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"Cock of the Walk" [mp3 removed].
"Feather Duster" [removed & replaced by "Cock of the Walk (Siege Mix)"--see below ].
Two tracks using the same 92 bpm hiphop groove (I think it's called Crack Dealer--great) to rather different effect. The titles are from Auntie Entity's quote from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome: "But how the world turns. One day, cock of the walk. Next, a feather duster." (The excellent illustration, by Brent Lucy, comes from a Mad Max fan page.) The second tune has a "nice" melody of the calypso/rave variety. The first, grittier one uses mostly drum sounds from Clay Duncan's CD Kit 1 for Native Instruments. In the manual he imparts the rather fascinating tidbit that "These sounds I started making this year for the movie Thunderbirds and on [the TV miniseries] The Grid and Blade Trinity." So he's sharing in the entertainment industry gravy as opposed to a starving in a garret for the greater cause of techno, if anyone ever did that. Good for him and all, I know music is like acting where you list all your commercials and such in your book.
But someone has to ask: All those projects pretty much suck, though, don't they? The Grid--yeah, making us believe our government has a clue after four planes were successfully used as bombs in 2001. Thunderbirds--the movie that accused liberals of coddling Osama Bin Laden [update, whoops--that was Team America.] Blade Trinity, that's like the second sequel of a vampire superhero movie. I like the idea that music could spin off from these high-tech, high-dollar corporate makework projects, though, cargo-cult fashion: that little people can share the samples and make their own cute music that actually has the potential to be better than the source because it isn't made for some suit whose ultimate goal is to rip off the masses with overpromoted sensationalistic product. Sorry for the antiglobalist ranting but there has to be a better vision of the world than what these companies are selling. Yeah, I know I got my titles from a sequel to a sequel.
Addendum: I'm thinking now I'll combine these tracks, starting off with skronky bass stabs and bringing the "pretty" melody in at the halfway point--or making the bass stabs a long break. Oh, God, structure, I just want to be an obstinate serialist.
Addendum 2: Done (option 2): "Cock of the Walk (Siege Mix)" [6.3 MB .mp3]
Addendum 3 (November '05): Sorry this post is so mean-sounding; sometimes demons just take over. Also, not saying my music is "better than the source"--I just mean potentially someone's could be.