Never get out of the boat

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

a revolution is not a bed of roses...

As Fidel Castro steps down - the old fella has led Cuba since the revolution in 1959 - I'm reminded of an excellent rock'n'roll story.

Welsh prole rockers, the Manic Street Preachers planned an album launch in Cuba a few years back, at the National Stadium or something. In true Manics style they invited Mr Castro to attend.
Record company bods asked the aging President if he would like earplugs for the show as the Manic's might be a bit loud.

'Are they louder than WAR?' asked Fidel...

Friday, February 15, 2008

Dons held by little known German minnows...

Little Bayern Munich, from the tiny principality of Germany, defied the odds last night by holding the mighty Aberdeen to a 2-2 draw at Pittodrie in the UEFA Cup. Bayern, currently stuggling at the top of the Bundesliga, who have narrowly managed to scrape into the top 5 of the richest football clubs in the world, were only able to field 11 full internationals for the fixture, while only a fraction of the squad have tasted success as World Cup winners or semi-finalists . The plucky Germans, who have a mere 4 Champions League wins in their history grabbed a fortunate draw as a result of a highly debatable 2nd half penalty.
The Dons will look to finish the job properly at the tiny 69,000 capacity Allianz Arena in Munich in the second leg, despite the lack of atmosphere. Come on you reds!

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

schfifty-five

At the moment this is filed under WTF?
Anyone who can shed any light please do.
can't get it out of my head though.

via mitch

THE NAME OF THIS BAND IS THE BOPPIN’ HEADS

In their own words...

'A seven – pointed Celtfolkcountrypunk Death Star. Armed to the teeth with tunes to bring a tap to your foot, a tear to your eye, and a bop to your heid'

This is a shameless plug for my brother, Al's, band.

They have just finished recording their self-produced, self-financed debut LP (does anyone still say LP? - it fits with their homespun and unashamedly organic - though not retro - styling) chock full of the aforementioned countrypunkfolk stompers and tearjerkers.

Live, they are a knockout too, the set often features unlikely cowpunk covers of things like Ace of Spades.

"The sheep are still dancing.......which makes them harder to catch, but no worries was a crackin' night!"
Artair Donald - Tiree Times

As a taster debut 'single'- Gotta make that Train/Green Field - is available on itunes, napster, msn and the usual download sites.

You can hear a few of the songs and see some clips at their site theboppinheads.com

Here's the thing. I'm trying to convince Al of the benefits of making a couple of songs available for podcast producers via things like the podsafe music network.
As I'm not a podcast producer meself (yet! - be afraid) I'd appreciate any rationale from anyone out there that might swing it.

The pic here is my - rejected! - album cover design.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

play it sam

Full marks and big congratulations to my buddy Sam who has secured himself a position with TBWA in Dubai.

No teaboy duties and the long, weary crawl up the corporate ladder for our Sam. He goes in straight from Uni as a fully fledged Planner.

Dubai's gain is most certainly the UK's loss.

A lesson I learned from Sam that's stuck with me was as follows.
When describing his disruptive Saatchi baiting antics (much documented elsewhere, so I'll not go into it here again) at a conference we both attended he said:

'When my cv lands on someone's desk, I want them to already know who I am'.

Too bad a UK agency hasn't had the gumption to grab a raw talent.

Best of luck , mate.

value creation agent

Ive been asked a few times recently
'What is it you do?'- ie what is your status?
Now Ive had various 'careers' and job titles through time and traditionally that's what's defined the answer to that question, however on reflection that's not really satisfactory. Where does that leave me if I'm a plumber from 9-5 and a stripper at night?

I quote from the scriptures...
And it is written:

'Keep your silly ways or throw them out the window
The wisdom of your ways, I've been there and I know
Lots of other ways, what a jolly bad show
If all you ever do is business you don't like'
Ian Dury - Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll (1977)

In the interests of creating some value here, this is an excercise in the bleedin' obvious (so obvious it's all too easy to forget).

Something I've come to realise is that;
as human beings 'status' is defined by a combination of the things we think, say and do.

