Creative Marketing 101

~ Sometimes you have to think right outside the box. Especially if you are trying to sell something as common as a CD. Even more so in an age when many people choose to download music illegally (and legally) via the internet.

And to cap it all off, it must seem like an almost impossible task when you are a drummer for hire, rather than the front man for a world famous rock outfit.

All this an more must have been going through the mind of Josh Freese, a drummer who has recorded on hundreds of albums, and played with top acts like Devo, A Perfect Circle, and Nine Inch Nails.

Josh has just released his second album, Since 1972, and was looking for ways to promote and market it, when he came up with not one, but eleven weird and wacky ideas. Concepts so far outside the box, that they have generated a host of media interviews and queries drawing attention to the album, and to the man behind it – and to the crazy marketing ideas.

Ideas like this one: For $50, you get a CD/DVD double-disc set, T-shirt and five-minute "thank you" phone call from Freese for buying the record.

Or how about this: For $2,500 you get to take three items of your choice out of Freese's closet (limited to five people).

Then there is this: For $10,000 Freese takes you and a guest to Disneyland and gives you his Volvo station wagon (limited to one person).

And finally, a spare $20,000 will get you a signed CD/DVD, plus you get to play miniature golf with Freese, singer Maynard James Keenan from Tool and Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo. After the outing, Freese promises to "drop you off on the side of the freeway (all filmed and posted on YouTube)."

Now that’s creative marketing.

It remains to be seen just how many people will take Freese up on his various offers, and it will be interesting to see how his album sales go. At least he tried to think outside the box, and generated some unique ideas and concepts. You can be sure many other musicians will be watching with interest.

Read an interview with Josh Freese at the UnderWired blog…
Visit Josh Freese’s website to hear the album and download a free MP3…
Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

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Art Gallery of South Australia: Turning Japanese

~ Located on North Terrace, Adelaide’s ‘cultural boulevard’, the Art Gallery of South Australia is a veritable treasure house holding one of the country’s greatest art collections in one of the state’s most beautiful buildings.

Visit the Gallery daily to explore the best of Australian art. From colonial and indigenous, through to modern and cutting-edge contemporary, you can wander through the Art Gallery’s extensive displays of European, decorative arts, Middle Eastern and Asian works.

The Golden Journey
Currently, the Art Gallery of South Australia is featuring a major exhibition called, The Golden Journey: Japanese Art from Australian Collections.

Billed as “a stunning display of almost three hundred diverse objects”, the exhibition reveals the rich heritage of Japanese art held in Australia's major public and private collections. The exhibition, the first of its kind in Australia, tells the story of Japanese art from prehistoric times until Japan opened its doors to the West at the start of the Meiji era (1868-1912).

The exhibition features serene Buddhist sculptures, spectacular painted screens, miniature netsuke talismans, colourful Ukiyo-e images of the ‘floating world’, costumes, masks, armour and flamboyant export art created for Australia’s late nineteenth-century international exhibitions. This is in celebration of the profound lyricism and sophisticated eloquence of Japanese aesthetics.

Guided Tours

Try to arrange your visit to coincide with the free guided tours that take place…
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 12 noon, or
Saturday, Sunday and public holidays at 12 noon and 2.30pm

Exhibition runs 6 March to 31 May, 2009
Entry: Adult, $12; Concession, $10; Members & Students 16 and over, $8; Child under 12, Free.
Open daily from 10am to 5pm.
Location: North Terrace, Adelaide

Visit the Art Gallery of South Australia website here…

IMAGE: Courtesy Art Gallery of South Australia

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Archie Green (1917-2009)

~ By Julie Ardery

Archie Green (1917-2009): Called to Labor

The man who taught us "laborlore" and persuaded Congress to establish a National Folklife Center has died.

The smallest giant I’ve ever known is dead. Archie Green, former shipwright, Congressional lobbyist and a pioneer of American labor history and folklore studies, died Sunday, March 22, at his home on Caselli Avenue in San Francisco. He was 91.

“Many of us owe him a huge debt,” wrote filmmaker Mimi Pickering, of Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky. “We will not see the likes of him again.”

