#poking fun of the fact that William and Rick

[vanlegion]

I either lost page one, or didn't draw it out, but have this silly ass comic thing. I actually drew this. . . shit, like, last year in I think August? I just forgot to post it. Anywho, a light tease at the comics/certain weird ideals/tropes these things sometimes have. Context is William always listening to his BFF whinge about Amber or Sam

[thedeaditeslayer]

Bruce Campbell exclusive on reboot of Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for Travel Channel.

Fan favorite actor Bruce Campbell is executive producer and host of the reboot of Travel Channel’s new series Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

Filmed inside Ripley’s warehouse, each segment is a thorough concise look at unique individuals who blow people’s minds with their gifts. It runs the gamut from physical exceptionalism to flat-out death-defying deeds. Steering this eye-candy-licious ship is Campbell.

Over the film and television career of actor Bruce Campbell, we have loved his take on horror roles (Ash Williams in The Evil Dead franchise), perfectly honed dramatic characters (President Ronald Reagan on Fargo), and most recently as the critically acclaimed developer Gary Green in a three-episode arc on AMC’s Lodge 49.

Of course, Burn Notice fans loved him as Sam Axe, and legions of Starz’ Ash vs. Evil Dead fans are bereft over Ash’s recent cancellation and demise there.

This latest venture for Campbell sees him entering the production side of TV as well, and his instincts are dead-on accurate for what reality TV watchers want, well crafted true stories with no wasted frames, lots of heart, and plenty of jaw-dropping reveals.

We screened the premiere episode and were completely riveted to the tales.

Ohio native Rick Smith flicks playing cards at lethal speeds while dreadlocked Dai Andrews can swallow curved swords and live to talk about it. Tyler Scheuer takes it on the chin — literally — as he balances heavy odd objects.

Toronto native “Twisty” Troy James is a handsome contortionist who has worked in many TV shows (FX The Strain, CW’s The Flash) and movie roles, with his mentor Roberto Campanella referring to him as a “natural talent” and a “walking talking natural effect.”

The 10-episode, hour-long series is inspired by Robert Ripley’s love of the extraordinary in humanity, and Campbell is a good steward of this. We spoke to Campbell by phone yesterday for a fascinating interview:

Monsters & Critics: I’m incredibly jealous of you.

Bruce Campbell: Why is that?

M&C: Well, the Ripley’s Warehouse. You got to work in it… and poke around.

Bruce Campbell: Oh yes… I’ll never tell. I’ll never tell the secrets that I saw.

M&C: But what was the standout item that was a jaw-dropper for you?

Bruce Campbell: Well they always rotate displays. They had a [President Donald] Trump in the foyer. They had a life-size Trump. So I got a thumbs-up picture with that. So I’ve had a picture taken with a president.

They also had a life-size replica of the tallest guy ever. And when they do that, that’s different than a photograph. And they have all these great craftsmen that work in the warehouse doing prosthetics and doing these life-size replicas of things. And when you see that life-size of the tallest man ever, you go, “How does anyone get that big?” It really puts it in perspective.

So stuff like that was cool. I’m a sucker for enormous, oversized objects.

M&C: I think I saw that in the background on the premiere episode…

Bruce Campbell: Oh yeah, it’s hard to hide that guy.

M&C:  I love that you’re serving as host, but you’re also wearing the executive producer hat. I’m sure someone like yourself, with a bazillion fans from every level, gets pitched a million things. Who contacted you? I know that you were aware of Ripley’s and you liked it as a kid…

Bruce Campbell: Oh, of course. Things come across your desk. They tracked down my agent, and then he throws it at you and you either ignore it or say yes, or no, or maybe.

And Ripley’s, soon as they said that, I’m like, “Okay, I’ve heard of that.” And, “Who’s it for?” “Travel Channel.” “Okay, I’ve heard of that.” So they were two for two, and that’s helpful.

I knew Ripley’s and I was fascinated by a lot of that stuff anyway. I felt it’s a pretty good fit for the Evil Dead crowd because we’re basically talking about people who live on the edge … these people who push it.

