Stuff I Like
the song: Compliments from Band of Horses
Jul 27th
Okay. So this will complete my “bearded songs I suggest you listen to” week. Compliments from Band of Horses from their new cd Infinite Arms.
While I have always liked their sound I also have thought their music has been a little uneven in listenability. But they have such a distinct sound if you like one song (and No One is Gonna Love You Better is as good as it gets) you keep on coming back around for more. Compliments has a slightly more upbeat and bigger sound than many of their other songs.
In addition. The video for his song is awesome. Really interesting in its use of morphing ad photography. The technique they use is fascinating and you will be tempted to slow down or pause in sections just to see what they do (although the entire video can give you a headache if you watch it too closely).
Here is the video (I wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to link to it so my friend Brad was kind enough to send it to me):
URL: http://vimeo.com/10566868
To be honest with everyone this isn’t brilliant songwriting. The music certainly doesn’t push the envelope and true musicians will probably suggest it is mainstream mediocrity (that doesn’t make it any less fun to listen to).
And the lyrics can be a little trite.
(chorus): “if there is a god up in the air, someone looking over everyone, at least you’ve got something to fall back on.”
But.
It is feel good nonsense. And really good listening feel good nonsense. And it is good enough to remind you that Band of Horses is a better than average band. And it gives you hope that somewhere in their songwriting future portfolio is something truly iconic.
Oh.
On top if it all. Beyond the well crafted hooks and beautiful jangly rambling melodic chords there is Ben Bridwell. Looking past his healthy beard you will find a vulnerable clear voice that raises above all the music with a pureness that makes band of horses …. Well … band of horses.
I would imagine the cd is a good listen. I know this song certainly is. Enjoy.
national program to support Childhood Curiosity
Jul 27th
So I saw a TV commercial encouraging maintaining arts/music in schools curriculum the other day. I didn’t pay much attention to the details and I am not really a government program gwonk (whatever that is) but I assume someone in their infinite wisdom is cutting money supporting these things in schools.
Well, in general, I would say I would jump on this soapbox.
But.
I won’t because of ignorance with regard to the choice. Huh? If I support this, does funding get cut from some other children’s education program? As I stated I am not a policy gwonk so I don’t really know how these things work.
But.
Here is what I do know.
Every child is born curious.
And every child has an unopened box of curiosity which has a key to open it.
And I do know every child needs a different key to open it.
For me it was words. Words in songs. Words in books. Whatever. I listened to the radio music incessantly and read every Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy book I could get my hands on. Somewhere in elementary school a teacher read us Tolkien’s The Hobbit during reading hour. (I couldn’t wait to be able to read it on my own.)
For others I assume it’s something else.
The stars and planets and space.
Playing an instrument.
Understanding what makes things run and go.
How do things live.
Why is the grass green and the sky blue.
Crap like that.
Frankly I don’t care about any individual program (music, math, social studies, chemistry, etc.).
What I care about is giving children a box of keys and let them figure out what opens their curiosity box. And then making sure that curiosity never grows hungry. That it can be fed for as long as they want to keep eating. Curiosity will never have an obesity issue .. there should be an all-you-can-eat buffet 24-7 for kids.
Is that realistic? Once again, frankly, I don’t care.
This is me being unreasonable. Having music fight for money from sciences who is trying to make sure they have money from machine shop/woodworking is kinda nuts. You are choosing among the children (literally and figuratively).
So while I am okay with a TV commercial fighting for something like music in schools I am not okay that money has to be spent on the fight (versus actually using the money for feeding kid’s curiosity).
This is not “no child left behind” (although I guess if I did some research I could be really sure about that statement).
In fact, I read somewhere that inadvertently the ‘no child left behind’ program kind of created the arts cutback situation because funds had to be diverted to sciences & math to insure the program met its goals (I don’t think anyone planned it to work that way).
Heck. President Obama announced a $250 million initiative to train math and science teachers and help meet his goal of pushing America’s students from the middle to the top of the pack in those subjects in the next decade. Obama said the $250 million in public and private investments for his “Educate to Innovate” campaign will help train more than 100,000 teachers and prepare more than 10,000 new educators in the next five years. I am all for that also. Just not at the expense of other curriculum options students could select.
