Archive for January, 2010

Did I mention that Jay Leno is a piece of shit? Oh, and Human League is really good.

Friday, January 29th, 2010

Egad! I haven’t posted anything all week. Sorry about that. Combination of being out of town until Monday, getting a shitload of work done and Mass Effect 2 coming out. Hell, who am I kidding? You can blame the lack of updates this week almost solely on Mass Effect 2 coming out. Yeah, blame BioWare, not me.

You can also blame Jay Leno. Seriously, I usually write these posts while watching Conan. But since Conan isn’t on anymore then I can’t do that can I? As if you needed another reason to hate that big-chinned piece of shit. My dad actually YELLED at me for calling Jay Leno a piece of shit over the weekend. (Context: I’m 30 years old). Yeah, that was an odd thing to nearly come to blows with your father over. Thankfully my dad doesn’t give a shit about anything I write, so I doubt he’ll stumble upon this post, who knows what he would do if he found out that I was calling Jay Leno a piece of shit over the internet…where other people might read it!

I’m just kidding, my dad doesn’t think anyone reads what I write.

Yeah, I’m not bitter.

Anyways, short post tonight, but it’s good stuff if you like 80s synthpop bands who used to be one band but split into two separate bands…yeah, that made sense somehow.

The Human league
Tell Me When (Utah Saints Mix 2)
Tell Me When (Strictly Blind Dub)
Tell Me When (Overworld Mix)
This is 90s Human League, and it’s more straight-up electronic than synthp-pop or new wave. They haven’t released anything new since 2001’s Secrets have they? That’s a bloody shame. I hate it when my favorite bands turn into nostalgia acts. Hey Phillip Oakley! Get off your amazingly talented ass and record some new tunes! I’ll buy them. Sure, I don’t know if anyone else will, but fuck those people, I’m more important.

By the way, there are many more remixes of this song. If anyone wants to share them in the comment section I will be their best friend.

Heaven 17
Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry (Industrial Mix)
Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry (Dub Version)
I posted two remixes of this song before, now here are two additional ones. No matter how many times I listen to this track I am always surprised how much it doesn’t sound like I think it should. A song called “Crushed By The Wheels of Industry” should not be as “up” as this song is. Somehow the “industrial” mix is even more upbeat. It’s a fucking travesty. Good song though – even if its tone and subject matter make it bipolar.

Posted in Heaven 17, remixes, The Human League | 9 Comments »

If we all wish hard enough maybe Leno will stay off the air.

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

I can dream can’t I?

RJD2
Through The Walls (Ric Ocasek Vocal Version)
I recently bought the 2002-2010 box set by RJD2. It’s a great deal. For 56 bucks you get RJ’s first two albums, The Horror EP (probably one of the best EPs/remix comps ever made) and a bonus EP of previously unreleased material. It’s all on vinyl but comes with a download code. Of course, a notable omission is RJ’s critically-maligned The Third Hand, but that was left out most likely due to label issues, as that’s the only album he doesn’t own the rights to. Another bummer is that there are no bonus b-sides or remixes, aside from the stuff on the previously mentioned bonus EP.

But most annoying is the download code and “bonuses” that come with it. The download is janky and messed up, each album you download is saved as the same name, so unless you rename them you might accidentally save over your downloads. It’s a stupid glitch that should have never happened.

Also included on the download page is a zip full of “rare photos” taken by RJD2. These are pictures of promotional materials and would probably appeal to the die-hard RJD2 fan, but some are out of freaking focus and most are obviously put together in a rushed and haphazard way (i.e. framed poorly and whatnot).

Now, I don’t want this to be one big RJD2 bashing session. It should be clear that I’m a big fan of the dude. I even interviewed him a few months ago for a magazine and I can tell you that he’s super nice, patient and a joy to talk to. However, when it comes to putting together a digital package for his next box set, I hope he takes a bit more time in putting it together.

The above song is not on the 2002-2010 box set. I found it on a sampler ages ago. A sampler that was stolen by a stoner roommate I had. I recently found it again online thanks to a friend. The album version of “Through The Walls” is good, but this remix, which features Ric Ocasek, is a freaking masterpiece – the best Cars song The Cars never wrote.

