Girl Talk may be a household name when it comes to mashups, but there are so many more talented DJs out there-- 2manyDJs, DJ Earworm, Jaydiohead, among countless others. Most fans that criticize Gregg Gillis for changing songs too quick would appreciate something like Chicago mashup duo The Hood Internet, which assembles mixes that are a bit longer, though STV SLV disagrees.
"It's fun to chop up a bunch of ideas and put them into a three minute block or something like that, but three minutes is still pretty short. [laughs] It does seem long, but when you try to dance to it, you can groove a little better when the song's been going on for a little bit," he said in a recent interview.
Better yet, all of The Hood Internet's mashups are available for free. Check out what STV SLV has to say about his art after the jump.
The last time you came to Phoenix, it was just you DJing. Do you normally tour as a duo, or does it just depend on the circumstances? When we were doing Phoenix last fall with Body Language, or this tour with Black Moth Super Rainbow, it's generally just me, STV SLV DJing. ABX has a job in education and he only comes out on the weekends.
How did you guys first meet? We did a band together in Chicago in the 2000s.We had met before through a mutual friend before we moved to Chicago. He was in Michigan, and I was in Wisconsin, and we moved to Chicago around the same time and formed a band with some friends of ours. We were playing in a band for a number of years together when we started making Hood Internet tracks on the side.
What inspired you guys to start The Hood Internet? We always had an interest in using computer software to reconstruct things that we were listening to and make loop-based rearrangements of it. We started pairing those things with rap vocals or general vocals separated from other songs. It started out as a hobby, is the best way to say it.
Do you guys usually create your own a capellas and instrumentals? Sometimes they're made available, sometimes you do have to digitally extract them in ways that...there's a way to approach it when you have an instrumental and a regular version of the song to base them against each other, so all that's left is the vocals, and we do that from time to time, depending on the source material we have, it works with varying results.
How did your tour with Black Moth Super Rainbow come to be? We've toured with their side project, Tobacco before a few years ago. My band Shakers toured with them as well a few years ago. After sampling their work, they reached out to us about using some more of their stuff, so it was cool to meet up with them for multiple tours. They're fantastic people and a great band.
Most of your mixes feature full songs. Why let them play so long? I think the idea of letting it go long is sort of a relative notion. We see it as still pretty short. Those are the actual, in a lot of cases, the actual length of the song. I feel like it it's a full on remix of the song and we work with the whole thing. It's fun to chop up a bunch of ideas and put them into a three minute block or something like that, but three minutes is still pretty short [laughs] but it does seem long, but when you try to dance to it, you can groove a little better when the song's been going on for a little bit.
Have you ran into many legal issues with sampling? We haven't, and not too many people have. You hear about some of the cases, but I think those are generally a blatant stealing from one artist to another where they turn around and try to sell as their own without authorizing the samples.
The Hood Internet is scheduled to perform on Sunday, May 26 at Crescent Ballroom.
