Posted by Budgie at July 13, 2004 03:28 PM

Ever wished that Damon Albarn and Co. would get a right ole booting?

Well fret no more because Blur have just been given a right old going over.

Come see...

Parkspliced

You may remember a few issues back I mentioned the bootleg remake of The Clash's "London Calling" by the members of the Get Your Bootleg On forum. Well, after that was deemed a success they then turned their collective hand to Blur's "Parklife" album.

The fruits of their labour are now online.

It's never going to be an easy task to rework such a definitive album, that was made apparent with The Clash rework, and this is no exception. Listening to this has only made me dig out the original and appreciate again just how good an album it was / is.

Now, I'm not having a go at the guys behind the Blur rework and it has nothing to do with the old "some things are best left alone" argument as I am always excited to see how these guys can re-interpret such classic tracks. It's just that on a project like this there are always going to be tracks that just stand head and shoulders above the rest and the tracks that you really want to work are not always the ones that do.

So what tracks work? Well, for me, Gameover's drum and bass style rework of "End Of A Century" is great, Go Home Productions take on "London Loves" gets the big thumbs up from me (always good to hear some XTC being sampled), Fake ID turns in a headfucking hard, glitchy house rework of "Trouble In The Message Centre" and Dunproofin & MixMasterMac's "Is This A Bootleg?", which takes on "This Is A Low", is absolutely sublime.

As so many people showed interest in doing tracks for this project, they decided to expand it beyond the "Parklife" album and include reworks of the B-sides from the singles from it. This is where 2 of the best tracks reside. Lenlow spices up "Peter Panic", from the "Girls And Boys" single, by adding the Bob James "Mardis Gras" break and samples from a version of Prokofiev's "Peter And The Wolf". And Faultside reworks "Threadneedle Street", from the "To The End" single, with a dash of Wham's "Last Christmas". It has to be heard to be believed.

Like "London Booted", the tracks are available to download but the co-ordinators of the project would like you to make a donation to one of their chosen Charities (Oxfam, Amnesty International & Cancer Research).

So pop over, spend a few quid on a good cause and then download away.

Parkspliced Site

The Moldy Peaches - "Who's Got The Crack? (Dsico's Edit)"

I've mentioned Dsico on here before, I linked to his electro take on Sonic Youth's "100%" waaay back on the first issue. Well, after rummaging about on his site I stumbled across this version of The Moldy Peaches track "Who's Got The Crack?". I was expecting this to be one of Dsico's usual vocoder reworkings but was pleasantly surprised to hear that it wasn't. As the original is so lo-fi and only really features a guitar and some drums on the chorus, Dsico pads the tune out with a beat, a bassline and some electronic shennanigans and hey presto! you can now dance to it whilst singing along to the bizarre lyrics ("its hard to be a garbage man / when a sailor's stole your glove..." and the shouty and catchy chorus.

MP3
Dsico's Site

Kelis - "Trick Me (Phalanxx Mix)"
Franz Ferdinand - "Take Me Out (Phalanxx Mix)"

2 reworks from Manny Phalanxx.

There have been quite a few Kelis "Trick Me" boots about recently, so much so that it's getting a bit boring hearing the acapella turn up over the top of many a tune. So it is refreshing to hear that Phalanxx has taken Kelis' voice and built a whole new track around it. The beat is stunning (it almost sounds like a live drummer) and a buzzing bassline are added to beef the track up. Nice and dark.

The Franz Ferdinand one is a harder affair and miles better than Daft Punk's recent and poor remix of "Take Me Out". The vocals are chopped up and the beat is a fast rolling break. It's good to hear a fresh take on the track as it's getting a bit overplayed now.

MP3
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Manny Phalanxx' Site

Vector Warrior - "It Will Be A Dark Day In Hell"
Vector Warrior - "Crystals"
Vector Warrior Vs New Order "Crystals (MixMasterMac Mix)"

The return of The Vector Warrior.

Again, this electronic wizard comes up with the goods and why the hell he hasn't been snapped up by Warp yet is beyond me.

First up is "It Will Be A Dark Day In Hell". A slow, chimey Boards Of Canada style track. A beautiful clash of both light and dark moods with stunning subtle drum and percussion programming.

"Crystals" is the thumper of the two. Starting with the sound of rain, then in comes the Orbital-esque main riff and then it kicks off with its Aphex Twin style glitchy drums. A corker of an uplifting track. This will sound amazing on a big sound system.

MixMasterMac takes "Crystals" and goes the bootleg root and tweaks New Order's "Crystal" track over the top. It works, but personally the original version of the Vector Warrior track is the one for me.

MixMasterMac is a guy who I have been listening to for some while now. A great musician who occassionaly makes bootlegs by taking the acapella's and then sitting down with his guitar and reworking the tracks and then recording them. One of my all time favourites of his is a slow motion almost acoustic version of The Trammps legendary disco track "Disco Inferno". A Classic.

MP3
MP3
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Vector Warrior Site
MixMasterMac's Site

DJ Earworm - "The Night Of Kitten's Messy Dream"

Hmm, two minds about this one. I can hear some slight chord and vocal clashes in this but for some reason I keep going back to it and the more I play it, the more I love it.

The idea of using the following artists in one track is a brave one. The main track is P J Harvey's and Thom Yorke's duet "This Mess We're In" then wrapped all around it are Goldenboy & Miss Kitten's "Rippin Kittin", The Human League's "Things That Dreams Are Made Of" and Corey Hart's "Sunglasses At Night".

Give it a try and see what you think...

MP3
DJ Earworm's Site

GloomyBear - "Kickin' Sunshine"

I don't know much about Gloomybear (I have an incling it has something to do with Lionel Vinyl as the track is hosted on his site and it's not as if he hasn't used a different name before - Fake ID and Geoff Carpet being other alter ego's) but who cares if it is him or not as this is a corker of a big hands in the air summer anthem. It sounds like a straight A + B bootleg featuring Richard F's housey "Let The Sunshine Through" and Simple Minds "Alive And Kicking".

Go on, cheer yourself up from the pish weather and listen to this.

MP3

Well another Pipe smoked.

Hope you enjoy the selections.

Feel free to have a blether about them in the Forum.

Budgie.

[ if anyone does not want me to link to their files, then let me know via the forum and I shall remove the link. ta. ]