Thursday, October 30, 2008

Sampling, Copyrights, Drum'n'bass and MySpace


So, as the Philadelphia Phillies were wrapping up their amazing win over the Tampa Bay Ray's last night, I grabbed the digitial camera and captured the last minute of the game on video.

I got the last 3 strikes, the crazy celebration, the replay and the pure elated madness of it all. In typical, Tim fashion, I drop this into my PC, cut it up, drop some effects on it and dig up an incredible tune by Future Sound of London to serve as the soundtrack. It's a cool 5 minute piece and fits perfectly with the build-up, suspense and then emotional release of the situation.

After finishing the video, I upload it to Myspace only to see a message appear that it has not been made public, but rather witheld because of a copyright violation and that my upload privledges on MySpace have been revoked.

I need to read a page-long explanation of the official MySpace copyright rules and mark a checkbox to get my upload privledges back, and need to submit a Protest Form if I believe my video has been blocked in error.

Per the explanation from MySpace, my video was blocked due to a copyright flag from the musical group Dead Can Dance.

Weird, since I've certainly heard of Dead Can Dance...I own plenty of Dead Can Dance albums, but certainly did not use any Dead Can Dance track in my Phillies video!

So, I complete and submit the Copyright Protest Form, then instantly switch over to YouTube and upload the exact same video on their site (succesfully!) and then post that video on my Myspace.

Issue Resolved.

However, 6 hours later, MySpace returns to me with a message that my Protest Form submission has been denied and that the video has been permanently removed, and that my entire MySpace account may, in fact, be in jeopardy.

Odd, seeing that my given reason for the protest was (and I quote): "The stated copyright protected track was not present anywhere in the uploaded video in question."

Investigation Continues.

I'm sure you've guessed it by now...given the genre and general sub-culture of the music I grew up with and continue to listen to.

That's right, The Future Sound of London used a sample of Dead Can Dance's "Dawn of the Iconoclast" track as core elements in their 1992 track "Papua New Guinea".

So here I am, trying to share a video of my own creation for zero-profit whatsoever, and I'm getting hassled while FSOL has made untold thousands of dollars of profit on their "Papua New Guinea" track, which is arguabley their most recognizable and most famous track on their discography.

To quote FSOL:

"In this day and age there's a creative use of sampling and a non-creative use", says Cobain. "That's what I think is so good about 'Papua New Guinea' — I think it's familiar but it's also totally exotic.

If it was only totally exotic I don't think it would have been so successful, whereas the final product proved to be fast food for hungry dancefloors. You see, in those days there was very much a fast food mentality. There was so much stuff pommeling the raving, dancing masses that sometimes there needed to be something a little bit familiar.

If you're going to take somebody on a journey, there should be something familiar, so to a certain degree we were all playing the game of getting something familiar and then warping it.

The whole ethos of that was you can travel far and wide and be very exotic without going anywhere. We could sit and sample the sounds that had been collected for documentaries and use them in a different way. That was the revolution of sampling. It was an amazing time.

"What an incredible thing, to be able to pull together all these weird sources, to take a Dead Can Dance sample, put it against a Papua New Guinea nature documentary with some tribal percussion and bring it to some dance beats that were lying around.

It was fantastic. You had punks and bohemians and ravers and poets and romantics all gathered in the same space, and that was before the music industry got hold of it and the greed of the people who were making it ruined it.

At that point it ended up being as negative as everything else — it was as lazy as jazz, as lazy as rock, as lazy as indie eventually, and that's where it is now, but for a while it was revolutionary."

The sampling arguement is tired.
MySpace is now involved.

Times have changed.


Here's my Video:






Sunday, October 12, 2008

Drum'n'Bass , Trance, Breaks and Techno Return to WVYC!



Tim Wingert & Hope Heiderscheidt
Purveyors of Fine Electronica to the York, PA airwaves!
WVYC Studios, circa 1998


It was fantastic to be back in the studios of WVYC again!

