lot more than just throwing them all together randomly, it’s very time-consuming and a bit technical.
There are a few examples of my older stuff on my soundcloud page. Even a really old House-mash up as a tribute. One of my favourites is a LOT of great tunes in an intense mash up.(see ‘The Past and the Future‘ below). Some of these are approaching 25 yrs old.
Nowadays, I don’t use other people’s samples* I make a bit of music and play around with it. I’ve got a little Midi keyboard, a 303 app on my phone and a subscription to Magix. I don’t think it’ll ever go anywhere, but I like messing about and it’s fun. We all need some fun.
*Unless it’s a big mega-mashup, like my huge KLF – The White Room album mash-up, where I’ve mixed all of the entire KLF-White Room album into one long dancey-track. Again, just as a massive KLF appreciator, for a bit of fun. (also on my Soundcloud page!)
Newer stuff first….
I still chop up sounds, noises and emulated acid, even add a bit of dodgy keyboard every now and again, but no longer use anyone else’s productions for sampling. (apart from the odd sample or beat free with the Magix software. But I try my best to only sample my own. So there won’t be copyright issues later on.
Below are a couple of tracks from ‘Crashed Potato’ – An album I’m compiling very slowly, but surely. The idea is compile a heap of tracks, then I’ll pick the best ones for the finished album. After that, I haven’t a clue. I’m no musician, I just enjoy it.
Giggles.
This track is a fun track, a pick-me up tune for ‘sh*ts and giggles’, reminiscent of a fit of the giggles, you catch your breath, then you’re up and can’t stop giggling, over and over.
No Worries.
This track is about letting the good times in, letting the bad things go and getting perky. At a slower BPM, it’s a hop and a skip and a jump into your happy place.
Re-e-wind…
As I mentioned earlier, my mashing started back in 99-2000, a lot of messing about, but every now and again, it would all come together nicely. Although I don’t own any part of the song, it was fun to cut n paste all those classics. (BTW, 99% of all the samples in my old work were from music I’d bought, NOT downloaded or nicked off the net. Below is an example of one of my older mash-ups…
The Past and the Future:
In the early noughties, I spent a lot of time chopping up WAVs, editing and saving them into a huge samples folder, mixing them together. One successful* tune was one I called ‘The Past and the Future’. So named because it combined old tunes with more recent tunes, (recent at the time, I guess now, you could now call it ‘The Past and the Past’!)
*Successful because it all seemed to come together okay.
The Past and the Futureshock:
Several years ago, around 2003 or 2004 I think, a friend on a forum/messageboard mentioned how my tune ‘The Past and the Future’ worked with the Music video for Futureshock – Late at Night. His name is Fnord and he mashed a big chunk of my mash-up with the video brilliantly. As far as I know, there is only one example of this still out there on the interweb…. Here it is below, on CleanShirt’s YouTube page.
Back to the present
I’ll keep fiddling around, learning new things and mashing it all together, then see what the ACTUAL future will hold. Until then, have another track from that future…. The mash that is Crashed Potato… and this last teaser is called ‘Ventures Anew’ I hope it tickles your fancy!
Dean Perry aka pickledpizza 