Category: Virtual LP

The Challenge goes on! Two new mixes just in from the uber-talented and oft overheated mind of reclusive madman MC DD von H. Both build on the original piano number plus eb’s stellar vocals.
First up is Radio Cauliflower, a radio friendly mix with guitar, beats, bass, beach sounds, and more. Then comes something really extraordinary — a 3 minute feast of a remix called Cauliflower Maximus. And I’ll just say: Holy cow. Well worth your time.
For a quick recap, here’s the whole sequence:

• Cauliflower Melon (the original piano piece)
• Cauliflowermelonslide (Bob’s remix with slide guitar)
• Melancholy Flower (eb’s version adds vocals)
• Tower of Cauliflower Power (Yaniv slices in with mad beats and bass)
• Straight Up: Cauliflower (Jake adds sax to eb’s vocals)
• Radio Cauliflower (MC DD von H’s cauliflower jam)
• Cauliflower Maximus (MC DD von H’s opus!)

If you’re thinking of joining the mad loop, start with any one of these versions, do whatcha gotta do, then email whatcha got to: vortex@mediajunkie.com. Thanks for listening. And thanks to everyone who’s participated so far. I dig each version, and the sequence from start to finish is quite a neat nod to the personal nature of creativity. -CV
MC DD von H’s Remix – Radio Cauliflower
time: 1:15; specs: 1.1MB
Press Play to play.
MC DD von H’s Extended Remix – Cauliflower Maximus
time: 3:13; specs: 2.9MB
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About a week and a half ago I posted a short piano number and asked folks to mess around with it. Here’s a brief recap of the excellent and harmonically vivid versions we’ve gotten back so far:

• Cauliflower Melon (the original piano piece)
• Cauliflowermelonslide (Bob Myren’s remix with slide guitar)
• Melancholy Flower (eb’s version with vocals)
• Tower of Cauliflower Power (Yaniv Soha’s remix with beats and bass)

Today we post our first third-generation remix, in which Panamanian strongman Jake Vortex weighs in with Straight Up: Cauliflower, which starts with eb’s vocal mix and then lays down a smokin’ sax intro and outro. Dig.
If you’re taking the challenge, feel free to start with any of these versions, then email whatcha got to: vortex@mediajunkie.com.
Thanks for listening, a tip of the reed to Jake for this latest rev, and please, watch the skies, -CV
Jake Vortex’s Remix – Straight Up: Cauliflower
time: 1:12; specs: 1.1MB
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To briefly recap, a week ago I posted a short piano piece and asked folks to mess around with it. Bob and eb tossed down swank slide and vocal interps respectively. Now the Dread Pirate Yaniv Soha joins the fray.
For handy compare and contrast, here’s the original piano piece, Bob’s slide, and eb’s piano/vocal spectacular.
Yaniv’s take gets funky with it, adding beats and bass and slicing things around. The result is a subtle hypnogroove guaranteed to help you stop smoking.
Hope you’re enjoying the sequence. I’m really enjoying how different these three versions have ended up. There’s still time to join the adventure and live the dream. And really, Yaniv’s version is just begging for some latter-day Biz Markie to mix in a little poetry.
On that note…if you’re taking the challenge, feel free to start with any of these versions, then email whatcha got to: vortex@mediajunkie.com.
Thanks. And watch the skies, -CV
Yaniv Soha’s Remix: Tower of Cauliflower
time: 57 seconds; specs: 900K
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(For more Yaniv Soha-infused musical experiences, be sure to drop by Yaniv Soha Central.)