Why do we have to choose one over the other? (I guess that is where I get stuck on this issue)
So. What would I do? (being the unreasonable guy I am)
Use that 250 million to train Curiosity Fulfillment teachers. Create a Curiosity Fund and go get stuff in front of kids. And keep shoving it at them until they find something they gravitate to. The only reason (in my opinion) kids “give up” in school is because they just don’t find anything relevant to them. I am NOT suggesting we should ignore a well rounded education (they do need to know 2 and 2 is 4 and stuff like that) but give them a “hook.” Something to hold on to. Something that inspires them to want to know more.
There you go – a National Childhood Curiosity Program. Educating to feed Curiosity.
addictive song: beg steal or borrow by ray lamontagne
Jul 27th
Ray Lamontagne is an acquired taste. He has a new cd coming out in mid august (that is not it to the left .. . that is an old good cd example). I think this song, Beg Steal or Borrow, is the pre-release for the cd. A lot of his other stuff gets a little too soft for my tastes but this song has a little folksier rambling sound to it.
It kind of has a Pure Prairie League sound to it (which is a good thing because Falling in and out of Love/Amie remain one of my favorite songs of all time).
(had to include that song): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8X_gws1Rck&feature=related
Anyway.
‘Beg Steal or Borrow’ is country but not country. It has a slow non rushed western rolling sound to it. It just kind of moseys along (I don’t get to type that often). It certainly has the sound you can imagine playing this while cruising down an old highway somewhere in the middle of America. It has some nice nuanced key changes in the vocals and beautiful steel guitar.
In general Ray’s music isn’t for those seeking uplifting energetic music (unlike wakey!wakey! who I posted yesterday and also has a beard). Ray’s lyrics tend to be introspective and he writes stark melodies. But. Owning a couple of cds of his, his good stuff is good. This one is good.
Beg Steal or Borrow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6a_1R3w5i4
Enjoy.
new song: Light Outside by WAKEY!WAKEY!
Jul 26th
So. About the only thing I am a sucker for in songwriting, beyond a bass player who writes songs, is a keyboard singer/songwriter. This guy is a dynamic personality at the piano and isn’t afraid to wrap different instruments (violins and strings) to fill out a pretty frenetic writing style.
Also has a wonderful habit of filling in the harmony with a female voice which is interesting because his voice has a higher quality anyway.
Anyway. Light Outside is a simple but complex song which probably makes it interesting.
Simple in that at its core it is just a piano player singing a minimalistic lyric story.
Complex because it has a parallel frenetic and calm musical style.
Anyway. His singing style isn’t really conducive to a love ballad but his song has a heart wrenching thread to it that kind of tugs at your heart and makes you think. (I include another track at the end of the post too.)
Light Outside youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD02bI09dOM&feature=related
(i don’t particularly like the official video so I didn’t include it)
The lead singer is really interesting. This comes from their website:
“I was a scrawny, dopey kid—the worst athlete on the face of the planet,” says Wakey!Wakey! frontman Mike Grubbs. “You know tee ball? I got to first base one time.”
Grubbs grew up in a house learning to play a burgundy baby grand in a music room that also housed a French horn, clarinet, violin and autoharp. In his youth his mother—a longtime piano teacher and choir director—would ask the kids to sight read songs before they could even think of eating cereal.
“For every school subject done,” he says, “I could play the piano for an hour. It was almost like video games for me.” The games got a bit more complicated in high school, as Grubbs stumbled upon the songbooks of Billy Joel and Elton John. Not to mention the arena-ready anthems of Led Zeppelin as well as Bach, Beethoven and Brahms (you will note a classical thread in his music).
“One of my main influences now is the fact that I didn’t have someone teach me proper jazz or rock playing,” explains Grubbs. “I had no idea how to put a song together; no one telling me, ‘Hey, you should check out Gershwin,’ but it was all so fascinating to me. So I found my own style by experimenting with what works and what doesn’t.”
