Tune In Saturdays: Salim Nourallah

I thought I'd delve a little deeper into the old Itunes treasure chest with Salim Nourallah, a Dallas musician and producer.

From Maverick Magazine:
"Fans of Wilco, the Frames and Sparklehorse will also be flocking to this set of songs. Nourallah's unhurried softly rasping vocals are laden with a sadness similar to Jeff Tweedy's and the woozy slurring of Thom Yorke while the acoustic arrangements build around his guitar work with drums and strings developing into quiet symphonies of sound."

Salim's been on the scene for years, making quiet gems with the Happiness Factor, the Nourallah Brothers, and now on his own, with the brilliant album, Beautiful Noise and 2004's Polaroid.  He's also produced records for Old 97's, Rhett Miller, and Sorta, among others.

Beautiful Noise was voted the  Best Album of 2006 by the Dallas Observer.  Salim also won Best Song for The World is Full of People Who Want to Hurt You, and Best Producer.

Listen here to 1978, go to the MySpace page for more tunes. Or, you can check out his new ad for Comcast, or his blog.  Get it.

A virtual realistic prediction?

I checked out the Big Brother SL island the other day, and found this tent, full of ads for other television shows from the same producers, regardless of network. Yup, that’s NBC and ABC represented, at an event for a CBS show. What are the networks good for again?

And, yes, I realize this is two posts in a row on Second Life.  I'm shaking my head, too.  And the tailspin begins...

Second Life: The Greatest Thing Since the First One

I’ve got two new friends, Jackson Jacks and CK Emoto. Well, new versions of old friends, anyway;the masi guy, Tim Jackson and our own little bookstress, CK.

The three of us spent the wee hours of Saturday night, or Sunday morning, depending on your disposition, exploring the wonderful dork forest of Second Life . I say dork now because it makes me feel better about the fact that I actually rather enjoyed it. You know, I never really did play dungeons and dragons in high school, but maybe I should give that a shot, too.

Jackson Jacks looked like some massive Viking of questionable sexuality. Seriously, it was creepy, and as evidenced by this picture, he wasn’t afraid to show it off. And, of course, CK, never one to shy away from a little bare midriff, well, you know, showed a little, uh, skin.

 

We were all three very much newbies, and between CK typing anywhere but where she was supposed to, Jacks' unfortunate Mohawk, and my lack of virtual motor skills, we wore our minimal expertise on our sleeves.

It does strike me as comparable to an advanced version of the Sims, but with real people. Or really virtual people. I’m not sure if my first life allows too much extra time to begin a second one, but it clearly has marketing implications all over it. There’s no question that we don’t connect so linearly as we once did. Geographic boundaries don’t necessarily provide relationship boxes like ten year olds on the same cul-de-sac.

But, it’s still hard to put your finger on. It’s clear that just because this life is virtual, doesn’t mean that SL citizens care any less about them. If we treat second life like we’ve already treated the original one, one of two things will happen; there will be no more Second Life, or no more us in Second Life, one or the other.

 

So, at this point, I’ll just enjoy perusing the Crayon offices a bit more, and figuring out what’s what with my new favorite “sort of” real people, CK Emoto and Jackson Jacks. If you’d like to find me, this is Dallas Dibou, and I’ve officially blogged about Second Life, which makes me just a little dorkier and just a little smarter. And I’m good with both.

The Long Awaited Jaffe Interview

*Holy shit! I finally got it working!*

Move over Adam Curry. The greatest podcaster in the history of forever is in town. Well, fuck, at least I'm probably not the worst. You can give me that, right?

Believe me, it does sound like my first real go at podcasting, but luckily and thankfully, I landed a ringer, and Joseph Jaffe was there to pick up the significant slack.

If you stick it out to the end, you'll get to hear the epitome of my master interviewing skills, while I obviously get caught thinking about the next question, rather than listening to the answer to the last question. Yes, that's skillz with a z.

Anyway, this is in the hallway of the Chaos 2006 conference in Austin, Texas.  Hope you guys enjoy...

Click Here To Listen.

Text version to come at the Madison Avenue Journal.

And, the Jaffe essentials.

Chief of made-up titles Interrupter: Crayon, Life After the 30 Second Spot, Jaffe Juice, Across the Sound - The New Marketing Podcast.  Soak 'em all in,  and send me a thank you card. Photo by Bryan Pearson.

