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Mash-up from Chicago to Columbia

By Lindsay Eanet

Published May 7, 2008

Armed with laptops, a vast musical knowledge and an arsenal of cheesy indie puns like “The Ghostface of You Lingers,” Chicago mash-up deejays Aaron Brink and Steve Reidell have been fusing indie and electronica with hip-hop for more than a year now, showcasing the tracks on their blog, thehoodinternet.com. Among those to have received their treatment are Dizzee Rascal and Cyndi Lauper (“Girls Just Wanna Fix Up”) and T.I. and Fujiya & Miyagi (“What U Know About Transparent Things”). Hood’s Steve Reidell, also known as DJ STV SLV, talks more about the mash-up process, his favorite hip-hop movies and celebrity encounters.

MOVE: How did you guys get started making mash-ups? DJ STV SLV (Steve Reidell): It started kind of as a joke. Aaron and I played in a Chicago band called May or May Not for a couple of years, and we really enjoyed this. We did this to entertain our ideas of putting rap over more untraditional beats that we constructed from our favorite songs and then deconstructed those into beats. It was just kind of intended strictly for fun, which I guess it still is. MOVE: You’ve become a fixture in the indie blogosphere for your mash-up blog. What gave you the idea to put together a mash-up blog as opposed to, say, standard deejaying or a regular mp3 blog? DJ STV SLV: It kind of is a regular mp3 blog, to a certain degree, except all the content is ours. We had reserved the domain name before we actually came up with the idea for the blog, one of those ideas you drunkenly discuss, like, ‘Would this be a good idea?’ MOVE: As favorites of the indie blog set, how do you think mp3 blogs like Brooklyn Vegan and Gorilla Vs. Bear have shaped the music scene? DJ STV SLV: While we do more of a specific thing, those guys cover a lot more of what’s happening. People refer to them as ‘tastemakers’ a lot, and that sounds pretty accurate. They have a wide reader base and people look to them for new stuff, and if they didn’t exist, people might not be listening to the kind of stuff. They can be very influential. But, you know, it’s also one or two people’s tastes, so it’s pretty subjective as well. MOVE: We were reading in the Chicago Reader that the name of your blog is inspired by a character in Cam’ron’s film, “Killa Season.” MOVE didn’t even know Cam’ron made a movie. Is it any good? DJ STV SLV: It’s great. It’s actually on Google Videos if you want to watch it. A lot of rappers will put out a feature film. The No Limit crew, Three Six Mafia, they all have movies out. And in “Killa Season,” there’s a character named Tyrone. Cam’ron refers to him in like the first five minutes of the movie as The Hood Internet, so that’s where the names come from. MOVE: Are there any other films starring rappers that you would recommend? DJ STV SLV: Three Six Mafia’s “Choices” is a pretty good one. The Cash Money Millionaires’ “Baller Blockin’” is one that’s pretty classic. I’m not the biggest fan of Master P, but Master P’s “Still ‘Bout It” is awesome. MOVE: How did the Chicago music scene impact you guys, if at all? DJ STV SLV: It wasn’t like we decided to make mash-ups because of anything that happened in Chicago. But it’s interesting that you asked that because our next mix tape is called The Hood Internet Vs. Chicago and it’s 23 tracks of all Chicago rappers mixed up with Chicago bands. So I guess it influenced us to make that.
MOVE: Tell us a little more about the mix tape.
DJ STV SLV: It’s like our first full-on. The last few mix tapes we’ve made are collections of things we done and then we did The Pack mix tape which is sort of our EP and this is a full 23-track ranging from current local bands to old classic stuff, some house music and then rappers old and new as well. Everything from The Cool Kids to the 1985 Chicago Bears. MOVE: How do you decide which songs to use? Does the hip-hop track come first or the backing track? DJ STV SLV: A lot of it sort of comes from availability things we are able to get our hands on, in terms of isolated rap vocals. We can’t really make that happen, but usually when rappers put out a single, there’s an a cappella track for DJs to do a remix, but there’s not one that exists for every rap song. And from there, it’s like Aaron always says, sometimes you just think of a stupid title and it comes from there. It’s like trial and error, we go through bands we like and see what would work. There’s no real cut-and-dry way of how we decide to do it. MOVE: And will your gig at Mojo’s be your first time in Columbia? DJ STV SLV: Actually, yes. MOVE: What are you looking forward to about coming to Columbia? DJ STV SLV: Well, I’ve heard that all the bands that we’re going to be playing with are pretty good. I know a guy here in Chicago that used to book Mojo’s back in the day, and he said it’s a great place for rock ‘n’ roll. We’re not exactly rock ‘n’ roll, but we’re close enough.
MOVE: You’ve played a couple of gigs on the festival circuit: South By Southwest and Mission Creek in Iowa City, most notably. What were those experiences like, and do you have any crazy SXSW stories? DJ STV SLV: The show in Iowa City was super fun. It was in this club called the Yacht Club on a Thursday night, and the kids were totally going off, and it was a fucking basement. When I was in college, we were in a band, and we played a lot of basement shows, and it was very small, intimate and very loud in itself. SXSW we played a bunch of different shows ranging in size, and we were probably a lot more wasted. And it was hot. It was totally unrelated to playing, but we were at a party and met Lance Armstrong. We took a photo with him. And I’m not even into biking or yellow bracelets or anything like that. MOVE: You also design and screen print your own concert posters. How did you get into that? DJ STV SLV: That’s what I do kind of for a “day job” at this club in Chicago called The Metro. I’m the art director there. I had been laid off from a previous job in Chicago and needed something else. There’s a place in Chicago called the Screwball Press run by this guy, Steve Walters, who’s kind of the Godfather of the screen printing scene, and he teaches a class that I took.