On Saturday afternoon Silbatron and I were reminiscing about the last great outdoor party in DC, an accidental find due to an address mix up in 06 that ended with us being subsequently discovered as crashers when the host insisted on posing for a photo with each departer. The irony was the host insisted we were acquainted after our crash confession, and it turned out he was right – we had spent a distant fourth of july together and his wife was a classmate, so officially still crashers but at least familiar crashers.
Last night after 6 people took one cab from Perry’s roof to Brightest Young Things, silbatron was lost in a single cab and passed bright lights and a red carpet warehouse party on 14th. Later we crashed the party and had a blast. The picture below of Jesus 2, deserves a detailed recounting of an unsolicited dance floor confession to one shocked E =Wsq, but it is better told over a pint, and in a setting where the language can be fully appreciated. You can read fellow crasher Bassik’s write up here and my photos here…
The Coke Wars as Analogy for Presidential Candidate Branding
If you don’t remember New Coke, it’s probably because you weren’t kicking it in 1985 (also you should check out Wham’s ‘Careless Whisper’). The short synopsis is “Coca-Cola’s original drinks market share had been shrinking fast, from 60% just after World War II to under 24% in 1983, in the face of fierce competition from arch rival Pepsi-Cola…as more consumers showed a preference for sweeter drinks, [Pepsi]” and as a result Coke tried to reinvent itself as a sweeter drink. Instead of introducing a sweeter version under a name like Coke Zero, they stopped selling the original Coke formula altogether, and instead sold a new formula under the same name.
This “New Coke” was a huge failure and was abandoned after 77 days. The failure was a surprise to the company because overwhelmingly people preferred the new coke to old Coke and Pepsi in taste tests. It seems people rejected the new iteration of a classic brand, and were sometimes actually hostile to the idea of a new version of an old brand. In the south, people actually poured the new coke in streets in protest.
In the presidential primary, Barrack Obama is a new comer dominating a market held by a party and family over the last decade. He is Pepsi. The Clintons are coke, an outdated brand trying to reestablish dominance by serving the needs of voters. In response to Obama, Hilary has attempted to co-opt everything people like about his campaign, i.e. change, and like New Coke’s launch, the result has been a massive failure demonstrated by a string of primary defeats.
First, some small examples of HRC co-opting the Obama campaign’s message: Sen. Obama says, “Yes We Can,” she counters “We are a Can Do country;” He remarks, “It’s time for a change,” she pivots, “I have the experience to bring about change;” and then she hands out change signs at her rallies.
Taking the next logical step, Edwards is Clear Pepsi….just kidding.
It should be noted, however, that after reintroducing the original formula and abandoning New Coke, Coke was able to usurp Pepsi and become the number one soda again. Coca- Cola was able to remind people of their significance and reasons why they used to buy the drink, and perhaps Clinton’s brand vacillation will ultimately help her in the remaining primaries by reminding voters of the 90s.
Both the NYT and Boston Globe spent the weekend trashing the state of hip-hop, which like the recent coverage of the music industry’s decline purports that as the larger business model flails to survive the digital era, the quality of music suffers. Sorry, I don’t buy that the absence of Puffy like superstars damn the future of hip-hop. In fact this year, several albums stand out, and are included below. The artists themselves offer some compelling reasons as to why major label efforts fail, and why tycoon rappers like Puffy may have ruined the game.
Lupe, The Cool. Innovative, irreverent lyrics coupled with solid production. More in line with the native tongue artists of early 90s fame and in-line with Gil Scott-Heron, the poet and funk musician who many credit for fathering political hip-hop, and who once served as a clarion call for progressive intellectuals, pushing for environmental and social conciseness.
Best Line: “and im mouthless which means im soundless, now as far as the hearing i found it, it was as far as the distance from the earing to the ground is”
Jay – Z, American Gangster. Five years ago, I could have cared less to pick up a jay-z album – but he has grown as an artist and I eagerly await each new album, mostly because he is one of the few artists creating releases where tracks contextually build a whole greater than a series of singles. Who else would prevent Itunes from selling the album track-by-track and force listeners to discover hidden gems like “Ignorant Shit”.
Best Line: “there all actors looking at themselves in ther mirror backwards cant even face themselves, don’t fear no rappers they’re all wierdoes Diniro’s in practice, so dont believe everything your earlobes capture it’s mostly backwards.”
GhostFace, Fishscale. Artists like P-funk, Outkast and Sun-ra have all pushed their respective genres into the area of science fiction and outer-space towards the end of their careers. As people long for the return of the Wu-Tang, Ghostface breaks new ground by turning inward, instead of outward, focusing on the crack game in such a militant fashion that it’s code, habits and culture become lampooned and ludicrous, framed in a comic book style. Skits refer to Tony’s girl as Mrs. Sweetwater in a Dick Tracy radio show from the 30s. It feels like a later p-funk album with its own unique obscure terminology.
Best Lines: “Paranoid as a motherfucker right now, who the fuck? Close the blinds and shit! Who that? Captain Kirk? The stark…enterprise, enterprise I was on and some shit? ..I need some, though I’m ready for a catwoman or something”
So the long awaited UGK album is out. Not sure what I think yet, but I do believe the album’s first single is amazing, mostly due to Outkast’s appearance. Check it out
The Transformers movie by Michael Bay is so over-the-top ridiculous. It centers around a giant sexless robot that poses as a car to help a teenager get laid. This robot car is locked in some war with another group of robots that aren’t so much as evil as really, really motivated to get a device that doesn’t really do anything – except if you put it in your chest – then you blow-up. So obviously the film is out of control, except when you compare it to the Japanese version of the cartoon.
Check these bad boys out…
In Japan they call Optimus Prime Convoy – obviously because of Japan’s 1975 prime minister by the same name. Check out the trailer for a Japanese movie version.
This is an insane Japanese version of the cartoon that came later – people merged with the robots or something. Word.
This is a spoof of the cartoon, where if you get all the references you will be rewarded a spot in geek heaven with all the best female autobots – maybe they aren’t sexless.
GZA did a live Liquid sword set recently at Pitchfork, and don’t get me wrong – Gza and Killa Priest (thats wu-tang people )have delivered some of the best albums in 90s hip hop, but according to a trust worthy friend and fellow Wu fan, their set sucked and was dwarfed by fellow festival bands like Sonic Youth. So I started thinking critically of Gza, what makes him the head of Voltron/Wu anyways, and coincidently Rakim’s causalities of war came on the radio. And I thought, shit Rakim really fathered their style. And then I thought, what the hell was Rakim thinking when he dropped the following verse way before 9-11 during the first Gulf War…..
cause it ain\’t no way i\’m going back to war
when i don\’t know who or what i\’m fighting for
so i wait for terrorists to attack
every time a truck backfires i fire back
i look for shelter when a plane is over me
remember pearl harbor? new york could be over, g
kamikaze, strapped with bombs no peace in the east, they want revenge for saddam
did i hear gunshots, or thunder?
no time to wonder, somebody\’s going under
put on my fatigues and my camoflouge
take control, cause i\’m in charge
when i snapped out of it, it was blood, dead bodies on the floor
casualties of war!
On Saturday afternoon Silbatron and I were reminiscing about the last great outdoor party in DC, an accidental find due to an address mix up in 06 that ended with us being subsequently discovered as crashers when the host insisted on posing for a photo with each departer. The irony was the host insisted we were acquainted after our crash confession, and it turned out he was right – we had spent a distant fourth of july together and his wife was a classmate, so officially still crashers but at least familiar crashers.
