Hood Internet specializes in monster mashup sets

R. Kelly and Major Lazer. Cam'ron, Kanye and the Replacements. Lil Wayne and Queens of the Stone Age.

Some of those are popular names. Others are quite obscure. Most of them don't seem to fit together.

But those are just three of the mixes from the popular mashup duo known as the Hood Internet.

Chicago DJs Aaron Brink (ABX) and Steve Reidell (STV SLV) started creating mashups (mixing music and/or beats from one song with lyrics from another) and posting them online at TheHoodInternet.com in early 2007.

In recent years, artists such as Girl Talk and Danger Mouse have gained notoriety for creating their own mashups. Girl Talk uses countless rock, pop and hip-hop artists to make his mixes, and Danger Mouse famously combined the Beatles' “White Album” with Jay-Z's “Black Album” to create the mashup “Gray Album.”

The Hood Internet takes a slightly different approach, usually combining some kind of hip-hop track with more obscure indie and alternative rock acts.

Before putting on a hybrid performance and dance party Friday at Slowdown, they answered some questions for us.

Q. How did you guys get started doing this?

STV SLV: ABX and I played in bands together in Chicago for a number of years, and started putting together Hood Internet tracks on the side for kicks. The Web site started getting lots of traffic and things sort of took off, which inspired us to make more tracks.

Q. Do you still play with any of those bands?

STV SLV: The band we were in no longer exists, but I still play in a band with some of the same people. It's called Shapers.

Q. How do you pick the music you use?

ABX: I find myself always listening for songs that I might want to mix together. I keep a running playlist in my iTunes of tracks that I might want to mess with in the future. From there it's really just a matter of matching up songs that work well together and a lot of trial and error.

Q. You guys use less mainstream artists than others doing mashups. Is that intentional or just a matter of your taste?

ABX: I think it's both. We make tracks that reflect our tastes in music, and that probably tends to be less mainstream than some others making mashups. I think we are intentional about wanting our music to come from a specific point of view and not be about mixing Coldplay with Black Eyed Peas just because those bands are popular.

Q. Ever receive any cease and desists or had any other legal trouble?

STV SLV: None yet — although last time we played Lincoln, we busted out ABX's Kid Cudi/Bon Jovi track, and some fans came to the foot of the stage and gave us a big thumbs down. That's kind of like a cease and desist, just not legal, per se.

Q. How does a live set work for you guys? Is it planned out or is it pretty spontaneous?

ABX: A live set consists of us pulling from the 300 or so mixes we've created and stringing those together into a continuous dance party. We definitely have some favorites that we play pretty regularly, but every set is different and we are deciding what to play as we go. We also have a lot of airhorns and similar sound effects that are both planned and spontaneous.

Q. Looking through your blog, it looks like you have a pretty high output. Do you have a goal you've made for yourselves or is that just a matter of working on the music a lot?

STV SLV: It's the “quantity over quality” principle.

Q. Where did your DJ names come from?

ABX: Mine comes from a friend's nickname for me. The A and B in my name are my initials. The X got shortened from an exclamation point that had origins in a Disney TV movie about inline skating. I assume DMX has a similar story for his name.

STV SLV: A kid that sat next to me in a high school computer class said it one day. I went on to use it as a college radio DJ name, and it stuck from there.

Contact the writer:

444-1557, kevin.coffey@owh.com

« Music

Share