White Gravity

Something a little different for this one. I know there are a fair few mashups around using Billy Idol's White Wedding, but I could hear a more stripped down version in my head, and doing a remix of BT's Force Of Gravity gave me the perfect backing for the feel I was after. So it's not strictly a mashup and it's not fully a remix, so I've decided to call it a Remashmixup - I think that covers it. Downloads via the player

I Never Got The Look...

I've been wanting to do something with this Maroon 5 track for a while - I'm partial to a bit of tight pop-funk. Trying a few ideas out, the moment I brought this Roxette track into the equation, I just knew this was going to work well. Downloads via the player

Clash Of The Celts

I didn't really mean to do this mashup. I was organising stuff on my computer when I came across this track by The Proclaimers, and curiosity got the better of me... and yes I'm quite aware it's yet another Snow Patrol mashup, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. No video for this one, you'll just have to use your imagination. Downloads via the player

Best Of British

Two of Britain's finest artists brought together for this mashup.  The music for this has been finished for some time, but somehow I never quite got around to doing the video.  I suppose I should put a small warning out for those of a sensitive disposition - this is the uncensored version of Lily Allen's lyric - you have been warned so please don't complain if it offends.



Download the mp3

Human Hands

Yes I know, it's been a while. Some time ago, Adam over at The Daily Twitch contacted me and asked if it was possible to do a mashup using The Killers' Human. I said sure, I'll give it my best shot... That was, I'm embarrassed to say, on the 5th April, some 4 months ago.

I have to say that in no way have I spent all that time on this mashup, but it's not been an easy birth this one. A various points Madonna, George Michael and Daft Punk have been part of the project, but they weren't really doing it for me. I was getting desperate but then I had a flash of inspiration. I know Adam is a fan of Snow Patrol - Eureka!

So Adam, I hope you like it, and in the nicest possible way I'm glad to see the back of this one as it's been nagging away at the back of my brain all this time! Like I said in a previous post, this is probably my first and last request, so make the most of it :-)



Download the mp3

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Sometime over the last couple of days I hit 10,000 views/listens for my mashups when aggregated across the different platforms.  Compared to some, that's small potatoes, but for me it represents a bit of a milestone. 3 months (ish) of putting this stuff online and very little in the way of promotion (I don't do facebook or myspace, bebo etc. I don't have 5,000 'friends' and I rarely tweet)

So I reckon 10,000 views is enough to be statistically relevant for me to paint a picture of my typical viewer/listener.  Youtube offers the best stats, and although not everything I have is on youtube (some is duplicated on officialfm and some is only on vimeo) and I'll just have to guess my non-youtube views/listens are pretty similar.

Based on the stats, you are as follows:

1) 80% likely to be male, so lets just say you are a man in touch with your feminine side

2) You are most likely in your 40's

3) You are twice as likely to be European as you are North American, and unfortunately very much less likely to be from anywhere else.  Let's say you speak with a mid-atlantic accent and spend most of your time in Europe.

4) Given approximately 40% of my views/listens are for the Genesis vs Katy Perry mashup, that ties in nicely with the other stats i.e. you are old enough to have enjoyed Invisible Touch (and probably Genesis in general) when it was originally out, and also given your age and potential for mid-life crisis, well... let's just say Katy Perry is quite easy on the eye in that video.

Did I describe you? I reckon 1, 2, and 4 are a good fit, but 3 might be pushing it a bit.

Next milestone - 100,000 views/listens but to get to that I'm going to have start churning out those mashups again... watch this space.

A Small Hiatus

I hate blogs that go all quiet after a while and I am determined that will not be the case here, but I'm taking a little time out to catch up with a few other things.  Fear not, more mashup goodness will be on its way in a few weeks or so; in fact I've got a dozen new mashups lined up and ready to work on, just very much at the "Work In Progress" stage (including a request - probably the first and last one I'll do!!)

If you haven't noticed, I have started a poll (see the righthand sidebar) about whether a video is essential for a mashup.  The downside of having the pressure to do a video, is that it can limit the options on the audio side if there simply isn't a video available.  For me, it's all about the music, but I recognise that people want to see a video these days and have done since MTV popped up on our screens.

Please vote and let me know what you think.

World In My Dance

Depeche Mode's "World In My Eyes" from 1990 and David Bowie's "Let's Dance" from 1983 brought together for this mashup. It's a bit biased towards the Depeche Mode track both visually and sonically. Getting the video to work to any reasonable degree was a bit of a push; mixing a socio-political commentary on the exploitation of the Aborigines in Australia with a cool, moody performance video... it ain't easy you know!

