Spending some time in Lisbon recently. A city that could be defined sonically by the cars rumbling over the bridge, the sound of the Tram bell, or this, the sound of a man calling out for people to buy the lottery ticket near to the fantastic Santa Justa lift…
I have been experiencing the highs and lows of easyjet recently.
The Easyjet Low:
A 1950 flight from Madrid to London Gatwick gets delayed for 70 minutes because the guys checking the tickets at the Gate let on a passenger who was heading to Luton, not Gatwick. It took a while for the ‘extra’ passenger to be tracked down and taken off the flight. We get to Gatwick as the thunderstorm hits the airport, so we get redirected to Stanstead! There, the pilot parks up then offers the passengers two choices:
Option 1: We fuel up and take off immediately for Gatwick (the weather had cleared by this time)
Option 2: We get off at Stanstead then take coaches back to Gatwick.
As all hell breaks loose on the plane, with people at the front dictating terms to the pilot, whilst we sit at the back, the pilot then announces that three people want to get off the plane (Probably live in North London and couldn’t believe their luck!) He says he cannot force them to sit on the plane, so therefore EVERYONE has to disembark. So we then face another long wait for a bus to take us to the terminal, then a longer queue to get through Passport control (well it was around 2a.m. by now). Oh and no bus waiting for us. Given I had my car at Gatwick, i had no choice but to get in a cab firm who thought Xmas had come early (Yeah mate, that will be £128 to Gatwick…). Shared the cab with three others, got my car and got home around 4:45a.m.
The EasyJet high
This week I flew from Lisbon to Paris with Easyjet. As we were taxiing towards the terminal, Easyjet put on this music
The Sound of Easyjet
Now this is clearly the Sound of EASYJET that the company wants to leave with us. Uptempo, positive, fun. This would have worked for me but for two things…
First, it conflicts with other sounds of easyjet I head on their planes (so no consistency)
Second, I still hear that crazy pilot in my head offering passengers that choice…
So I woke up and I am supposed to go and check out the nominees for the Mercury Prize, at The Hospital Club, at 11am..do music industry people even wake up before 11am?
Kasabian played live right in front of me, while I was still trying to have my morning dose of caffeine, then comes Lisa Hannigan with her beautiful voice….Superb.
Then you enter the press room (and this is me with my blackberry) and there are ALL the nominees plus all the media you can think of.
There was my favourite album of 2009 - Speech Debelle’s “Speech Therapy” (here’s a piccie of me with Speech!)…a band whose members had the worst hairdos I’ve ever seen in my life…The Horrors (really? Could never guess), Florence & The Machine (Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) - best video clip ever) she didn’t know how to handle the actual prize for the photo hence the strange position she held it in…Bat for Lashes´ Natasha Khan is the kind of girl I wanna be, cuuute…La Roux wasn´t there ( I believe she is in the US, good for you)…The Invisible band were there, and man they’re not Invisible whatsoever, and as you’ll see from the photos one of them is most definitely NOT INVISIBLE at all. You can check out all my photos from the Mercury launch here
And this years nominees are:
Florence + the Machine ‘Lungs’
Kasabian ‘West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum’
Speech Debelle ‘Speech Therapy’
Friendly Fires ‘Friendly Fires’
La Roux ‘La Roux’
Bat for Lashes ‘Two Suns’
The Horrors ‘Primary Colours’
Glasvegas ‘Glasvegas’
Led Bib ‘Sensible Shoes’
Sweet Billy Pilgrim ‘Twice Born Men’
The Invisible ‘The Invisible’
Lisa Hannigan ‘Sea Sew’
When we say that we help brands and organisations with their sonic brand identity, we cover everything…even parties!
Those lovely people at the IAA UK chapter (and Michael ‘Prince fan’ Toedman particularly) asked us to deliver some great music for the 80s themed Summer Ball.
We had Nelly, Nuno and our very own citizen Paul Martin playing the sounds covering lots of great sounds (cool ones and simply ones that you have to dance to). Talking of which here is a little clip…
Not sure what I can say about some of the dance moves going on…
A selection of some of the faces there…
Mariana loved this look…
Is that Meike and a dayglo friend?
