If you can read this, you’re hooked into DIYmedia’s brand new server featuring expanded pipe action – putting the Truthful Translations of Political Speech back into the hands of the people. Note the GWB collages are now into the triple-digits and contain multi-page sub-sections. There’s also new Don, Ron, George I, Arnold, Pat, and Tony tracks, just to name a few.
New stuff ahoy in Celebrity Speech as well, including Rush remixed-comment on that drug hoopla and the ever-lampoonable Dan Rather. Continue reading “Bringing Back the Noise”
Category: Remix Culture
Collage Return Imminent
Let it be known: DIYmedia’s collage galleries return on February 20. In the mix are 140 Truthful Translations of Political Speech (with 100 of those focused on our fearless leader), new Celebrity Speech collages featuring Rush Limbaugh and Dan Rather, among others…and possibly some entirely new galleries, if I can get my sh*t together. You can literally listen for half a day and not hear the same one twice. Perhaps a streaming component is in order…
The Paragraphs Lift Bush For Lyrics
Last night I made a rare excursion out to see some live music on recommendation from a friend. Headlining the night were The Paragraphs, a combo band/art project out of Milwaukee that sets music to “found text.” They’ve released albums with lyrics solely culled from Field & Stream magazine and The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, Major Francis Yeats-Brown’s 1930 chronicle of his life and times in India and the Middle East.
Their latest – and most popular – project is “The Case for War,” which involves music with lyrics completely culled from George W. Bush speeches on the Wars on Terror and Iraq. Key to this effort is the band’s stage presence behind a large map of Iraq, presidential podium, and costumes including the standard suits and incredibly life-like masks (Bush sings, Cheney does lead guitar, Rumsfeld’s on drums, and Colin Powell handles keyboard duties; incidentally, Bush is also played by a woman, which you can’t tell from the audience’s perspective). Continue reading “The Paragraphs Lift Bush For Lyrics”
Media Collage Offline; Major Site Updates Suspended for December
Woe is us – the popularity of the collage galleries did them in.
Worry not, though: we are currently scouting a server move and, if all goes well, DIYmedia will make the transition to its very own server with a nice fat pipe before the end of the year. There’s a huge backlog of collage to be added to the galleries (more than 30 new files for the Truthful Translations section alone!), so the re-debut will actually be an expansion.
All other audio/video content remains online, unaffected.
As a part of this process, other regular site updates will be suspended for the month (like the Schnazz, updates to the Enforcement Action Database, etc.). The news, however, will continue to flow in this space as usual.
My apologies for this inconvenience…
Bad News Ahoy: Collage Galleries Too Popular
Last year I began to host various galleries of media collage online as an expansion of this site’s scope. An offshoot of this project – the Truthful Translations of Political Speech gallery – has taken on a life of its own.
The media collage sections of this site now account for at least half its traffic and most of its bandwidth use. As MP3 files are much larger than web pages, the bandwidth demands have grown with time, especially as the collage galleries have grown. I had plans to expand them further, with new galleries and a slew of new Truthful Translations which I’ve collected over the last few weeks. Continue reading “Bad News Ahoy: Collage Galleries Too Popular”
Truthful Translations Upgraded, Updated
Just a quick note of housekeeping: the Truthful Translations of Political Speech MP3s hosted here have been upgraded from 64 to 128 kbps quality, where the source material allowed for it. I’d estimate more than half got beefier but better sounding. This comes in response to a surprising number of requests from broadcasters (legal and otherwise) who are spreading the subversion far and wide.
The gallery has topped 80 files, a full two-thirds of which do up a single man…way more than I’d ever expected to see/hear. Keep ’em coming!
August Amendment One: Capitalizing Media Reform
Like it or not, to run with the big dogs in Congress it takes funds. Money, moolah, dinero, cash, the stuff everyone likes but others would rather not think about. Don Schellhardt gives a glimpse of the hard reality: even the cost of postage is out of most of our means individually, if one were to go into lobbying full-time. People also need to be paid for spending time on the Hill.
In completely unrelated news, the latest addition to Truthful Translations of Political Speech deserves special mention. Tom Compagnoni perfectly beat-matches the Prime Ministers of Great Britain and Australia with G.W. Bush in
WMD – American Justice (MP3, 1.7 MB). This is, amazingly, just Track One of a forthcoming album’s worth.
Partial Hiatus Ahoy & Miscellaneous Notes
Look for more sporadic news updates this month as I hunker down and pound out major portions of my master’s thesis. Regular refreshes (like the Schnazz) will continue, and news updates will occur if the story’s is big or unique, both of which could happen considering the FCC’s official implementation of its media ownership rule revisions takes place on September 4.
All of the coordinated grassroots media reform e-mail and call-in campaigns have worked so well to date that a big petition push is now on, and a national conference on media reform is slated for November 7-9 here in Madison. The Amherst Alliance has also ginned up 
a double-sided flyer for “LPFM Summer,” which is starting to hit full stride. Continue reading “Partial Hiatus Ahoy & Miscellaneous Notes”
Free Speech For Sale Set Free; Multimedia Collage to Descend on D.C.
This just in from the curators of the sequel to The Droplift Project: all interested droplifters should send email to dirtgoddess@pressthebutton.com including a mailing address to receive copies of the Free Speech For Sale CD. 33 tracks of exquisitely recontextualized commercial speech, sure to mind-blow quite entertainingly.
The CDs up for droplifting have one small blemish – the track orders are slightly scrambled, affecting about 90 seconds mid-album. FSFS curator Every Man estimates this blemish affects approximately 2% of the compilation’s overall content. Continue reading “Free Speech For Sale Set Free; Multimedia Collage to Descend on D.C.”
Madonna's File Share Screed Rebounds
On the collage beat, Madonna is getting whupped pretty nicely.
Seems about a week or so ago, Warner Music Group (corporate parent of Madonna’s Maverick Records) uploaded dummy “preview” versions of songs from her new album onto several popular music file sharing services. But instead of hearing the songs themselves, listeners got a tongue-lashing from pop music’s queen mother for participating in music piracy: “What the f*ck do you think you’re doing,” says Madonna (the rest of the dummy MP3 is silent).
What began as Madonna’s wry attempt to humiliate file sharers has since turned into a creative catalyst for several audio artists, who have remixed the quip as a reverse zinger. Warner Music might get some publicity mileage out of the sonic counterattack for Madonna’s new album, but methinks those most interested in the remix project aren’t big Madonna fans to begin with. Continue reading “Madonna's File Share Screed Rebounds”