Ok, for those of you who don't know me, I'm a music nut. I mean NUT, with a capital cashew. All kinds of music: pop, rock, jazz, classical, country, you name it, I'll probably listen to it (too much).
A good friend of mine, who's a bigger music addict than I am, made me some tapes after I graduated from college. The idea he used was the Velcro Principle: put some stuff together, and if it doesn't work, rip it off and try again. I love the idea and started playing with it myself.
Fast forward...
About a year and a half ago I made a couple discs for some guys I worked with. They worked in a warehouse with little to no excitement or anything to keep their minds off of the utter boredom of the job and/or the utter terror of possibly being fired at any moment for any reason (I've worked psycho jobs like this, it is for real). They had listened to every radio station in town (including the boring talk stuff). They had listened to all of their discs (at least twice, and more like three times). I made them a couple discs, but with a very specific idea in mind: put music that has no business being put together... together.
So, with this concept in mind, I give you some ACTUAL examples:
Lucia di Lammermoor / the Diva Dance by the Diva Pavalaguna (from The Fifth Element) to Tijuana Taxi by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass (say what?!)
John Williams' Olympic Fanfare and Theme to Play That Funky Music by Wild Cherry (are you mad?!?!)
So... am I just nuts, or does any of this make some sort of ridiculous sense?
I'm of course on the side of "sense" and, at least in this suppressed radio market, I've got a radio station working on a limited version of the concept. If you wanna check it out, here you go:
http://www.charliefm.com/
What what greases your gears musically? Let me know, I need more experimentation. Rachmaninoff to Alice Cooper? Huey Lewis to Charlie Daniels? Cake to Crystal Method?
Try odd combos. Skip the needle once or twice. Blend across genres and expand your horizons.
Flame at will!
This was posted on another blog site, and I want to share some of the examples that people there shared with me, just for your extended amusement:
Okay, try going from Queen to Patsy Cline. How about Metallica "One" to Debussy's "Clair de Lune." Psychedelic Furs to Enya? Michael W. Smith to Black Sabbath?
Imagine listening to a disc, you've got Michael W. Smith's Agnus Dei going on. It fades out into Black Sabbath's Iron Man or (shiver) Mr. Crowley. I think at that point I might consider burning my Discman....
...how about Reproduction (from Grease 2), and 1812 Overture (Tchaikovsky), then maybe Fish Heads (Barnes & Barnes), Airegin (Maynard Ferguson), A Mighty Fortress (an old hymn), Skraggy's Tomb (Savatage), and then Mr. Frump In The Iron Lung (Weird Al Yankovic).
I get to the point of following a nice relaxing Mozart concerto with an unhealthy dose of Quiet Riot's Bang your head. Nothing to strange in that (is there?).
Somebody at work mentioned something about Frank Zappa to the Statler Brothers. That could be interesting.
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