Archie, as he was universally known, was a scholar of what he called “laborlore” – the expressive culture of working people. For five decades he studied hillbilly music and pile-drivers’ tales. He made inventories of “tin men” – the showpieces of sheet metal workers -- and analyzed sailors’ slang. He recorded songs by millworkers and miners’ wives.

Working on until just months before his death, he wrote countless articles, both academic and popular, and five books, including Only a Miner, his landmark study of coal-mining music. But the debt Pickering acknowledges is not so much scholarly as personal. For Archie incited Mimi and me and scores of others to quit whatever we had been doing and join him in documenting the culture of working people.

Read the full article about this remarkable man here...IMAGE: Jerry Telfer, San Francisco Chronicle (Archie Green in 1987, at an exhibit of poster art of the Industrial Workers of the World)

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Tips For Flying Standby

Tips For Flying Standby
by Tom Tessin

If you travel a lot or you haven't travelled before, you may still be familiar with the term "flying standby". Flying standby is a term the airline industry uses when a traveler wants to fly on a flight with an open seat. Travellers that usually purchase a ticket the day of will usually have to fly standby if there a limit number of tickets available.

If you find yourself flying standby in the future, there are a few tips you can follow in order to make the trip at the airport a lot easier.

Don't check your luggage
If you're flying standby, don't check in your luggage. A lot of the times an airline will look for people that have carry on only. If you have checked in luggage, it's just going to be a bigger hassle for the airliner to find your luggage and throw it on the plane. If you just bring carry on luggage, you're going to increase your chances of getting on the flight.

Early flights work
If you can get to the airport early, you'll find that earlier flights are usually easier to get on since many people technically don't travel early in the morning. If you find yourself travelling in the afternoon, this is peak travelling time and you may find that the flights are going to busier compared to the mornings.

Try calling the airline's customer service department
Before you make the trip to the airport, check with the airline before hand and see if there are flights available that you can possibly standby for. Most of the times, the airline will be friendly and give you some flights that you can possibly fly standby on. If you do find that airline you call doesn't have a standby flight available, try and call other airlines to see if they have possible solutions.

Stay at the gate
It's important that you stay near the gate when you're on the standby list. If you tend to walk away during the time when the flight is about to be boarded, you may find that the employee tried to call your name. Sometimes, you're not the only one on the list. This is why it's important that you stay nearby so that if your name is called, you can be there to get on the flight as soon as possible.

You may find that most of these tips will help you in your standby success. If you find that the situation is too stressful, always remember that it's best to be patient. When flights generally board, you will find that most employees are pretty stressful during this time. Always remember to treat others as you want to be treated. Trust me, the employees will keep note of this and will treat you a little nicer than the other customer is furious with the staff. If you keep your head on your shoulders and have a lot of patience, flying standby should be a piece of pie.

Tom Tessin writes regularly about airline travel on his website Find Airline Cards…
Thanks to Tom Tessin and Article City for the free use of this article.

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Things to do around Port Adelaide

~ Things to do in and around Port Adelaide

Only 30 minutes or so from the centre of Adelaide, is historic Port Adelaide. At its heart is a series of museums that house an amazing collection of historical artefacts showcasing the states long history. Its nearest beach is Semaphore.

Fast becoming the area’s favourite location for rest and relaxation, Semaphore has all the old world charm of a seaside town. It’s broad main thoroughfare, Semaphore Road, stretches for more than a kilometre and is home to a wide selection of cafés and restaurants, small galleries, and all manner of other local businesses.

Of course, no self respecting seaside town would be without its fish and chip shop – and Semaphore has several of them. What better way to end a day at the beach than with a bag of fresh, hot fish and chips, the seagulls wheeling overhead, and a golden sun setting over the ocean. Ah, perfect.

