Musicians Squeak E. Clean and DJ Zegon joined forces under the name NASA (North America/South America) to release their first album, The Spirit of Apollo, which has been in-progress since '03.
Promotion strikes me as general and disorganized, but the pair has many talented hands behind it. According to the pressie, the Apollo album was conceived "with the righteous goal of bringing people together through music and art" -- as a result, it's heavy with surprising collaborations and interesting visual media.
Tom Waits growls over Kool Keith, Karen O taunts while Ol' Dirty Bastard gives shout-outs to Wu Tang and N.A.S.A from the grave, and David Byrne, Chuck D and others expound on the evils of "Money."
Other collaborators include Method Man, Seu Jorge, Kanye West, Santogold, George Clinton. Then there's the charmed director team: Syd Garon, Paul Griswold, 3Legged Legs and Flourescent Hill.
Artists that donated paint and pens to the animated music videos include Shepard Fairey, Sage Vaughn, The Date Farmers, Mark Gonzales, Marcel Dzama and Splunny. Some also contributed original album cover designs, so CD buyers get five interchangeable covers per copy.
I realize this is a lot going on so I'm gonna just show you stuff. Here's the latest release, People Tree with David Byrne, Chali 2na (from J-5!) and art by Marcel Dzama. It's magically delicious.
more »
Riding Ad Land's current obsession with breaking into Guinness, Cricket has just produced the world's largest cell phone -- a gigantosaur Samsung Messager composed of "wood, metal, lights, wizardry, and love."
Video here.
The phone -- so big you risk cardiac arrest if you happen to be lying on it in vibrate mode -- kicks off Cricket's Get Some Respekt campaign. See it in person through March 15th in Chicago; the monster of mobile hits Philly on the 20th.
Orchestrated by Seattle's Cultural Engineers and events firm NEVERSTOP.
We've all heard the legend that JK Rowling sketched the birth of Harry Potter out on a diner napkin while scratching by on welfare. The iconic "I Love New York" campaign was supposedly conceived in similarly humble circumstances -- on somebody's crumpled serviette.
To leverage the power of this unlikely muse, the School of Visual Arts re-imagines diner napkins, toilet paper, sugar sachets and other incidental scraps as college-ruled paper.
Across the bottom of each sheet is the message, "Think. School of Visual Arts." Nice, simple and instantly-engaging. We wish we had some doodle-worthy napkin now, and we're not sure we even remember how to use a pen.
Work by Knarf/New York; more photos at Toxel.com.
This short film on pretending to work was put together entirely on Microsoft Office for Mac -- which is more than what we can say for Crispin's "I'm a PC" campaign.
It's a fun little watch, loaded with sneaky new tips for feigning productivity while rehashing stuff you probably already do -- like keeping that Excel spreadsheet just within easy toggling distance.
We much prefer iWork, but MSFT Office for Mac does have its merits. Props to the magical, miraculous Krystalline Armendariz for taking it upon herself to share a few. To support her, pass the YouTube link around.
more »
Continuing that creepy Japanese game show-inspired shaving fetish campaign thing for Nivea, DraftFCB and Rubber Republic assault us with Foam Beard Lady.
We are appropriately terrified.
The associated microsite guides shaving addicts to Stepping Stones Retreat, where a slightly Running with Scissors-y doctor will promise to cure you of glabermania while eye-raping you with Nivea shaving products. Compulsive shavers will no doubt be pleased.
more »
Victims of Office Space probably remember the unforgettable reference to the O face -- that almost embarrassingly vulnerable expression guys make when they're stuffing somebody full of meat popsicle.
Under the mistaken impression that it's clever (and maybe on some level it is), Three Olives Vodka has launched a "What's Your O-Face" contest. Give 'em your best O and you could win $10,000, a "VIP trip to NYC" (what is that, a Broadway show and coke?) and the privilege of getting your O-face splashed all over a national ad campaign.
Think of it! You could be the village bicycle ... except for the whole country.
Associated creative: blue O-face, cherry O-face, root beer O-face.
Here, Nordpol envisions a secret world populated by IKEA furniture.
Hrm. Wonder whose unfortunate job it was to parse out the setup manual for all those levitating lawn chairs. The spoon fish were neat, though.
more »
2K Sports promotes video game MLB2K9 with an ad where a Giants player schools his (adorably earnest) virtual self in both work and play.
It's witty work, a big plus considering there's no genuinely exciting way to hype a video game about baseball.
Agency: Ground Zero.
UPDATE: If you'd like a more mundane version of this piece, click here.
more »
Here's a clever way to highlight the "extremely realistic sound" touted by Loewe.
You've got a choir performing a piece. When an invisible remote zapper toggles between sound options, the orchestra changes in order to provide the desired audio texture. As "bass" increases on a dial, some bassists run in; a woman raises her voice -- then lowers it -- as treble changes; and higher volume results in a last-minute dash to the stage by previously-unseen performers.
The conductor's "WTF?" face ties it all together nicely, and the ad wraps up by panning away from the choir to reveal a television frame. Nice work by Scholz & Friends/Berlin, and production firm Element E.
We can also envision an online engagement opportunity on the website -- letting users toggle sounds from their keyboards in various settings. No such luck yet though.
more »
To celebrate Barbie's 50-year anniversary, Chanel's own Karl Lagerfeld designed a Barbie/Ken exhibit for Colette in Paris. The exhibit will be visible in Colette store windows from March 9-15th, including a "high security exhibition" of the first-ever Barbie and Ken dolls on the 12th.
See all the pretty pretties.
If you're less interested in the aesthetics of Barbie than in her history, you definitely wanna check out The Big Money's awesome timeline of Barbie's social progression over the past half-century. It made us glad she shafted Ken in the early '00s -- dude was never that hawt.
more »
|
|