Lord Finesse
Shorties Kaught In The System (Remix)
I know almost nothing about this dude. But if his voice sounds familiar that’s because you’ve heard it before, give it a second. Can you figure it out? Right about now you should download the song. Right about now it should be hitting you. Check it out now. (Is that hint obvious enough?) This remix is from a weird 12” single that had a ton of not-rare Pharycde tracks on it.

The Pharcyde
Soul Flower (Gutter RMX)
Soul Flower (Tatelarock RMX)
Hey, speaking of Pharcyde…it’s almost like I planned that nice little segue. These are also from a 12”.

Posted in Lord Finesse, Pharcyde, remixes, RJD2 | 3 Comments »

Blogging Till I Puke

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Hey look, I got some music.

Andrew W.K.
Party Till You Puke (Remix)
Party Till You Puke (Shout Out Mix)
Dance Party (Anti Never Ending Music Mix)
I Want To Kill (Build It Up Mix)
Old Man
The first person to figure out and explain to me all this insanity involving Andrew W.K.(s) get a thousand cookies and the New Order MP3 of their choice. Is he a different person now? Is it all a hoax? Is he a clone? My money is on Andy Kaufman-style prank – or maybe he’s part of an ultra-positive, party-happy alien force that is inexplicably big in Japan. These are from a 12” and the mediocre quality is from the source material and not my fault (for once). These mixes make me want to mosh till dawn and on.

Soundgarden
Touch Me
Show Me
Hey everyone! Soundgarden got back together! Wait, where are you going? Hey, it’s not going to sound like Scream, we promise! Actually, I make no guarantees. God, I hope not though. Grunge was already dead enough, it didn’t need Timbaland’s help. These two tracks are from the 12” to “Rusty Cage.”

Posted in Andrew W.K., B-sides, remixes, Soundgarden | 3 Comments »

This week just keeps on sucking.

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

1,000 Homo DJs – Supernaut (Trent Reznor Version)*
R.I.P. Dannie

*I wanted to do a full Wax Trax post in memorial, but this is the only rare Wax Trax track I haven’t posted until now.

Posted in 1000 Homo DJs, NIN, RIP | 3 Comments »

IT Stands for Idiot Time

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

This is a rare mid-day blog posting. You can thank my job’s horrible IT department for giving me the downtime in the middle of the day was required for me to put this together.

New Order
60 Miles An Hour [Supermen Lovers Remix]
Someone Like You [James Holden Heavy Dub]
Someone Like You [Futureshock Vocal Remix]
I found a New Order single I didn’t already own! Yeah, I’m shocked too. This is later New Order, so I guess it’s not as good as the 80s stuff but hey, lesser New Order from the early 2000s is better than most dance-rock music of the time period. Remember kids, we didn’t always have LCD Soundsystem and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs! In my day we had to walk seven miles in the snow, uphill both ways, just to hear a snippet of something that might one day be considered “dance punk!” And we liked it!

Baby Ford
Fetish (Mainmix)
Fetish (Eons Alternative Mix)
Fetish (Subway Mix)
Fetish (8AX Mix)
Fetish (Minimal Mix)
I’m not exactly sure what makes this track exactly “fetish” worthy. The lyrics are vaguely sexual, but lack any hardcore BSDM or other kinky themes. Not bad though. If you want a really dirty track called Fetish I suggest you listen to Joan Jett’s – that song is so horny it might hump you.

Aphrodite
Heat Haze
This is the B-side to a track called “Ganja Man.” That song is incredibly annoying, thankfully this one is not. A version of this track also appears on the Aphrodite album Aftershock, but that version is about two minutes shorter than this one, so enjoy the extended dnb. If anyone out there is late to the game and is looking for some quality dnb by Aphrodite I cannot recommend his 1999 mix Urban Jungle strongly enough, it’s probably my second favorite mix of all-time, right behind Fatboy Slim’s On The Floor At The Boutique – which has the best mix of “Apache” in the history of awesome.

