Monday, October 23, 2006

Bad Vibrations

Beatles + Beach Boys = one headache-inducing remix album

Illustration by Jillian Tamaki.
Illustration by Jillian Tamaki.

I read the news today, oh boy, about a lucky man who (thought he) made the grade. DJ-producer Clayton Counts has been hit with a multi-million-dollar lawsuit by lawyers representing the Beatles’ publisher, EMI, for his unauthorized mash-up of two of the most revered pop albums of the 1960s: the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

EMI’s lawyers have issued a cease-and-desist order, demanding that Counts, a Texas-born DJ, reveal the IP addresses of anyone who has downloaded The Beachles, as he dubbed the mix. Counts has refused, contending that he is not making money off the online release. In a defiant statement that sounds like a mash-up of taunts from old Jimmy Cagney crime movies, he says, “Come and get me. You cannot take my life, Capitol Recordings.” (Capitol is owned by EMI.)

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