Pret-A-Voyager – an engaging and well designed travel blog, written by a nice lady living in Paris. I love the Boarding Pass feature – where designers and others divulge their travel habits.
Pink Tentacle – an excellent Japanese art/culture blog of sorts.
Men, please see also – “I have to look a little bit nice because If I don’t look good, people will say, ‘Oh, what the heck is this guy?’” A sleek video lookbook on NYMag.
Burning question: Who do you want to be when you grow up? Fever Ray, Shirley Manson and the Pussy Cat Dolls all have uh, different dreams. I think when I grow up I totally want to writhe on some scaffolding, wearing combat boots. Possibly looking like Fever Ray.
On Monday the inaugural Auckland Laneways festival is taking place in the city! Exciting! It might not be a sassy wee alley like St Jerome’s but Britomart will be rocking I’m sure. Here are a few videos I’ve pulled up in the last couple of days – bands I am gagging to hear live.
Black Lips – Bad Kids
The Black Lips live show is meant to be pretty badass – I’ve heard reports of band members pashing, vomiting and getting raucous on stage. Will they show Auckland a naughty time?
The xx – Crystalised
SEXY VOICES. Can they pull it off live? And will they duet with Florence?
Echo & The Bunnymen – The Killing Moon
Echo doesn’t want me to embed his 80’s gold, but here’s a link to the video anyway. The next video is very reminiscent of The Killing Moon aesthetic:
Florence and the Machine – You’ve Got The Love
Nearly a year ago I blogged about F&TM and now she’s playing here! Felicity commented on that post, and yay, you get to see her on Monday.
The Naked And Famous – All Of This
LOVE. All of this.
I’m working on the day as a writerly type person so say come say HI! - I’ll be lurking around a giant blackboard for Red Bull. (I would love to interview some people and get their thoughts on how the day is going!)
I saw The Books play in Wellington on Tuesday night, as part of a double billing with Glaswegian heart breakers Camera Obscura. The Books are Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong; and they make what they describe as “collage music” – a pastiche of found sounds and original folk melodies.
Samples are sourced from thrift store cassettes, home videos, and things like “the voice recorder from Home Alone 2″. They don’t use a drum kit for their percussion, preferring children’s toys and filing cabinets, which are sampled and looped.
“And the library keeps swelling, especially when Zammuto and de Jong are on the road. Trolling Salvation Army and Goodwill stores in the towns they encounter on tour, they’re particular about what they’ll buy; they’re partial to old instructional videos for products that don’t exist anymore.” [The Boston Globe]
I really enjoyed the gig, and while some may see the mash-up and looping approach as juvenile and too accessible, I found it quite fresh; especially when accompanied by the most glorious instrument of them all – the cello. Here are a few of The Book’s entwined songs and videos:
Animal Collective played at Auckland’s Powerstation on Tuesday night. It was a great gig; here was no dithering around and chatting – just a constant wave of sound and light.
They layered songs from the albums and the new EP up over and around each other – stretching the new single, What Would I Want? Sky out for 25 minutes. In celebration of a lovely evening with friends, here’s a few AC videos.
They didn’t play Peacebone, so I have placated myself by watching the video ten times or so – it’s very romantic.
My Girls was the encore song! It was very blissful.
And to finish, Summertime Clothes - featuring the Brooklyn based FLEX dance crew.
Lisa Mitchell is an Australian singer-songwriter. I interviewed her in September and found her to be a super-charming girl – very down to earth. We had a nice chat over coffee about her new album, Wonder, playing festivals, and what she’d do if she wasn’t a singer-songwriter (something in design or maybe aid work). At the end of it all she yanked off her grape Melissa/Vivienne Westwood shoes at the café table and flourished them for my inspection. A real cutie.
Here’s three of her videos for your perusal. All were directed by Vanessa Casswill and have a sort of twee teacups and polaroids feel to them.
Coin Laundry:
Funnily enough when she performed at an industry showcase in Auckland, the venue was right next to a Laundromat. Coincidence?
Neopolitan Dreams:
Click here to watch the video (unfortunately the video autoplays, so not embedded) – it’s my favourite song on the album!
Those of you in the UK may recognise the song from a Surf laundry ad on television.
Clean White Love:
The latest music video, which completely indulges me in all my English countryside fantasies – wellingtons, umbrellas and ponies.
An open letter/slap of reality, in the form of a song, in the form of a video to Lily Allen.
Dan Bull is a clever, clever man. I’m on his side of the fence, definitely.
A taster/introduction via file sharing never hurt anyone… especially when musicians these days are no longer purists, rather fully functional brands with line extensions in all directions.
However if you like someone – buy it! Purchasing* is still important to keep the record labels afloat, and we can hope the artists will eventually get drip-fed some profit…
[*Purchasing SOMETHING, ANYTHING, not necessarily a little piece of plastic, housed in a plastic case and then shrink wrapped. I hate CDs. I try and avoid them like the plague - they are a scourge on society's resources, especially when you can buy a high quality digital download or an LP, which will be treasured. Have you ever left a CD case on your bedroom floor, stood on it while drunk and bled everywhere with shards of cheap plastic embedded in your foot? See, they're evil. Records and digital formats don't want to kill you like that!
Paying money for tickets to an experience you'll remember for (hopefully) forever is also a good contribution. Less things, more memories! And you know what, I reckon the artist will get more out of you being there singing along at a gig, than looking at a spreadsheet of how many (frankly archaic) CDs were sold in Palmerston North last year.]