Euphoria
I Like Noise (The Vagabond Mix)
Genocide (The Original Mix)
Genocide (The Deliberate Mix)
Euphoria has to be the most obvious name ever for a for an early-90s rave act. “Guys, my music will make you euphoric! Like ecstasy does! Aren’t a fucking genius!” Sigh. Seems appropriate then that these tracks are very standard 90s acid house, complete with a myriad of samples you’ve no doubt heard before. Despite my relentless bashing I still like them, sometimes you want big dumb techno.

Posted in Aphrodite, baby ford, euphoria, New Order, remixes | 2 Comments »

House Music for Late Night Justice!

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

You’re going to hear me whine about Leno for a while now, so just get used to it.

Conan announced that he’ll quit The Tonight Show if he’s forced to 12:05, and I can’t blame him. NBC is treating him like shit, and for some reason treating Leno, an unfunny baboon with the most poorly rated network TV show since Capitol Critters, as some big-chinned god. Why? Leno left The Tonight Show, tried something different, and it failed. Failed epically! Have you ever watched The Jay Leno Show? No, of course you haven’t NO ONE HAS. And here’s a shocker, when a network’s 10:00 show is a piece of shit no one watches, less people watch their late night program? Who knew? Oh wait, everyone with a fucking brain knew!

Conan’s audience skews young, and it also skews tech-savvy, so it should be no surprise that the internet is all about Team Conan on this one. You, as a connoisseur of good taste (you must be, you’re reading my blog) have to do you part! Check out this article by The Consumerist. They have listed the email addresses of every executive at NBC. Email ALL OF THEM, do it repeatedly, then create multiple e-mail addresses and do it again, and again, and again. Tell them that you refuse to watch a late night show hosted by Jay “My Chin is a weapon of mass destruction” Leno and that if they don’t keep Conan at 11:35 then you’ll never watch another show on NBC ever.

And if you’ve seen their shitty primetime line-up then you know that won’t be a hard promise to keep.

On a related note, if Jay Leno does get The Tonight Show back this should be his fucking theme song. Bitch. (Sorry for the stupid video that goes with the song).

Oh, and if you are for some reason an idiot and think Jay Leno is right to do what he’s doing don’t bother commenting to share your viewpoint, because I won’t approve it. The Lost Turntable is a dictatorship, run by me, so don’t bother complaining about it.

The KLF
The Dogg Bite Mix
This is a weird mix, it’s mostly “What Time Is Love” but some other KLF jams make their way in as well. It’s from one of those subscription-based DJ records services. It’s actually pretty damn good too.

A Guy Called Gerald
Automanikk (Just 4U Gordon Mix)
Automanikk (4Q 808 Mix)
Automanikk (Derrick May The Force Be With You Mix)
Automanikk (Bass Overload Mix)
Voodoo Ray Americans
That is a really stupid alternative spelling. The song is good though. I like the band Gerald is in more though…

808 State
Open Your Mind (Open Mix)
Lift (Lift Up Dub)
Lift (Metro Mix)
Lift (Justin Strauss Mix)
Open Your Mind (Sound Garden Mix)
Lift (12” Mix)
Lift (7” Mix)
Well speak of the devil! I don’t even remember buying this 12”. I was cleaning out my music folders and came across a huge WAV file that had the entire 12” on it. I’m so disorganized that it extends to my virtual belongings! It’s sad really. The last time I cleaned my room (which was…many eons ago) I found 20 socks, two magazines that had articles I wrote, a picture of me from 3rd grade and a copy Purple Rain…on vinyl! God only know what I’ll find if I ever clean out my basement.

Posted in 808 State, A Guy Called Gerald, remixes, Team Conan, The KLF | 2 Comments »

Fuck Leno (And the Cards too)

Monday, January 11th, 2010

I’m writing this at 11:11 on 01/10/10. That’s…a lot of ones.

I am disgruntled. All the playoff games sucked this weekend save for the Pack/Cards game. But the team I wanted to win that one didn’t so it was all for naught anyways. Not like it matters though, I think we all know that either the Vikings or New Orleans is going to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. Then there’s the bullshit involving Leno. I hate that big-chinned prick. Always have. I only ever watched his show because he tended to have better guests than Letterman and it was the only way I wouldn’t forget to watch Conan. I can’t believe he’s getting his old time slot back! How the fuck does that work? His show sucks and no one watches it! So his reward is to go back to his old timeslot? Kevin Smith once said that in Hollywood you fail upwards, I guess he was right.

