Archive for the ‘Alice In Chains’ Category

I’m the man in the box, buried in my killer beats dawg.

Friday, October 12th, 2012

I’ll be adding a bunch of singles and albums to my sale soon, so if you haven’t checked that page out, please do.

Okay, now that I have that out of the way, who wants to hear some incredibly stupid remixes?

I briefly touched upon this a few days ago, but I recently bought a metric crapton (that’s a lot) of DJ Mix singles. These are special 12″ singles that are sold to DJs only, usually via a subscription service, and they feature special mixes that are never made available anywhere else. Sometimes they’re unofficial bootlegs, other times they’re legit. Often it’s hard to tell.

Tonight’s mixes are from a 12″ single called Rock ‘n’ Beat Turbo 4. As if the name didn’t make it obvious enough, these are dance remixes of rock songs. Actually, if I wanted to get specific and accurate, they’re more just edits or mixes than full on remixes. A remix typically implies that the track was altered at the base level, and that the mixer in question had access to the master recordings or even recorded new material to interpolate into the original song. Most of these just extend the original songs’ breakdown and instrumental sections while throwing in some chorus effects and extra beats (hence that Rock ‘n’ Beat title). It’s all really weird and goofy and while a lot of the mixes are just “lets loop shit to make it longer” I find them all fascinating nonetheless, if for track selection alone, so let’s get into it.

U2
Mysterious Ways (Beat Box Mix)
I hate U2 more than the Thompson Twins, so I got nothing here. I think this is just a small re-edit though.

Alice In Chains
Man In the Box (Tore Up From The Floor Up Mix)
Okay, to start; this remix of “Man In The Box” is seven and a half minutes long. SEVEN AND A HALF MINUTES LONG! That is insane. How does one make “Man In The Box” seven and a half minutes long? Well, for starters you take the opening bars and repeat them about five times longer than they were in the original, then you do the same for the closing bars as well. Then you take the rest and loop the shit out it, add some extra drum beats and then pat yourself on the back for turning a grunge song about addiction and homelessness into a dance tune for the clubs.

Fuck the 90s were weird.

Counting Crows
Mr. Jones (The Sick Mix)
I never in a million remixes thought that I’d be deconstructing a Counting Crows dance mix on this blog but here it goes. Much like the “Man In The Box” mix this edit of “Counting Crows” expands the original song to a club-friendly six minutes mostly just by extending the opening and closing measures. This one is a little more obviously remixed though, thanks to the very apparent drum beat that is pasted in out of nowhere.

90s. Weird.

Melissa Etheridge
I’m The Only One (The Blue Mix)
Eight minutes. That’s how long they stretch this one out. Eight Minutes.  But hey, if you like Melissa Etheridge then that’s just eight minutes of awesome.

John Mellencamp
Wild Night (Maple Tree Mix)
Okay, I’ll be honest, I haven’t heard this song in 10 years and I’m not going to revisit the single version now. Based on my recollection of it, I don’t hear much of a difference here.

Bachman Turner Overdrive
Takin’ Care Of Business (Rippin’ Mix) 
This version of “Takin’ Care Of Business” incorporates a sample from Afrika Baambaataa’s “Planet Rock.”

Let that sink in before you listen to it.

Posted in Alice In Chains, Counting Crows, I refuse to create a BTO category, John Mellencamp, Melissa Etheridge, remixes, U2 | 2 Comments »

Grunged: Junkie Rock

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

This will not be a happy blog post. Talking about Kurt Cobain is depressing for sure, but that’s a happy tea party compared to the pathetic final years of Layne Staley’s wasted life and the general apathy that has followed.

If you really want to know the details about Layne’s final years you can do the research yourself, I’ll give you the downer-highlights.

From 1997 to Layne’s death in 2002 he was rarely seen in public and never performed, instead spending most time in his condo shooting up heroin and avoiding everyone around him. His last recording session with Alice In Chains produced the great “Get Born Again” and “Died” which served as a memoriam to his girlfriend who died from an overdose some time before then. Layne estimated date of death was April 5th, 2002, but he wasn’t found until the 20th, when the police came by his house since no one had seen or heard from him in weeks. He was found surrounded by cocaine and heroin, I believe the fucking needle was still in his arm.

The same week Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes died in a plane crash, and the media attention was all on her. Layne was forgotten quickly, according to an MTV news story only 200 people showed up for a vigil after his death. Everyone knew it was going to happen and no one cared when it finally did I suppose. Now no one talks about him, even though Alice In Chains remain one of the biggest acts on alternative radio, with songs like “Man In The Box” and “Rooster” undeniable classics.

But what is Alice In Chains’ legacy? Well, they left us three amazing albums and two great EPs as well as the best Unplugged in MTV’s history. But in their wake came an entire subgenre of shit musicians who continue to rip-off their sound in the most obvious of ways. Being influenced by a band is one thing, but Godsmack, Stand, Seether, and the countless other AiC-copycats aren’t adding anything new, they’re copycats pure and simple (Godsmack even named themselves after a fucking Alice In Chains’ song) and they fucking suck. They lack the emotion, power and dark energy that Alice In Chains had, and they’re never going to get it. I thought necrophilia was illegal, then why are these pricks getting away with raping Staley’s corpse on a daily basis? It’s a fucking shame.

Alice In Chains
What The Hell Have I
A Little Bitter
Suffragette City
Again (Club Mix)
Again (Trip Hop Mix)
Another Brick in The Wall (Part 2)
This is an odd collection of rarities. Alice In Chains doesn’t have a lot of hard-to-find material thanks in part to their scant recording history and the amazingly-comprehensive Music Bank box set. This was all I could gather up from my collection. Those first two tracks are from the soundtrack to Last Action Hero, which was a great CD by the way, and are not the remixed versions that appeared on Music Bank. The cover of “Suffragette Ciy” is from an old demo tape, and I have no idea where the remixes of Again are from. I found them online. Finally, there’s the cover of “Another Brick In The Wall”, which isn’t an Alice In Chains song at all, but a one-off recoding by The Class of ’99, which featured Layne on vocals with Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine), Stephen Perkins (Jane’s Addiction) and Martyn LeNoble (Porno For Pyros). It was recorded for the soundtrack to The Faculty. That movie sucked and so did the soundtrack, but this track is worth hearing.

Tomorrow were on to slightly less depressing pastures with Soundgarden. No suicide there, just creative bankruptcy.

Posted in Alice In Chains, B-sides, remixes | 4 Comments »