ERROL FLANAGAN

Culture stuff - the great Gibson Les Paul

I was listening to community radio here in Sydney 2SER 107.3FM, running programmes on Les Paul, inventor of two phenomenal things that changed music forever - the Gibson Les Paul solid body electric guitar and also multitrack recording. All fascinating and good to hear early recordings of twiddly Bert Weedon-esque 50's twanginess by Les Paul, the talented multitracking guitarist. 

The Les Paul goldtop is a big icon in the guitar world - that and the starburst finishes are timeless standards - from Paul Kossoff in Free, to Jimmy Page and later to Thin Lizzy and Pete Townsend and many others. For me though, the quintessential Les Paul experience turns up on the genius debut album by Boston. 

'More Than A Feeling' is the complete crowd pleaser - but 'Hitch A Ride' has the brilliant soundtrack of great things to come feel. Download 06 Hitch A Ride - Fabulous how a technological revolution in instruments of human expression in one decade, can move people generations later in ways the inventor could probably never have imagined.

The sound of optimism - analogue happiness

Playing the Theremin is a very odd experience - you make sound without touching anything except the air around a box which looks like a very early prototype of some kind of metal detector, in effect you're playing the air. This is Randy George who also does classical recitals with his theremin (on his site). 

Paul Weller, the Modfather, and the year after year struggle in a town called malice

This week Paul Weller is in Sydney. This is him from when he was in The Jam back in the seventies. In late seventies Britain, Paul Weller was a powerful pop culture voice and sound of the suburbs - a supporter of left-wing politics in Thatcher's right-wing Conservative, 'Get on yer bike' (and go and find a job) Britain. I think there are some good insights and observations about a youth culture under pressure to be more commercial and selfish, and less social and altruistic, both in this, and many other songs by The Jam - 'getting a cab and traveling on buses, reading the graffiti about slash seats or fares - that's entertainment'.

It's well known that much of the seventies New Wave and Punk owes a lot to the sixties Mods and bands like The Small Faces, The Kinks, The Yardbirds, The Byrds, The Rolling Stones and The Who. Those bands amongst others took a mix of psychedelia, blues and rock and gave it an anti-establishment voice for a new post-war generation in Britain, who was being told by the government of the time that they'd 'never had it so good'. In cash terms maybe they could believe that, but socially, society was still narrow minded and conservative.

Oasis and Blur and other Britpop bands like Pulp pay good homage to the Mod days. Blur had Phil Daniels do vocals in their iconic 'Parklife', Paul Weller plays lead guitar on Oasis' 'Champagne Supernova'. The family line and intertwining goes on in Paul Weller's new albums '22 Dreams' where he has Graham Coxon, ex Blur and Noel Gallagher featuring on tracks.

There is a lot of learning and parallels for me on brands in this. There's clearly something about lineage, dedication and high ideals that separates the greats from the rest. Genius is sometimes defined as taking an expertise in something to a higher level. There's a school of thought about a '10,000 hour rule' which means that only if you spend 10,000 hours on something can you hope to be expert enough to then take it to the next level. Weller takes an 'I do what I do' attitude to keeping on putting in the hours and taking his art to new places. In the interviews below he talks about exploring new musical areas in future and getting contributing musicians to do things outside their normal areas of brilliance - Graham Coxon plays drums on 22 Dreams, and Weller gets Noel Gallagher to play melotron and other keyboards.

In this video for 'Town Called Malice' I think his big ideal is simply revealed, and it's to do with 'struggle, year after year' and a signing up to a lifelong, 'Anti Complacency League' attitude. He is certainly very highly regarded in the music scene in the UK as an authentic working class voice of the modern world and a great musical legend. It was great to see him last night play at the Enmore Theatre, it was a great gig, one of those gigs where you keep finding yourself saying, 'That was brilliant, that was absolutely fantastic.'. He and the band looked like they were having a great time too.

This is him (in two parts) in an interview from XFM in the UK, talking about the new album, the legacy he'd like to leave, and various other things.

