Great music inspires great re-interpretations and much like Danger Mouse’s critically-acclaimed mix of Hova’s songs was the last one that stands out in my mind. Heralded by many as the album of the year, Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” has been out now for four months now and it seems ripe for a remix. Oakland DJ Amplive teamed up with industry heavyweights such as Del the Funky Homosapien and Too $hort to release an eight track album celebrating Radiohead. After fighting a cease and desist, the online music community can download the Rainydayz Remixes (legally and for) free. Grab your copy today.

So, this is a few days old, but it’s not too late to grab the zip-awesome that is MySplice 2.0 from the fine folks at Stereogum and team9 — their gift to you, in celebration of the year in singles that was 2007. This year, MIA meets the A-Team, Bloc Party parties with The Cure and Arcade Fire and Smokey Robinson pair up with The Gunsmoke Theme for in what is all sorts of epic goodness. Get them track-by-track, or pick up the whole zip here.

Sweet Mother Russia has blessed the world so much in the way of culture and the arts. Mikhail Baryshnikov and Yakov Smirnoff are just some of the national treasures the former Soviet Union has had the decency to share with us, though ballet and cold war humor are not the only contributions we cherish from our comrades. One of the most notable of Russian crafts is that of the Matryoshka, or nesting doll principle. Famously perfected by Fabergé in the late 1800's the craft lives on today with Russian Designer Yar Rassadin whose Pantone Matryoshka collection takes inspiration from both the Pantone color matching system and a minimalist UFO style, making for a uniquely modern twist on the nearly 120 year old art form.

Via MoCo Loco

While the jury's still out on whether or not Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon is supposed to sync up with “The Wizard of Oz” (if I were the jury foreman, I'd say "nay!") let there be no doubts about the compatibility of Dr. Seuss' “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” and Personal Publication, the debut EP from Canadian Indie Poppeteer Rich Aucoin. The Halifax, Nova Scotia resident who comes off as a Canuck Sufjan Stevens, based on both his sound and the fact that he knows his way around twenty-plus instruments, has created an impressive musical masterpiece that just so happens to serve as a beautiful compliment to the 1966 classic made for TV Christmas Cartoon that has become a holiday classic. Who knows, maybe in two decade’s time they'll be airing the movie with Aucoin's album as part of a new Christmas tradition.

The Big Art Mob is an effort to create a comprehensive survey of public art in the form of a mobile blog. A project only just begun in the UK, the Big Art Mob hopes to build this database via photos from cameras or mobile phones, taken by anyone who cares to snap a shot. Using a combination of Google Maps, a geo-coding facility, and tags (labels or keywords, created by the senders and viewers), the photos and moblog posts will eventually (and hopefully) create an interactive map that serves to preserve the country’s wealth of public art. Big Art Mob will also serve as a debate forum; thanks to the user-generated nature of the public art that is uploaded, the classic argument over “What is Art?” will likely pop up on a daily basis. My fingers are crossed that street artists are allowed use this tool to preserve their pieces - because how great would it be to have a dated photo documentary of one wall’s changes over a years or two? Big Art Mob is the precursor to a new television series called Big Art Project, which I don’t know to much about but am hoping is at least half as amazing as “Planet Earth.” More details here.

“Handheld DJing” is a set of words that sounds about as natural as “genetically modified babies,” but if Richie Hawtin (also known as Plastikman) is entangled in this mini-mixer’s beta testing, something’s gotta be right about it. Tonium’s Pacemaker is a portable, tiny media player that comes equipped with plenty of audio manipulation features to help DJ’s mix tracks on the fly. On first glance, it’s almost hard to take seriously; at only about six inches long and three inches across, the Pacemaker hardly looks capable of what it promises. However, consider the following specs: multiple file format support (MP2, AAC, WMA, WMA Lossless, WAV, VBR, and the Ogg format); an integral 120GB hard disk; an integral crossfader, and pitch, bend, loop, split loop and EQ/Gain filters. One more reason for DJ’s to break a sweat over the Pacemaker’s tiny shell: the thing has beat matching capabilities. The Swedish company behind the Pacemaker is currently taking non-binding pre-bookings for the techy tool’s soon-to-come release, and the global DJing world is hyped — to say the least — to get their twitchy hands (fingers, I guess) on this first-of-its-kind gadget. US buyers can expect to throw down about $750 for the Pacemaker, so If you’re considering snagging one, reserve it here.

Fashion site StyleMob has created a new mashup that’s part Hot or Not, part MySpace, and part StreetPeeper/fashion mag. The new site encourages users to post photos of themselves that represent their personal style and allows other users to vote on their hot new look. Unlike Hot or Not, StyleMob isn’t so much about rating the person in the picture, but rather their fashion sense (choice?). I’m partial to Zana Bayne’s Computer Hood personally (pictured here), but I’m not sure it comes in a widescreen edition. StyleMob also features a social networking function where users can create their own profile including areas for fashion comments, questions, and advice.

According to StyleMob co-founder Sasha Cagen…”StyleMob is more than a website, it’s a mindset and a way of life. StyleMob is about injecting creativity into getting dressed every morning. It’s about getting inspiration from other people whose taste and budgets match their own.”

More simply put, StyleMob is more of an online hipster hideout than a runway fashion review. It also serves to remind me, again, that my jeans need to get waaaaay tighter before I could ever verge on “hipster” myself.

via TechCrunch.

