If you’re in Miami this coming weekend for Ultra, I’m confident that you’ll be tempted to sleep in on Saturday morning, particularly if you hit any of the Ultra after parties on Friday night. Set an alarm instead.
Saturday’s first performer on the Tower of Ultra stage is well worth losing sleep over: producers/VJs/DJs Eclectic Method will be taking the stage from noon to noon-plus-forty-five minutes, and if that’s not worth getting up for I’m not sure what is (I’ll surely be there). Take a gander at their remix of King’s Speech and tell me you’re still not dragging your asses out of bed.
The Ultra Music Festival in Miami is already worth staying up for three straight days to attend, even without the new “Carl Cox + Friends Megastructure” (in which Mr. Cox will be joined in performing by the likes of Afrojack, Fredde Le Grand and Moby). Sadly, buying tickets for the event c’est impossible: they’ve plum sold out.
All, however, is not lost. If you can’t stand the thought of missing Deadmou5, Tiësto, and even Duran Duran (yes, it’s true, so feather your hair and get ready) you may still be able to cop a free pair, courtesy of the mighty Mr. Cox and the good people at UMF: they’re giving away one set for the weekend, and all you have to do is toss your name in the hat. Oh, and explain why you think YOU deserve them – so there appears to be some judging involved. I suggest you put down your vaporizer and get creative – last chance to enter is March 15.
This article originally appeared in “The Mashup,” my weekly newspaper column for Florida Weekly.
Battles have been waged by major brands over market share since long before Gutenberg made it convenient to print marketing materials. You can go back thousands of years to find examples of hardcore marketing techniques designed to sway public opinion away from the opposition and into Brand X’s camp.
I’m sure that more than a few of the Mad Men wished they’d been able to employ some of those methods; had they been allowed to take some cues from the inquisition, for example, think how many more heretical Post Toasties buyers could have been convinced to switch to the one true cereal, the humble Kellogg’s Corn Flake.
Actually torturing consumers into changing brands hasn’t been socially acceptable since the Yugo’s demise, but that doesn’t mean that brands or their loyalists have become any less driven to prove that they’re the best on the block. The battles haven’t always been fought fairly and have, of course, led to some major missteps.
Well, he does look like he's been hitting the bottle...
This article originally appeared in “The Mashup,” my weekly newspaper column for Florida Weekly.
When someone takes the time to pair wines with breakfast cereals, as Gary Vaynerchuk did last year (if you’re wondering what to pair with Cap’n Crunch, it’s the 2007 Von Kesselstatt Spatlese Scharzhofberger Riesling), I think it’s time to admit that the obsession with pairing has gotten a bit out of hand.
Don’t get me wrong: I certainly like food, and I’ve been known to enjoy an occasional glass of wine with a meal, but the obsession some people have with claiming that the notes of fruit from the wind passing over the pear tree in the field adjoining the grape arbors sets of some part of the steak sauce is lost on me.
Call me unsophisticated, but for me wine pretty much comes in two varieties: wine that tastes delicious and wine that doesn’t. Picking out the subtleties of why it’s good or bad isn’t my bag, though I might well pretend otherwise if I were to sit down for dinner with the Queen of England (“why yes, your highness, I do find this to be a delightfully playful glass of the ol’ grape”).
Ah, memories. With 2011 SXSW just around the corner, I’ve gotten all misty eyed over my time there last year (highly doubtful I’ll be returning this year, much as I want to). Here are a few of the many Tweets from my SXSW 2010 coverage, many of which were picked up by New Times and other assorted Tweet-picker-uppers.
Adrian Grenier (or whatever his name is) from Entourage makes small screen glories real @ #sxsw gifting suite (http://plixi.com/p/15210423)
Having the gifting suite bartender call me sweetheart was oddly comforting. Then she said it 2 the guy next to me. Whore. #sxsw
Overheard Thomas Erak from The Fall of Troy @ Cast Spells#SXSW show say: “he’s like ‘it’s too gay it’s too gay’ and I’m like ‘YOU’RE gay.’”
Something hypnotic about siting in #sxsw gifting suite watching alt-rock heroes pose with sneakers. Or is it the vodka/rum cocktails?
By my estimate, roughly 16% of the dudes @ #SXSW look and dress like the unibomber.
Funny as hell, even when he did look like a retarded Muppet.
