I’m rather late to the meme party, but I only just this week discovered the magnificence that is Neil Cicierega’s mashup back catalogue. For instance who would have ever thought that this combination was possible?
And what about this funky declaration that sleepin’ makes him feel good?
And how does this one even work?
My absolute favourite however has to be this little effort. There is something simply sublime about Serj Tankian’s pain filled screams superimposed on cheery Elton John pop-rock that sends the combination into the stratosphere.
If you find yourself liking this kind of stuff there’s a lot more of it up on YouTube, much of it involving Shrek. Enjoy!
I was shocked and appalled today to discover today that the two hour long mix of retro synth-wave compiled by the Prime Thanatos that I’ve been using to get me through the work day has been taken down due to copyright claims. Outrageous! I mean there’s plenty of other two hour long mixes of retro synth-wave compiled by the Prime Thanatos, but how am I to activate rampage mode, without the assistance of that first retro synth-wave track, the name and artist of which I completely failed to note down?
So it was time to get my google-fu on.
In short order I was able to locate an archived page that, while it didn’t have the particular mix on it, had the track listing. And hence I was able to identify the track as the 2017 remix of Way Farer by SUNG and subsequently activate rampage mode successfully.
Along the way I also noted down this fine effort, the Dance with the Dead remix of Scandroid’s Neo Tokyo.
And for those of you who aren’t into retro synth-wave… I don’t know what to tell ya!.
Well, it’s now gone 6:00pm in Hawaii, so I figure anyone who’s likely to have been fooled by my podcast gag will have been fooled and I can come clean about it. Yes, it was an April Fools joke. Haha! Aren’t I just great?
Anyway, lest anyone think the entire podcast thing was a long-con leading up to that ridiculous audio file, it’s not (I’m not anywhere near that organised). We are genuinely making a podcast – I just realised a couple of weeks back that making said podcast provided a great opportunity to prank people (and tighten up my audio editing skills in the process). So stay tuned for news on the real premier of Carthago Delenda Est.
In the meantime I thought I’d elucidate on the sources of that clattering bag of madness I thrust upon you all.
The first part is sourced from the amazing Chriddof and his video Mr Sir…
The mini-episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation was edited together from various sources and was largely inspired by the extremely weird and decidedly not safe for work Star Trek: The Disturbing Animated Series which not longer appears to be available online – which is probably good for the future of human civilisation. The “Enough!” is sourced from the famously horrible cut scenes from the CD-i game Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon.
The Thames TV sign off was another nod to Chriddof, and was hopefully somewhat disorientating to those who grew up watching both TNG and British sitcoms from the 70s.
The next section uses a couple of weird audio files I obtained many moons ago. The morse code is from a record telling the life story of Samuel Morse in m0rse code (morse code records were a thing for a while apparently). The radio signal is a recording from the famous numbers station Lincolnshire Poacher. Over the top of these is Lemongrab’s freakout scene from the Adventure Time episode You Made Me.
The final section consists of samples from The Garfield Monstrosity segment of the My Brother, My Brother and Me podcast, in which the McElroy brothers discuss a fellow with a rather unusual problem (it is self described as “possibly the grossest conversation ever heard by human ears”, so you have been warned)…
These are mixed over the Moog Cookbook’s amazing cover of Hotel California.
The final section is stolen wholesale from the end of rx’s cover of The End of the World as We Know It, as performed by George W. Bush – which I still think is one of finest bits of audio/video editing I’ve ever seen. This of course features a sample of Winston Churchill’s speech about the battle of El Alamein in 1942.
So there you go, all the bones that were boiled to make the soup. The real podcast should be along… well I won’t say “shortly”. “Eventually” is probably more realistic 🙂
Ah, depression and having to work for a living are not really conducive to blogging.
Anyway, since I last made an update we’ve had a state election. Schadenfreude is an ignoble emotion, but it was still sweet to watch the Liberals* kicked out of power with a 16% swing. Not that Labor are likely to be much better, but at least it’s a new set of faces screwing us over.
And they won’t (probably) sell off Western Power, and they will (probably) cancel Roe 8, both of which suit me just fine.