Although, it was certainly not the same without my partner in crime, Hope
(aka DJ Rage), who, unfortunately, was unable to make the show at the last
minute. I tried to include a good selection of everything that represented the
wide range of electronica we played during our years of Saturday night
broadcasts (The Fourth Floor, Tricked Out and Zero Gravity)

A lot of good memories from these tracks! Thanks to all the current WVYC
faculty and students who helped us alumni get up and running with the new
board and other gear!

Cheers to all our listeners and to all the participants, promoters and DJs of the
New Energy and Zodiak venues here in York, PA from 1996-1999. Each one of
you is responsible for creating a life-changing environment for myself and
many of my close friends. Your involvement with the local music scene and
rave culture is very much appreciated.

Keep it Real.

The following is the playlist from the Reunion Show. You can listen to and/or download an mp3 of the 2-hour broadcast here. The recording is a bit hot
and distorted at times, due to the recording software and compression levels.
The letters in parenthesis indicate which chunks of the show were
pre-produced and mixed beforehand.

If you would like to have any of these tracks or produced pieces in hi-fi wave
or mp3 format, just e-mail me at tw711@hotmail.com

Thanks to all!!

Special Thanks go out to Tom Gibson, Drew Carter, Abbey Fisher, Hope
Heiderscheidt, Lauren Edelstein Henry, Dan McGinnis, Doug Miller, Kevin
Anderson & Brian VanOrnum

Tim (DJ Wolf, WVYC, 99.7 FM)
York College 1995-1999


1. Intro: DJ Force & The Evolution: “Ruffer” (“Are You Lost, Sweetheart?”) (a)
2. The Prodigy: “Rat Poison” (Includes samples from the “Big Dramatic Intro” vocals
by Tim) (a)
3. The Crystal Method: “Keep Hope Alive” (a)
4. Cirrus: “Abduction” (My Daddy Never Let me Play Outside) (a)
5. Makai: “Beneath The Mask” (Ghost in the Shell) (a)
6. Kaotic Chemisty: “Drumtrip II” (Do it Now Kid) (a)

7. WVYC FM Legal ID
8. Big Dramatic Intro: “Frequency Scan”/”Dull Yellow Eyes”/Tim’s Vocals

9. WVYC FM Legal ID
10. Intro: Adam F: “End of Days” (b)
11. Omar Santanta: “Raver’s Damnation” (b)
12. DJ Technique: “My Definition” (b)
13. Seamus Haji: “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life” (b)

14. WVYC FM Legal ID
15. Intro: Dieselboy “Substance D Warning Label” (c)
16. 88.3 “Wishin’ on a Star” (c)

17. Intro: "A Part of All Things" (d)
18. Three Drives on a Vinyl “Greece 3000” (d)
19. Concord Dawn: “Take Me Away” (d)

20. Jamie Myerson: “Rescue Me” (d)
21. Fingers, Inc: ‘My House” played over “????” (f)
Faithless: “God is a DJ” with Fingers, Inc: ‘My House” excerpts at the end (f)
22. Evol Intent: “The Foreword” (Things are Bad”) (f)
23. Cleveland Lounge: “Drowning (AK1200 remix)” (f)

24. WVYC FM Legal ID (F’ed up that one…)
25. Intro: Adam F: “Last Dayz” (e)
26. Faithless:Insomnia” (e)
27. Anomaly: “Calling Your Name” (e)
28. Sarah McLachan: “Silence (J Majik Remix)” (e)
29. Dumonde: “Human (Ill Skills Remix)”
30. Styles of Beyond: “Subculture”

31. Arrakis….
32. Big Dramatic Intro: #2: Lost Tribe: “Gamemaster (Michael Woods Remix)”
33. Freestylers: “B-Boy Stance (Grooverider Remix)"
34. Brooklyn Bounce: “Contact”

35. WVYC FM Legal ID
36. Elena: “Turn it Around”
37. DJ Fresh: “The Immortal” (The Turning of the Stars)
38. Human Resource: “Dominator"(I’m Bigger and Badder and Rougher and Tougher)
39. Nalin & Kane: “Beachball” (People Get Ready, Get Ready to Flow)
40. Propellerheads: “History Repeating”
41. Praga Kahn: “Injected With a Poison”
42. Baby D: “Let Me be Your Fantasy”