In the 1960s and 70s, Levi’s promoted their products with a series of offbeat commercials, many of which had a lysergic spin.
In this ad, psychedelia meets film noir when a stranger in a pair of trippy polyester jeans comes to town.
Ken Nordine narrates.
A commercial to haunt your dreams.
As if Walmart wasn’t scary enough.
This will be debuting on TV soon. Warn the children.
Via Copyranter
Peters on wheels. Phallic-shaped trucks deliver creamy treats to the eager masses.
This Australian commercial for an ice cream bar foregos subtext and heads right for the center of the peach-fuzzed meatpit of mortal delight, leaving this viewer with a slightly queasy feeling. The thrust of the thing is given an added bit of explicit creepiness when you consider that the Superstar bar is made by a company named “Peters.”
“You got to bite off the big strawberry points to get to the creamy vanilla center.”
Grab yourself a Superstar.
Morrissey has allowed high-street department store, John Lewis to use a cover version of “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want” on the chain’s £6 million Christmas advertising campaign. The track has been covered by Slow Moving Millie (aka Amelia Warner, ex-wife of Colin Farrell, apparently), which follows on from last year’s take of Elton John’s “Your Song” recorded by Ellie Goulding.
According to the Daily Telegraph Morrissey is “delighted” that the chain was using the track. Craig Inglis, John Lewis’s marketing director, is quoted as saying:
“We know our audience holds The Smiths and bands from that era in high esteem.”
“It’s a magical feeling when you find that perfect present for someone; there’s a great sense of anticipation from the moment you buy it to the moment you give the gift on the big day.
“That feeling is exactly what we’ve tried to capture with this year’s Christmas campaign.”
Ruth Paterson, head of marketing at Rough Trade, the record label which released most of The Smiths’ work, said she was entertained by the collaboration.
“I do like the idea of a really good song by a really good band being played in Middle England’s living rooms,” she told The Times.
“I’m sure that wasn’t the song’s intended purpose, but I think that’s a good thing.”
As Morrissey edges towards a pensionable age, the “substantial pecuniary boost” this ad will bring will no doubt be greatly appreciated - though perhaps not by his fans, as if that will matter.
After Morrissey and Christmas, who’s next? And what other advert involving high street business and alleged hip musician would make for the most unlikely pairing? Suggestions, please.
The Rolling Stones’ Rice Krispies jingle written by Brian Jones. The commercial had a short run on British TV in 1964.
Stones in Chuck Berry mode and it actually rocks for a jingle. Snappy!
Via Open Culture
There’s something pure and beautiful about Patrick Swayze in this 1979 Pabst commercial. He actually makes the notion of drinking shit beer seem almost spiritual.
Swayze was way ahead of the curve. Three decades after this ad was shot, Pabst became the preferred beer of hipsters everywhere.
With its Bee Gees sound-a-like jingle and Swayze in Tony Manero drag, this was clearly marketed to fans of Saturday Night Fever, the folks who preferred a mug of suds with their cocaine in a Bay Ridge disco than some Studio 54 Dom Perignon with Liza and Andy.
Swayze was cool in the same way Astaire and Gene Kelly were cool, he occupied that gravitational still point where music finds its body, flesh its orbit and center, and rhythm gives birth to grace. Any doubts about Swayze’s Zen mastery of space and time? Check out his Buddha as bouncer movie Roadhouse where he channels The Man With No Name and Sammo Hung.
If beer could make us all as effervescent as Mr. Swayze, I’d be drinking it. Unfortunately, it turns most folks into gaseous slugs.
One other thing, can you believe the quality of this 32 year old video? Where was it stored? In an air-tight vault at the North Pole? This looks as eye-searingly lysergic as Gaspar Noé‘s Enter The Void.
Thanks to Ama Keates
Who needs psychoanalysis when you can own a K-Tel mood ring or mood shirt?
These were the perfect solution for folks who had problems expressing how they feel. Let your shirt do the talking.
Pink Floyd’s “The Great Gig In The Sky,” a woman with a banana and one weird tagline - “If you feel it, peel it.”
Paging Dr. Sigmund Freud.
The Hans F. Hansen Mansion
A bold new vision of a sexual utopia where women rule and men are mere erotic playthings at the service of the Supreme Yoni has sprung from the fetid brain pan of former Scandinavian soccer champ and current cosmetics king Hans F. Hansen.