It is a different style of music. It is an infectious frenetic pop sound with classical (or maybe jazz) undertones. Pick up the song. Heck. Pick up the cd.
Oh.
A bonus. “Almost Everything.” It is the second song I heard from Wakey!Wakey!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiQo6DoXknY
It sounds really good. It will be interesting to follow these guys.
public radio music surprise
Jul 25th
It’s an 11 hour drive from San Francisco to Portland Oregon. You can listen to a lot of music and check out a boatload of crappy music stations. So when I wandered into the bottom end of the dial and the public radio station was ending a talk segment and moving into music I almost skipped over expecting either some random African metal drum timpani yodeling group or maybe some sung poetry scat thing but when the opening chord to Night Train (Bruce Cockburn) came out of the speakers I stuck around to hear what they had to play. What an awesome three song set. Three great songs and three great deliveries (Cockburn’s and Adams songs are particularly good). Here you go:
- Bruce Cockburn “Night Train” from 2003 Charity of Night album. Great driving song because it uses that train chugging along the tracks beat and has this beautiful sparse guitar picking across the top of the rest of the band chugging along behind the vocal. He will never be an opera singer type voice but he has that rustic sound that fits perfectly with the overall feel of the song and driving and … well … big countryside. And after such a nice simple clean almost forlorn feel it ends with this really messy guitar overlay. It’s a 6 minute + song and it doesn’t feel too long. Oh. And Bruce adds in a nice female voice to fill in under his vocals which smooths a couple of portions of the song and adds in a nice softening element.
‘Night Train’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYxnNG2dxMw
- Carrie Rodriguez “I made a Lover’s Prayer.” I am fairly sure this is a remake (but I am too lazy to check). While it is slightly different than the first and the third in this three song set it fits in the middle perfectly just like the marshmallow middle in a moon pie. It is a simple song. It’s a beautiful song. It’s a heartfelt song. And she has always had a great voice and sang okay songs (I have always wondered if she would ever make it big) but in this song it’s like she found the perfect song to sing.
‘I made a lover’s Prayer’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOk6CpAfXcw (I couldn’t find a studio version to link to and the beginning of the video will give you a headache but she plays a sweet guitar)
- Ryan Adams and the Cardinals “Cold Roses”. Ok. Ryan Adams is maddening. He writes so much stuff and at least half of it is crap you want to give up on it. And then a song like this comes on the radio (and I even had this cd and didn’t realize it was there). Cold Roses is everything great about Ryan Adams. Beautifully crafted song. Multi layered with a variety of different instruments and Ryan’s voice kinda keeping it moving along melodically with those wistful words he writes (the type when they are written well are impeccable). But. What makes this song is this guitar that almost sounds like they asked old Neil Young when he was playing Cortez the Killer and asked him to sit and jam. It is this kind of clean jangly strong sharp sound that weaves in and out (or someone could suggest it has a little Grateful Deady type guitar feel). Awesome song.
‘Cold Roses’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7qMaiFNTPM&feature=related (this is the full song … the last minute of this song will show you synchronized guitar playing at its best)
- This is a bonus ‘cold roses.’ It is only a 1:24 live clip but it captures the guitar sound AND if you want to hear possibly the most amazing live vocal harmonizing this clip is worth listening to – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3swTRypEUEQ
Awesome set.
stay thirsty my friends
Jul 23rd
I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis.
Dos Equis. What an awesome campaign. What an awesome idea. What an awesome way of elevating a relatively unknown product to a place where people are wondering, if not just thinking about the product, of not actually buying to maybe to try it.
Look. I should have written about this campaign, and idea, a long time ago. In fact so long ago I shelved the idea thinking what the hell … it’s too late.
But this campaign keeps coming back and is still interesting.
You may not know that this is the second attempt at using this “most interesting man” character and development of product personality.
The actor behind the ‘most interesting man’, Jonathan Goldsmith, has been playing this part since 2006. And I believe the first campaign of commercials was in 2007.
Apparently it didn’t kick ass originally and went away for a long while. But someone, either at Dos Equis or Euro RSCG (who created the campaign), must have seen enough promise in the concept to stick with it because the same spots started running again the following year. And this time around the “most interesting man in the world” struck a chord and this new beer icon was born.