So it’s pretty good. It felt right. And the Travel Channel … it’s not your father’s Travel Channel anymore. So it’s a good fit for Travel Channel because they’re doing all these crazy, creep investigations now and stuff. I think it fits it right in.

M&C: Dovetailing on what you said earlier, I think we’re all fascinated with the human body. So much good, bad and otherworldly can happen in the human form; and afflictions, to gifts, talents.

Bruce Campbell: To DNA glitches.

M&C: Yes, exactly. And I think that that’s an interesting thing that the show… we don’t have “the freak show” anymore… but Ripley’s show, you’re kind of bringing back a Victorian freak show but in a much more humane and cerebral context...

Bruce Campbell: Well we don’t use the F-word anymore. We don’t, not in our Ripley world. Because you’ve got your ordinary people, and that’s you and me and our neighbor.

These people really are the extraordinary, beyond ordinary. What we’re doing is, we’re celebrating it. And my job as a producer… My input was tone.

So that you’re celebrating people who’ve overcome challenges; they are achieving great achievements just through tenacity and practice and focus. And a lot of life lessons in here. So the takeaway is very positive.

If it’s different from any other incarnation, it would be that — that people are not on parade.

Now granted, [there’s] no shortage of eye candy. There’s going to be a lot that’s going to make your eyes pop out. But in context, we want you to get to know these people, to understand, and in some cases respect their decisions.

M&C: Right. Each segment was really well-rounded for the time beat that it was, and you gave really good backstory. And it showed how people were prospering and making great livings, and absolutely celebrating their uniqueness. I like that you do that.

Bruce Campbell: It’s an incredibly dense hour. It’s a small hour. It’s like six or seven stories per hour. It’s crazy.

M&C: Yes. The first episode, Rick Smith with the flying lethal playing cards…The fact that he could lethally dismember someone’s finger…

Bruce Campbell: Yeah. He’ll kill you!  At a press conference, he could kill you. He could kill you at a press conference. By the way, we’re going to try to drag some of these folks to conventions.

Because I told them, I said, “Look, this is what I do. You’ve got to…” How many boring movie panels have you witnessed, you know? Oh, it was very hot that day. Yes, my suit didn’t fit right. And we thought that was funny. “No, let’s get a panel of Ripley’s participants. I’ll give you a panel.” So we’re going to San Diego Comic-Con. We have a panel coming on, that Saturday.

M&C: You know it’s going to be standing-room-only. People are going to be hanging from the rafters…

Bruce Campbell: Well, it’s the right fit for that crowd too. And look, this is not Marvel. This is real, folks. These are real superheroes, for the most part.

M&C: When you look at your career, characters like Ash Williams, and Sam Axe… and then you’ve done very serious stuff in Fargo, and you had a great part in Lodge 49, which is a fun series. What kind of roles do you enjoy the most?

Bruce Campbell: Just mix it up. I think the fun is mixing it up. Because from Detroit, my hometown, as a factory worker you would hope that they had a thing called “job rotation.”

You’re putting tires on one week; next week, they move you to fenders; next week, you’re putting windows in. So you don’t go crazy. Because there’s a lot of rinse-repeat, in what we do. Television is done in a formulaic style, for the most part, at a certain speed, certain pace. And you have to kind of fold in, and get used to that.

But over the years, it’s been fun to also to exploit opportunities when they come up. Take something that is a little more out of the box. I’m doing Peter and the Wolf in front of my local orchestra, at the Britt Festival, here in Jacksonville, Oregon, this summer. And I’m all giddy about it.

I’m like, “Okay, yeah. Let’s do something with an orchestra.” So I’m going to narrate Peter and the Wolf.  It is fun to actually live where you live. To participate. Because you can go hide, that’s pretty easy. But nice thing is, where I live, my neighbors… they could so give a crap about who I am or what I’ve done.

