Since 2005, San Francisco-based mashup DJs and Bootie (the party) pioneers Adrian and the Mysterious D (aka A+D) have compiled their favorite mashups of the previous year into a must-have selection of that year’s hits. If there is one bastard-pop album to be had (though since they’re almost always free, you should really have them all) each annum, this would probably be it.

Residents of any of the cities where Bootie events go down will likely be pretty familiar with the tunes, which are mainly composed of this year’s pop sensations combined with yesteryear’s funkiest or best-known tracks. These come off the dancefloors and onto wax in Best of Bootie 2008.

Some of the more obvious entries include the A+B mash of The Police’s “Roxanne” and The Bee Gees’ “You Should be Dancing”, by DJ Zebra, and the tongue-literally-poking-through-the-cheek irony of Divide & Kreate’s “Until It Talks”, a combination of Coldplay and Metallica tracks.

But the award for creativity most definitely goes to SF’s DJ Earworm, who mixes not two, not five, but sixteen different artists (Rihanna vs. Kardinal Offishall vs. Akon vs. Ne-Yo vs. Estelle vs. Pussycat Dolls vs. Leona Lewis vs. Danity Kane vs. Madonna vs. Timbaland vs. Justin Timberlake vs. Lupe Fiasco vs. Matthew Santos vs. Britney Spears vs. Flo-Rida vs. T-Pain) to create “No More Gas”. Bordering dangerously on the Girltalk-dominated sub-genre (or is it a completely new one?) of extreme mashups, this is a whole bunch of song fragments, choruses and other bits that somehow got stuck in your head over the year. No need to go back to all those (mostly) bad originals, now you have them all in one track! It’s like a “Best of” list all in itself.

Anyway, as always with the Bootie compilations, this one is pre-mixed for your continuous listening and dancing pleasure. Many thanks to A+D for keeping the Bootie series going and here’s looking forward to a mash-terful 2009.

Click the photo above to go to the Bootie site and peruse the album, or just click HERE for the full zipped download, complete with cover art!

I subscribe to a podcast produced by Santa Monica independent radio station KCRW called “Today’s Top Tune”. Recently they featured a song called “Fashionable People” by Canadian trio Joel Plaskett Emergency. I listened to it three times in a row that day, and have since been unable to get it out of my head for very long. After going back to their website, I’ve found that they have a clever music video, which I’ve embedded below.

But it IS a new waste of time, albeit a worthy one.

Isn’t this the most wonderful photo you’ve ever seen? Would you like to see a lot more in a similar vein? Then please go to the following Tumblelog, by Peter Nidzgorski, called “This Isn’t Happiness“. Incidentally, this type of blogging seems to be what What-What is becoming.

Snagged via the always wonderful BoingBoing.

My sister does the coolest things. This is what she’s been up to lately. Homepage here.

A while back E and I were on the Boat, just having a few drinks with friends, when suddenly we found our feet tapping and heads bobbing. Soon the drinks were dropped, the sweaters tossed in a corner and we were full on rocking out to some jazzy, disco-y, funky music, with a singer that just made you remember what the hell singing is supposed to be about in a club.

The next day, we found out this was the Singas Project. “Sin gas” is Spanish for “without pop” – meaning this was no teenie-bopper-friendly BS, but some soulful dance-jazz that we found ourselves immediately enamored with. Check out the below video (be patient with the crowd chatting at the beginning) and let me know if you want their album – I’d be happy to buy it and ship it to you, because I think they’re that cool.

At last, a trailer for the incredible film my buddy Peter has been working on. Looks fantastic!

Tonight (Tuesday) I will once again be the guest on Radio Café’s “Legal Alien” radio show, one of the only English-language talk shows in the country. If you want to listen via the web, go to the following link and click on “Gyertek hallgassátok online!” and then look for the English explanation.

Link (scroll down a bit for English instructions)

The show starts at 8 p.m. here in Hungary, so that would be 2 p.m. east coast time, 11 a.m. west coast time, and 4 a.m. Japan time. Gomen nasai!

From left: Def Selector, Uncle ?uesto, E-Star

Hu-ha, we had fun at the VOLT Festival! E had the crazy fresh hook-up and we got to meet THE ROOTS! Well, actually just ?uestlove, the drummer and usual spokesperson, about their first show in Hungary. We were actually on double duty, as in addition to the interview, we were supposed to get some pictures and sound bites about “festival fashion”. Here are some pics from the event.

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