When Dirty Cash Becomes Filthy Lucre

We've all got one – the person who one-ups any story you share with their own bigger and better take on the same subject. For me, “that guy” is the Managing Editor of theMusic.com.au.

I call them Old Man Stories™ – classic tales from the golden days of dance music, when blowing a whistle all night long at a rave wasn't actually annoying as all fuck, but, in fact, the height of PLUR-fuelled self-expression.

So let's say, for example, that I recall seeing DJ X play a belter of a set at some party in 2002. “Ha ha ha,” he'll laugh merrily, “that reminds me of the time I saw DJ X at Warehouse Party Y in '93. I kicked on with their entourage for 37 hours, helped them solve Pi to the last decimal place, then got handed their record crate and its contents as a parting gift for showing them how we grind our teeth Down Under.”

And so on and so forth.

(And yes, I'm well aware of the irony of me taking the piss out of Old Man Stories™ given most of my missives here are of the 'looking through gurn-coloured glasses' variety, but you know, whatever.)

ANYWAY, some good occasionally comes of these Old Man Stories™, which brings us to the point of this post much earlier than is my usual wont.

When I floated this week's remix-flavoured topic past the desk of “that guy”, I was instantly regaled with tales of original master tapes being 'borrowed' from the headquarters of Mushroom Records; of three producers putting a remix together on the sly; and of said remix being so gob-smackingly awesome that the label was left with no choice but to release it.

The track in question has been back in the news of late, and well it should. Give it a spin below.

For most people, then and perhaps even more so now, the Filthy Lucre remix of Treaty by Yothu Yindi is Yothu Yindi's Treaty.

Having heard it on the radio and seen it on the television (c'mon, as if I could pass that up) many, many times before my parents picked up the Tribal Voice album as part of our Christmas gift to ourselves in '91, I got a bit of a shock when I slipped the disc into our shiny new CD player that day and heard the below where the hit single was supposed to be.

Still a cracking song, to be sure – Mandawuy, Gurrumul, Paul Kelly and co captured the zeitgeist of the indigenous frustration at the Hawke government's unfulfilled promises in a way that was palatable for whitefellas everywhere, or at least the ones whose radar it had somehow appeared on.

But if the Filthy Lucre gang hadn't committed that mythical raid on the master tapes (which is actually noted on Wikipedia as an officially commissioned remix, meaning someone's not letting the truth get in the way of a good story somewhere along the way) and sprinkled the “clap your hands and dance!” call to arms from Hamilton Bohannon's Let's Start The Dance over the top of it, would Yothu Yindi have become household names? And now, over 20 years later, would they be ARIA Hall Of Fame inductees?

It's a tricky one, and certainly not the only case of a remix as career trajectory game changer that springs to mind. Remixes have made great artists even greater, made terrible artists superstars, and made semi-forgotten heroes of artists who could've been legends.

Tori Amos thankfully didn't go dance after Armand van Helden bought the funk to his remix of Professional Widow. Starsailor thankfully didn't do much of anything after the Thin White Duke's golden touch polluted our ears with Four To The Floor in the mid-'00s.

Everything But The Girl? The Todd Terry remix of Missing not only had a major impact on their bank accounts, but also steered them off their folksy course and into seriously inspired deep house territory, helping launch Ben Watt's subsequent career as one of the true DJ/producer greats of the past decade.

Bodyrox? If you can find the original mix of Yeah Yeah anywhere on the internet you're a far better sleuth than I, for it sank without a trace until D.Ramirez gave it the portamento treatment and created an electro house classic…

…that was forever tarnished when (presumably) a record label hack decided to slap a 'rock chick' on it…

And poor old D.Ram?

His name got lost in the fine print of the vocal re-release, he watched Bodyrox tour the world off the back of his work, and he probably wondered where it all went wrong. Or at least he might've, until he and his mate Mark Knight and a couple of old blokes knocked this bad boy together over (presumably) a few cups of tea somewhere around Barking, Essex.

Check and mate, Bodyrox and co.

So how powerful is the remix as an artform? When it's not just serving as filler on a digital promo pack or record company Christmas cash grab, it can give life to a track that in some cases has none – much like the good cover version has often stolen the thunder of the original in the world of rock'n'roll.