A neighbor… the week I moved in, he was a rancher across the street… he comes up the driveway. He goes, “I understand you’re a cowboy in a TV show.” I said, “Yes sir, I was.” He goes, “You know how to ride?” I said, “I think so.” He goes, “You want to help me run a hundred head of cattle up the road on Saturday?” I’m like, “Yeah, if you’ve got a horse.” “Yeah, I’ve got a horse.” I’m like, “Okay.”

So I met him on a Saturday. Met all the neighbors. We helped him run a hundred head of cattle up the road. And, there you go. I was a member of the neighborhood.

What’s nice is, you can actually just get out. As an actor, you actually don’t have to hide. Some actors spend way too much time hiding.  I hide in plain sight. I’m behind you at the post office. I’m the guy with the cat hair all over his jacket.

M&C: Switching gears. So obviously I’ve trolled your Twitter feed. I’m looking for MK11 clues like everyone else…

Bruce Campbell: Oh, it’s gotten out of hand. It’s gotten completely out of hand. Here’s the absolute truth of it all: I’m a bad liar. So, here’s the truth of it.

There is an Evil Dead game that’s coming out. And it’s a fully immersive game. It’s going to be very intense. And we hope to be absolutely mind-blowing, like some new game.

But in the meantime what happens is, Evil Dead’s been reintroduced. Ash vs Evil Dead sort of made it relevant again. And there’s a lot of requests just to have Ash pop up, like a guest star, in a movie, or on a TV show. Have him pop up and do some crap.

So Dead by Daylight was pretty much that. Pop up, do a thing. But people thought that (a) I was a liar that, “Oh, I thought you were retiring Ash.” And then (b) that, “Oh, I guess Ash is now in this game,” like he was a fully immersed player.

And we started to see the ads for it like that. We were like, “Ahh, don’t misconstrue this.” I’m just popping in literally, saying like a dozen lines. Like, “Hey, come on baby,” or whatever. And he may pop up in other games.

M&C: Yes. Well, Mortal Kombat 11 (MK11). That’s where all the chatter is landing.

Bruce Campbell: It is.

M&C: And?

Bruce Campbell: Sure. Well, I would have to say that I can’t say anything officially. They have alluded to it because there’s a little chainsaw revving at the end when they allude to new characters. So there’s nothing I can say, but I can say that Ash has popped up in other games. And if he does pop up in this one, it’ll be in the same fashion.

It would be like a blink-don’t-miss it or load him for a quick little run at this, you know?

We’re saving full Ash. Full Ash is coming. We hope that this is just a warm-up, honestly. We’re actually doing it because… We’re saying it’s okay to do because it’s just sort of whetting people’s appetite for playing a game as Ash, which can be fun.

He’s a big trash talker. And he’s one of the few flawed heroes. He’s like you. He’s like your neighbor being a hero. It’s like you being a hero, just you putting a chainsaw on your arm. That’s what I think is cool.

M&C: It’s like giving a monkey a razor blade. Not a good idea.

Bruce Campbell: (laughs) Totally! Exactly. That’s dangerous. Give him a switchblade. That’s a better image. Like he pops it out, “Let’s go. Let’s rumble.”

M&C:  Right. Your fans are something. Do the men meltdown easier than the women when they meet you in person? When I read interviews by fanboys who can’t hide it, it’s kind of cringey.

Bruce Campbell: It was mostly fanboys. My wife was always, “You have fun on your tours, with your fanboys.” Because she knew there was going to be no hotel-room keys being thrown my way because the demographics were like 90% guys.

And I’ve watched it go to 75-25. And now it’s basically 50-50, as far as fandom. And I’m saying that across the board, not just for me per se. Fandom is out of the closet. Geeks are out of the closest. The industry is currently run by geeks. It’s all good. It’s just, everything’s out of the closet now.

Our proof of our love of entertainment is out of the closet now. There’s more conventions than there ever have been, by 10 times. And the amount of TV that we actually binge is 10 times than we thought we were binging. It’s amazing.

M&C:  To me, Ripley’s is almost like a history lesson, but time-traveling into the modern day…new stories…

Bruce Campbell: Well it’s seeing humans… What can the human body do? Question mark. What can it do? And this show answers some of those questions, in an amazing way. Blind kid just wants to ride his bicycle, just like another kid. Right?

