Mash-up culture has come a long way since the 2006 CMJ Festival, when Girl Talk first took the stage in front of a group of confused journalists, radio DJs, and Music Directors.

Since that dreary October, Mash-up, which was previously a little known sub-culture, has taken off with mashes ranging from absurdity of Stuntin’ Like Mufasa to the face-melting quality of the Hood Internet’s tracks. College students are beginning to eat up new mash-ups voraciously, so lucky for us, and The Hood Internet, a duo from Chicago that are at the forefront of this movement—which may very well end up being the music of our generation—are playing tonight in Bulldog Alley.

Vox sat down with members Aaron Brink and Steve Reidell, who go by the handles ABX and STV SLV, to talk about mash-ups and their future.

Vox: I feel like we should start from the beginning: what got you guys into mash-ups to start with? and did you have any other DJs that you looked up to when you first started?

STV SLV: ABX and I were playing in a band together in Chicago in 2007.  We were both fairly adept at reconstructing songs into “beats,” as it were, so when we started hearing stuff like Sammy Banana’s Big Boi/Broken Social Scene and Them Jeans’ Rich Boy/Spinto Band, that was pretty inspirational—in the sense that we were like, “That’s what we’re doing, and we could definitely put some tracks out there to see what people think.”

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Another week, and some more music. A face-melting mix from FLVR BNK as well as another Ke$ha remix (I know, I know, I post so much of her music—but what can I say, I’m in love). But don’t worry, I’ve still got some great new Hood Internet and an unknown DJ mash to compensate. So without further ado, let’s get into this.

FLVR BNK, a collab project between DJ Renaisance, DJ Madmonk, and DJ Real Juice (great names, right?), gave us a hard-hitting mash/mix of Eurythmics and LMFAO, the results of which rock my socks right off. I also just love the groups tag-line intro, “Flavor Bank made it bettah.” Classic.

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It’s cold. I mean freezing. Like, so cold I’m just going to stay inside lest my eyebrows freeze off in the arctic tundra that our campus has become. I wish I had a plethora of amazing mash-ups to keep you warm, but instead I have a handful of songs from a band I should have previewed long ago. But better late than never right?

Crookers, for those who don’t know, is a pretty heavy House duo that hails from Italy. They are a pair that I’ve heard a lot about over the past three or four months, starting in the summer. But I never really had a chance to listen to any of their stuff in depth until this weekend. I was asked to play their remix of “Thunderstruck” and I was amazed by the results: shit got crazy, and I’m pretty sure it was the sole reason why my whole body hurt Sunday morning. They take this classic AC/DC tune and turn it into a body melting track that makes every limb go buck-wild.

The duo also has a pretty decent selection of their own tracks featuring such big names as Miike Snow and Yelle. His collab with Miike Snow, “Remedy,” is a mellow techno track that nonetheless shows the duo’s acute skill on the board. There’s also a music video for “Remedy” which is pretty sweet. The whole time you think these two kids are jacking random items from people on the streets of New York to sell on e-bay and it turns out they’re just making some fan art for Crookers.

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One of my many New Year’s Resolutions was to find you great new music, and I feel like this week I’ve gotten closer to my goal. Though I still haven’t found a song I could cry over in some time, I’m pretty excited about this week’s track choices: first off, I’ll post up a track from Hot Chips new One Life Stand, then I have some Kevin Rudolf (if you’ve never heard of him, he’s the guy who brought us the ever-popular “Let it Rock”), and finally, after a bit of a hiatus, the staple Mash-up guru’s The Hood Internet dropped a great new mix.

I’ve had sort of a love hate relationship with Hot Chip for some time, since some of their songs are stupendous and others are a little too experimental-electro for my tastes. It seems, from what I’ve heard, that One Life Stand is sort of business as usual.

The title track is a sort of weirdly electro-jam that I’m not too into, but other tracks, most notably “Theives in the Night” is right up my ally (and hopefully yours) in terms of Hot Chip songs: angelic synth intro that turns into a warning for the listener. The electro backdrop for this track isn’t too in-your-face and spastic, as with some other Hot Chip Songs, which adds points for this track in my book.

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It seems as though I got out of the District just in time, as about a foot of snow is pummeling those of you still packing into Lau. I’d be lying if part of me wasn’t jealous of seeing D.C. all snowed in, but at the same time, the California sun isn’t treating me too badly either. I’m starting to get festive with one of this week’s songs, while the other is just another great mash (I promise this time!) from The Hood Internet.

Seeing as the wondrous holiday known to us gentiles as Hanukkah is coming to an end today it seems only fitting to post this Hanukkah version of Outkast’s Hey Ya! by comedian song-writer Smooth-E. There’s not much else to it really, it’s a super funny song, catchy, quasi-danceable, and it’ll make Jews and gentiles alike giddy I’m sure.

The second song is the newest track from a mash-up band that never ceases to make my job easy. The Hood Internet has brought it to us again with this mash of Shwaze and Miike Snow. I first heard Miike Snow this summer, and was more than intrigued with their unique mellowed-out electro style. The two go together quite nicely under the leadership of The Hood’s graceful mixers, so enjoy.

That’s all for this week. If you’re still in DC, don’t worry about finals and go frolic in the fluffy snow. If you’re home, drink heavily and try not to go crazy as relatives start to flood your home.

This week is a week of looking back, a week of reflection, if you will, as both the featured songs actually in one way or another link back to previous posts of mine. So, let us go together on a little journey down memory lane.

Some (though not many I’m sure) may remember my original post of Ke$ha’s “Tick Tock”, it was a great mid-summer club drop from an LA girl with a whole lot of potential. Well now a Fred Falke has brought his remix skillz to her track,  and it’s available on the interweb along with a pretty sweet music video.

Ke$ha is everything that makes a pop-diva these days: blonde, hawt mess, who seemingly doesn’t give a fuck. I originally expected this song to have caught on by now, but I’m still holding on to it, and still expect it to gain notoriety over the course of the year.

The second track, from the amazingly talented DJ duo The Hood Internet, mashes Duck Sauce and Consequence up like potatoes (corny I know, but I’m standing by the lame joke). The funky instrumental from “Anyway” could very well go with a large number of Hip Hop raps; however, team appropriately picked Consequence’s “Whatever U Want,” to fulfill all their lyrical needs. The obvious overlap of lyrics makes for a smooth mash, listenable, and, most importantly, danceable mash. Long live The Hood Internet.

Hope those tracks satiate some of your new song needs. And until next week keep it real, while keepin’ it safe.

For a kid who admittedly loves the bigotry of crunk rap almost as much as the tender melodies of indie-pop, the mash-ups of The Hood Internet, for the most part, provide the perfect amount of genre-bending.

The three Hood tracks that I’m posting this week exemplify the crazy skillz that Chicago-duo Aaron Brink and Steve Reidell have for mashing musical polar opposite into pure awesomeness.

The first track that caught my attention was a wondrous mixing of Beirut’s The Concubine and Ghost Face’s Save Me Dear. At first glance this pairing may seem more than a little absurd: bad boy former Wu-Tang member Ghost Face on top of the accordion laced instrumental of a Beirut song—impossible. Do not be so quick to judge. These songs, for whatever reason, meld perfectly together under the graceful touch of The Hood Internet.

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