Word On The Street - Volume 151
Frontside Word on the Street Volume 151
New iPod/New Apple Ad
Apple introduced the new iPod nano this week and it appears to have some cool additions to it, “including a shake-to-shuffle function and accelerometer screen, which senses which direction a user is holding the device. Its curved aluminum case is thinner, sleeker and it has a so-called Genius feature, a function that will make playlists of similar music at the click of a button.” Apple will also introduce a new iPod Touch which will feature a built-in speaker. The machine that is apple just keeps churning. http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/city/story.html?id. In other Apple news, a new commercial premiered this week and it’s pretty freaking cool. Yes, it continues the “I’m a Mac” and “I’m a PC” theme but what’s interesting about this particular ad is where it’s placed. Yes, that’s the front page of the NY Times. Have a watch… Well it appears that I can’t find it. I’m sorry, just trust me, it was funny. Instead you can watch the new Microsoft ad featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. I heard Seinfeld is getting paid $10 million to do the Microsoft ads????
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIjNJZpRtj8
He Leaves Me No Choice
As I have claimed many times before, Kanye West leaves me no choice but to continue to write about him almost every single week. This week he announced a new album coming out in December, he played a secret show for about 50 people at the Knitting Factory in New York, he played a brand new song at the MTV Video Music Awards, oh and he got arrested. The new record will be out December 16th and it will be called “808’s and Heartbreak”. He debuted one of the songs from the album “Love Lockdown” at the VMA’s (it’s not bad, I like that he’s taking chances). Check it out here, http://hiphopst.blogspot.com/2008/09/kanye-west-love-lockdown. And of course Kanye got arrested for trashing some papparazzi’s camera or something like that. Personally, I think that should be legal. http://www.tmz.com/tmz_main_video?titleid=1788889337
The Future of Magazines?
Esquire will celebrate their 75th anniversary in October with an “E-ink cover”. Yeah I don’t really know what the hell that means either. Basically, the cover moves and changes like a TV or computer screen. Wired says, “What is presented as the future of digital/print convergence is little more than ink mashed with some underutilized circuitry.” To be honest I’m not really that impressed, I’m sure if I knew the actual technical process that went into making this happen I’d be blown away but at this point it just kind of looks ghetto to me. If this progresses, which I’m sure it will, it will definitely turn into something impressive. You tell me? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKS12PMdJ6w
http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/09/esquires-first.html
Have You Heard
This week we’ll take a look at Dandi Wind. I’ll leave it up to the Rock of Jaballster to tell you more:
Hot off the heels of releasing a remix record entitled ‘Sacrificial’ featuring the likes of Nick Catchdubs, Jokers Of The Scene and South Central, Dandi Wind is releasing her second full length album entitled ‘Yolk Of The Golden Egg’. With a thunderous opening track one realizes that ‘Yolk Of The Golden Egg’ belongs to that select group of sprawling, personal and complex electronic albums that eschew the clinical detachment of the genre in favor of passion and introspection. In other words, Dandi Wind ‘ain’t for no baby hipsters!’
Dandi Created a short animation to accompany the album. The concept for the Dandi Wind animation was to create a moving version of her cover. The film and album are both called ‘Yolk Of The Golden Egg. The film was done by notable photographer John Londono http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SamQJJ4Jy48
Ear to the Ground
I think this clip is hilarious, although it’s only funny for about 2.1 seconds of the 5 minutes. Thanks to Leake for sending this along. It’s a clip of Noel Gallagher of Oasis almost getting shoved off of the stage by a sneaky concert-goer. Forward to about 1:25 in the clip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX5JBsKih0c
I talked about Terry Lynn, who is an artist from Jamaica and signed to Last Gang Records, a while back and the response that I received was amazing. People really loved what they heard. Well here’s something new. It’s the new video for “The System” http://this.bigstereo.net/2008/09/06/terri-lynn/. It’s FIRE! Oh and it’s pretty graphic so please be aware it’s not for the faint of heart. Look for the album on September 23rd.
The Midway State is starting to really blow up. They just played V-Fest last weekend and then made an appearance on Much on Demand at Much Music on Wednesday. The video for Never Again is really getting a lot of attention and I expect the story to keep growing from here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXYE-Oju3FY
Here’s a clip that’s a little dated but is just too funny to pass up. Thanks to JT for sending it over. These guys have obviously gone to the Monty Python school of comedy. There is a whole series of these clips if you look around youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxVy8-7tyio
Another of our favourite acts this year at Frontside is Crystal Castles. Coming off an amazing 8 week run at #1 on the Canadian college radio charts, they have released a video for Crimewave. http://www.stereogum.com/archives/video/new-crystal-castles
And another awesome band released a brand new video this week! Said The Whale dropped their video for Course of the Currents, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzJrVVXAQpE The video was shot in English Bay in Vancouver and you just might recognize some of the furry characters from videos past.
Gary calls this mask the “worst mask ever”. It’s a Halloween mask for kids that want to be Obama. Gazza says it looks like a Ronald Reagan mask gone awry. Personally I think it’s just a prop from the Point Break 2 set, the bank robbers are the “future presidents of the United States” this time around. http://www.amazon.com/Barack-Obama-Adult-Mask-2008/dp
Speaking of government hopefuls, here’s a clip from Funnyordie.com featuring Gina Gershon as Sarah Palin. I might think this is funny, I might not. I don’t really want to reveal my personal US political bias (refer above). http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/61410aa4ff
More people should know about Adam Tensta. We’ve talked about the Swedish rapper before in WOTS and if you didn’t check him out last time, I urge you to do so now. He’s got a new video out, it definitely reminds me of the Justice D.A.N.C.E video and Kanye’s Good Life but it’s still fresh. http://www.discobelle.net/2008/09/08/adam-tensta-dope-boy-video/
Pic of the Week
Let’s go a little crazy with pictures this week. We got Terry Lynn, Adam Tensta, The Midway State, Dandi Wind and Crystal Castles.
Thanks for reading,
Craig Larson
Director of Street and Lifestyle Marketing
Frontside Promotions Group
web: www.frontsidegroup.com
www.flickr.com/photos/frontsidestreetmarketing/sets
Got something you wanna get on the street? Let us know.
Effective, affordable and just plain cool street promo.