–Danny Nathan

Back in May, Heather told us about Unthirsty, a boozy site that uses Google Maps to help locate the happiest happy hours in your neighborhood based on a number of important criteria like drink specials, patio and wifi availability. This search function is now located on the homepage as part of the redesign for their recently launched Level 2. The biggest and awesomest change though, is the ability to create a user account so that you can add in your regular watering holes, favorite and edit existing listings, and receive notifications when new bars are posted in your area — you can even upload pictures now. While theoretically, the purpose is to show other users what your local haunt looks like, I have a feeling it will look more like a visual journey from tipsy to drunk to oh my god I feel like I'm going to pass out but I'll just go home and upload embarrassing photos of my friends right after I drunk text my ex/booty-call/ex-who’s-now-a-booty-call-shitfaced. Thus far, I haven't been able to find any photos on the site so check it out and prove me right or conversely, so bottoms up and prove me wrong.

Keds, in an odd and uncharacteristic move, recently released a new series under their PRO-Keds line of amazingly geeky, arcade coin-op inspired sneakers. The line, which features old friends like Pac-Man, Asteroids and Centipede, seems to be creating quite a frenzy in both the world as we know it and the world of gaming (where gamers are carelessly abandoning crucial dragon-battles in order to hunt down a pair). Apparently, the shoes are just a little revival of the Pac-Man series the company released in 1982, and I think Keds deserves a nice pat on the back for this bold re-release; partially because the shoes themselves are incredible, and partially because they haven’t really lived this close to the edge since they signed on Mischa Barton as spokesgirl. I’m a little worried that, in production, they neglected to consider the exponential increase in radness of arcade games since the eighties, because these shoes are seemingly impossible to find right now. I found a few (well, two) pairs on ebay, but unless I’ve been in all the wrong places, the land is barren. So happy hunting, guys, and tell us where to go if you find some.

Google Maps-based sites are a dime a dozen these days, and for the most part I find them kind of cumbersome and pointless. Unthirsty, however, is something I can totally get behind: a user-populated map that scouts out bars nearest you based on happy hour, wifi connectivity, patio seating and specials. The best part of it is that it’s not city-specific, so you should be able to find a watering hole near you no matter where you live. Discovery of this marvelous website sent both our NYC and Colorado teams into happy-hour research frenzies because let’s face it– it’s been one of those days.

When I first heard Incorporated, the newest from The Legion of Doom, I thought to myself: “you’ve got to be kidding me.” There are mash ups out there that I’ve really enjoyed listening to, but it didn’t make sense to me right off the bat that The Legion of Doom was mixing together punk, hardcore, emo, and scream-o songs. But after giving the entire 14 tracks a shot, I developed an appreciation for the job Chad Blinman and Trevor Keith (formerly of one of my favorite punk whilst in highschool, Face to Face) did with these tracks. The first thing I noticed was that it isn’t even really a mash up, at least compared to the mash ups I’ve heard thus far– rather, each track pins one band against another in a battle of sorts. For instance, ‘The Quiet Screaming’ begins with Dashboard Confessional in the foreground with some hints of a Brand New track in the background. Toward the middle of the song, the Brand New track becomes more prevalent, and eventually replaces the Dashboard track, leaving only remnants of Chris Carrabba’s whine. Other combos I enjoyed: Saves the Day vs. Funeral For A Friend, Underoath vs. Mewithoutyou, and The Get Up Kids vs. Thursday. You can buy Incorporated for $10 here or stream it for free here.

WFMU, otherwise known as the best radio station in country (that’s not just personal opinion; Rolling Stone has felt that way for four years), is addressing the A.D.D. addled state of our nation by holding a sixty second song remix contest. I didn’t really know how much/what to expect out of something like that, so I went to the WFMU blog (on which they’ve been posting the best entries daily) to test some out, and was pleasantly surprised to find that you can expect ALOT. I didn’t get to everything, but I definitely recommend giving a listen to the Paranoid Android (Radiohead) and Dear Jude (Beatles) remixes. The deadline for entries is February 23rd. Nice, a legitimate reason to waste time on GarageBand. Sounds good to me.

GeoGreeting is a nifty little Google Maps mash-up that lets you write words and messages with corresponding buildings to shape each letter. The J in Josh is a building in Ponomona, CA while the S in Spear is from Minneapolis, MN– funny because I’m from neither. The site also has a cute little share with a friend feature to send your GeoGreeting to anyone you wish.

I think DJ Danger Mouse’s “The Grey Album” is really what brought the term mash-up to the masses. The idea of mixing and matching sound bites and guitar rifts is nothing new, but to do it in a fashion that is more refined than can be found on the turntables yet still gritty enough not to be mistaken for a record label produced piece is what draws people to these modern mix tapes. Combining mashups with my favorite non-profit, The Creative Commons, Splice offers a unique and completely legal way to produce, share, and use music. Every piece on the site is licenced under CC which means that you are free to use it in your homemade videos, movies, or even video games. If you are an aspiring musician yourself, you can use the online sequencer to create your next masterpiece. There is a heavy communal element to the site with forums, blogs, contests, and profiles. Take a moment to check it out!

This one’s hot off the press! Remember that hot mashup The Grey Album by DJ Dangermouse which featured Jay-Z vocals over Beatles tunes? In an ironic twist, the DJ duo who go by the name Sound Advice, have chopped and screwed Gnarls Barkley tracks together with the lyrics of the Notorious B.I.G. The result is a mashup album called The Gnotorious Gnarls Biggie. The tracks have been removed several times from MySpace, but can now be listened to at Gnotorious.com. There’s no telling how long this site will be up, as I’m sure the record labels are having a fit over this one. Listen now while you still can.