I’m fed up of people thinking stealing mashups without credit is fair game. Latest being Hollywood Gods N’ Monsters, with members formerly of Steel Panther who have covered DJ Schmolli’s Rock of Ages as well as a Lady Gaga vs Linkin Park mashup originally by DJStronGer22, rebooted in 2020 with credit by William Maranci. They copied William Maranci’s arrangement of the mashup though.
The problem is Hollywood Gods N’ Monsters didn’t credit the original mashup producers that were released 9-12 years ago!
“Mash Ups are open source style music where guys do their mash ups and then other guys add their layers and no one really gets credit.”
Diggety Dave being completely wrong…
Diggity Dave (ex MTV’s Pimp My Ride) from the band was quoted as saying “We are not a cover band. This is original stuff we’re creating, and it’s a living, breathing history of music. We equate it to what DJs are doing, but in the form of a full band smashing together the songs every generation has grown up with. What other band is mixing the ’70s band CHIC with Queen, Aerosmith, Sugarhill Gang, Blondie and Dmx?” – well I can say at least one – Smash Up Derby?
And talking of which – as well as the Hollywood Gods N’ Monsters tracks not being original combinations, also refer to their live mashups as ‘smash-ups’ which term is ripped off from Bootie house band Smash Up Derby which has been going since 2007!
There is a great interview on This, That & The Other Radio Show with DJ Schmolli playing both versions of Rock of Ages back to back and even mixing the two versions, even copying a timing error he made in the original mashup. It’s well worth a listen – also he gets his latest mashup played, Snoop Dogg vs Starship which is also going to be featured on the podcast (#357) I am recording now!
Hollywood Gods N’ Monsters claim in response that it’s open source and everything is fair game. Nope, in the mashup community credit is all we have – you might say honour among thieves but we cannot monetise our creations, we cannot sell our unique transformations however much of our own creativity or even own parts we put in (unless you get the original artist to re-record it, like DJ Cummerbund or BigBadBaz/Barry Christie did).
So no, it’s not fair game, and I agree as someone who has also been in the mashup game since the early 00’s, it is most definitely not accepted by the majority of the community as DJ Schmolli says in the interview. It is a complete dick move.
Sadly this idea that it’s fair game is far too common, that our creations are throwaway and don’t deserve respect. That just helps the big labels ostracise us and not get our creations the legal and social acceptance they deserve – the reason mashups are in a legal grey area in the first place! (Metalsludge article via Pomdeter)
You can still download the original – and best version of Rock of Ages at DJSchmolli’s site without any Hollywood Gods N’ Monsters bobbins!
EDIT: turns out this isn’t the first time that Rock of Ages has been lifted, in 2020 a mashup artist called D33pBlue Shane Holton created this and claimed it via Shazam, so if Shazam Schmolli’s Rock of Ages, you get this? What? Apparently they uploaded a whole load of mashups that weren’t theirs from Schmolli, Amoraboy and Lobsterdust and tried to profit off them and claim them as original works.
This is more the old style mashup theft, direct copying, not even a reboot or cover. Their site has tracks stolen from GHP, Party Ben, Jimmi Jammes, Hank Handy and I suspect many more.
Thanks to PimpDaddySupreme for highlighting this.
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