Brett Macfarlane

Chilling With Kanye in Paris

Came across an atypically typical Parisian occurrence last week on the second of my two one night layovers in Paris.

We grabbed some Velib's (the bike share scheme whose continued membership is my most beloved extravagance) for a night ride along Canal St. Martin.  

We rode down my favourite haunt, rue Bretagne, and stopped for a little projection performance on the bare wall overlooking Marché Enfants Rouge; the oldest covered market in Paris.  

The performance was watched by a couple hundred well dressed, coiffed and camera'ed up Parisians spilling out of Café Charlot onto the street.

The sort of event that seems to happen with great frequency in Paris; jammed together Parisians being Parisians making the most of their city streets to soak up a cultural spectacle that doesn't require tickets or a theatre.  Brilliant.

The track banging through the neighbourhood sounded, to obnoxiously quote myself, "like a French Kanye West."

Turns out it was Kanye West's new track New Slaves.  

This was one of 66 such events around the world that night, the same day the track was first performed on Saturday Night Live in America and streamed on kanyewest.com.

A fact I learned two days later, just now.

It reminded me that a few years back "trans-media" narratives were a bit of a thing, but they seem to have gotten lost under the umbrella of integration.

Inherently, good and fresh media with a perspective on our world is transmedia.  Even if it only existed originally in one place.  

Transmedia isn't the chart with all the plumbing of the internet - it is the real way creative things flow.   The way them permeate all channels in ways that cannot be 100% predicted.

It is the idea over the technique.  Both are important but technique is meaningless without idea.

Sure it was marketing, what isn't - but if it wasn't interesting and genuinely compelling to begin with, I wouldn't have stopped on Saturday and taken some shots, publications wouldn't have written about it and I wouldn't be caring about it now.

There was no branding or "messaging".  I had to figure it out for myself.  How atypically memorable.

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Oh America, You're Still Here

As the world jelously salivates over the swift riches of 'newly' minted Facebook millionaires  this week goverments and pundits equally initiate the deafeatist toned debate of why wheir nation doesn't generate companies who generate such grand wealth so quickly.

At the same time is a great series by Jonathan Meades delving into the deep cultural influence of America on France.  A deep cultural influence of minimal recognition and even derision.  In Fance, as depicted by image above snapped at the museum of technical arts, America is treated as a contained silo rather than pervasive incons and constructs.

On Monday, the world's advertising professionals will dissect Super Bowl advertising.  From big idea films, executional excess to integration with the latest trends, theories and technology.

America holds an exceptional outward cultural force.  One few acknowledge and seems perceptually diminished at a time of more deft footed foreign policy.

Cuturally, America remains by far the planet's greatest force.  Yet, fascinatingly, so few nations can shed their nationalistic pathways and mentalities to learn or at least take on the attitude of necessary calculated risk acceptance inbred in America's "ever forward at all cost" mentality.

There are some great ads playing out tonight online and on TV. Worth a moment to think less about the tools they use or celebrity they hired and more about the mentality that enabled the best stuff. 

Public Enemy

Cross post from over on my Posterous.

As a young lad I was always struck with the fervent drive of the emotion behind the issues told through hip hop. In the grand scheme of things life was pretty comfortable in Canada and I didn't at the time really understand the emotions of the music but understood there were places people didn't have what I did - and those things were worth fighting for.  In my world, despite mixed classrooms, racial tension didn't exist.

Growing older and marginally wiser through 4 years of university in America the reasons for the fight grew clear. But one must wonder, if groups like Public Enemy and NWA didn't make me at least recognize there might be something to understand would I have ever even noticed. Would I have even looked.

Fortunately many noticed, many looked and while there is still more to fight for there are many victories.

Swede Rock

To make the most of the waning days of summer some fresh tunes are sure to maintain focus and amusement on the year's final weeks of sun drenched pursuits.  Curiously, these times of financial pessimism and corporate tightness  have spurred a nice crop of optimistic and loose fresh bands out of Sweden of all places filling my iTunes.

Miike Snow moves from producing other artist's super tracks to their debut album with their lead track Animal:

O'Spada's single release Time with a full album forthcoming and presumably a bit more funds to step up from their self proclaimed DIY video:

Check out Monocle's Summer Series edition #8 for more this this powerhouse group.