He learns to echo-locate like a bat. Because bats fly around and go “click click,” little clicks, and it bounces off of the objects that they’re flying around. They can know how far away it is. Kid saw a bat do that. He was like, “Wait a second. I’m going to do that.”

So he starts clicking and bouncing sound off of buildings, and even trees. He knows how close they are, alleyways. And dog on it if he doesn’t learn how to ride a bike. And he gets so good at it, he’s teaching other blind kids how to do it so they can just ride a frickin’ bike. What a great story, what a great story.

Everything has to be a car accident, you know? These are really… I’d say 92% of our stories are uplifting.

M&C: Well I like you’re producing ethos. I hope you produce more interesting television, because boy, we sure could use it.

Bruce Campbell: Well I think you can have interesting and entertaining, and uplifting, at the same time, without even trying to be uplifting. If you pick the right subject matter, it is its own story. So these people are amazing. I hope the world can meet a lot of these people. I can’t wait to meet them. I haven’t met them.

M&C: Wow. Comic-Con. That’s going to be amazing. You’re going to be on a panel with them.

Bruce Campbell: Oh, yeah. It’ll be the first time for a lot of these people.

M&C: You’re known as a character actor, with these leading-man good looks, and you’ve aged really well. By the way, you look amazing. Whoever’s styling you and doing your hair, and suiting you up for the show gets an A. You look terrific.

Bruce Campbell: I’ll pass the word along.

M&C: No, you really do. You’re like the opposite of [Burn Notice] Sam Axe. You’re a sharp-dressed man as ZZ Top says. But who’s your favorite character actor?

Bruce Campbell: Jack Carson.

M&C: Who? Jack Carson?

Bruce Campbell: Yep, and that’s exactly… The response that you had is the one that I always get. “Who?”

But Jack Carson is your neighbor, he’s a cab driver, he’s the bartender. He plays a lot of the same characters, but he’s sort of the everyman. And he’s a guy that, you see him in a movie and you go, “Oh, that guy. I like that guy.” He’s not the steak. He’s the sizzle.

So that’s fun. There’s definitely guys that I look up to and go, “Who is that guy?” Because the guy had a great… worked forever.

[itsworn]

Midnight Drags: 6 Cars That Kick Ass!

The winners from the Midnight Drags presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive can’t get all the glory. What about the rest of the fast home-built Car Crafters and runners-up? We roamed the pits to find our favorites from the two-night racing event, held Friday and Saturday night during the Car Craft Summer Nationals July 20-21, 2018 at Beech Bend Raceway. Light-hearted afternoon testing and tuning on both days turned to serious competition once the sun went down.

Our list of six favorites consists of some of home-built hot rods, and includes at least one record setter. Most on the list were knocked-out of eliminations, but to many that didn’t matter, it was all in the fun of the event. One thing is certain: these machines are among the fastest and quickest in their respective hometowns, and we tip our hats to them!

Trailer Park Dart

1971 Dodge Dart Eric Funk; Murfreesboro, TN

Eric Funk’s friend bought this 1971 Dart out of a trailer park with an interior filled with dirty diapers and rust. He restored it with a 318ci, then Eric’s wife and daughter saw the car and fell in love. Eric purchased the Dart from his friend, but on the way home an exhaust valve burned in the engine. Naturally, Eric decided to build a 600hp street-car with a roll cage. “By the time we left the chassis shop, the whole plan changed again,” said Eric. “Instead of a street car, we decided to build street-race car.”

Eric picked up a pair of 76mm turbos off eBay and plumbed them onto a 340ci small-block. With a base tune and 18 pounds of boost, the car made 950 hp to the tires. On this weekend, Eric ran in the Small Tire class with 315mm tires, the widest tire you can fit with stock frame rails (slight modifications to stock frame rails are allowed in most street classes). The Dart is an all-around street-class racer, set up to run Small Tire and street-series classes in both 1/4-mile and 1/8-mile.

