HARD ROCK CAFE'S ROCKIN WALL

Hard Rock Cafe opened it's newest branch on September 8th in Las Vegas, with one of the world's largest and highest resolution, interactive screens. The screen is a huuuuge... 72 square feet and can run with up to six users at a time. This cool concept allows users to flick, zoom and enjoy exploring through the Hard Rock Cafe's entire photo, video and music collection. Users can search by genre of music, type of item, year, type of music and location of the actual piece of memorabilia. It was created by San Fransico based company Obscura Digital and a demonstration of how the wall works can be seen below:

Together with the wall, they have built in booth and surface displays for other consumers to browse and use. 

I find it crazy how interactive media is advancing and how quickly! It makes me wonder if in the future at home we will have interactive TV's where we can zoom in or out and really flick the screen to change channels! It seems we are being surrounded by a more digital environment and as a consumer, constantly involving in new experiences, which involve more of our senses together. I am sure more massive touch-screen/interactive walls will be likely to grow more affordable and popular over the years.

Jump In My Pool Music Video

Friendly Fires are a band I have previously mentioned in my blog and "Jump in My Pool" from their debut album, is my favourite track. The music video, which was created for the promotion of the track I think is wonderfully simple and beautiful:

It simply consists of two synchronized swimmers being filmed (upside-down) underwater, in an ambiently lit pool. Their elegant flowing movements captured, produce alluring shapes that are captivating to watch. 

From simply turning the camera upside down, it appears now that the reflective water surface is beneath them and they are floating above. The contrast in the deep mysterious blue and the dazzling white spotlight, creates a magical/dreamy feel to the video, especially through the bubbles which are caught by the light throughout and have be overlaid on top of the clips of the band singing.  The atmosphere and mode created in this video works really well with the synths and sounds the Friendly Fires produce.

Southbank Street Performers

On a sunny weekend I went down to Southbank in London, where street performers lined the bank of the Thames. There were large circles of crowds gathered round numerous acts, which you couldn't help but stop to watch. The different acts included break-dancers, entertainers from Ghana, a contortionist, living statues and guitar players.

Each set of entertainers impressed and got their crowd smiling, clapping and cheering. The atmosphere was infectious and a communal feel good factor, which is something you don't often get in London.

Some of the performers there purely make their living off the coins and pennies collected at the end of their show, like the unusual three-piece from Ghana. Their act consisted of an extremely, wierdly flexible, small man getting into some odd positions and pulling some gymnastic-style moves. Another man balanced, tossed and caught a football on a small horizontal stick and ran around spinning a bicycle wheel from his mouth. The last member was spinning huge metallic bowls on top of an umbrella, which was on top of knife from his mouth. He then went under what seemed to be a virtually impossible, ridiculously low limbo. Most elements of their act were bizarrely entertaining and funny. I was impressed with their creativity, especially in their use of low-budget props.

The other set of performers I really enjoyed and was extremely impressed by, was the group of breakdancers. The whole crowd utterly gripped by their talented moves, which were accompanied by some well chosen dance tracks. Below is a video clip showing the best bits:

I just loved the summery and european ambiance of the day. It reminded me of various holidays around europe which felt much more relaxed, friendly and a sense of community... which I feel is often lacking, especially in London.

adding pics shortly... but here are some videos:

A Perk For A Fortnight

The massively successful american sitcom Friends, is celebrating its 15th Aniversary since the first pilot episode went on TV, in the form of a pop-up version of the coffee shop, Central Perk. This two week long stunt is in aid of promoting Warner TV's new limited-edition box set featuring unseen footage.

The opening of the coffee shop did not feature the original cast, although the actor who plays Gunther was in London on the first day alongside other celebrities including Peaches Geldof, Sophie Ellis Bextor and Kimberly Walsh. So there's no chance of Rachel serving you your coffee, but maybe some lookalikes should have been cast to add to the atmosphere and really make you feel like your on set in New York!

The coffee shop has been designed as a replica including the fake redbrick walls, fake tiffany-style lamps, the velvet orange sofa, green armchair, Oriental rugs, tiled floors and big 'Central Perk' stickers on the windows. There are also real props from the programme scattered around to add to the nostalgia and novelty factor. For example Joey's "best buds" bracelet, the "Geller Cup", the hurtful list Ross wrote about Rachel saying she was "just a waitress", Rachel's wedding dress and Brown Bird Cookies. I can imagine there will be a lot more photo snapping and cameras flashing capturing customers posing next to all the props, rather than drinking the free coffee that would probably go cold by the time the excitement had worn off a little! Creating a less peaceful and relaxing atmosphere than the original of the show!

