John Pazdan

I recently did a remix for my Brit friends Simon Littlefield and Nigel Summerley. We met these two last summer, when they were playing in the fine rock group Sky Pirates and did a gig with them at The Borderline in London..memorable for Rena and I getting lost on the way back to our hotel in a freezing rain (nice weather at the end of May…) as well as the overflow crowd at the club, which consisted of..an overflow in the Men’s Room..but as usual, I digress. Simon (who is also the author of the fine book “As a Dodo”, and writes “jokes” for the BBC..) and Nigel (who does not) have put together an innerestin’ project called Meat Xylophone..wherein the boys play whatever the fahnk they feel like when they feel like it and that’s about it, thanks. Having immersed myself the last two years or so in a time wasting project that was playing “pop songs” (I am now “un-immersed”…) I can certainly appreciate their sentiment. And as I have been doing a bit of stretching lately, music wise, I decided to revisit what I was attempting about 12 years ago; which was remixing things in a slightly “different” way then was (maybe) intended by the “composer”. Meat X was perfect for this..so when they put up a few new songs on their MySpace site, I hopped on “Chicago Dub” and cut loops..which I then turned into a post industrial nightmare slugfest called “Hackney Dub”. (Hackney is where Simon lives.. and about which I hear is as fashionable a burg as Aurora-by-the-Sea). To hear what they are up to, as well as the original “Chicago Dub” and a lot more, head over to their Mice Space, and enjoy ..and if you can find a copy on Amazon..”As a Dodo” is really good.

Why did I ..ok..today, there’s a great article about Louis Armstrong in the Paris Match. It’s about how he did things before digital manipulation (which allows things like me grabbing the above track, cutting loops out of it, recording new parts in my “home studio“, and posting it back to Simon where it appeared an hour later..). Especially interesting was the collage work Louis did (example above). Collage was what I looked to when I started remixing..especially the work of Romare Bearden, Pablo P and Braque. The layering and texturing techniques, as well as the definition and composition of planes these men used has a direct analog to remixing, and composition as well. I was pretty excited about this when I figured it out..but when I tried the theory on an Art teacher/professor or two I met, all I got was a big ..huh? wha? you mean like rap stuff? Sadly, most of the teachers I have met since are still oblivious to the similarities. My friend Gurdonark at ccMixter has the idea though; his compositions have direct analogs to some of the wonderful photos he takes. As do Louis Armstrong’s compositions with his collage work..and Miles Davis’ work (another visual artist)..and the remix/production work of Miles by one of the founders of the art, producer/engineer Teo Macero..don’t leave out Lee Perry either..ever see the outside of the Black Ark?

The culture of creative remixing is a wonderful place to hang out, whether you just like creative new music..or maybe (hopefully) you’d like to take a try at it your own bad self….www.ccMixter.org is the best place to start. All you need is the computer you are reading this on, and some software, (I recommend the free version of Acid to get you started, but there’s a lot more where that came from). All the raw material (that is, the sound samples) you need to do it are available for free at ccMixter, just dl some and go to town cowboy…. and while you at it, a dub shout out to the long line, from Braque to Louis to Scratch.