You know, it’s tough to find a comedian that doesn’t get irritating after a while. And I don’t mean irritating in a good way like, say, in the case of a prostate exam, I mean irritating in a “be funny, goddamn it” way. I’m always happy to listen to smart, funny cats like Doug Stanhope, Louis CK, Colin Quinn, and even that squinty-eyed freak Gilbert Gottfried (just not in an AFLAC commercial please), but I’d rather put my penis in a vice than watch Dane Cook do a routine.
And Greg Giraldo was another of those guys (the funny ones, not the penis-in-a-vice ones I mean). Even his stupid smirk and semi-obnoxious hair couldn’t detract from how funny he was. I never heard him do shitty, stolen material, and he rarely came across as a hack (something obviously irrelevant in the fabric of the universe: Denis Leary and Carlos Mencia are still walking around, so fuck you, universe).
Yup, it’s true my geeky, Star Wars-loving, wookie-imitating, fan of cinnamon-bun hairstyle compadres: the long awaited R2-D2 model of the Droid is now availability on Verizon.
And they’ve even made a relatively cheesy Star Wars-style, text-disappearing-into-space movie intro for it that doesn’t come close to living up to the promise of the question they posted on the homepage: “Does your phone shut down ALL the garbage mashers on the detention level?”
Specs are the same as on a standard Droid 2, which means you’ll be able to tell all the ladies that your phone’s got a 1GHz processor, 5 MP camera, lots of memory, and runs Android 2.2.
You still won’t get laid, but at least you’ll go home to your Princess Leia poster with nice pics of the girls that snubbed you. Plus, when you get home, you can put your phone in the fancy, custom docking station (that looks suspiciously like it was made from recycled Imperial storm trooper armor) and go beddy bye next to ol’ R2.
Herewith: my tweet from before the show and Google Chat with the New Times music editor the day after the show. They say it all.
Crossfade: dude. i am reading a review of motorhead from last night… did you make it in? Bradford: Did not make it in. Was crazy. Crossfade: i bet Bradford: I would have killed to get into that show
People here I know with weight couldn’t get in Crossfade: i’m glad that you did not kill
would have killed our sxsw coverage Bradford: But made a good cover story
“Good writer gone bad”
What drove bradford schmidt to kill
was it the evil metal music
Lemmy would have been on larry king
Where’s the review – I should I avoid it so I’m not bummed Crossfade:houston press Bradford: Fuckers.
Yeah I know. This is the kind of photo you get when you show up late. Clicking on it makes it bigger, but not better.
I was getting crushed. It was 7:59 PM in Austin Texas, I was covering South by Southwest, and I was trying to maneuver my ass through the crowd and up to the stage that held the Crash Kings gear. Crash Kings, for those of you just tuning in, are a three piece out of LA: Tony Beliveau on vocals, piano, and keyboards, his brother Mike Beliveau on bass, and Jason Morris on drums. Right, no guitar. And while I’m on the topic, let me say this here and now: any music writer that claims they’re like Ben Folds Five is a lazy fucking douche that couldn’t identify a chord progression or song structure with a musical road map.
At any rate, the show was at 8 and I had, of course, gotten there considerably later than I’d intended and it was packed. No way it was I making it to the front. I settled for stage left, behind Mike’s basses, but I was bummed: this was one of the shows I was most excited about catching in Austin this year, my photo pass meant next to nothing at venues without a photo pit, and here I was arriving too late to get up front.
In a case that’s both bizarre and incredibly disturbing, more motions have been filed in the lawsuit against the Lower Merion School District (in a Philadelphia suburb) accusing the IT department of spying on high school students via the webcams in school-issued laptops. I am crapping you negative.
Here’s how it went down originally: A few months ago, the school district disciplined a student, Blake J. Robbins, for “improper behavior in his home.” As it turns out, it’s the same improper behavior all teens engage in, but not what you think (read on and keep your mind out of your lap).
I don’t have words to describe how much it pisses me off that a school actually believes it somehow gets to dictate behavior at home (though if it did, I might have been a bit less rashy back when I was 13), but what’s even more disgusting is the evidence that the scumbag Vice Principal (not named Cheney as far as I know) used to back up the accusation: a photo taken from the web cam in the laptop the school issued Robbins.
If you’re in Miami this coming weekend for Ultra, I’m confident that you’ll be tempted to sleep in on Saturday morning, particularly if you hit any of the Ultra after parties on Friday night. Set an alarm instead.
