Interview with Kris Davis

Hello! With my thesis defense fast approaching I thought I would share an interview with Kris Davis, mashup enthusiast and the architect of idealMashup. Here I ask him about the motivations behind creating such a site as well as why mashups are of interest to him. 

Why do you like mashups?

My interest in mashups are two fold. Fist, I love the sounds created from the mixture of other songs. Mashups have the ability to make my foot tap and allow me to hear the most catchy parts of the songs. Second, I really agree with the philosophy and sociology behind the music. I think that creativity is a strong and unique ability that humans have that is different from other animals. Creativity is driven by taking inspiration from something else and molding that into something new. I see mashups as being exactly that. Today technology has democratized the tools needed to take media and transform it into what ever their minds can think of to make something completely new and amazing.

Do you make your own mashups?

I do not. I am a software designer by trade and passion and my medium of creation is visual. I would like to get into making mashups but don't, at this moment, have the time to dedicate to it.

What made you want to start your own mashup site?

I saw a community that I highly admired and wanted to help spread ideas and tools to foster the creation of more mashups. I being able to make websites have the ability to make something that can help mashup artists spread knowledge, hopefully. By spreading knowledge of how to make mashups and providing tools (samples) that help them make mashups, I also hope to have some impact on making the quality of mashups better. I would also like to see mashups impact copyright law by pressing the issues around how copyright protection can help artists and how it's being manipulated by corporate interests

What do you hope to do with the site? What direction do you see it taking?

I know there are other mashup sites and from a strategy standpoint I see them meeting the need of a creative person to get feedback and validation on their works i.e. post a mashup and have people rate the mashup as well as provide feedback. The focus of the other sites really seems to be around distributing mashups. I want my site to really be used as a tool for mashup artists. I invision the site to be a hub for information and tools to help mashup artists make mashups that can then be distributed on other sites. I want to provide several things:
1. Information on making mashups to help get interested people started
2. Information on more advanced techniques and theory for more advanced mashup artists to hone their work
3. Education that instills ideals around the legal and cultural impact and issues around mashups
4. Ease the sharing and distribution of samples to be used in others mashups

Although there is a conflict between the amount of time I have an my ambition, that is my goal with the site.

New Mashup Resource

Hello! I am pleased to announce that I will be writing for idealMashup, a new site devoted to mashups and mashup culture.The section I write for is under "Education" and is called Cultural Explorations. I already have some content up so check it out!

DJ Earworm for You Tube

Mashup made to promote YouTube's Android app. It's interesting that they listed the artist as DJ Earworm vs. YouTube, most likely a reference to the A vs. B style of mashups.

starting at the end

I am almost done with the written portion of my thesis, I thought I would share a draft of a conclusion of my paper as it has information on further directions I would like to go in my research:

In This is Your Brain on Music, professor and neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin suggests that the desire to engage in collective music making may be an evolutionary response to support social bonding. Mashup artists may be working with computers with powerful processing power, but what they seem to value most is contributing to a community. Though the tools to create are constantly evolving, we still have the same impetus to create and share. Remix culture is an important area of study as it emphasizes sharing over our networked culture. Mashups are a prevalent example of those remix culture and serve as markers for this connection.

The study of mashup culture still has a long way to go. Production techniques are under documented. Individual mashup artists are rarely interviewed unless they have some sort of mainstream success. The learning process that accompanies mashup creation has not yet been fully documented. Rather, we assume its presence as finished mashups often exhibit a high sophistication of technical literacy. Many mashup tutorial sites exist yet there is no academic documentation on their effect on remix culture or their efficacy. We do not know yet if there is a dominant creative pedagogy. It has not yet been established if there is a typical music mashup artist. A wider net must be first cast to establish this.

Personal areas of interest for future research include investigating cross-cultural music mashup works such as Brazil's tecno brega. Tecno brega often combines hits from the United States or Europe with locally produced Brazilian percussion. Ideally, some some tecno brega artists could be interviewed in person and observed performing as most of these works are geared towards live performance at large outdoor dance parties.

Mashups of visual culture are also an area of interest. Mashups are often compared to collage. Many contemporary artists have engaged in this kind of work. The artist Wangechi Mutu is of particular interest as she appropriates a diverse array of imagery – from clippings from fashion magazines to images from medical textbooks. These images are then incorporated into new forms, often of a figural nature.