This works for companies, teams or whatever as well, in case you were wondering when the marketing bit is coming in. Ive heard this described as 'inside-out branding'

By first setting a goal (not to be confused with status) - in a digital ad agency for example; give our clients quality, innovation, support and knowledge to help grow their brand and business, or something like that. What do we want to achieve? Stand for something, create value.

Meeting that goal will, more than likely, put you up there in the NMA respected agencies list (that's yer status)

How do you do that? Wisdom and action. That's the cheese and ham in the sandwich.
It's also the difficult bit.
Wisdom = Figure out what to do
Action = and then do it.

Simple - but not easy. What's easy is to bail out if starts getting too hard.

'What is it you do?' - be a value creation agent.

Hat tips to Jason Jarrett and Edward Canfor-Dumas

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

unm2pnm

I'm about to receive a copy of Joseph Jaffe's latest book Join the Conversation.

Joseph has invited 150 bloggers/podcasters to review the book as part of a 'use new marketing to prove new marketing' initiative. Full details of the initiative can be found on his excellent Jaffe Juice.

I've been regularly reading Jaffe Juice and listening to Joseph's podcast for the last couple of years and both helped significantly open my eyes to the new marketing thinking. In fact, I doubt i'd be writing this blog without some of that influence (readers voice: so now we know who to blame...)

I'm also pleased to note he appears to be using the unm2pnm logo I whizzed up.

Once I've read and reviewed the book I'm going to purchase a copy for myself then offer up the free one I got for someone else. Any one who who would like the spare copy drop your name in the comments and i'll stick them in the old tombola and draw a recipient.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

DIY? from post-punk to myspace and back again

In his article Rise Of The DIY Superstar James Cherkoff notes how a young relative described her favourite music to him:

They're all MySpace bands, no one listens to (the Top 40) anymore’.

I commented on his post that the underground has always found alternative distribution channels. The MySpace phenomenon is the logical progression from the DIY ethic that spawned fanzines (Xerox self publishing), the indie distribution networks (Rough Trade, The Cartel, CWNN etc) of the post-punk period and the Acid House explosion of the late 80’s.

He describes the bands that are harnessing digital channels to create their audience - without relying on record companies - as DIY Superstars.

A DIY story…

APB formed in 1979 in Ellon, Aberdeenshire. Their punk/funk hybrid sound combining Bootsy Collins, NY no-wavers ESG and UK post-punkers like the Gang of Four.

Their second single for Aberdeen based Oily Records -‘Shoot You Down’ (1981) found it’s way over the Atlantic to NYC's underground dance clubs - Danceteria, Berlin, the Mudd Club – via London Blitz dj Rusty Egan and heavy rotation on college radio.

The band became a phenomenon in the NY/NJ areas eventually signing with the home of hip-hop electro, Sleeping Bag Records, notching up a No. 1 on the Billboard dance chart with ‘What Kind of Girl’. Bizarrely they could hardly get arrested in the UK during this time despite being legends on the Lower East side and eventually split.
And , yes, that is JB in the pic.

Fast forward to 2006, ‘Something to believe in' – a sort of greatest hits, original copies of which had been changing hands on ebay for ridiculous sums – has been re-released on itunes as the band’s MySpace community swells to 15k plus.

They followed that up with some live dates in NY/NJ and a full set of new songs released as ‘Three’ earlier this year.
I also hear that there’s a remix project in the pipeline for some of the classic early singles.

In a year where the biggest stories in the mainstream media have been the reunions of the likes of Led Zep (hooray!) The Police (boo!) here’s a band that got back together in 2007, used the power of the web to re-unite their audience and added the link to the chain which connects the post-punk DIY ethic to the web2.0 update.

APB on MySpace
Young American Recordings

the greatest punk band that never was...?

What a band this could have been. The Looters: Cook and Jones from the Pistols, Paul Simonon from the Clash with Ray Winstone (!) on vocals.

From the long lost 1982 movie Ladies and Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains

In the Long Tail of everything there's not much that we can't get our hands on, so this must be due for DVD release please?

Friday, January 11, 2008

A new Agency Model?

Thanks to Neil Perkin from the excellent Only Dead Fish for bringing this presentation by Albion to our attention. Much chatter about new agency models in the past year or so. These guys have a pretty decent stab at articulating.

| View | Upload your own

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

The matter in hand.