Unlike the other pop-up I mentioned in my blog (The Double Club), the coffee shop only serves drinks, apart from a small selection of chocolates and cookies. There is a very short menu, consisting of 5 types of coffee which are all free! Before visiting, you can download your free coffee voucher from http://www.warnertv.com/friends/.

Central Perk is on Broadwick Street, just off Carnaby Street in London. It is open from the 24th September till the 6th October. I heard about it from a friend who tried to visit the shop yesterday, but the queues where just too big! Unfortunately I am back at Uni so won't get a chance to visit the coffe shop. I definitely would have popped in if I could though, for those photo opportunity's and experience the excitement and hype surrounding a TV show I never seem to get sick of how many times I see it...I don't think I ever will!

I think the pop-up shop is already proving to be a massive success and hugely popular with the enormous fan base the TV series has! I even think that the idea of replicating "Central Perk" as a coffee shop that would stick around a little longer than just two weeks, would also work and be a popular, steadily busy tourist attraction (similar to that of the several Cheers bar replicas located in the USA).

Sicilian Nightlife in Catania

Catania is Sicily's second largest city, situated in the middle of the eastern Ionian coast. The City is vibrant and full of grand architecture, which almost feels like you're on a movie set. Unfortunately, most of the walls leading up to the centre are faced with untalented graffiti, which gives the city a slightly dirty feel and takes away some of the beauty of the buildings.

I visited Catania and experienced the buzzing, friendly nightlife. I definitely stood out as a foreigner in the city, as I was not wearing the norm and sexy look, of tight jeans and tight tops, which nearly every woman... and man seemed to be wearing.

It was unusual to see such a large number of men so well groomed as here. It is obvious that they take pride in their appearance, but so much so that they might be mistaken as homosexual in England! This, together with the more intimate greetings they give each other is something unseen in England.

Men and women seem to openly look at each other more, on both parts and it is not taken as sleazy on either side. This is very different from England where the onus is nearly completely on the man and with the woman it seems to be less frequent. Indeed, in one bar a young pretty blonde girl was stood, fascinated by our group or a couple of minutes. When our Italian guide said 'hi', she didn't turn away in embarrassment or nerves. Instead she beamed a big smile and said 'ciao' back. She was very friendly and chatted with us before leaving with her friends.

In the main bar area, most of the customers were stood/seated outside drinking and chatting. There seemed to be no danger of lairy, drunk Sicilians anywhere, just people happy to be out on a Friday night. The only danger you had to be aware of was the crazy erratic driving of Sicilians on their scooters, nipping through all the side streets. If you had a bottle/plastic cup you were free to roam from different bars, across the streets. Making no reason for downing drinks and moving on abruptly, which also added to the relaxed and friendly atmosphere. The middle square was full of people all night. Only at about 3 or 4 am did people seem to move on or go home for the night.

After visiting Catania and experiencing the Italian culture, it made me think about our own and wish it was a bit more like theirs: relaxed, open and friendly. Our weather does not permit such relaxed and communal gatherings in outside spaces very often, but hopefully the UK will become more European in its relaxed social and drinking culture in the future.

iDaft App

I have recently bought an iPhone and am now enjoying personalising it by adding numurous applications. You can download from a massively wide variety off apps, some you can choose to pay for and some, which are completely free... including iDaft.

iDaft is an app that lets you recreate your own version of Daft Punk's popular track "Harder Better Faster Stronger". It is incredibly simple, consisting of a 16 different squares in a grid-like design that you touch to the beat of the song, each square has a pre-recorded lyric that plays. I had lots of fun playing it and still find it stupidly entertaining! It's completely free, so if your a Daft Punk fan there's no reason not to give it a go and download it! Go on and have some daft fun!

This impressive you tube video is from about two years ago, but if you haven't seen it its made by some pretty talented hands... who must have had a lot of practice too!! 

This Certainly Didn't Rock My Boat!

The Boat that rocked, set in 1966, was probably the worst film I have seen in a long time and the worst spent £10 too. I cannot even tell you what the plot was, nothing seemed to happen,. The storyline was almost non-existent. A young private school boy joins the radio rock boat and its all-male crew and DJs. In the meantime the government was making every effort to silence the extremely successful station. Comprised of nearly entirely, lots and lots….and lots, of filler-scenes of different groups of people dancing next to their radios.