Here is an incomplete list of some of the Port’s many treasures:

• Discover the Port Adelaide State Heritage Area
• Indulge yourself in Semaphore Road’s boutique shops and cafés
• Enjoy informative Guided Walks
• Fly high at the South Australian Aviation Museum
• Cruise for dolphins on the Port Princess or Dolphin Explorer every Sunday
• Relive your childhood at Semaphore’s foreshore attractions
• Explore the Port Adelaide Enfield Museum Trail
• Fish for Snapper and King George Whiting off Semaphore Jetty
• Exercise your mind and body with Blue Water Sea Kayaking
• Examine the trains at the National Railway Museum
• Feast on Fish-N-Chips while a golden sun dips below the horizon
• Amaze yourself at the Seahorse Farm
• Checkmate your Chess opponent, Monday nights at McGowan’s Café (Semaphore Rd)
• Unearth a bargain at the Sunday Fisherman’s Wharf Market (Queens Wharf)
• Delight in the SA Maritime Museum
• Thrill at the miniature steam train ride along the foreshore at Semaphore
• Enjoy an ice cold beer at the Port’s oldest building (Port Admiral Hotel, 1849)
• Climb the Lighthouse (built in 1869) now located on Queens Wharf
• Catch a movie at the Semaphore Odeon Star (just $7.00 all sessions)

Whew! Are you tired yet? There is so much to discover and enjoy in and around Port Adelaide, that you will need several days to visit even just a few of the places listed above – and that is by no means a full list.

Make sure your first stop is the:
Port Adelaide Visitor Information Centre:
66, Commercial Road, Port Adelaide, SA, 5015
Open 7 days a week – 9am to 5pm (closed Christmas Day)
Telephone: (08) 8405 6560
Freecall: 1800 629 888 (country callers)

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Ham or Spam?

~ Yesterday I got one of those emails that circulate endlessly around the internet. This one (reproduced below) has the subject heading:

Telstra's FREE directory assistance.

Here’s the full message:

Free -- Telstra Directory Assistance! Yes phone 1223
Just a reminder in case you have forgotten.
Tell all your family / friends / business acquaintances - in fact tell everybody about this!
For anyone contemplating using the Sensis Directory Assistance number, 1234, DON'T!
Sensis, as you may or may not know, is a subsidiary of Telstra. The 1234 number is replacing the Telstra 12456 directory assistance number, but this time with outrageous costs attached: 40c to call the number, then 4c A SECOND!
By law, Telstra must provide a FREE directory assistance number. They choose however not to pass this number on to the public. The free number is 1223.
Thumbs down to Telstra for finding a way to 'charge', for a service that is supposed to be provided for free.

When ever I get these types of messages I head over to Hoax Slayer to see if they have an entry for the message in question. They did. Here (in part) is what they have to say about the above message.

This message was basically factual and relevant several years ago when it first began circulating.
Telstra introduced the new fee-based service in 2004. Complaints and protests from consumer groups soon followed. Many consumers complained to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman claiming that they did not realize they were calling a fee-based service when seeking directory assistance.

Telstra was also accused of strongly promoting its fee-based Sensis service while remaining relatively silent about the free directory assistance number. Such complaints were probably well justified at the time and this protest email may have helped to alleviate confusion about the changes and raise awareness of the free directory assistance number.

There are currently three levels of directory assistance offered by Telstra. The free assistance number is labelled simply as "Directory Assistance" or "Telstra Directory Assistance" while the fee based services are labelled as "Call Connect" and "1234":

Telstra Directory Assistance (1223) This is an automated service that provides callers with a telephone number when they already know the name of the person or business they are seeking. It is a free call for Telstra fixed line phones and Telstra payphones.

[Editors Note: Be aware that when Telstra say this is “a free call for Telstra fixed line phones and Telstra payphones.” they mean exactly that. Telstra business fixed line customers and Telstra mobile customers are charged a flat fee of $0.50 for calls to 1223. If you are with another provider, you will also be charged for the call, and other charges may also apply.

Call Connect (12456) This is an operator assisted service that connects callers to directory listings and can provide other information about the person or business the caller is seeking.

[Ed Note: Calls to Call Connect are charged a fee of $1.25 once you connect to an operator. Standard mobile rates also apply. A connection fee of $0.88 applies to a successful or attempted connection to the number requested. Standard rates apply once the call is connected.]

