The Who Boys- their mashed-up generation

Part of the fun of MySpace is that you don't get to just meet kewl people but you can also find out about hep bands, even ones that haven't been hyped up elsewhere. That's part of the power of the Net, isn't it?

After setting up a MySpace page for my zine (go there and sign up now kiddies!), I started getting requests for "friends" (people to trade links, photos and such). And it was coming from not just regular fans and readers but also bands.

One of them was a London mash-up trio called the Who Boys. As an old-school classic rock fan, I was overly familiar with their name-sakes but I didn't know about this new crew. I'm also a fan of mash-up's but only to the extent that they're fun, well-done or kinda intelligent or even better yet, some combo of the above- so far, I'm not convinced that Girl Talk makes the cut as such.

But the Who Boys do. They're classic rock fans too. Obsessed not just with the former High Numbers who can't stop doing rock operas but also Brian Wilson, another brooding genius from the 60's with expansive aspirations. Like any good DJ, they like a good beat (specifically jungle) and they use repeated sample not just for drama (think early Steve Reich) but also humor (think Negativland). Something tells me that Townshend would dig them and not just on a dry intellectual level. They have fun, fun, fun and they sell their music and videos for a mere pound note at their UK gigs.

For more, see the Who Boys MySpace page