Meanwhile citizen Mariana shares the spotlight with Kate Williams of Columbus Media
And the suave sophisticated folks from Publieurope prepare for the dancefloor
More photos found here
Harrod’s. The Bazaar for the rich and famous.
Harrod’s Sale. Not like any other sale. So true.
I popped in today to have a listen to the shop. Entered through the main entrance and came upon the Sale Room full of Perfumes. It was shock and awe on my sense of smell.
Then the sense of sound kicked in.
As the room was filled with noisy people grabbing D&G Skunk spray and the happy sounds of disco house.
You could almost be at a bad night in Ibiza…Bizarre Bazaar indeed…
This month we’ve got 18 tracks of fantastic summer tunes for you to listen to with our latest citizensound “It All Ads Up” podcast.
This is the first time we’ve used the rather excellent SoundCloud service to provide you with our regular podcast of our favourite tunes for all of you in advertising and brand land. If you want to download the podcast simply click on the downward facing arrow on the soundcloud player and your download of “It All Ads Up” should start. We hope you enjoy our little summer holiday soundtrack!
When we launched soundsearch, our bespoke music search and licensing facility, just over 12 months ago we wanted to deliver something different to the marketplace. We don’t have a fancy computerised system, but what we do have is over 40 years of music business experience and a huge collection and knowledge of music that can cover almost every base and genre imaginable.
We hope you enjoy this month’s podcast. If you want more information about soundsearch contact mariana@citizensound.net
Here’s our latest sync for Rubicon’s Watermelon ad campaign produced by Ed Chilcott and Tim Clyde at the Minimart. The track ‘Watermelon On The Vine’ is by the Delta Rhythm Boys and dates back to the 1920s. We hope you like it…
My first boombox was called a Tensai Rhytm Machine. It looked like a standard boombox but it also allowed you to split the stereo into two recordable mono tracks and included five or six pre-set rhythms, which if you held two of the buttons down together allowed to ‘mix’ the rhythms. Prior to the invention of the first Tascam 4 track portastudio’s this was the first thing I owned that allowed me to record music with some basic overdubs and a rhythm track. Many happy hours were spent in my bedroom trying to be the next Durutti Column. Sadly my guitar playing never quite made the grade…
This video documentary created by National Public Radio in the US (who also produce some amazing free live concert podcasts avialable on iTunes), is a great 10 minute history of the boombox. It’s a shame that JVC never capitalised on the brand fame they aquired amongst the Hip-Hop community. How many brands since have tried to get rappers to positively namecheck them in a song?
Many artists seem to have taken to Twitter like ducks to water. While some musicians found the idea of keeping a blog going too daunting, Twitter provided an easy way to connect with their fans. Even Nine Inch Nails Trent Reznor, who recently claimed he was giving up on social media, just couldn’t stay away and is happily tweeting away again.
But Twitter’s staggering success (it grow by a staggering 752% last year) has meant that the marketing world has pricked up it ears and started to work out how to use it market products. But like any form of social media it’s so easy to get it very very wrong. Spam no matter what form it takes is unlikely to gain you friends. And the worst form of spam in the Twitterverse is using #hashtags, which allows you to post to all users who are interested in a specific topic. It may seem to some marketers that this is a great way to get to a large number of people quickly, but it is likely to have the opposite effect.
Before you start using Twitter to promote your latest releases I suggest you check out this case study on what not to do, which highlights how Habitat got it so so wrong with there recent Twitter campaign…
Saw Bobby McFerrin tonight at South Bank, London as part of Ornette Coleman’s Meltdown.
I have seen him perform a number of times, the first time going back to the mid-80s when his first album came out. Whilst not a fan of his dabblings with poppy songs and a sometimes throwaway approach to some beautiful songs, I truly admire his voice. he really is one of the great innovators.
So to have Ornette Coleman step out at the end of the concert for an impromtu performance with McFerrin, the night was made.
Coleman led (as he so often has), but McFerrin matched him, demonstrating his prowess and skill as a vocal musician.
Glorious night.
|
