Journal: News & Comment

Peter Gabriel wants you to remix "Shock the Monkey"

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Back in May I noted that Brian Eno and David Byrne had released some original multitrack audio from their 1981 album collaboration for free remixing by fans. Now Peter Gabriel has done the same, also using tracks from 1981 and 1982, but in this case the music is much better known.

Yes, now you can take a crack at remixing "Shock the Monkey," which is one of the songs (and certainly one of the videos) that helped define my life as a musician and music fan. (The album it appears on is #2 of my top 10 headphone discs.) Submit your entry by September 30 and you could win the very cool and expensive Duende effects plugin rack unit from SSL.

For me, just being able to download and hear the original unadorned multitracks from "Shock the Monkey" is prize enough (you need to create an ID an log in to do that). There are also some spiffy videos on the site showing how Gabriel sampled sounds (including scraped pipes and smashed TV tubes) for use with the then-revolutionary Fairlight CMI sampling synthesizer, which helped the album they appeared on gain its creepy vibe.

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