Ladies, that tingling sensation you’re feeling is not a hot flash, it is the flush of pride and sensation of empowerment that the mere mention of Hansen’s name instills in women the world over.
Hansens manifesto:
For decades, The Playboy Mansion has been a playground For Men where Playmates have entertained millions of guests with their bunny costumes, a genius concept perfectly executed by a once young and vivacious idealist. However, that once young man, along with his rabbit tricks, are now old, decrepit and stale. It is time for a new mansion, a new playground where women set the standard. The Hans F Hansen Mansion will be a place of Elegance and Mystery, where guests will reach a level of thorough entertainment not only through it’s intoxicating atmosphere, but also by the exotically beautiful, multitalented, and worldly Hans F Hansen Dames. Isn’t it time for change? We say YES.. It Is.
Among the many pleasures of Hansen’s mansion will be fat-free cookies!
THE MANSION of Hans F Hansen will be a beautiful and sophisticated environment for women, where only “Gentlemen” are welcome. Our mansion is unlike any other mansion of it’s kind because, although it is made up OF WOMAN, it is also made FOR WOMEN. If a man is allowed inside, it is only because he has made an oath to treat woman with respect and enjoy them as beautiful free spirits, not as objects whose sole purpose is to cater to or amuse him. This mansion is GENTLEMEN ONLY.
The Mansion is home to Hans F Hansen, The Hans F Hansen Dames, and many Exclusive Events, Celebrity Private Parties, and Charity Gala’s. This incredible space is not only a living quarters, and event venue, but it also serves as the bootcamp facility where the The Dames’ will learn to be Ultimate Power Woman - Poised, Worldly, Well-Spoken and Multi-Talented.
The Hans F Hansen Dames will grace the rooms of every Mansion event. Guests will be charmed and amazed as these women carry on political conversations, mix delicious drinks, and whip up batches of fat-free cookies!
With several rooms, each having it’s own theme, The Mansion also has a SECRET ROOM. This room is FOR SPECIAL MEMBERS ONLY. Unfortunately, we can not divulge the activities in which this room will be made infamous by a select few, but rest assured, you want an invitation.
The Mansion of Hans F Hansen, Elegant and Sexy, has an intoxicatingly serene essence of Venice that leaves one feeling uninhibited… longing for the next event…
Hansen has issued a challenge to Hugh Hefner that should send the adult entertainment industry spinning off its orbit:
Hugh Hefner’s superior has finally arrived – Hans F Hansen of Scandinavia. Is it possible for Hans F Hansen, founder of the sophisticated brand Below Your Belt, to create a new Entertainment Brand that will surpass the infamous Playboy Empire? Is it time for Hans F Hansen? We say YES… It Is.
The world of Glamour, Sexuality, Women, and Entertainment can finally evolve into something new. If you are a Visionary and a Believer, EVERYTHING is possible.”
The creator of BYB intimate shave cream ( perfectly hairless pubes for the “smooth generation”) and self-described “amalgam of Virgin Atlantic’s Sir Richard Branson and Gucci’s debonair Tom Ford” has a website where you can stay up-to-date on his progress in creating an Amazonian paradise.
Will Hefner’s already struggling empire survive Mr. Below Your Belt’s assault? You be the judge. Here’s Hansen in all his magnetic glory:
Via Reddit
Above, Greenmeme’s Freya Bardell constructing “Migration of the Marine Tumbleweed.”
Brian Howe and Freya Bardell work under the studio name Greenmeme, a cross-disciplinary design collective, based in Los Angeles. Bardell and Howe create site-specific artistic environments that encourage the public to participate and think, promoting both environmental and cultural awareness of given landscapes and ecosystems. Through their public artworks they can hope to provoke creative dialogue about deep ecological issues that matter to all of us.
I recently caught up with Freya Bardell over email:
Richard Metzger: What is your “River Liver” installation about?
Freya Bardell: The first “River Liver” was created in 2005 in the Los Angeles River, seeking to raise awareness of the many ecological and cultural conditions that line its concrete banks. Since that time, the “River Liver” project has become a yearly ritual, designed to “restore” the health of different types of stressed and polluted bodies of water. “River Livers” are functional sculptures, made through community events. They take place “down by the river,” in communities where doing so is not normal.
We encourage people to create their own River Livers, based around developing community strategies for culturally and ecologically reclaiming their water resources. River Livers re-mediate their environment but ,most often, we see the most significant remediation within ourselves, walking away with new friendships based in an enthusiasm to come together and pro-actively clean and reclaim our environment.
