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Last we spoke with Vincent Sliva, aka LehtMoJoe, the area producer/remixer was promising a whole lot: A show at the Granada on July 31 with himself, Mount Righteous and Anonymous????; a new CD; and, most impressively, a new remix every week.
He’s been keeping up with all of those tasks, including the remix one–visit his Myspace to catch yourself up–and for this week’s remix task, Leht went the Michael Jackson memorial tribute route, offering up his own imagination of how Jackson’s “Beat It” might be presented.
It’s a pretty interesting take, actually–the whole song’s chopped up, and kinda arranged backwards, musically. Check it out–and download it too, if you like, after the jump, where you’ll also see Leht’s thoughts on Jackson’s passing.
Bonus mp3:
Sprawled out on the living room carpet, staring at some guy holding a
tiger… Mom drops a black disk onto a spinning plate, the sound of crackling
followed by a sudden stream of audible energy. Enter Thriller. Enter the first
memories of music. Enter my first love. I couldn’t have been more than a year or
two old. There’s a picture somewhere sealed away in a photo album of this very
moment, not that I need it to remember. You only have so many firsts. I loved
most of it, but didn’t like “Billie Jean.” It sounded adult, and I
was anything but.Fast forward to 1988. A rainy night in Dallas. Nan and Pop come
over to babysit my baby sister, and the rest of the family and I head to some
place called Reunion
Arena. I remember walking into the venue with throngs of people, looking
at the merchandise of t-shirts (one of which adorns my closet now), standing
next to a cardboard cutout of the guy who held that tiger with my big brother.
There’s a picture somewhere sealed away in a photo album of this very moment,
not that I need it to remember. Loud music, people holding lighters (why?),
scary costumes and lots of dancing. This was Michael
Jackson’s “Bad Tour” – my first concert and the last time he would
perform in Texas.Fast forward to 2009. Michael
Jackson is dead. Not overly sad. I’ve grown to resent much of that
commercial fanfare and possible negative subliminal influence the music industry
has over the masses. But this isn’t about that. Not about the death of a
musician with talents that at times seemed other worldly, not about child
molestation charges, bizarre behavior, ever changing physical appearance or
tabloid fodder. This is about my childhood. This is about watching
“Moonwalker” ad nauseam at Nan’s house, only to rediscover it in
high school. About taping songs off the radio onto 2 cassettes and playing them
back to create “that cool airplane sound” (chorus effect). About lying in bed
and listening to his music, envisioning what the videos would look like.
About practicing his moves over and over again, trying to dance the
white out of me (semi-successful). About that excitement that his
performances exuded. Unparalleled. That excitement that only
children get. There are unending records of these moments, not that I need them
to remember.Thanks for the music, Michael.