The film was not funny, but self indulgingly cringe worthy. It had a running time of 2hrs 10mins, which was far too long. It seemed like torture to sit through it all, but as I had just wasted £10 on buying the DVD, I wanted to see what happened in the end. They attempted to idolise the DJ’s as celebrities in their own time, but I personally found it quite sad that a bunch of 10 or so male egomaniacs where out living on a boat at sea, with no female company (apart from one lesbian cook). Crudely, once a fortnight there was a shipment of slags delivered to them, to comfort and reassure their big egos.

The only truth from the movie was the Marine Offences Act putting an end to the sea bound pirate radio stations. The government wanted to try and shut them down somehow but their popularity made it almost impossible. The frequency used by the pirate ships was said to put the lives of sailors and boats at danger, this was propaganda put out by Harold Wilson’s government of the time and was not true.

In reality I know that pirate radio brought rock and roll to the masses and was something of a cultural phenomenon. The freedom of the DJs brought new artists and new genres of music to the public. The only good part to the movie was the soundtrack, which can be bought separately. Every time the music stopped, you were brought back to the realisation that you were watching a terrible movie. Even nostalgic ex-hippies of the time, including my mum who thoroughly enjoyed working for the main inspiration of the film, Radio Caroline, went to bed early, proving my point!

Pop-Up Bar - The Double Club

One night I went to The Double Club, Fondazione Prada’s temporary restaurant/ bar/club in London’s Angel. The Club used artist Carsten Höller’s concept – that every element, including food, drink, architecture and music, be 50% Western and 50% Congolese. You could clearly make sense of this as soon as you walked through the door as you saw the split straight down the bar. Huge murals in the style of African advertising dominated one side alongside wrought iron railings and a blue and white tilled western copper wall on the other.

I had heard of Fashion brands before having Pop-Up shops, where these appear unexpectedly in unusual locations. They are designed to cause a lot of attention and are gone just before the attention is lost and the fashion crowd move on to the next thing! 'Pop-up's' essence is high-speed, short-attention-span culture but, never before had I been to or heard of a pop-up restaurant/bar/club.

I think this concept is very exciting and can constantly be changing, as it enables businesses to be constantly reinvented. Whenever you hear of something or somewhere new and exciting to go, it is usually only the best and most favorable place for a few months before either you find somewhere else, or you simply get bored or tired of a place. So from pulling it down and starting up again somewhere different with a different theme/concept I feel is really interesting idea.

The 'two-culture' Double club, is located in a converted Victorian warehouse down a dodgy alley behind Angel Tube station. We didn't eat at the restaurant, but near the bar was an African-style barbeque (made from a halved oildrum) which, generated wafts delicious smelling smoke from the char-grill. Here we tried some barbecued goat on skewers... it was delicious!! I have never tried goat before, but it was really tastey that I will definitely again!! The beer was a little pricey, the £12 price tag for a bottle of imported (Turbo) beer wasn't the best, but it did come in around a litre looking size bottle! Luckily there were cheaper drinks on offer too!

The revolving dance floor was rammed when we were there and even not knowing one track, the Congolese music was great to dance to! The disco introduced Islington to the sounds of the Congo, while also embracing the current sounds of London.

I found the Double club both an usual and enjoyable experience. I had never ben anywhere like it before and really enjoyed the unusual concept it offered. The barbecued goat was tastey, the surrounding decor was beautiful and the rhythmic Congolese music was great. I also found out that the profits from this venture (which ended in July) went to the City of Joy charity, helping rape victims in the Congo. That ridiculously expensive beer doesn't bother me so much now!

Lucky Voice

Your Private Booth at Lucky Voice

The Bar at Lucky Voice

Last saturday night one of my brothers had organised a karaoke night in London. Twelve of us got together in Islinglton at Lucky Voice, where it didn't matter if you could sing or not, everyone sung and had a great time.

Before we headed over, we all went for a meal and had a few drinks to get us in the spirit, and for the next 2 hours we spent the night singing (in and out of tune) to pretty much any song we wanted, in our own private booth with drinks at the push of a button!

