LONDON, UK: Mayor of London Boris Johnson visits London Bridge Station to launch a competition to find the capital’s most talented buskers. The photo-op launched a campaign to increase musical education and opportunities for young Londoners.
To enter the competition musicians have to upload a video clip of themselves performing on the ‘Rhythm of London’ YouTube group www.youtube.com/group/SOTUauditions2010 and complete an online registration form at www.london.gov.uk by 6 April 2010.
Judges will then select 100 people to be filmed performing at busking slots across the capital on April 24th and ask the public to vote for their favourite busker. The top ten will then perform live later this year at a ‘busk off’ for the final prize.
Glasgow, Scotland: A £40,000 car which once belonged to criminals in Glasgow is now being used by the police in the fight against serious crime.
The black Q7 was seized by officers from Strathclyde police during an operation against a criminal gang in the north of the city.
The 4×4 car has now been emblazoned with the force’s livery and will be used by the Gangs Task Force.
Assistant Chief Constable John Neilson said: “The hard working, law abiding citizens need to know that we are hurting those involved in serious and organised crime where it matters – their pockets.
Well the latest video from American rock band OK Go has also become a You Tube sensation with 6 Million views and rising…
The official video for the recorded version of “This Too Shall Pass” was filmed in a two story warehouse, in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA.
The “machine” was designed and built by the band, along with members of Syyn Labs over the course of several months. Between 55-60 people worked on this, and they went through more than 60 takes before reaching the final product.
UK: Residents anger as Northamptonshire rebranded ‘North Londonshire’
It’s a mere 90 miles to London and there are only two smallish counties in the way – and these facts appear to have been enough to encourage executives to rebrand Northamptonshire as North Londonshire.
The North Northamptonshire Development Corporation is about to embark on a £1.28 million advertising campaign to attract people and businesses from the capital area.
The idea has worked before. After all, airports do it all the time: there’s London Stansted, London Luton and now there’s even London Oxford.
USA: Writers at Marvel Comics have taken rising levels of global unemployment as the inspiration for a publicity inducing plot twist. Yes spider-man may be able to spin a web of any size, but he’s also been fired.
“He’s fired very publicly at a big press conference,” said Spider-Man group editor Stephen Wacker. “He can’t sell his photos anywhere. He’s left without any prospects in the worst economy in three generations.”
The New York Times comments; “The wall-crawling Marvel Comics hero will have to depend on his thrifty sense as much as his Spidey-sense in the months to come as a new story sees him become the latest addition to the nation’s ranks of unemployed.!
[Keeping tabs on the art of promotion with this occasional ’stunt of the day’ blog ….]
Mumbai, India: Bollywood filmmaker Ram Gopal Verma has challenged the public to watch his upcoming horror film Phoonk 2 alone in a cinema, promising a cash prize of $10,000 to the person who manages to do so.
Verma threw the challenge while promoting his film in India’s showbiz capital Mumbai.
Meanwhile the producers of horror film Rokkk have claimed that they will keep ambulances posted outside theatres where their horror film will be screened.”We had held a screening of the film and some people with heartproblems feel ill,” said a spokesperson.
Sydney, Australia: 5,200 naked people embraced each other on the steps of Sydney Opera House for a photo shoot by American artist Spencer Tunick to mark the city’s gay and lesbian Mardi Gras celebrations.
Tunick instructed participants to adopt a number of poses, from standing up, lying down and even embracing cheek to cheek, as the sun rose over Sydney Harbour.
Warlingham, Surrey, UK: A farmer has come up with a bizarre new way to save his wheat crop – a Lady GaGa scarecrow. The 23 year old singer, famed for outrageous outfits, provided the inspiration behind a new range of bird scarers.
The Daily Telegraph reports; “Nigel Britten was despairing at the way pigeons were eating his wheat crops until he and his fiancee watched her on the Brit Awards last week.”
Marie Davies, marketing manager at Hovis, said the company was considering rolling out the design.
The Farm is one of over 600 growing premium wheat exclusively for Hovis as part of its move to using 100 per cent British wheat.
Keeping tabs on the art of product promotion with this occasional ’stunt of the day’ blog ….
‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’ is a documentary produced by the elusive king monkey of graffiti himself, Banksy. Promoted with the tagline ‘The Worlds First Street Art Disaster Movie’, it’s an intruiging look into the closely guarded world of urban artists.
Instigated by Thierry Guetta, a mentalist guerrilla French filmmaker, the organic filming process followed various artists across the world using, to be polite, a fly by the seat of your pants approach.
Guetta finally tracked Banksy down and persuaded him through sheer persistence (and crazy man antics) to be part of the project. Banksy has been both denounced as a vandal and celebrated as iconoclast, agitator and instigator of artistic debate. When it came to watching the footage back however, it transpired that Guetta had been slightly too random and anarchic in his techniques, the result of which wasn’t a film but an incoherent jumble of great images that lacked any discernable narrative structure.
But Banksy saw something in the raw footage and collaborated with Guetta to make his own film. As street art is site specific and by its nature, temporal, the only way to preserve it for posterity is through the photographic image and as such this film is really the first of its kind. Watching these guys in action is adrenaline pumping stuff as they skulk about in the dead of night with faces obscured, get chased and casually perform death defying stunts in order to get their pieces done. This is committed shit.
Banksy himself has been criticised for ‘selling out’ but many don’t realise that the quietly spoken Bristolian (by all accounts) has made no revenue over the merchandise that is sold in his name nor through many of the galleries that purport to sell his work.
He recently gave a long interview to the Sunday Times through an elaborate slew of emails as he still refuses to divulge his identity. Cynics view this as a publicity stunt, presuming it’s all about myth building. But in practical terms, were he to expose his real identity he would be setting himself up to a barrage of vandalism charges.
As street art remains unendorsed by official organisations, it’s the one truly remaining democratic art form unbastardised by the capitalist art market. It encourages free speech and satirical comment, engenders surprise and often inspires laughter. Blek le Rat would be proud.
UK: Innocent is partnering with the National Trust for a new on-pack promotion in a bid to help champion beekeeping. The “buy one get one bee” offer is part of a new push by the National Trust to help reduce the disappearance of bees in the UK.
From mid April to July, new bottles and cartons of limited edition Lemons, Honey and Ginger innocent smoothies will offer free bee-friendly wild flower seeds packets, enabling consumers to create new habitats for the bees. Innocent will also set up a website in May to enable consumers to watch the bees making the most out of the new hives using a live “bee cam”.
Verma threw the challenge while promoting his film in India’s showbiz capital Mumbai.