Richard Metzger: How many locations have you installed in 5 years?
Freya Bardell: Beyond the yearly Los Angeles River ritual, we have installed a series in Stowe Lake and we are planning a 2012 launch of one on the Trinity River, Dallas, TX.
As I keep mentioning our work is site specific, and therefore we were excited to have the opportunity to utilize the paddle boat culture on the Stowe Lake in our artwork by inviting the public to hook the River Livers onto their paddle boats and tow them to different parts of the lake that they thought needed remediation.
Coming up in Dallas, there will be something totally different. We’re anxious to delve into the site history and see what emerges. Maybe we could create more of an atoll or invite people to inhabit one of the islands. We have to get there first and see.
“Migration of the Marine Tumbleweed” in Santa Monica bay.
Richard Metzger: That amazing glowing, floating trash project you did for the big Glow festival in the Santa Monica bay was also, obviously, about water. What is the connection, if any between these two pieces?
Freya Bardell: We are particularly interested in the environmental and cultural systems at play around our studio and in the city we live in. The ideas that watersheds and air-sheds, cross all kinds physical, political and economic boundaries, picking up all kinds of crap on the way and depositing it out into the oceans or into the atmosphere. The “River Liver” projects looks at the source of these contaminants. Other projects, such as the “Migration of the Marine Tumbleweed,” the one you saw off the beach in Santa Monica look at the collection points of these toxic sources, pollutants gathering in the pacific ocean at the “the trash vortex” or “great pacific gyre”. The project is essentially a story that talks about plastic pollution in our oceans. In the narrative we reconstruct tiny pieces of plastic pollution into fictitous sea creatures, that evolved from the toxic soup of plastic and electronic parts which litter the vortex. The Mum, Dad and Baby tumbleweeds, communicated through a light based language to a team of “scientists” from the “Center for Marine Intelligence,” who could decode to those at the Glow festival the tales of their journey from the vortex
Above, the Environmental Learning Center project, recently completed, at the Hyperion Treatment Plant in Los Angeles.
A third piece in the theme of watersheds, water usage and waste water it our latest project, “Hyperion-Son of Uranus,” a giant 3D topographical map of the Los Angeles sewer system. Based upon the Thomas Guide grid of Los Angeles County, reclaimed Caltrans road signs have been made to represent levels of sewer infrastructure lying beneath LA County.
Richard Metzger: What led you both in your careers to do work like this? There’s almost no precedent for the sort of interdisciplinary environmental and scientific blend of the art you make. How did you get into, or even create this field you’re in?
Freya Bardell: I studied Environmental Science in Manchester, UK and my first job was designing and constructing learning gardens for the Lancashire Wildlife Trust. Life led me to Los Angeles and I began my professional career here as art director. Brian comes from architecture and earthship building. I think the meshing of these various disciplines has helped mold our studio and the type of projects we feel compelled to create. We often work with teams of experts to help us overcome some of the more challenging technical aspects of our work.
Richard Metzger: Is it often major corporations and their foundations who underwrite your grants or do the budgets come from the local governments in areas where you work?
Freya Bardell: Our first projects were actually self-funded, in kind donations, small stipends from artwalks, and some private commissions. With a small portfolio of environmental art, we began applying for art grants the first of which was for $500, then $1000. Most of our projects have been funded though local governments such as The Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. The projects are very site specific. We rarely have an idea of a form before we have a site, before we understand the environmental and cultural factors at play and most importantly, who will be the audience.
Richard Metzger: Knowing the long, long lead-time and planning stages it entails to pull off the kinds of projects you do, from finding the money to actually planning them out and constructing them, I’m wondering what your next projects are?
Freya Bardell: Our most current projects have incredibly long time frames, some not being installed until 2015 or later. We are designing the first traffic roundabout in the City of Los Angeles at the confluence of the LA River and the Arroyo Seco. Water will be a major element within the 100’ diameter roundabout. Underneath the roundabout is a water catchment cistern that captures rainwater and run-off hitting the roundabout. This water will be used to irrigate a California native landscape. Throughout the landscape will be nine large stone sculptures.
Above, a visualization of Greenmeme’s “Climate Clock” proposal.