Switching subjects wildly in that crazy way you love me for, I’ve noticed lately that salt lamps are making a comeback. You know, the ones made of a big chunk of Himalayan pink rock salt with a light bulb shoved in the middle? I’ve got no problem with people buying these as decoration – they look great, if I could afford the ridiculously inflated prices I’d get one myself – but when people buy them because of the ‘health benefits’ it makes my blood boil in the particular way I reserve for scam artists ripping off the vulnerable.
The supposed health benefits of salt lamps derive from them releasing ‘negative ions’. Now, it is true that if you sufficiently heat up salt it will release negative ions, but the ionic bond between sodium and chlorine in salt is extremely strong. So much so that you need to heat rock salt to a few hundred degrees before you get any more than a tiny trickle of ions out of it.
It should go without saying that if a lamp in the corner of your lounge room is heating up to hundreds of degrees, then the resulting plentiful supply of ions is probably not going to be your chief concern.
On top of this is the fact that there is very little evidence of negative ions having any beneficial effect whatsoever. The idea is based simply on the observation that people (some people anyway) feel ‘energised’ after a thunderstorm. Somewhere along the line someone attributed this to ‘negative ions’ and the pseudoscience industry ran with it. Negative ions may under some circumstances reduce dust but that’s about it.
Finally ‘Himalayan’ rock salt does not come from the Himalayas. Most of it comes from a completely different mountain range located in Pakistan. The remainder actually comes from Poland. So not only are you paying big bucks for completely fictional heath benefits, you’re not even getting the material you think you are!
So yeah, quit it with the rock salt lamps people!
Anyway I’ve been grooving to this Chvrches track lately. Not only is it a great song – I particularly like the contrast between Lauren Mayberry’s and Hayley Williams’ voices – the video clip is a lot of fun too. The toast makes me laugh every time.
Finally as prompted by the always amazing Haiz I’ve been getting into Thrilling Intent of late. This is a massive series of videos where an RPG group has recorded their extremely stupid adventures. The style – mostly audio with icons being moved around a map – takes a bit of getting used to, and I suggest setting the speed to 1.25 for the first few eps, but the characterisation and improvisation are brilliant.
The characters are Markus Velafi – a fast talking, magic using, impulsive Tiefling bullshit artist, Gregor Hartway – a well meaning but idiotically naive fighter, and Aesling (Ash) a magic user of some description who is the only voice of reason in the group (she spends a lot of her time yelling at the others). It’s downright hilarious and highly recommended.
So, that should keep you busy for a while. Have at it!
Both Pauline Hanson and Justin Beiber are in town today. It’s a wonder the earth hasn’t opened up and swallowed the entire city.
Anyway, I have been quite sick this week with a cold. A horrible cold in the middle of summer. Nowhere near as bad as the one I had in Basel, but still not much fun. On the upside the chemists across from the office decided to trust me enough to sell me some cold tablets full of pseudoephedrine which dried up my nose quite nicely and suppressed my appetite to the point that I was plain forgetting to eat – so maybe I’ve lost a bit of weight.
(Talking of the Basel incident I noticed a distinct groove in my toenails today. Doing some quick calculations concerning the average rate of toenail growth there’s a distinct possibility that it coincides with my miserable week trying not to die in a Swiss hotel room – which suggests I was even sicker than I thought!)
If I haven’t lost weight from gulping down amphetamines I’ve probably lost some in sweat from the stupid weather the last few weeks. It’s not just hot, it’s hot and humid. It’s like living in goddam Singapore! Things are meant to cool down a bit this week, so maybe I’ll be able to get some sleep.
Anyway I’ve been spending my time while hiding inside from the heat by pottering around the Internet and have discovered a couple of things worth sharing.
First up, this quite remarkable a cappella version of Oblivion (remember Oblivion?). The lead singer doesn’t quite live up to Susanne Sundfør’s example – but then hardly anyone could. It’s a downright amazing performance!
Ah! There’s a stink bug flying around the apartment! OH GOD PANIC!!!
OK, that’s dealt with.
So the second thing is this first hand account of how a guy solved the disappearance of a German family in Death Valley, 13 years after the event. It’s not a story with a happy ending, but it’s truly fascinating how he figured out where the tourists went and why.