Tune In Saturdays Replay: Robert Gomez

Denton, Texas' own Robert Gomez has released a fucking awesome teaser to his upcoming full-length, Brand New Towns. More importantly, he becomes the first dual-posted artist on Tune In Saturdays.  I'm sure he's very, very excited.

Bella Union, Rob's label, is finally getting smart, maybe a little Zune-ish, and they're offering the Closer Still EP for free for three plays. Unfortunately, you have to listen in Windows Media Player, but if you buy, they also offer it in alternative formats.

To download the tracks, go to his MySpace page, and scroll down a bit. 

Or you can go to his home, or you can watch the video for the title track to Closer Still below.

And, because of the replay, here's a special Tune In Bonus: Jolie Holland with Springtime Can Kill You. More on that gem to come.

The Mail Never Stops

Does anyone else ever feel like Newman on Seinfeld?

Why do so many mailman go crazy?

"Because the mail never stops. It just keeps coming and coming and coming. There's never a letup, It's relentless. Every day it piles up more and more, but the more you get out, the more it keeps coming. And then the bar code reader breaks. And then it's Publisher's Clearinghouse day..."

More posting to come, my friends, bare with me.

Fashioned Wallpaper

Thanksgiving was at my aunt's house this year.  Well, grandmother's sister's daughter's house.  Seeing as how I have no idea what label that necessitates, aunt will have to do.

Anyway, this is a picture from her 16 year-old daughter's bedroom.  Once my eyes adjusted to the frightening amount of pink, I noticed this wallpapering of Cosmo ads...

Anybody still question whether advertising can be effective? What is the ROI on this, anyway?

You know, all those fashion print ads struck me as the height of ridiculousness for a long, long time, but, maybe I had it wrong all along.

Tune In Saturdays: Let's Go Sailing

Let's Go Sailing, the Los Angeles five-piece from the mind of Shana Levy, knows how to do two things well.

1) Make Belle and Sebastian-like gloomy pop music.

2) Name-drop.

From the website:

In November of 2002, Shana Levy left indie pop outfit Irving to pursue Let's Go Sailing. She asked friends Tanya Haden (Haden Triplets), Nikki Monninger (Silversun Pickups), Brent Turner (Irving) and Byron Reynolds (Possum Dixon) to work on an album's worth of material and soon enough they began recording a demo with Chris Chandler (Flaming Lips/Modest Mouse/Elliott Smith) and Rod Cervera (The Rentals/Weezer). The recording process quickly gained momentum and, with the help of Chris and Jim Putnam (Radar Bros.), Shana decided to make a hi-fi record independently. With lots of tweaking and a little tlc from Ben Mumphrey (Frank Black/The Pixies), the record was finally finished!!!!        

Those are some damn good names to associate yourself with, so I'll refrain from judgment.

Head over to the MySpace page and check out 4 songs from the new album, The Chaos in Order.  It's full of little gems that make as much out of the hooks as they do the quiet moments.  And with friends like those, it probably won't take long for Shana and the bunch to make a splash or two in the coming months...

Obligatory Turkey Post

You know what I'm thankful for? I'm thankful for cheese.

Because without cheese, burgers just wouldn't taste quite as good.

So, that's my marketing thought for the day.  Even though you may be creating something tasty, just imagine how much better it could be if you added that little something extra.

This Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for all you guys sharing your cheese.

And, just so you know, We know.

Today was ad conference day for the old Hee Haw in beautiful Austin, Texas, complete with buzz words, synergies, viral video, CGC, podcasting, blogs, branded entertainment...zzz...zz...zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

If there's one thing marketers know how to do is spew a bunch of bullshit, and seem like they know what the hell they're talking about. But one thing I now understand, is that none of them know what the fuck they're talking about.  Everybody's arching darts towards a dartboard from 300 feet, and trying to make themselves feel good about it.

Alright, maybe it's not so dire. A few have some good ideas, and some good intentions, so you just throw your hat in with people with a little righteous conviction, and enjoy the ride.

Which brings me to good old Joseph Jaffe, author of Life After the 30 second spot and newly-anointed leader of Crayon, who I finally got to meet today. Lucky for me, he was gracious enough to allow some time for an interview. If there's one thing the man's got, it's a ton of righteous conviction.

Audio to come hopefully before Thanksgiving, and the print version to come over at The Madison Avenue Journal, at a time to be determined.

*Just to clarify, no, I'm not saying that those things I listed above are bullshit.  Quite the opposite. So quit hassling me, punk.