I’ve had the hook for this song (you probably know exactly what i’m talking about) stuck in my head for the past week. I was on Facebook and my friend Claude posted the words to the chorus on his wall (said hook just mentioned) and I knew the only way to get this song out of my head was to remix it. I tracked down the original, sliced it up, added some beats and other secret stuff, and came up with this:
I’ve got a feeling….that tonight’s gonna be a good night………….
OK, so I just made a video to go with this. I used a short from from the Prelinger Archives called “Prom – It’s a Pleasure“, originally produced by The Handy (Jam) Organization in 1961, and co-sponsored by Coke. It was seemingly used to help teens learn social behavior, probably shown in high school classes. I spliced it up, muted the original voiceover stuff, and worked it to fit the remix.
I created and posted a new “PreMixter” video, which features the music of Subliminal. I cut and spliced an old WPA film about the dust bowl around his remix “3 Friends”.
Well, it’s not really as bad as it sounds. TechCrunch did a recent feature on Swype, and the video they created to support the article used my remix of Brad Sucks “Making Me Nervous”. I didn’t get paid anything for it (nor did Brad that I’m aware of), but they did attribute me at the end of the video, just like the CC license called for (unfortunately, no mention of Brad!). An excellent example of CC licensing in effective and practical use, and to have it featured on TechCrunch is the icing on the cake.
TechCrunch is read and hit by millions of web users every day, which in turn means millions (not hundreds here….millions!) of people probably read this article, and probably a good number of them hit the play button on the embedded video (well actually, almost a half million of them by the YouTube count). And it’s only been up for about 3 weeks. This kind of exposure is something that neither Brad nor I could possibly afford to buy, yet we get it for free. That’s right. We got a half million listeners for FREE! Because we gave it away to begin with, and made it easy for others, including media organizations like TechCrunch, to use with the proper CC licensing parameters.
It is kind of revolutionary, and forward/backward thinking what we are doing with the new music paradigm. Guys like Brad having been giving it away from the beginning, and now you hear all about big commercial acts like Smashing Pumpkins following suit. It’s about building a village. A global village of like minded artists who can appreciate and promote this new idea. A place like ccmixter.
I just posted a new short film I made to YouTube, part of a new project I’m working on which involves combining public domain video from the Prelinger Archives with CC licensed music.
To me, this is the ultimate form of remixing, and I love the idea of reusing old historical stock footage and adapting it to new music. I’m kind of a history buff, and there is so much historical information which will just get buried and forgotten unless we can somehow make it relevant again, at least for a moment. If this type of effort can educate someone about the historical context of the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, or make them feel both the pain and the strength of the survivors through the power of Don’s music, then I feel the effort was worthwhile beyond the joy I had of putting this together.
Comments (1) 
Themocracy WordPress Themes