Lastly, a band touring on the sophomore release, The Sounds and their lead single No One Sleeps When I'm Awake:

Music to Weekend to

My Drive Thru

What I'm listening to now - this infectious cavalcade of awesomeness:

If you just woke up, it's also a piece of content for Converse.  Very transparent, very awesome and cool.  There will be enough over analysis of this work to come no doubt in the industry press and beyond, I'll just say, if you're brand is founded on being cool, why show and talk about being cool when you can just be cool by doing something cool.  Nicely done Converse, looks like you found your mojo.

Go ahead and get the track for yourself.

Ripoff?

A genre of YouTube films dissecting popular music highlighting possible plagerism is forming. 

Grit

Post concert shot of the womanfriend on our way to a post concert drink down a dingy alley it the Alibi Room hidden around the corner from Pike Place market in Seattle.

Justine - DVNO

Love it.  A graphic designers orgy. 

Voice of the unrepresented

Recovered from the land of beta (tapes that is) this is probably the greatest music video of all time.

Music that doesn't suck

Like investing and real estate I leave music recommendations to the experts.  One of whom is my buddy Mike Turner living in Chicago as a producer and label scout.  He also works with global radio station KEXP out of Seattle and they have a post of their top music picks for the year.

His are:
Mike Turner, Equalizer Chicago producer

Lupe Fiasco -The Cool (Atlantic)
Office - A Night At The Ritz (Scratchi Records)
Tom Schraeder -The Door The Gutter The Grave (self-released)
Ariel -The Battle of Sealand (High Wheel Records)
Cracklin Moth -My Heart is Leaking (self-released)
Cameron McGill and What Army -Hold on Beauty (self-released)
Bang Bang -The Dirt That Makes You Drown (Morpheus Records)
Andrew Bird -Armchair Apocrypha (Fat Possum)
Tenniscourts -Self titled (self-released)
The 1900’s -Cold and Kind (Parasol Records)

Photo above if you're wondering is from the Crocodile Cafe in Seattle where many of the bands synonymous with grunge played, before what they played became known as grunge.  Sadly they closed a couple weeks ago.  This image is of the control booth at the back from a show I attended in November.  You can see electrical safety is a prime concern as amongst the beautiful chaos of extension chords and over plugged plugs the fire extinguisher is easily accessible.

mu$$ic

It will be interesting to see whether the Radiohead experiment is deemed a success or failure.  It could easily be skewed either way.  Results are in, so begin the skewing.

It will be easy to say majority of people to advantage of the situation and didn't pay, so Radiohead are suckers.

It will also be easy to assume that an album released in the traditional manner, also has a high volume of folks not paying through illegal copies.  Who knows, maybe that percentage is higher than Radiohead.

It may be easy for the band to say that although 62% of folks didn't pay, and those that did paid well below the average album cost, they took a huge revenue hit.

It may also be easy for the band to say they were more profitable than their record label releases as there was no middle man and no marketing costs apart for the mechanics of the online store and a PR release.

It may also be possible that they will loose their shirts on the album, on purpose, assuming that the goodwill generated will lead to bigger venues and ticket/merch sales in their next tour.

You can say a lot of things.  But at this point the only thing we know is it's too early to make a final judgment.

Justice D.A.N.C.E.

Just in case you are wondering, I'm really into this song right now like a fourth grader was into Tiffany back in 1986.

Live earth

Woke up this morning with ambitions for a productive day but quickly was pulled to the couch watching Live Earth.  Message aside it has been a great viewing experience.  A bundle of TV stations are covering the event, each simultaneously with feeds from different cities and various segments and interviews.  Layinging on the web experience, blogging and streaming it's the ultimate musical gorge.

Hopefully it's not just Canada's consolidated media ownership allowing the multichannel presentation as it really brings the idea of one global nation together.   

Summer Homework

As part of my summer plannershere hiatus, (a planniatus???) I've assigned myself homework consisting of my reading mission, and expanding the music repetoire.  To aid your patio ambiance quest I'll share the tunes currently ruling the charts in my house (condo technically.) Thanks to my buddy Jamie at MTV Latin America for hooking me up with the first three back in Miami.

The Kooks

Lilly Allen

Scissors for Lefty (best video so far,  but not my favorite song of theirs)

Pete Yorn - some good honest rock and roll.