Eric and his team of friends had been chasing a vibration through the weekend. On their second run, the front pump on the transmission broke and Eric backed out, resulting in a less-than-ideal 8.59 e.t.

Black Beauty

1965 Corvette Jack Small; Owensboro, KY

On Saturday night of the Midnight Drags, Jack Small was able to make it to the Big Tire finals in his 1965 Corvette, but was eventually outgunned by Bryant Goldstone’s Javelin. Nevertheless, Small’s 1965 Corvette won our attention with its stellar paint and detailed craftsmanship. Oh, and it was the only car in class without some form of power adder, a fact that had us nodding our heads in approval with every pass.

Small has owned the car since 1974, and even drove it to his wedding. It originally was a show car, but after marrying and having children, Small drove it less and decided to build it into a drag car. Powered by a Reher Morrison 509ci big-block Chevy with a Dart block and heads, it’s backed by a Lenco 4-speed and a Moser 9-inch.

Small normally runs the Nostalgia 9-second class at local events. The Corvette is tubbed with 32×16-15 tires. Look for a full feature on Jack’s car soon.

Record-Setting Trailblazer SS

2006 Trailblazer SS Matt Cole; Clarksville, TN

Maybe we’re good luck at Car Craft, because immediately after taking these photos and talking to Matt Cole of Clarksville, Tennessee, he broke the Trailblazer 1/4-mile record with an 8.93 at 157 mph pass.

The unofficial records are posted on TBSSowners.com and the former record was 8.99. Mike’s record-setting pass qualified him for the Sweet 16 in competition at the Midnight Drags, but he red-lighted during eliminations. Matt says he has more in the Trailblazer as the red-light pass had a 163mph trap speed.

Mike is running an aluminum 6.0L LS2 with a 88mm Garrett GT55 turbo. “I have enough turbo to probably split that crank,” said Mike about his aluminum engine. The tuned-down set-up makes around 1,300 hp and Mike has plans for an iron-block build.

The engine started as an ERL LS block, machined and built by Mike Lough Racing Engines with a Callies Precision Engine Components crank, I-beam rods, and Diamond Racing Pistons. It’s topped with Trick Flow 245cc heads and a Brian Tooley Racing cam and valve train.

Mike molded the carbon-fiber doors, dash, and hatch himself, using the factory components to create a mold in his garage. “I had a Corvette, but it sat in the garage all the time,” said Mike. He traded the Corvette straight for this Trailblazer in 2005. He immediately went after the n/a record and held it for two years. Then he spit the pulley off the crank and had to rebuild. “Then I thought, well why not do this… and that… and make this better…”

The car is designed to run Drag Week: “I keep it streetable, licensed, and insured,” said Matt. He currently has an A/C system to be installed and hopes to run Drag Week in 2019.

Friend Chris Girard’s 2008 Trailblazer is set up in a similar manner, running Matt’s former turbo. Chris’ car is a little nicer, but a little slower with a best e.t of 10.2. He’s still running a stock transmission with no trans brake, a stock rear axle, smaller turbo, and stock ECU.

Wacky Wagon

1978 Chevy Malibu Rick Bell; Salem, NH

This body-twisting 1978 two-door Malibu wagon was a staff favorite from the event. Owned by a long-haired hippie named Rick Bell of Salem, New Hampshire, the car was originally built in the “no-go, all-show Pro Street era,” said Rick.

The former owner, Bob Lowe, built this wagon with Malibu coupe doors, which extend the rear wagon glass. It originally featured what Rick calls a fair-grounds-cruising-truck-motor and ran a dismal 14.5 e.t. He rebuilt the Malibu’s two-bolt-main 396ci (new, it would have had a V6 or 305ci V8), enlisting the help of Crosby Automotive Machine of Portsmouth, NH. It’s backed by a Turbo 400 and a Ford 9-inch with 3:89 gears and Mark Williams Enterprises axles.

A Holley Dominator carburetor and fuel pump supply the engine. The fuel tank can easily be drained for switching between pump gas on the street and VP 116 octane racing fuel at the track.