Last week I posted a wee chordy piano piece and asked folks to mess around with it and send me the results. First in was a sweet slice o’ slide from Bob Myren. If yer just joining the fun, here’s the original piano piece — Cauliflower Melon — and here’s Bob’s remix — Cauliflowermelonslide.
Today we’ve got eb’s take, with words, melody, and fairly spectacular vocals. You really have to hear this. She took my lil’ piano piece and made art.
I’m just enjoying the hell out of this whole thing so far. Hope you’re enjoying it too. Speaking of which, if you’re out there and planning on taking the challenge, feel free to funk around with any of these three, then send the results to vortex@mediajunkie.com) and posted shall they be.
Thanks!
eb’s Remix: Melancholy Flower
time: 47 seconds; specs: 700K
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Yesterday I exhorted folks to take this wee chordy piano piece I’d recorded (aka Cauliflower Melon) and mess around with it — add guitar, verb, drums, guitar, slice it up, and what have you.
Lo and behold, this morning — the very next damn day! — my old and excellent pal Bob Myren came through with the first remix. It’s a slice of slide guitar that, quite frankly, I ultra-dig. It’s amazing to me the difference in mood and atmosphere that slide guitar can make. All I’m saying is, when I die, I hope I come back as a sustained note played on a slide guitar. That’s all I’m saying.
If you’re taking the challenge, please feel free to screw around with this one, with the original, or with both. Then send whatcha got to vortex@mediajunkie.com). I’ll keep posting them as they arrive.
Thanks! And enjoy…
Bob’s Remix: Cauliflowermelonslide
time: 48 seconds; specs: 1.1 MB
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Tune-making and MVRT have both been considerably waylaid of late by hard disk problems and assorted other distractions. But last night I got Pro Tools working (yay!) and recorded this wee, chordy piano piece.
And with this piece comes the following open invitation to a collaborative fun-time challenge project: if you like to screw around with sound, please — screw around with this sound!
Then send me the results and pretty much anything non-obscene, I’ll post here. Add guitar, voice, drums. More piano. Verb it up. Slice it up. Whatever. And then send to Vortex (that is: vortex@mediajunkie.com).
Thanks! And enjoy…
time: 51 seconds; specs: 800K
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Here’s another one of them there standards, with keys and vocals and antique steamer howl and yes, perhaps, yes indeed: the sound of time itself. It’s a confusing, some might say outrageous sentiment for this holiday week: The Best Things in Life Are Free, written by B.G. DeSylva, Lew Brown, and Ray Henderson back in 1927.
time: 2:08 seconds; specs: 1.9 MB
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Here’s an all-new micro-tune featuring the legendary Jake Vortex on tenor sax. We call this one Bean Thread Noodles, because much like traditional bean thread noodles, it’s made from ground mung beans. Oh yeah!
Seriously though, I have no idea what that means. Mung beans? That can’t be right can it? Is that a typo? If you have any better explanation, please don’t be shy. We’re at least as confused about this whole bean thread noodle thing as you are.
time: 22 seconds; specs: 300K
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Good golly do I love the standards. A while back, you may recall, I posted covers first of “Bye Bye, Blackbird,” and then (with a lotta help from eb and Eileen Dahl) “Second Hand Rose.” Great tunes, both.
Here’s the third in this ongoing series of let’s-just-say-non-traditional piano/vocal/guitar takes on jazz standards — “For Every Man There’s a Woman,” written in 1948, with ok-they’re-sorta-dated lyrics by Leo Robins and absolutely timeless music by Harold Arlen. Wotta tune. Seriously: Big ups for Harold “Harold Arlen” Arlen, author of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “That Old Black Magic,” “I’ve Got the World on a String” and a gazillion other bits of genius.
Let me just put it this way: If Harold Arlen was alive today and had a web site, I’d give him a free link. That’s how much I like Harold Arlen.
Press Play to play.
playtime:1:34
file specs: nought but 1.4 MB mp3
Enjoy! And thanks for dropping by…

It was a more innocent time, way back in October of 2004 when I first wrote about Yu-Gi-Oh! and Zach Braff, and my secret rage. We’re all a lot older now, hey? And perhaps a bit wiser too.
“What is Yu-Gi-Oh!?” Well, it’s a card game. And a movie. It’s a franchise. It’s a way of life. It’s like Pokemon, see? Only much more…Yu-Gi-Oh!
One thing’s for sure: YGO! and all the YGO! cards referenced in this tune, including but not limited to “The Mad Dog of Darkness,” “The Nobleman Eater Bug,” and “The Axe of Despair” are all copyright (c) Kazuki Takahashi. I mean, if nothing else, we can all agree on that, right? Alright then. Enough already! On with the rock n roll!
Here’s a little ditty I wrote for my son. It features Eileen Dahl on back-up vocals. Enjoy…
Press Play to play.
time: 42 seconds flat
file size: nary 670K