While zooming around Google Earth to track down the locations in the story I ended up drifting south to the shores of the Salton Sea, a truly strange place where the American dream went to… well if not die exactly at least slip into a deep coma. Then while doing some Salton related googling I discovered that the 2004 documentary Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea is available in its entirety on YouTube! It’s only an hour long and well worth a watch if you’re fond of the odd corners of American culture.
I have found myself getting quite obsessed with the M83 (featuring Susanne Sundfør) track Oblivion of late. The weird thing is I have absolutely no memory of the Tom Cruise movie of the same name that it’s from the soundtrack of. Maybe it was never released in Australia?
Or maybe I’m just getting old…
Anyway it’s downright epic – if you’re into M83’s type of music. If you can’t stand Tom Cruise (and who can blame you?) just close your eyes and listen.
You know, as far as the Wyrmlog is concerned signing up to Twitter may have been a bit of a misstep. Now whenever I have an inane thought it quickly vanishes off into the Twitterverse in 140 characters or less, rather than sitting around in my head and fermenting its way into a blog post. I’ll have to see what I can do about this.
Anyway, it’s Australia Day. There’s a lot more talk this year about moving the date to something less upsetting to the Indigenous population, and consequently a lot more pushback along the lines of “why don’t they just get over it!”. As is standard practice the news bulletins roll out some Indigenous people who want to change the date, and then track down another Indigenous person (it’s usually a single person) to say why the first bunch of Indigenous people are wrong, and then round it all up with some vox pops. And thus the news cycle continues.
I’m quite sympathetic to those who want to change the date. I can’t deny however that this is partially because January 26th doesn’t mean anything more to me than a day off work and the Triple J Hottest 100. Yes, I’m Australian, and I’m grateful to be Australian. I’m proud of the many good things my nation has done, and I’m ashamed of the many bad things my nation has done. But I feel that way – and am aware of the good things and the bad things – every single day. I don’t feel the need to set aside a particular day each year for it.
Call me unpatriotic if you like, but I’ve always been suspicious of patriotism. To my mind, patriotism is only a few steps away from nationalism, and nationalism is only a few steps away from fascism. I’m glad to be Australian, and I’m grateful for all this country has given me, but I express that by being a good citizen and doing my best to make this country better, not by sticking temporary tattoos on my face and waving a flag.
So moving or not moving the date is a race I do not have a horse in. As long as I get my day off work I don’t really care.
Adding some extra excitement to this year’s festivities is the debate (if bomb threats count as “debate”) over an Australia Day billboard featuring (OMG!) Muslims. The original billboard in Melbourne was taken down after the advertising company received threats, but in a nice example of the Streisand Effect this has prompted people to put up many more copies of it all over the place. Which has pissed off the Islamophobes even further. As with all issues of religion and race this is, frankly, a complete clusterfuck, but I can’t help but feel good about anything that makes bigots so angry. Generally speaking if whatever you’re doing is pissing off Nazis then you’re doing it right.
But anyway I didn’t come to talk about any of that. Came to talk about the Hottest 100.
I finally got around to voting some weeks back, and present below my favourite songs of the year. As is standard these days someone has done some number crunching and come up with a list of predictions, so I’ll reference the predicted placing and (when it comes up) the actual placing for each of my votes…
Girlie Bits – Ali Barter Predicted Placing: 36
Actual Placing: 58 (Boo!)
Without a doubt my favourite track of the year – which given its very obvious 90’s stylings shows just how old and out of touch I am. It’s a song about being a female artist in the music industry, and how everyone wants you to write nice, pleasant, girlie songs about love and flowers and things, as opposed to anything that really matters, and to always look pretty and/or hot while singing them. A fantastic song on every level.
Daughter of the Light – Urthboy featuring Kira Puru
Predicted Placing: 168 (which is a fucking travesty)
The second best song of the year (as far as I’m concerned) is Urthboy’s tribute to his mum. Go and read the lyrics. Excuse me, I have something in my eye…
1955 – The Hilltop Hoods featuring Montaigne and Tom Thum
Predicted Placing: 6
Actual Placing: 4
Third best song of the year. Of all my choices, I think this one has the best chance of being number one. It most likely won’t be, but I’d be utterly shocked if it didn’t get into the top ten. A great track celebrating small-town life in the Adelaide hills with downright amazing vocals from Montaigne in the hook.