Props to Jamie C who has alerted us to this anti drink driving initiative from Saatchi & Saatchi in Frankfurt.

The Piss-Screen.

In these driving games - placed in the urinals of bars, clubs - players control the cars using their pee via pressure-sensitive inlay set within urinals. A social utility if I'm not mistaken.

It's unconfirmed whether Wii technology is involved.

Made me remember a bar back in Aberdeen in the early 90's. Behind plexi glass urinals were mini tv screens with footage of Glasgow Rangers footballers on constant rotation. Thus encouraging you to drink more just to have the (possibly - and slightly worryingly - homo-erotic) pleasure of pissing on Mark Hateleys face.
Sadly no pic available.

Whopper freakout Ghetto versions

In case you missed the long form 'viral' where Burger King kid on that the Whopper is being discontinued. Quite funny when they start substituting Wendy burgers and big Mac's for Whoppers.

But even better fun to be had with the 'remixed' Ghetto versions.
'The world is comin' to an end...you gonna fuck us all up!'

Saturday, January 05, 2008

all you need is cash (or 'is advertising a 4 letter word?')

Considering the current grim state of the establishment music biz it comes as no surprise that the holy grail - the Beatles catalogue - is now available for use in ads.

Yes we have no bananas?
In a statement, Sony/ATV - which owns the rights to 259 Lennon and McCartney songs - have said they will allow performances of the aforementioned songs (providing they are by artists other than the fabs) to be used in...wait for it....BRAND PARTNERSHIPS.

The first of these (ahem) 'partnerships' is set to be with P&G in the US for their 'Luvs' nappies - All You Need is Luvs (geddit)

Friday, January 04, 2008

blurb - self publishing, books on demand

I've not been surprised that e-books have not really taken off big style (yet...).
There's something tangible about a physical book that the digital equivalent doesn't satisfy. A bit like 12" LP's.

Dare I say it, it may even be a social object.

With stylish self-publishing service, Blurb, you can print your portfolio, wedding album or novel, i suppose, in various formats.

hat-tip to threeminds.

most contagious 2007

In the flurry of year-end round-ups Contagious magazine have gone beyond the call of duty and have pulled together a nice round up of the best of the best in digital campaigns and bits and bobs of last year.

One for your virtual coffee table.
Download mostcontagious2007.pdf

Our Orange interactive tv work gets noted, albeit a bit too briefly ;)

Monday, December 31, 2007

hogmanay

On the last day of the year I'm indulging in two ancient Scottish traditions.

Number 1: cleaning the house from top to bottom, it's seen as bad luck to go into the new year with last years dirt. Personally I'm of the opinion that it's bad luck to be superstitious but I suppose it's better to be safe than sorry.

Number 2: Later on we will no doubt partake of the traditional Scottish new year ritual of having a wee dram, singing a few verses of 'Loch Lomond' and getting misty eyed and nostalgic for the mythical 'Gods own country' and a time and place we have never been.
Add to this the surreal aspect of acting out these rituals in the heartland of the sworn enemy - leafy Hampshire.

have a good one whatever you're up to.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

a merry jingle

this one rarely crops up on Xmas compilations, Thin Lizzy and the Sex Pistols (aka The Greedy Bastards) from 1979.

See you next year

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Dem Phones

This is really good, courtesy of Lean Mean Fighting Machine.

Lol-inator

Thanks to Lloyd for spotting this bit of a giggle.
This blog makes a lot more sense when plugged in here.
Literally minutes of fun to be had.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

i want one of these...

Can't think what to send me for Christmas?
Vox have brought out these nifty little pocket size headphone guitar amps, the amPlug. In 3 flavours, Classic Rock, Metal, and for traditionalists (like me) the classic AC30. You can also plug in your ipod and jam along. Back in the day - in my first band - all four of us used to plug into one AC30 and make some racket.
Anyway these little fellas are about 30 nicker a pop. Just add Rickenbacker and it's perfect for the axeman or axewoman in your life. More info over here.
Disclosure: Vox are not a client but it would be great if they were..