New media artists known as video jockeys or VJs are another interesting area to possibly research. VJs improvise with visual information in much of the same way mashup artists can improvise with songs. VJs are firmly entrenched in remix culture. Most appropriate found footage to create new interactions and meanings. They also seem to largely define themselves as self-taught.

Mashup's Earliest Ancestors

In Audio Mashup Construction Kit, written by mashup artist Jordan Roseman, also known as DJ Earworm, the author offers a brief history of mashups. Roseman cites Dickie Goodman and Bill Buchanan's novelty records asearly predecessors of today's mashups. Called break-in records, theses were made by splicing snippets of popular music and adding in their own comedic dialogue. A popular example was 1956's “Flying Saucer”.

To mashup producers everywhere :

I am happy to announce that my study on mashups is now an approved scientific study at the University of Florida. Thank you if you participated in the first part. I have now made an online survey please participate and help me complete my thesis.

The survey is here:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZW5SFQS

Thank you!

Please let me know if you have any questions or I can help promote you in any way! I would love to mention you on this blog or post links to your favorite tracks. Let me know in the comments or email me at opheliasswimteam (at) gmail (dot) com.

- Francesca

tecno brega Beyonce

Why I would like to study in the United Kingdom

The culture of music mashups is worldwide. The United Kingdom is home to some of the most influential and vibrant examples. The UK has always been a major source of music innovation and influence. The greatest rock bands to ever exist came from the UK - The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Queen, and Led Zepplin. The UK is also known as the birthplace of punk. Today the UK is leading the innovation of new genres of music including dubstep, new synthpop, and mashups. The UK also currently has one of the biggest music industries. The first crossover mashup pop hit to chart was "Freak Like Me", a song created by Richard X. It reached #1 on the UK singles chart.
    It is extremely important to actually travel to the United Kingdom to both meet and observe mashup producers. Most mashup artist cannot release their music commercially. They often do not own the rights to their source material.Additionally, a lot of mashup producers perform live. These performances happen in varied settings. Private house parties, dance clubs, and outdoor concerts are all places where music mashup culture thrives. Live performance informs their artistry. Such performances are not always documented.

Fulbright mtvU

I would really like to study the mashup culture of the UK. The UK is where music mashups first broke and it would be great to see what is going on as it is happening rather than read about it after the fact. Plus, cities like London have such a mashed up culture already it seems like the perfect environment to study in. When I look for mashup artists I always find a lot of awesome ones that come out of the UK.
I found the Fulbright mtvU award yesterday and it seems like a perfect fit for me. The only drawback is that the deadline is March 1. As in next week! Still, I am going to try.

Kickstarted!

early book cover concept design

designed by Garrett Strobel

Thank you!

I just wanted to thank all of the great mashup artists that have already emailed me back and thoughtfully answered my questions. Please click and check out the work of these incredible people!

THANKS:

DJ Maxentropy

BorisB

DJ Lobsterdust

Smash-Up Derby

DJ Jasper

Bearbot

plunderphonics!

Plunderphonics is a genre of music that uses appropriated music and sounds to create new compositions. Plunderphonic music is often highly subversive with the new compositions satirizing the source material. A classic example of plunderphonics is Negativland's "The Letter U and the Numeral 2". Negativland, an experimental sound band used audio of Casey Kasem bashing the rock band U2. That audio was rearranged to parody U2's popular song "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For".

What is a Mashup?

Updates

I will be presenting at University of Florida's 2011 Interdisciplinary Research Conference. This will be my first conference that I have ever attended, let alone presented something at. I am scheduled to present tomorrow at 2:00PM.
I've also started the process of contacting people who make or frequently interact with mashups. My friend Vishal Agarwala works as Director of Marketing for Grooveshark so I am very lucky to be able to pick his brain as well as have him introduce me to some interesting musicians. Also, one of my favorite instructors, Patrick Pagano teaches a graduate level class in digital audio design. In this class he covers many things having to do with remix culture, including mashups. I am now working on some questions to get his perspective about what it is like to teach students about mashups.
I am still avidly asking friends and colleagues about what their favorite mashups are. It is a nice way of getting to know what is out in the world besides what is super popular or what has already been written about in academic circles.