It makes around 700 hp on motor and closer to 1,000 hp with nitrous. Rick normally runs 9.70s naturally aspirated and 8.70s with nitrous. He says he uses the wagon for deliveries at work, and gets pizza in it on the weekends. “We were out the first round both days, but we had lots of fun,” Rick said with a laugh.

White Lightening

2001 Chevy Camaro Travis Martin; Fort Wayne, IN

Travis Martin, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, spent a long weekend dialing in his clean 2001 Camaro. Having more laps up the strip than any other competitor, the Camaro makes 8-second passes look easy.

The 402ci stroker LS uses a stock 6.0L iron block and features a Callies Precision Engine Components crank and Comp-Star rods with Wiesco pistons. A Holley Dominator EFI system handles E85 fuel. The LS is topped with a Shaun’s Custom Alloy billet-intake and Twin Borg-Warner 72mm turbos. It’s backed by a RPM Transmission Turbo 400 and a Strange 12-bolt with 3:08 gears.

Unfortunately, Travis was knocked out of the second round of eliminations Saturday night after blowing off the tires at the start and backing out of the run. The car has always been a street car, according to Travis, who originally campaigned the car with a naturally aspriated head-and-cam combo. It still has a full interior, power steering, and power brakes, and weighs almost 4,000 pounds. Travis has run Drag Week in previous years and plans on returning soon. The next step is a 6-bolt LS block, such as a LSX Bowtie, and more boost, “we’ll see how much power it can take,” said Travis.

EFI Staked Nova

1972 Chevy Nova Doug Flynn; Bowling Green, KY

Doug Flynn’s plane-Jane 1972 Nova was another car which caught the attention of Car Craft’s staff. Featuring two tall throttle bodies poking through the hood, the car features a nitrous-fed 582ci big-block Chevy.

Doug was able to dial-in the car and ran an impressive 8.52 in qualifying Friday night. He backed that up with consistent runs winning the Small Tire class. Unfortunately, Saturday night he was knocked out in the first round.

A former Drag Week competitor, Flynn’s Nova features 582 inches of Chevy rat with a Dart Big M block, Dart Pro1 440cc 20-degree heads, and Holley High Ram lid on an Edelbrock EFI base. The drive-by-wire throttle bodies are mounted vertically on the lid.

Make sure to check out the huge photo gallery below for more deep-dive shots of our favorite Midnight Drags competitors, plus round-by-round coverage of the Midnight Drags presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive in the links below!

Friday Night Round-By-Round Coverage & Video: https://www.hotrod.com/articles/midnight-drags-presented-overdrive-gear-vendors-friday-highlights/

Saturday Night Round-By-Round Coverage & Video: https://www.hotrod.com/articles/midnight-drags-presented-by-gear-vendors-overdrive-saturday-results-gallery/

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[captainbashybae-blog]

The Advent of Remixes and the Shade of Triple Q

__________

If you were to ask me, the remix is more a part of the millennial culture than an archetypal motif of postmodernism; even if the definition of a remix lends itself to postmodernism well.

If you were to ask Kirby Ferguson on the matter, he cites remixes appearing as back as the early hip-hop days of the Chic sampling music off the Sugarhill Gang in the late seventies. And if you watched his documentary “Everything is a Remix”, Ferguson argues that all ideas are derivative off the success of others—which is pretty much postmodernist ideas in a nutshell.

After all, Isaac Newton famously wrote in a letter to Robert Hooke, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

What is a remix?

To remix something is to simply mix it again, a definition that seems blatantly unhelpful in elucidating the concept of a remix.

But like that definition implies, you take copy an original concept, you alter it in transformative manner, and you combine the two together into something new.

To simplify, you copy, transform, and combine.

Led Zeppelin’s song, “Stairway to Heaven” is an early example of a remix: Zeppelin took part of the melody of Randy Wolfe’s “Taurus,” used it as the opening of a new song, and earned a reputation that skyrocketed his band to fame.