Yep, complicated. However there must be a neat solution out there, so lets keep striving for it and ignore Lils (whose music and style I very much enjoy). What are your thoughts?
Last weekend I saw Kiwi electronic act Sola Rosa play. It was a great show; bouncing floorboards, meaty bass-lines, and they had the gorgeous Iva Lamkum in tow. She performed Turn Around live and it was excellent.
The video was directed by boy wonder Tim Van Dammen: “In November last year, Mr van Dammen got noticed for the video ‘Turn Around’ for Sola Rosa. Since then, he has been so booked up he has produced one music video a week, creating videos for bands such as Luger Boa, Smashproof and the Checks.”
The finalists in the New Zealand Vodafone Music Awards have just been announced and I am well pleased that my favourite songbird, Ladyhawke, is leading the pack in the nominations. So many in fact, she’s confidently coming back from London to attend the ceremony and play a gig ! I’m delirious with joy at the news… so I figured why not give her fab single – ‘My Delirium’ – an airing?
Featuring illustration from Sarah Larnach; this video is the entire package – both a visual and aural treasure. Watch Ladyhawke whizz straight past the ever amusing Mt Moggmore and fly through vibrant galaxies! Pip Brown can drive anywhere she damn well wants to!
Airport Surroundings is a single from the recent Loney Dear album Dear John, directed by Marcus Söderlund.
Hailing from Sweden, Loney Dear (aka Emil Svanängen) possesses a melodic voice that’s one part sweetly Beck and one part charred – like E of The Eels. I enjoyed this clip, I am always partial to a bit of driving around fast in a music video, but the real winner is the song.
Put it on your stereo, turn up the volume and go for a drive at night. That’s what I’ll be doing – someone has lent me a car for the weekend! Time to hit the road.
I went to see MGMT play last night, the last of three Auckland shows. Finally, live in front of my very own eyes (gratuitous picsof meat the concert). The concert itself was so-so… there was some interesting Tropicana infused instrumentals. But when the boys from New York played their single Kids, they killed it. Amazing. Yeah, I was that giddy girl squirming behind you and singing along.
The video is brilliant too – it moves from a ‘real’ exploration of a child’s imaginary monsters to an acid inspired animation. I really like it. Especially the TV shows… Scary stuff.
Using video to showcase fashion and related design work is a burgeoning trend. These are not so much “viral” videos, rather films (and motion graphics) that build presence, reflect a brand’s personality and champion offerings in a fresh way. As the Business of Fashion says, it is about “creating reverberations amongst the press and consumers”.
I feel like we’ve all seen the standard interpretations like Gareth Pugh’s film that was launched in tandem with his AW09 collection. So I’ve put together a few alternative examples of ways brands work with motion:
HAIR, THERE AND BACK AGAIN
[New Zealand hair salon] Stephen Marr “teamed up with Auckland’s top fashion design talent to present Belle du Jour, a collection of six drop-dead looks for the ball season.”
The result is a time stopping to-and-fro that reminds me of Toshiba’s Time Sculpture advertisement.
I like this way of creating anticipation and desire for the physical paper product, rather than just slapping it up as a 2D flippable flash file. A few thousand people have viewed it so far, not too bad… and rather tempting to buy.
REALITY RETAIL
UK retailers ASOS lets you view clothes using a quick ‘catwalk’ video for each garment.
Thank god – you can finally see that cute jumpsuit has a saggy ass (a harem onesie, really?)… Video – saving women the world over horrified disappointment! This feature definitely builds trust.
SHOW STOPPING ANIMATION
When it comes to fashion animation, who can forget Heal Fashion Lab’s quirky look book. Experience the full out by going to their collections page and popping your headphones on.
I have so much love for that lobster dress and the pinching limbs I think my heart might burst. Local Auckland brand Skylark Boutique also uses animated gifs on their splash page – adding movement and a bit of intrigue.
THE TRAILER FOR THE FILM OF YOUR LIFE
Not quite a fashion brand – it’s a blog! But there’s a promo video! I found this tidy little number used to promote IMBOYCRAZY.COM incredibly clever.
Groundbreaking. How many other blogs out there have a timeless video calling card? (As an aside, it’s a fabulous site well worthy of some serious browsing. Totally stuffed with smart, realistic advice from girl who reallydoes know where you’re coming from.)
VIDEO KILLS
I see many extensions of video – Etsy sellers promoting themselves with crafty little clips, more bloggers producing timeless promo clips, make up artists peddling their ways through new expressions (the We Have Band video comes to mind – it was made by an ad agency, was there a chance for endorsement?).
Yep, if you approach them from a slightly different angle, videos are incredibly effective tools for building brands. They can be used to:
Inform – Answer questions like ASOS does – ‘how does this garment sit?’ etc. Keep asking, what what do consumers really want to know?
Inspire – create fantasies, test the limits of your product or consumer’s imagination. Give me a taste of the benefit.
Engage – with a video you become multidimensional. Why not give your brand a soundtrack, an aural hook that people will associate with you forever?
“Video is an extremely powerful tool in building the designer’s brand, providing backstory and context, as well as demonstrating how pieces fall, flow and move. Video provides deeper context and heightens detail in a way that images alone cannot.”
Finally, video is extremely accessible. With faster broadband connections and higher quality video equipment available to all, why not test a few ideas out? The sky is the limit!
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