Our private booth was padded out with red leather sofas, a large screen to sing from, a touch-screen song-list to create your personal playlist and two microphones. So you never missed a second of singing or watching anyone else, in each room was a 'thirsty' button, where like on an aircraft, someone would come along to your room take your order and deliver your drinks.

As an extra addition to each room was a box full of props including wigs, sunglasses, inflatable instruments, neon headbands and even a beach ball, which all added to the fun on the night and made some good photos!!

If you haven't been yet, I'd really recommend it for a night out with a group of mates! Its so much fun and who doesn't enjoy singing your heart out to your favourite tracks??!! The Lucky Voice in Islington has a friendly spacious bar and a further 7 private rooms for hire!

http://bars.luckyvoice.com/

I AM T-PAIN iPHONE APP!!

I began hearing strange sounds and laughing coming from my living room... I went to see what my brother was doing...to find him singing to himself in hysterics, with his earphones in, in his iPhone! 

He then played me a recording, where he'd used a dowloaded app called 'I am T-Pain', which had changed his slightly tuneless voice, into this technologic/electronic, studio quality sounding rapper! 

His altered voice together with his imaginative, hilarious, on the spot thinking lyrics...something like 'chilllliiiee sauceeeeee.....james turner...james ttttt turminator, t u r m intaor' made me crack up and want to download the app straight away! 

'I am T-Pain' auto-tunes your voice, literally in the palm of your hand! It uses the same Antares Audio Technology, T-Pain himself uses in the studio to record his music! Its really simple to use, you simply load the app, then select your favourite song and sing into the mic on your iPhone. You can record each song and publich them over social networks and email. There is also the freestyle option where you just sing/speak into the Auto Tuning Mic, without a companion track!

I think this app is hilarious and will provide hours of fun! Hopefully there will be more apps like his in the future!! SShhorrrttttteeehhhy!!

MUSE NEW ALBUM ART

Some may describe Muse's music as masterpieces and their new album cover for The Resistance (due to be released on the 15th September), is in my opinion a beautiful piece of cover art. It caught my eye and since I have scoured the internet to see what inspiration was drawn to create it.

I found that in a BBC Radio 1 interview with Zane Lowe, the lead singer Matt Bellamy explained that 1984, the George Orwell novel featuring a dystopian future, is the main inspiration. He was paricularly taken with the love story within the book between character Juliette and Winston. I feel that the strong, rich, warm colours within the hexagonal shapes reflect this loving emotion. The colours appear to grow stronger and brighter as they get nearer to earth, possibly suggesting a need for a stronger love for our world. You can also feel the miserable view of society, shown through the figure standing alone, far away from the earth looking down on it quite literally, with a cold detachment. This is echoed again through the colours surrounding the figure , which are more cold and darker. 

The Resistance album art, has a really fresh, vibrant graphical feel to it...I look forward to seeing the rest of the artwork to go with the releases from this album.

New Hard Hitting Ad - Texting at the Wheel

This extremely hard-hitting, very real, gory ad has created alot of attention, even worldwide. It begins with a young girl driving with friends in the car, whilst trying to text. You are taken through this very graphic, bone breaking, horrific accident and everyone else who is involved, right up to the emergency services arriving trying to pull the victims from the wreckage.

I personally think this explicitly brutal ad does have a shock factor that works. Both the Visual imagery and the audio work together to mirror the realness of the situation and exemplify the inherent danger with texting in cars. Some may think it is unnecessarily hard-hitting, but I think it has been designed specifically this way, which makes it re-memorable. Hopefully when your next in the car with your phone you will think twice. If you haven't seen it yet... take a look:

 

Set my Peperami Free....lance!!!

Peperami have dropped their Advertising Agency Lowe, who they have worked with for the last 16 years and are now asking us, the creative public to do their job! They are following the likes of Doritios and Pringles, whose recent campaigns have been consumer generated and for a reduced cost. Peperami want to take their advertising to the next level, with radical creative ideas that anyone can come up with and enter, for a chance to win.

The Peperami campaign is using an online creative networking site, ideabounty.com, as the tool to getting creative talent involved. You simply register on the site and are given the brief to enter in for a chance to win $10 000 (£6,087) and see the campaign worldwide. The campaign is still focused around the 'animal' character, originally devised from Lowe.

Unilever have stopped their relationship with Lowe on good terms and were especially pleased with their work they have done for them over the years. They also have no intention of using this 'crowd sourcing' technique across any other of their brands currently, but want to still give out briefs to the public in this way for Peperami and not go back to using a retained agency. 