So. Pretty much anyone who has a TV is aware of, “The Most Interesting Man in the World,” campaign.
The salt-and-pepper haired gentleman with the smooth voice and a taste for adventure. I am addicted to him. I admit it. it is the things that make him the ‘most interesting’ … well … interesting:
He once had an awkward moment, just to see how it feels.
He can speak French… in Russian.
He is the life of the party, even when he does not attend.
Policemen often question him simply because he’s interesting.
He once had an awkward moment, just to see how it felt.
He lives vicariously through himself.
He goes to museums and they let him touch the art.
Even his enemies list him as their emergency contact number.
Years ago, he built a city out of blocks. Today, over six hundred thousand people live and work there.
If he were to give you directions, you’d never get lost, and you’d arrive at least 5 minutes early.
People hang on his every word, even the prepositions.
He is the only man to ever ace a Rorschach test.
Every time he goes for a swim, dolphins appear.
His personality is so magnetic; he is unable to carry credit cards.
He never says something tastes like chicken. Not even chicken.
He could disarm you with his looks… or his hands. Either way.
His charm is so contagious; vaccines have been created for it.
And his closing line “Stay thirsty my friends.”
So. I am not gonna give you any brand or branding gobbledygook because this was a great idea and it builds a personality for the product.
Period.
(all the branding experts can pile on about all the other things associated with the gant charts you present on how to build a brand).
I don’t care if it’s a shitty product (well. I do actually but that’s a different post).
But. If I drink a Dos Equis I can almost guarantee people will think I am interesting (or at least joke about it).
Once again. Period. Stop. Good enough. Job well done.
Few advertising campaigns actually go beyond advertising and begin shaping the kind of character development you kind of dream of when you start marketing a product. And this one is doing just that.
And it’s not just me. People love this campaign. I know they do (how?).
Because Millward Brown says so.
Dos Equis has been able to take an extremely popular tongue in cheek character and through targeted placement through a variety of tactics get people to send it around the web (and the world and just talk about it) and make it successful according to market research by Millward Brown. The TV campaign is in the top five percent of most enjoyable ads in U.S. research history.
The campaign covers TV, print, interactive online, radio and event promotions. Videos and ads were posted on YouTube as well as a number of other sites with the intent of having consumers appreciate the ‘out of the realm of possibility’ character and send it to one another.
The website is pretty awesomely done also.
So. What makes the character appealing?
The campaign idea (I guess I could call the guy a mnemonic tactic) is not insulting.
It’s so deeply satisfying because it is intriguing, well written and so outrageous it is fascinating to see how “interesting” the most interesting man can be.
Like any great fictional character, even though it’s completely made up, it’s so outrageously true. It lives on in people’s minds because it takes real attributes and stretches them to the unbelievable boundary (which is funny in its extremes).
This fictional character is a cross between Ernest Hemingway, Bill Murray, Burt Reynolds and some Count from a nonexistent place in central Europe. This guy harkens back to the old concept of what a man’s man should be. To the exponential factor. The nth degree.
In love with women and booze, but classier than most, he travels the world seeking experiences (“his beard alone has experienced more than a lesser man’s entire body.”). Awesome.
Lastly. The part I truly love. Possibly the most interesting thing about the commercials is that he never really commits to promoting Dos Equis. He only prefers it. The closest he comes is with the tag line:
“I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis.”
So. The most interesting man in the world is not an avid beer drinker but when he does want one, the most interesting man must select an interesting beer to quaff (or if you are the most interesting man do you sip, gulp, chug or drain?). Whatever, the ads are totally awesome.
Here are a sampling of Three Most Interesting Man commercials (enjoy my friends):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ym2Jma04qo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYdwe3ArFWA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9GYocBqGyA&feature=related
Don’t stay thirsty. Grab a Dos Equis!
difficult gets done immediately
Jul 22nd
“The difficult we do immediately. The impossible take a little longer.”
US Army
While this quote is attributable to the Army my sense is this is the attitude of all of the services.
Walt Disney said “it’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”
I guess what I like about all of them is the inherent belief that nothing is impossible.