We’re spending the rest of the summer developing our proposal for the San Jose Climate Clock competition, a 100-year instrument to aid in the visualization of Climate Change in the Bay Area. We were selected as finalists over two years ago, and since then we have been refining the prototype of our proposal with the University of California Natural Reserve system and Stanford University to develop an artist-in-residency program within their high-tech field stations. Our main focus in this phase is the Blue Oak Ranch Reserve, a NRS Field Station near San Jose. There we have already begun a respectful transformation of a 100-year-old cabin into the first studio space for our art-science residency program. This will become the site for the first in series of yearly artist residencies over the next 100 years.
Richard Metzger: You certainly do plan things out well in advance, don’t you?
Freya Bardell: Yes, I think you can safely say that!
Seen on today’s Austin Craigslist:
Drunk Clown needed to party with a group of friends this Sunday.
Dress up like a clown, be willing to get drunk, and hang out with a cool group of people and bar hop with us this Sunday (August 28th) You will meet us at Kung Fu probably around 3:00 pm- (you MUST be dressed up like a clown, face paint.. etc… it would be awesome if you had those little blow up balloons with you too).... and we will have a Sunday Fun day on West 6th. We will pay you $10 an hour, and pay for your drinks. Contact me for details.
Thanks Angel Trevino.
This is one weird Russian commercial for TCS Bank.
According to a commentator on Copyranter’s website, the woman near the end of the commercial asks if we know the difference between us and them. They live in a spider web while we live in the Internet. So, from now on we will act.
“When the Tomb explodes there’s also a vocal of V.Tsoi from underground soviet era rock band Kino singing the same line ‘from now on we will act’.”
I’m not sure how mannequins and inflatable sex dolls connects to banking, but it sure is fun to look at.
Via Copyranter
In what what has to be one of the most tasteless exploitations of the World Trade Center tragedy and the legacy of the more than 3000 people who died on September 11, 2001, Lieb Cellars on Long Island is offering a commemorative 9/11 bottle of wine for $19.11. As a New Yorker and someone who knew people who died on that date in that place, I can’t begin to describe how utterly disgusting I find Lieb Cellars grotesque attempt to profit from a national nightmare.
As of 2009, more than 800 World Trade Center rescue and recovery workers have died since 9/11—and cancer has killed at least 270 of those heroes, new data show. The figures also show that 33 WTC responders committed suicide.
Lieb Cellars says somewhere between 6 - 10% of sales will go towards the National September 11 Memorial Museum. Considering that most sane people wouldn’t uncork their product if it contained liquid gold, I can’t imagine Lieb Cellar’s charitable contribution amounting to much more than cab fare from Times Square to Ground Zero.
Anthony Bourdain’s reaction to the 9/11 wine was short and sweet, he tweeted:
“Holy Fuck! What kind of piece of shit would create such a product?”
Queens city councilman Peter Vallone asked “What’s next? A 9/11 pastrami sandwich?”
As we get closer to the 10th anniversary of 9/11, we should probably expect to see more shameless attempts to profit from morbid merchandising.
A public service announcement from Dr. John. 1991.
New employment opportunities for little people.
Via Copyranter
Photos by Krista Simmons
As eagle-eyed readers may have noticed, we are currently running banner ads for The Gap and there is a little widget in the bottom left-hand side of the screen. This post is what you call advertorial, a mix of advertising and editorial, that hopefully will serve the dual purpose of being a “word from our sponsor” and equally be something of value for Dangerous Minds readers.
Los Angeles is the denim design capital of America. Even after most American clothing companies outsourced their manufacturing overseas, a robust denim infrastructure for receiving, sorting and finishing denim garments still existed in the “Fashion District” of Downtown Los Angeles.
Eventually these tasks, too, were outsourced, but the denim finishing infrastructure (wash facilities, garment assemblies, embroiderers, etc) remained behind. Beginning in the late 90s, small boutique jeans companies began to take advantage of what the district offered, producing small runs of high-quality “premium” jeans—you know, the kind that cost $300—and creating the luxury denim trend.
The Gap is currently re-branding itself in an interesting new way: They’ve recently opened a denim design studio in Downtown Los Angeles, not only to take advantage of the denim industry’s support structure as it exists here, but also so they can recruit from the ranks of the finest, most forward-thinking jeans designers in the world. The goal is to “democratize” high-end denim and make it affordable for everyone.
