Remix

The only beastie-song I did not remix so far of which an acapella is available, is the Adrock and Mike D side project Spam by Milk. When Jim asked me to do a remix exclusive for the zine I immediately thought of Spam because doing a remix for him in stead of posting it directly onto the board is kind of a side project for me as well.

Mostly when making a remix, I'll try to find samples out of non-hiphop songs. Artists like the Beastie Boys, Eric B and Rakim and Public Enemy inspired me to do so. Take for instance my Alive remix which contains the complete beat of Dub be good to me by Beats International, or my first remixes with Portishead loops.
The idea of sampling those particular songs come into my mind when I hear them on the radio or a cd. I always keep my ears open for potential samples.
One of my latest findings was the drumbeat I used in the Negotiation Limerick File Remix. It was a loop out of Sting's Englishman in New York, the part where the drummer goes crazy.
When I make a remix, I always start with adjusting the acapella to the beat. Of course there is no real beat yet, I use the metronome of Acid pro instead. Adjusting the beat right is an important ingredient for a good remix.
After the tempo is set to the acapella I go and search through my 'potential samples' folder. In this remix I used a track from Mix Master Mike's Beastie show breaks for the beat: Mike's Get It Together. This beat is the type of hiphop I like most. I started to like this 'big beat'-style when I first heard Mantronix in the late 80's.
The bassline I used is from the reggae-track Night Nurse by Gregory Isaacs. Reggae is my second favorite music, after hip hop.
Now that I found some samples it was just a matter of arranging the samples into a song, vary a bit with them. This is the fun part of making a remix, you can let loosen all your creativity in it. For some extra value, I added some scratches I sampled from a Peanut Butter Wolf song.
When I posted my previous remix, someone on the board mentioned that I had to spend more about intro's and outro's, so I did some cutting and sampling with the chorus and the other samples to fill up the beginning of the song.
So here it is, my Spam Remix. Download it here and enjoy!

Unfortunately I ran out of Beastie acapella's now. Of course I could start all over again and remix all songs again, but I also have been thinking about new ideas.
Wait and see.

Cya,
Taco Zip