One might ask what’s transformative about gluing on someone else’s riff onto their song; they’re not wrong in asking this. “Stairway to Heaven” is only one of many notable (and recent) instances of music copyright reaching the ears of judicial court.

The jury adjourned to let Zeppelin’s song sing free in a court case akin to a soap opera, but copyright cases are not always black and white. In 2013, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams payed 5.3 million to Marvin Gaye for the use of his bass line in “Got to Give It Up”, and Funkadelic sued hip-hop group NWA for a single guitar riff. Even the first rock-themed copyright case, The Beach Boys v. Chuck Berry, ended with a strange compromise that allowed the Beach Boys to continue playing without Berry’s credit, but Berry’s company earned publishing rights.

The remix became the crux of the copyright debate as we approached the digital era, an era that once celebrated innocuous cat videos and inside jokes about hamburgers and green frogs (the ones who didn’t cause riots on the Internet). As Lawrence Lessig alluded to in his TED talk about user generated content ( http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling _creativity?lang uage=en), people on the Internet have unique ways of expressing their creativity that don’t lend itself to traditional copyright law. And like the farmers who tried to sue airplanes from flying over their land only to fail miserably, the way modern times explore content should be reflected accordingly in its laws.

What’s a remix today?

The remix in modern times evolved to encapsulate many forms of media—especially in the digital era.

If I wanted to discuss the modern remix in context of online video, I can cite the many anime music videos (AMVs) that inundated the early 2000s.

I can discuss the recent landmark case of Matt Hosseinzedah and H3H3 that massively benefited the content creators who used the videos of others in a transformative manner. I can write about a similar precedent where YouTuber Ray William Johnson lost to Junkin Media in court for the “misappropriation” of the company’s content and the struggles of a website that chooses to stay neutral in all copyright disputes.

Perhaps I can talk about the many movies in the last two decades that lovingly homage themselves to previous films and genres. One that comes to mind is Quentin Tarentino’s Kill Bill, a great movie that heavily borrows from blaxploitation film, spaghetti films and Bruce Lee movies.

I can even recount the stories of Jane Eyre but with Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, books that take inspiration from historic precedent and reimagine them completely in the form of a gimmick. These books fall under copyright law as derivative work.

Let’s not forget that Fifty Shades of Gray was (and still is in my opinion) just Twilight fan-fiction set in a modern era—mixed in with torture smut. The author of Twilight did sue author E.L. James for infringement, a case dropped only after the alteration of a couple names of characters, and remains a dubious nonexample of copyright theft.

Instead, I wanted to discuss how remixes have musically flourished in the world of SoundCloud, Spotify and YouTube. I want to celebrate a place where creators embrace the derivative nature of their content, a place that gives them a chance to shape their own identity and content through an audience that stretches as far as the bandwidth of a computer.

More specifically, I wanted to look at the “mash-up artist”, creators who take two or more existing songs and combines them for the sake of a new musical aesthetic. In the case of the last couple years, the rise of YouTube channels like SilvaGunner took inspiration from the phenomenon of “Rick-Rolling” to create mash-ups of music for the sake of satire and innocuous trolling.

The content creator I’ll be discussing embraces both aspects of the art form to great success. He’s best known for frequently mashing up the songs and lyrics of Korean pop star PSY with different genres of music, amassing over 36 million views and 112,000 subscribers on YouTube.  Though these numbers pale in comparison to that of more popular, trending channels online, Triple Q’s prolific online presence beyond YouTube speaks volumes to the success found in even niche aspects of music.

The video I’ll be looking at.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1zeoDrN2Lo

#SELFIE is a new and original song which doesn't plagiarize at all

 Uploaded on May 2nd, 2014, “#SELFIE is a new and original song which doesn't plagiarize at all” doesn’t hide the fact that the video pokes fun at the Chainsmokers highly derivative single “#Selfie”, a song that pokes fun at the vapid narcissism of selfie culture. However, ironically intentional or not, the song also borrows heavily from Sir Mix-a-lot’s “Baby Got Back,” utilizes a music composition similar to songs like “Valley Girl” and LMAFO’s “Party Rock Anthem”, and tries to copy the viral nature of “Harlem Shake” with its bass line. As one YouTuber, Irvan Issacs, commented on the original video from the DJ duo, the song is “90% taking, 10% song,” and music critic, Miles Raymer, of the Chicago Tribune, slammed the song as “garbage, paint-by-numbers, EDM only there to deliver the meme.” Nevertheless, the song earned 550 million views and was a success for the Chainsmokers.