1234 1234 is a personally assisted search service that offers a range of information and options. 1234 charges an initial fee for connecting to the operator and a further fee for connecting to the requested number as well as standard rates for the connected call.

[Ed Note: Calls from Telstra Pre-Paid mobiles cost $1.40 per call plus a Telstra Pre-Paid charge of $0.27 call connection and $0.77 per minute charged per second. A connection fee of $0.88 applies to a successful or attempted connection to the number requested. Standard rates apply once the call is connected.]

I agree with Hoax Slayer that this protest email may now be redundant and somewhat outdated. I suggest you follow the links above to learn more about each service Telstra provides. It doesn’t hurt to be fully informed about them, and to be aware of the full schedule of fees and benefits provided by each service.

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Treeless Mountain Wins Natuzzi Prize

*** This Just In ***

Director So-yong Kim was announced as the winner of the Natuzzi International Award for Best Feature Film on the closing night of the 2009 BigPond Adelaide Film Festival.

For her film, Treeless Mountain, Kim won a cash prize of $25,000, beating out 12 competitors for the award, which is the first of its kind in Australia.

The seven-person jury, comprising key figures in the international film and art scene, was led by Jury President Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator of the Department of Film at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Read more here at Filmink...

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2009 BigPond Adelaide Film Festival

The 2009 BigPond Adelaide Film Festival has been judged a huge success with twenty two world premieres, including nine features and three documentary features, 62 Australian premieres and 143 films from 49 different countries screened over just 11 days.

The Film Festival has been visited and enjoyed by numerous well known players in the Australian film industry including Hugo Weaving, Natalie Imbruglia, Rolf de Heer, Scott Hicks, Bruce Beresford, Matt Day, Sarah Watt, William McInnes, Warwick Thornton, and Aden Young – to name just a few.

Attendances across the main screening program grew by 30% from 2007, with 18% of sessions SOLD OUT.

I myself managed to see 13 film out of a planned 15. In the end, for a variety or reasons, I was too exhausted to even consider attending my two scheduled screenings last Saturday. One was the free screening of Bruce Beresford’s Black Robe, which was to be followed immediately by a new documentary on the Senegalese singer, Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love.

I’m really glad I was able to immerse myself in the Film Festival to the extent I could. Technically it would have been possible to see up to five movies a day for 11 days straight, but that would have taken a Herculean effort on my part, and quite frankly I wasn’t up to it.

Considering I didn’t attend even one screening last year, I think I did very well this time around.
I’m still in the process of writing reviews for a bunch of films, which I will eventually add here, but overall the highlights for me were Steven Soderberg’s, Che (parts 1 & 2); the Korean film, Treeless Mountain, and the Turkish film, Three Monkeys. I was also very impressed with JCVD starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, and the new Australian film, Van Diemen’s Land.

Image courtesy of 2009 BigPond Adelaide Film Festival

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In Review: JCVD

Australian Premiere screening at the 2009 BigPond Adelaide Film Festival

Look at the face in the image above. You’ve seen it before of course, but not like this. This time it looks older, more haggard, more real.

Yes, it is the face of Jean-Claude Van Damme, the legendary ‘Muscles from Brussels’, B-grade movie star in any number of second rate, straight to video, action flicks. And here he is in a ‘real’ movie, showing us his human side. Showing us he can act and emote, and that he has a sense of humour as well.

I loved the premise of this film.

Going on 50, JCVD is a washed-out action star with a troubled life: sued by his wife for custody of his only child, barely able to pay his lawyers, and, to add insult to injury, losing parts to Steven Seagal! And now, here he is, caught up in a real-life hostage situation. Suddenly, when the gun pointed at his head is filled with real bullets, we see that he is just an ordinary guy, filled with fears, contradictions and hopes like the rest of us. It’s just that some people, hostage takers included, have trouble telling where the difference between real life and the life of an actor begins and ends, and when that happens it can lead to disastrous (and humorous) results.

It would be nice to think that JCVD could lead to bigger and better things for Van Damme. That it could do for Van Damme what Pulp Fiction did for John Travolta. That is, turn him into a bankable actor again, with a real career in movies he is proud to be involved in.