Download the mp3

Return of the F.E.A.R.

Two absolute classic tracks in my opinion. Mark Morrison's "Return Of The Mack" was a hit in both Europe and the US. Ian Brown (originally the frontman for the UK "Madchester" scene's Stone Roses) is represented here by his track "F.E.A.R." (If you don't know this track you should also check out the UNKLE remix of it too)

Download the mp3

Going Gaga

A couple of my earlier mashups for this post, both featuring the ubiquitous Lady Gaga. Both of these are available via my Youtube Channel, but I'm trying out the official.fm players for this particular post. I think these players are pretty neat and come in a variety of different versions, but I'm just going for the artwork this time.

Anyway, two for the price of one this time... (mp3 downloads via the player)

Mashup Mon... no wait...Tuesday

Once again, Adam over on The Daily Twitch has reviewed one of my mashups - I'll say no more here except I'm not paying him ;-) and he's pretty much hit the nail on the head when it comes to my approach to these mashups.

Invisible Gurls - Part II

So here it is, my latest video mashup which features the first audio mashup I ever did.  Not much more to say on this one other than...enjoy! Download the mp3

Be Good On A Dream

This one might have a bit more of a UK bias - I'm not really sure how well known Beats International is outside of the UK (despite their name!!) For those of you who have never heard of them I'm sure you will have heard of one of their founder members, Norman Cook A.K.A. Fatboy Slim. They themselves created the track "dub be good to me" as a bit of a mashup in itself, sampling The Clash and Ennio Morricone (yeah I know) and getting their vocalist to re-create "just be good to me" from the SOS Band.

Empire Of The Sun are an Aussie Duo that that are certainly known in the UK, but I'm not sure of their following internationally. By sheer coincidence, Toyota have just started running a TV Ad in the UK at the moment featuring "Walking On A Dream" as the music.

From a mashup point of view, there were a lot of challenges to be overcome with this one that I think are simply not evident in the finished version. There was a lot of frequency domain editing in several places to both extract sounds and remove sounds for the more exposed parts. Speeding the vocal up so much also resulted in A LOT of careful editing of the timing of words with time stretching of individual syllables to get it to work. As with all my work I've added a little of me in there too, sometimes subtle, sometimes not, but just enough to "glue" the whole thing together.

This is a mashup many layers deep. Download the mp3

Never Gonna Stay The Night

I can't decide if this is a serious mashup or not. On the one hand, it's Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up which has been the target of ridicule and the internet prank of getting Rick Rolled. But you can't deny it's a catchy song, as is Stay The Night by James Blunt.

I have to admit it was a bit of a push getting these two to sit together - wildly different bpm and the melody in the verse is a little uncomfortable in places, but it made me smile and got my foot tapping.

So, make of it what you will...
Download the mp3

Rolling In The Third Bar

OK, so I'm not exactly doing this in the correct chronological order, but here goes with my latest audio and video mashup. This is only my second attempt at a video mashup and I have to say I'm getting just as much of a buzz from doing the video as the audio. I did make a rod for my own back a bit with this video as I decided to go for that true cinema feel with 2.39:1 format; all well and good, but I ended up having to reframe most shots. Still, helps to get in a bit more practice with the video editing I suppose.

So what do you get if you cross Snow Patrol ft Martha Wainwright with Adele...
Download the mp3

The Daily Twitch: Mash Up Monday

Adam Hall over at The Daily Twitch has very kindly posted one of my mashups along with a nice little review - Thanks Adam!

The Daily Twitch: Mash Up Monday: "After a brief hiatus, we're back with a mashup from a new DJ that I, for one, am unfamiliar with. This week's mix comes from SpareElbowSkin..."

And here's the video in question, which also happens to be my first attempt at a video mashup...
Download the mp3

Honey, I'm home...

So I guess it's time I sorted myself out a blog as some kind of central repository for the stuff I'm doing at the moment.

I've got Dan "Chambaland" Chamberlain (AMFMPM.org) to thank for getting me into mashups.  It was hearing his mashup of Genesis' Invisible Touch with Katy Perry's California Gurls that really opened my eyes and ears to the mashup scene. Being new to this technique, I decided I would initially have a go at doing the same mashup - having an achievable goal when starting something new is always a good idea.

My resulting effort was in essence pretty similar although I added a few embellishments myself, and changed some of the phrasing around. I'm working on a proper video mashup of this at the moment, but in the meantime you can hear my first mashup right here:



Download the mp3

I have some other stuff on my YouTube Channel and also some newer things on Vimeo, but I'll always post anything new here and shout about it on twitter as well (see the link in the sidebar or just follow @spareelbowskin)