I’m really hitting the Aussie Hip-hop this year aren’t I? Catchy, fun tune simply about having a good time.
Weatherman – The Panics
Predicted Placing: 200+
Incredibly lush, spooky song with lots of layered, echoey sounds building to something truly epic. Probably too subtle for the common palate.
Frankie Sinatra – The Avalanches
Predicted Placing: 23
Actual Placing: 28
The Avalanches finally released their difficult second album last year with this infectious pile of rap and samples. The video clip however is one of those arty ones where the song keeps getting drowned out by the sound effects. As a short film it’s not bad. As a video clip it’s a bit crap.
Take Me Dancing – Sløtface
Predicted Placing – 200+ (Ridiculous!)
The video for Take Me Dancing on the other hand is deliberately cheap and amateurish. A great little rock-pop song, somewhat reminiscent of Metric (Haley Shea really sounds like Emily Haines on this track).
At this point I’d run out of tracks I really wanted to vote for, so I just grabbed the first two that came to mind that I liked. There’s nothing wrong with them, but there are plenty of other tracks I could have voted for as well. In hindsight I do regret not voting for Sarah Blasko’s cover of Life on Mars – which is predicted to come in at 88.
I Know A Girl – The Preatures
Predicted Placing – 176
The Arrow – Urthboy featuring Timberwolf
Predicted Placing – 200+
Happy new year one and all! Let’s hope this year is somewhat less vicious when it comes to beloved celebrities and musicians.
Anyway, back in 2000 a Russian DJ by the name of Oleg Kvasha had a hit in Russia with a fairly generic dance track titled зеленоградское такси. For those of you unable to read Cyrillic (what are you doing with your life?) that’s Zelenogradskoe Taksi or Green City Taxi – although it often seems to be referred to as Zelenoglazoe Taksi instead which means Green-Eyed Taxi. Here it is…
Not long afterwards musician and TV presenter Aleksandr Pushnoy re-recorded a bunch of popular Russian pop and dance songs in the style of scary German Neue Deutsche Härte band Rammstein – including of course Zelenoglazoe Taksi. And the result is glorious! 😀
The video – despite fitting so well – isn’t original to the song. It’s the intro from a 1994 computer game, the Doom clone Quarantine. In this game you play a post-apocalyptic taxi driver picking up and delivering passengers around the crazed streets of Kemo City, shooting up and running down attacking psychopaths with a variety of vehicle mounted weapons all the while. You know, good old fashioned fun.
Jumping forwards to 2007, the Austrian group Global Deejays released their own remix of the song, titled Zelenoglazoe Taxi…
What’s interesting about this is that I strongly suspect it’s the inspiration for Stalingrad Tank Trap, a track mentioned in Ben Aaronovitch’s Peter Grant novel Whispers Underground…
I put my ear against the cold metal of the nearest door – the bass rumble was enough for me to identify the track.
‘”Stalingrad Tank Trap”,’ I said. ‘By Various Artiz.’
I like a bit of drum and bass to dance to, but Various Artiz were notorious for cranking out one identikit track after another – they were as close to mainstream as you could get on the club circuit without turning up on a Radio Two playlist.
My logic is as follows.The original name of the track referenced the Russian city of Zelenograd, hence “Zelenograd” = “Stalingrad”. “Tank Trap” sounds suspiciously similar to “Taxi”. Naming your group “Global Deejays” is only slightly less inane and generic than “Various Artiz”, and from what I can gather the general opinion of Global Deejays is pretty much as Peter narrates in the extract above. Quod Erat Demonstrandum!
Maybe I should tweet Mr Aaronovitch about it? Or maybe not 🙂
Have a listen to 1:33 to 1:59 of TISM’s Greg! the Stop Sign (1995)…
Now have a listen to 17:14 to 18:00 of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Variations (1978)…
And finally, listen to the Shadows’ FBI (1961)
There’s quite a few references online to TISM quoting the Shadows, but I haven’t seen any noting the intermediate Andrew Lloyd Webber step that baroque-ised the middle bit.
On a side note, have a good listen to the Variations. There’s some very 70’s bits in there (four on the floor disco and jazz flute anyone?), but there’s also some damn good re-interpretations of the classics.
