Manufacturing Viral?

I give credit to Steve Luu (@sluu) for being all over this a couple days after it came out, and very little credit to me for meaning to watch it and forgetting.

I posted about the Rube Goldberg Ok Go video a couple months ago and they seem to have done it again with ‘End Love’. It looks like they spent about 24 painstaking hours filming together this stop-motion, slow-motion love letter, but it looks like it could have taken more practice than the ’Here It Goes Again’ Treadmills.

I’m the first proponent to say that a brand or a band can’t just make viral, but with ’End Love’ about to break the 1,000,000 view point in just over a week, it begs the question, has Ok Go figured it out? If you’re counting, this will be the 4th video from a relatively unknown artist (if you don’t mention ‘the treadmill guys’) that has found some pretty huge success through YouTube.  It’s an interesting concept. In a time when people get their musical fix one song at a time over iTunes (or more likely Bit Torrent), Ok Go has perfectly figured out how to market themselves to this web-savvy musical generation one video at a time.  Instead of listening to a song and finding the video from there, you’ll get the YouTube link on Twitter or Facebook and find the song through mutiple views of an absolutely ingenius video. Now, it’s not the hype around the new U2 or (possible) NIN release, it’s buzz that Ok Go has a new video. If  other bands had the creativity to do something different with the medium, perhaps Much Music wouldn’t be writing off the next generation into vaccuity with the proposed 50% cut in music video programming and an assumed increase in Hills-related spin-offs.

Angus and Julia Stone Recap

I’ve mentioned before how wicked the music is in Australia, but I have yet to translate that to concerts in the motherland. Until now.  Mellow concerts aren’t usually my thang, but the incredible good looks of the sibling duo along with some super catchy tunes made Angus and Julia Stone a must see on my list.

It was really a musical cornucopia, with each of them rocking the guitar, trumpet, harmonica, and something else I’m forgetting in the haze of today’s hangover. Angus was incredibly high, which didn’t really affect his musical abilities, but definitely affected his crowd control. Julia, on the other hand, I assumed was more shy, but Meg White she is not. She bantered with the audience, giving insight into some of the meanings behind the songs, including ‘For You’ which was written for some douche who responded with a hip-hop track.

Things were definitely mellow though, with most songs not being much faster than ‘Just a Boy’, the verified highlight of the night. But there were numerous other tracks that stuck out like ‘Big Jet Plane’, ‘Mango Tree’ and most notably, ‘Private Lawns’, the closer before the encore. They even strummed out a couple covers, with Grease’s “One That I Want’ and the more confusing ‘Tubthumper’. I believe covers are fun, but slowing down a song to a crawl is not, so Chumbawumba’s big hit didn’t really have the same effect on me as all of Julia’s super sexy shimmies.

AJS wasn’t what I thought would be my way to spend a concert, but I was surprised how comfortable I felt not jumping around. The packed house at Revival definitely agreed with me.

Check the vids after the jump…

Coco In Canada

As I previously stated, which for some reason no one seemed to care, Conan did not actually set up anything in Canada when he signed with TBS. More accurately, the uber-lame Peachtree TV would not be airing episodes of the new TBS-ified version of everyone’s favourite translucent ginger. Well, friends, now you can sleep easy, because CTV has stepped in to save the day! String dance it to me, Marketing Mag:

The Conan O’Brien Show will air on the national network Monday through Thursday at 1 a.m. In the U.S. it will air on TBS, which is no longer available in Canada, two hours earlier starting in November.

Wait. So, because we live in Canada, we’ll have to stay up til 1 am to watch this? What a crock of shit. I realize our country’s obsession with Canadian Content and being able to put great Canadian programming above everything else, but we should bend over backwards for Coco. Seriously. Some of us have to work.

Oh well, I’m over it. Enjoy the shenanigans from Conan and Stewart and Colbert, who will be airing from 12 am- 1 am on CTV.

I Love You, Internet

UPDATE: So the embedded youtube won’t play off my blog, just click the link and head right over there instead!

The internet is rife with inside jokes (memes) that it’s nerd-commenters use to the point of hilarity. TBWA Toronto had a great blog last week on just how amazing it would be if a brand could gain internet meme status. Sorry brands, you’re just not that interesting because you’re not cats in costumes. Here’s a few great sites to get you all caught up on the jokes that you’re missing:

Http://www.youshouldhaveseenthis.com

http://www.youshouldhavealsoseenthis.com/

An excellent tutorial on how to use a meme, including Batman!

Above is one of my favourite internet videos of all time. It takes the whole faceless commenter sayings and turns it into a little College Humour skit. Memes a-plenty.

#Donald4Spiderman

The Twitters have been a-buzz about Community star Donald Glover’s boldly self-aware pitch to become (co-star in? Who knows) the next Spider-man.

Now I know what you’re thinking, and yes Peter Parker had glasses and the gift of ebonix.

Make sure you hop on the Twit-machine tonight at 9:30 EST and tag #donald4spiderman to help him continue his nightly reign on the trending topics.

In other news, some of the cast of Community is in Toronto this week doing their upfronts; I’m hoping Alison Brie finally answers my phone calls.

The End :(

It’s easy for me to rip on Lost over the past few years. They just make it so easy. But as the hours creep slowly toward the series finale tonight, I find myself flooded with anticipation, sadness and frustration in seeing one of my favourite shows come to an end. While I’d say the show jumped the Ezra James Sharkington sometime around Season 3, I wish I would have planned something better for tonight. Here’s to everyone checking it out and enjoying it, though there’s a part of me that just wants to watch it crash and burn, Oceanic 815-styles.

Oh right, the Internet has been doing what it does best this weekend. Take a look at the massively nerdy links:

Lost: The Drinking Game
Warming Glow Open Thread
A retarded amount of Lost articles from Paste Magazine
io9′s Meme-fest

Well, I’d post more, but the nerd-fest is beginning. See you on the other side.

The Big 4 Record Labels Are Terrible At Doing Their Job

I love watching industries flail around as they quickly become irrelevant. Take the print and newspaper industry for example:

What do you mean no one wants to buy the paper or magazines anymore? Let’s close down the internet or at least try to stop Google from doing what it wants!

- Rupert Murdoch (pictured left)

The music industry is no different. The big 4 labels have slowly made themselves irrelevant by avoiding every opportunity to embrace online downloading, and then out of frustration, do the only thing that makes sense to them: sue their customers of course!

Studies continue to be released that prove music downloaders (file sharers, bit torrent users, heathens of musical capitalism) actually purchase more music than those who don’t. So while the music industry spends its time making examples of the only people that invest in it, bands can actually make more of a profit creating their own label and distributing themselves than they ever did being on a label. You don’t even have to be a massive name to do this, right Metric?

Scramble all you want, Record Labels, but your es’ploded sub is sinking to the bottom of the ocean to hang out with Sun, Jin, useless Lapides and pieces of Sayid.