To still keep the high-quality finished executions of their previous ads, Peperami will still be working alongside specialist agency Smartworks to create the winning work. This brief was open to enter from 28th August and is running till 23rd October...so why not give it ago yourself?!

Here's the cheeky/mad BBQ flavour Peperami Ad By Lowe London:

Friendly Fires Homecoming Gig

FRIENDLY FIRES

The Mercury-prize nominated band Friendly Fires, returned to their hometown of St Albans last night to an excited local crowd of 900, in the small sold-out venue of the Alban Arena. The gig was said to be for lead singer Ed; "definitely one of the most surreal, bizarre days of my life, but I'm loving it!". 

The trio, Ed MacFarlane, Jack Savidge and Edd Gibson met at St Albans School and formed their band from the age of 14. Their success and popularity has grown especially over the last two years with their sparkling beautiful electric/pop/percussion sounding epic party tracks, being played across all main radio stations and around the world, from them touring across festivals from the UK, to Japan and America. Their unusual percussion instruments, comprise of shaking maracas, playing cowbells and even using a hoover on a guitar! Somehow these sounds blend in perfectly with each track and make each track as individual as the last.

From their relentless touring and practice, they performed an impressively tight set with, perfect vocals and high energy, extremely-watchable dancing from lead singer Ed Macfarlane. After the gig there was a small and friendly after party (which i was lucky enough to attend) at The Horn (Musical Live Pub of the year), where the band, band friends and family were invited.

Their set-list was comprised of all their big tracks from their debut album, including my favourite "Jump In The Pool" and their latest track "Kiss of Life".

Set-List:

'Lovesick'
'Jump In The Pool'
'Skeleton Boy'
'In The Hospital'
'White Diamonds'
'Strobe'
'Kiss Of Life'
'Photobooth'
'On Board'
'Paris'

'Ex Lover''

Twilight The Movie

After being engrossed in reading Twilight, I was excited to see the film adaptation and bought the dvd straight away.

Whilst I read the book I had seen posters pretty much everywhere for the film, so unfortunately I already had the main characters Bella and Edward, visually in my mind. Apart from my imagination not creating their profiles, before watching a film (like The Da Vinchi Code), if the director takes a different approach or style to what you envisaged, it automatically quickly becomes very disappointing. I have to say I was impressed. I think the surroundings, set and atmosphere where captured and portrayed really well and the actors were well chosen for each role.

My main frustration with the film, was how they had slightly rushed and compacted nearly all the chapters into less than half the running time. It just didn't feel well-balanced. I felt it missed out a lot of the detail and small but notable events from the book, which would have added to the depth and substance of the film. It also seemed to quite simply focus on Bella and Edward and made the other sub-characters (eg Mike) play much smaller, less memberable roles.

Kristin Stewart (who plays Bella) and Robert Pattison (who plays Edward), I think made a great pair, which were both beautiful and mesmerising to watch on screen. The misunderstood teenagers brilliantly create high sexual tension, which you can almost feel through the screen. A definite highlight of the film was watching the gorgeously handsome Pattison, playing Edward. In the book more time is spent detailing their blossoming romance and how they both have to come to terms with the dangers that come with their relationship. This again is a detail which is too quickly surpassed in my opinion.

Apart from the details mentioned above, there were not any other major key elements missing and the film was both action-packed and enjoyable, but nowhere near as believable. It was low budget, so i think the slightly questionable special effects were due to this. I really look forward to the sequel, which I am currently reading to come out on the big screen! Im pretty sure though, the films will never beat reading the books!

IKEA: Why fix something that isn’t broken?

Ikea have just changed their Futura typeface to Verdana. This interested me as I wondered why would they bother changing something that i personally think works well... basically why try fixing something that isn't already broken! 

The Verdana typeface was designed by Microsoft especially for use on the web, due to its easy readability from the wide spaces left between each character, enabling it to be used at small sizes on computer screens. I feel that the slightly quirky/constructivist elements of Futura have been lost in Verdana, which is more modern and a homogenous typeface that does not stand out with originality, but has been used for its exceptional clarity needed in our growing digital age.

An Ikea spokeswoman, Monika Gocic, has said that Verdana is for them because "it is more efficient and cost-effective", therefore has been chosen more from an economics point of view. Verdana enables their business to work across the globe in many different languages, by being clear and unambiguous.