Or maybe better said is “before you accept the impossible treat everything like it is possible”.
Too many times I have heard “impossible” thrown out so flippantly as a stop sign for people who don’t want to go the extra mile.
I guess I have also found that rarely are things 100 percent impossible.
I admit.
When I hear “that’s impossible” I typically perk up a little and go “really, impossible you say” and my brain starts going into overdrive thinking of the possibilities of what is … well … possible.
I don’t think I am that different than a lot of people.
Virgil got it right:
“They are able because they think they are able.”
I do believe that as soon as you start thinking you are able to do something it becomes a little irrelevant if someone else has put the infamous ‘impossible’ label on it.
Thinking you are able to enables you to do.
Sure.
Some things really are impossible.
A 4 second 100 yard dash. Looking good in a lime green polyester suit. Seeing if you have no sight.
But.
That doesn’t mean you can’t finish faster than you may have.
Or find a situation where someone won’t laugh as much when you wear the suit.
Or seeing things from a different perspective.
Maybe what i am suggesting is rarely is impossible absolute.
It has degrees of possible within the impossible.
And what I know for a fact is that our military understands this 100%.
Every organization could learn a lesson from them.
Given the impossible task they ignore “impossible” and focus on addressing the possible no matter how difficult it is and when that is done someone is already prepared to say:
“well, we have gone this far, what the heck, those impossible things we looked at before, damn, they look a little more possible now that we are here.”
And that is the only reason the impossible takes a little longer.
Think about it the next time someone says something is impossible.
They are gonna look awful silly when you make the impossible possible at some point.
burger mcsausage unoriginal smarts
Jul 21st
so. This television advertisement introducing the Burger King breakfast sausage biscuit (the one where the creepy king breaks into McDonald’s headquarters to steal the mcmuffin recipe):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF86Rb-uFNE
The execution doesn’t confuse me but the effort makes me pause and scratch my head a little.
But I guess if you have more money then you know what to do with and you see research numbers that show “people consider McDonalds for breakfast and not Burger King” and you already know what McDonalds best breakfast seller is then you spend some of that money saying “hey we have the same thing just in case you didn’t know.”
There are several things I do like about this:
Competitive but not competitive. It’s odd but they are going for the competitor jugular in an interesting way. They state that they are going to offer an unoriginal product (in that they are simply stealing someone else’s ‘good idea’). But. That also implies that it’s not rocket science stuff. That maybe the original McD’s breakfast biscuit just isn’t that “unique.” (clever guys those Crispin fellows – Crispin is burger kings’ agency of record).
No superiority. Simply “hey, if you like us <burger king> and you want exactly what you could get if you stopped at the bastards down the street here you go. We have it for you. We are willing to copy if it makes you happy.” Kind of shows you like your customers and will do whatever it takes to make them happy (even steal I guess).
And then the creepy king. Here is where I give Crispin the highest marks of all.
For years while brilliant the agency has been “one-off” brilliant. One great brilliant idea. Non campaignable. Lose client after one brilliant idea because they didn’t really have a great follow-up.
(Look. The BMW mini campaign the agency built their main reputation on was not a creative messaging brilliance idea it was a tactical brilliance concept … which I give them kudos for just don’t want to oversell their brilliance … or misidentify it).
Anyway. Back to the creepy king. Alex Bogusky is our generation’s Bill Bernbach. And he has matured (in my humble opinion) to a point where he is truly earning that pedestal. The Burger King creepy king is a great showcase for why I believe it to be so. The young Bogusky would probably have shoved a brand/company mnemonic device sustaining multiple campaigns over time so far up a client’s ass a proctologist would have been envious. But. He (or at least he encouraged his teams) stepped up and said “well, let’s make the best of it and I want to do it my way …. creatively and interestingly and sometimes creepy when we are wrong in the execution but sticking with it and getting it right.” They have made it work. And made it work over time. They have a sustainable mnemonic device (or branding element or whatever you want to call it).
Anyway.
I slam people but I also want to give some credit where credit is due.
Cannot wait to see what the creepy king does next.