NBC is run by retarded crack-addicted howler monkeys. And Jay Leno is a walking taint with a chin. Sigh.

Oh yeah, music! Um, here’s some stuff!

Madonna
Rescue Me (Titanic Vocal)
Rescue Me (Lifeboat Vocal)
Rescue Me (Houseboat Vocal)
This is one of the “lesser” Madonna singles, it cracked the Top 10 on Billboard, but just barely. The fact that it was the follow-up to the kinktastic “Justify My Love” didn’t help that much, and neither did the fact that the song just isn’t that great (in my opinion anyways). These remixes take the song and transform it into a house track in a big way, and one can imagine that this 12” was a big hit on the NYC club circuit at the time – which has always been Madonna’s target audience anyway.

Lene Lovich
New Toy (Extended Mix)
Lene Lovich was born in Detroit but her family moved to England when she was still a kid. That is both the definition of “moving up” and “dodging a bullet” if there ever was one. In the late 70s she was on Stiff Records, adding further credence to my belief that Stiff Records in the late 70s probably had the the best line-up of any label in the history of all things. This extended mix of one of her best tunes (written by Thomas Dolby!) is from a 12” single.

Doug E. Fresh & The Get Fresh Crew
Spirit (Extended Version)
Spirit (Instrumental)
Spirit (Spirit Dub)
So another MP3 blog might have a song from the Ghostbusters II soundtrack, but would they have the instrumental version and the dub version as well? I didn’t think so, for that kind of useless bullshit you have to come to The Lost Turntable.

Posted in Doug E. Fresh, Lene Lovich, Madonna, remixes | 4 Comments »

What The Hell Does Pineapple Face Mean?

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

Did everyone have a wonderfully fantastic and incredible New Year? I didn’t end up in the hospital or with a serious injury. So I’m calling it a success for me. Allow me to ring in the fourth year of The Lost Turntable (holy shit!) with what I do best, a random collection of songs of varying quality.

Suzanne Vega
Tom’s Diner (12” Version)
Did you know that Tom’s Diner was the song in which the creator of the MP3 used to make sure the compression of the audio wasn’t overly affecting sound quality? It’s true! Did you know that it’s the song I used recently to see how much FM interference I had coming from my turntable? That’s true too! The answer is a lot. That’s why some tracks of mine has noticeable hums and such. I’m getting some equipment to help counter this measure however. This 12” remix is not on any Suzanne Vega album and is about a minute and a half longer than the original version. I haven’t checked but I’m betting much of the added length comes from extra “da da da da.”

Revenge
Pineapple Face’s Big Day (Remix)
Pineapple Face Calls It A Day
Revenge is one of Peter Hook’s (of New Order) side projects, and apparently they suck? That seemed to be the overall critical and popular consensus at the time. This was in 1990, I was barely aware of New Order at the time, let alone their side projects so I had no opinion. My knowledge of the group is this song, which I think is pretty good. The synth-line is catchy as hell, and I love Peter Hook’s voice. If he sung the phone book I’d probably check it out. Anyways, these are from a 12” single. Give them a listen and see if this group sucks as much as everyone in the world seemed to think at the time.

Missy
Gossip Folk (Fatboy Slim Remix)
Okay, sometimes I’m kind of stupid. Example: I bought this single today and was quite excited. I like Missy Elliott, I like Fatboy Slim – seemed like a good combo. I buy the record and get in my car, putting my recently bought pizza on top of the record. Not surprisingly, the hot pizza didn’t treat Missy with the respect she deserved and the record got wicked warped. Shockingly though, the damn thing still plays! The needle looks like it’s on a roller coaster however. This remix is a radio edit, so sorry about that.

Tears For Fears
Everybody Wants To Rule The World (Extended Version)
Speak for yourself guys, I don’t want to rule my own head sometimes.

Posted in Missy Elliott, remixes, Revenge, Suzanne Vega, Tears For Fears | 7 Comments »