Los Angeles is a “strange attractor,” drawing in some of the most creative, intelligent and innovative people from all over the planet. It’s THE city where nearly everyone you meet has a connection to the creative arts. I’m a big civic booster of my adopted hometown. I love LA and absolutely consider myself a “Los Angeleano.”
I am especially fond of Downtown. It’s the part of the city where LA’s creative momentum can be most viscerally experienced. Forward-thinking street fashion, art galleries, restaurants and gourmet coffee. Iconic modern architecture like Frank Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall. The gigantic, megawatt Staples Center. The nightclubs and bars. The trendy, chic hotels. The film festivals. Underground comedy clubs. Downtown has it all within walking distance and there’s still a sense of slight menace and danger—like pre-Giuliani New York—giving DTLA some extra points to my mind. You really feel like something is happening all around when you’re in Downtown Los Angeles. I love that feeling, like I’m right in the thick of it. It makes perfect sense to me that The Gap has opened up a denim design studio here to soak up some of this world-class creativity as they seek to renew their brand.
There is a lot to appreciate about DTLA. These these are a few of my favorite things:
Usually the first place I take visiting out-of-towners is Little Tokyo. The architecture in the area, the things for sale in the shops and especially the people… all of it seems so much like a little piece of Tokyo was broken off and dropped into a spot on the eastside of LA. I’ve been to Japan and I think Downtown’s Little Tokyo district really deserves its name. The streets are slightly narrower, there is a fair amount of cobblestone and the it feels a bit more cramped than other parts of town. It really does feel like you’re in Tokyo. The details speak of the area’s authentic Toyko-style experience: Sweet shaved-ice desserts can be found everywhere, the best toy stores in town are in the vicinity and practically everyone smokes…
The vendors at the Little Toyko Square mall sell real Japanese stuff to Japanese people living in Los Angeles who want the same food and products they have at home. Even though the Kinokuniya bookstore—my main reason for going there in the past—is no longer in the mall, I still love it. A visit to the big grocery store there is an event in itself.
Inside the mall you will find an insanely advanced video arcade, a bowling alley, clothing boutiques, karaoke bars, noodle houses (like the delicious Hana-Ichimonme where lunch is around $6) and those stores that sell herbal remedies, foot massagers and questionable Japanese electronic “health” devices.
More of the Dangerous Minds guide to Downtown Los Angeles after the jump…
Here are three TV commercials that jumped on the hippie bandwagon in the Sixties. While condemning the counter-culture, mainstream media sure loved to use the energy and colors of psychedelia to sell, as demonstrated in these go-go crazy ads, clothing, sparkplugs and cameras.
Here’s a trippy/weird commercial for IHOP. Thanks to DM reader Wandering Mort for turning us on to this.
I remember when cocaine was considered a benign social lubricant, a status symbol, and surefire way to get laid. Back when an elephant’s tusk was nothing more than a nifty accessory for the cokehound flush with money and a perverse sense of hipness.
Each of our exotic spoons, straws, and vials is delicately carved by skilled artisans from the finest center cuts of imported African ivory…the ideal coke surface. Ideal, because moisture does not condense on it, no particles will stick to its surface. The unique quality, coupled with the exquisite beauty of each hand carved design, makes each piece worth its weight ins snow.”
The company manufacturing these lovely products was located 20 miles east of Boulder, Colorado. In the mid-70s, Boulder was flooded with high-grade cocaine and some young dealers/entrepreneurs became very rich. Allegedly, some of the blow money ended up being funneled into small businesses that pioneered Boulder’s natural foods industry. At the time, no one knew just how nasty cocaine and the culture surrounding it would become. As the quality of the drug became increasingly degraded, the experience of using it correspondingly became more and more unpleasant. In the end, the scene went from being fun to being pathetic.
Cocaine is the only drug that I continued to use long after it was making me miserable. Decades later, the thought of snorting a line makes me shudder with revulsion.
This Guinness commercial is a decade old but I just discovered it. I don’t think it ever aired on television outside of the United Kingdom. It may be new to some of you as well.
It’s brilliantly directed by Jonathan Glazer who has also done outstanding videos for Nick Cave, Radiohead and Massive Attack. His feature length film Birth is a hugely underrated film released in 2004. Fans of Stanley Kubrick should view it immediately.
Film footage of surfers riding waves in Waimei Bay in Hawaii were digitally combined, using the blue screen effect, with footage of specially trained Lippizaner stallions jumping over hurdles in large pools of water. The images together create magic.