Sixty foot scratch card and a hidden love song

This is a link to a piece of work that involves a love song hidden behind a sixty foot scratch card type surface, used as part of an interactive exhibit in London, created by Melissa Mongiat and others. I found it about a year ago via a Wallpaper magazine featuring the designer. A bit of googling, and my curiousity being grabbed by both the exhibit title, and the website being called milkandtales.com, took me to find something quite enchanting, childlike and fantastically wonderful.

The title of the exhibit is called 'Hidden Love Song'. It was done as part of the Royal Festival Hall's 'Keeping In Touch' project. It's a great bit of people engaging with creativity, to create something quite special and unique. It would be great to see more of this kind of thing from brands applying sensitivity and art in their communications.

In a world where mentos mints and diet coke bottles get to be performance art ads by whim of an imaginative mind or two, surely more invention and original thinking is not only called for, but actually very necessary for brands to be more interesting in their conversations with consumers.

I've categorized this under 'not enough time to be bland' because for me it is a big watch out for brands. The opportunity for brands to step up to the plate on having a big idea and being imaginative about how they bring it to life, will always be there - the Royal Festival Hall could have spent the money on a poster campaign, or maybe a tv ad about what was on there, but they did a sixty foot, old tech, interactive, music playing, scratch card instead. This was an ad people had to touch, feel and be moved by, it delivered intrigue and provoked stories and wonder. Importantly, it was a metaphor letting people make their own meaning from it, and not a lesson, and it had an idea to be true to, not a demographic to connect with, in mind.

If it were branded, it would have conferred a great deal of joy and optimism on the brand associated with it. It would probably have made the brand feel like a positive thing to listen to, probably giving the brand thought leadership kudos, challenger brand and innovative thinking points too. I suspect it would have made people a little more interested in finding out what was on at the Royal festival Hall as a result too.

The power of a sticky, innovative and inspiring idea arguably makes the RFH's direct marketing or the Sunday papers' listings ad's job a lot easier, and it probably makes those, and all other channels in play, marketing their offer, more effective too. But of course this chaotic synergy of brand behaviour is not something traditional marketing approaches are used to measuring, so a 'too hard to do' or 'not what we do' attitude often means support for the non-traditional is kicked into touch. Great. That means bravery still wins, and the imaginative few agency/client partnerships are the ones that will be the leaders. But, not so great, in that the bar doesn't get raised higher very quickly, and mush in the middle bland brandedness continues to be what most of us get.

These sorts of magical things get to happen where there is a belief that doing interesting things in culture is innately a good thing to do, and those that excel at it are those who believe that inspiring and innovating is mission critical for their business success.

There's a great quote by organisational ecologist Michael Hannan which says, 'Natural selection only works on available diversity'. Technology is making product functionality advantages pretty small and short lived, and people are putting more value on innovation and inspiration from brands as both badges of belonging, and beacons of clarity in confusion. This means the iconic success stories will be more likely to be found in the brands who are most obsessive about being interesting, genuine, innovative and inspiring in their thinking and doing.

In another post, I've mentioned P&G going for inspiration and emotion, rather than functional and rational messaging and marketing approaches, for sound business reasons and making a success of it. That and this piece of art-meets-communication is the stuff marketers need to be inspired by to rethink and enliven models and processes to produce magic of their own for their consumers. If they are not amongst the leaders in shaping and pioneering marketing behaviour, in the current cultural appetite for genius, brands better be in the early adopters group at least, following inspired bits of public engagement like this. Staying in the mass middle ground of the herd of usual marketing behaviour, or getting too late to the game, will mean having to shout loud and compete on price in the blur of sameness - end result is a low margin, high risk game.

For most it's 'do what we know' high measurability, low risk, high traditionality. For some it's 'heck we'll try stuff, and we must, otherwise we'll be as boring as them'. I suspect both sides will be adamant about their way being the best way, and have numbers to prove it. Perhaps its more about faith.

Melissa Mongiat was one of Wallpaper's breakthrough designers for 2007.

This a screen grab from the website.