 The title of Triple Q’s mashup of the song uses sarcasm underscored by its blatant lack of capitalization. Though not an ironclad rule on the Internet, content creators often forego proper title punctuation with long run-on sentences in order to preface a joke or meme; this is the case with this video.

 The second thing to note after the title is the image used for the video: a portrait of PSY centered above a #SELFIE logo, accompanied by fictional video game attorney Phoenix Wright, record producer Bauer, Redfoo of LMFAO, Deadmau5. Wolverine, Mikoto Misaka of A Certain Scientific Railgun, a wisp from the Sonic the Hedgehog series, and Pharrell Williams—all overlaid with what looks like Dark Souls boss Demon of Song (pics below).

(the overlaid image)

 It’s noted that this 3 minute 47 second song samples from 14 tracks, all cited in the video’s description:

"Pursuit ~ Cornered" - Masakazu Sugimori - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

"I Wanna Take You For a Ride" - Tetsuya Shibata - Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes

"Harlem Shake" - Baauer

"#SELFIE" - The Chainsmokers

"Gentleman" - PSY - Psy 6 (Six Rules),

Part 2 "Party Rock Anthem" - LMFAO feat. Lauren Bennett & GoonRock - Sorry For Party Rocking

"Animals" - Martin Garrix

"only my railgun" - fripSide - To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

"Move For Me" - Kaskade & deadmau5 – Strobelite Seduction

"sister's noise" - fripside - To Aru Kagaku no Railgun S

"Happy" - Pharrell Williams - G I R L

"Planet Wisp: Act 1" - Kenichi Tokoi - Sonic Generations

"Gangnam Style" - PSY - Psy 6 (Six Rules), Part 1

Dark Souls death sound

It’s clear from these elements that the song is remix. It copies the original song, “#SELFIE”, transforms the song by extracting its bass and melody (or whatever melody it had), and combines it with 14 different songs and a death sound into a song. It’s also just catchy.

In fact, it’s a variation of a remix known as a megamix, a medley remix containing multiple songs in rapid succession.

The composition of this megamix follows the same order of the song list in its video description. It starts off with a combination of “Pursuit~ Cornered” and “I Wanna Take You For a Ride" and ends with the Dark Souls death sound. However, what’s consistent throughout the song is the use of the bass tracks of Harlem Shake, #SELFIE and “Party Rock Anthem”, all bass tracks that are near indistinguishable from one another. This choice of composition is not only a way to harmonize very different genres of music, but it also demonstrates how derivative and musically bland #SELFIE is as a song.

Whether effective or even intentional, “#SELFIE is a new and original song which doesn't plagiarize at all” interestingly uses a copyright tactic popularized by fellow YouTuber, Jim Sterling. Though mashups of this nature are often beleaguered by automated copyright claims from media conglomerates looking to cash in on video revenue, “#SELFIE is a new and original song which doesn't plagiarize at all” has enough copyrighted material to be claimed by more than one company. In the worst-case scenario that this song is protected by copyright despite being transformative under fair use, multiple companies cannot take further action without personal negotiation—negotiation often foregone to save time and effort among all parties. Regardless, Triple Q is well-known for challenging copyright through blatant defiance regardless of the consequence.

Conclusion

Now more than ever, the remix is a symbol of post-modernist ideals that shaped the way people look at entertainment and culture. And with the proliferation of the Internet and meme culture, Space-Jam mashups and anime shitposts will probably still persist somewhere.

And as a genre of music, mashups have introduced me a much wider range of music that I would never listen to without the work of artists like Triple Q and Botanic Sage; the two of them shaped my taste in music for better or worse.