Then again, that may be asking too much of the film, although French director, Mabrouk El Mechri should be thanked for trying. Hopefully though, people will recognise and understand the hole Van Damme he has dug himself into by essentially playing the same character in variations of the same movie he has ever made.

Van Damme may never fully dig himself out of that hole, but at least we have seen a glimpse of what he could have been, and may still become if his fans would allow him to. And not just his fans of course, but his writers, producers and directors.

JCVD created a small sensation at Cannes with its wildly innovative combination of humour, pathos, remarkable cinematography (and a little action thrown in) to create a portrait of the action star as aging prisoner of his own legend and his all-too-human frailties. Who would have thought the ‘Muscles From Brussels’ was capable of such a reflection on the vicissitudes of celebrity?

Three and a half stars
Image curtesy of 2009 BigPond Adelaide Film Festival

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In Review: Che (Parts 1 & 2)

Australian Premiere screening at the 2009 BigPond Adelaide Film Festival.

What on earth was director Steven Soderbergh thinking when he decided to tackle the story of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, the Argentinian born doctor and revolutionary who joined Fidel Castro’s campaign to take Cuba back from the American backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista?

What motivated the director of Oceans Eleven,Twelve and Thirteen… to make this amazing 4½ hour bio-pic. Why Che Guevara, and why now? How did he even manage to get the funding for a film about a communist revolutionary in the first place? What was the pitch?

Not that there is anything wrong with the film. Far from it. Soderberg tells Guevara’s story with loving attention to detail, and without resorting to sentimentality or melodrama.

This is not the first time Che’s story has been turned into a movie. The 2004 film, The Motorcycle Diaries, examines the formation of Guevara’s early politicisation, and …

But Soderberg’s film (with Benicio Del Toro in the lead role as Che Guevara), is the first to try and tell the whole story of Guevara’s involvement in the Cuban revolution, and his subsequent attempt to spread the revolution to Bolivia, where he was eventually caught and killed in October 1967.

Part 1, deals with the fight against Batista. The long hard slog of waging a guerrilla campaign is covered in great detail as a boatload of 82 revolutionaries head for Cuba during November 1956, and the struggle to win Cuba back for the Cuban people begins.

The first film draws extensively on the Guevara’s own writings, especially his memoir "Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War". The months and years of protracted guerrilla warfare are inter-cut with beautifully recreated scenes showing Che addressing the United Nations in 1964, and conducting numerous interviews with a range of media outlets.

Soderberg uses these scenes to explain some of the history and ‘back story’ to the Cuban revolution, and to give the audience some insight into Che Guevara – the man and revolutionary.

Part 1 of Che ends in 1959 as Batista flies into exile in the United States, and the revolutionaries under the leadership of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara are about to enter Havana.

Drawing on Guevara’s ‘Bolivian Diary’, Part 2 of Che takes up the story as Che, going under the pseudonym of ‘Ramon’, lands in Bolivia in 1965, and begins trying to recruit local guerrilla’s with the intention of overthrowing the ruling government.

Here, his campaign to recruit local peasant farmers fails, and before he and his small band of revolutionaries are able to launch any sort of major anti government attack, they are hunted down and killed with the help of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Che Guevara was wounded and captured on or about October 9, 1967. It is a matter of record that he was alive at the time of his capture, and that he was subsequently shot and killed to ensure he would no longer be able to foment revolution either in Bolivia or elsewhere in Latin America. How ironic then that his execution has sparked a ‘cult of the revolutionary’ that has not diminished over the intervening 40 plus years since his death.

Of course, apart from the Oceans… series of films, Soderberg has shown he is socially aware by also directing Erin Brockovich, Traffic (again with Del Toro), and The Good German, so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that he decided to tackle the story of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara.

Don’t be fooled by the inclusion of other A-list cast members (Julia Ormond, Matt Damon, Franka Potente, and Lou Diamond Phillips) in Che. All of these actors have minor roles, and small support parts. In fact Matt Damon is on screen for less than two minutes! I can only assume that Soderberg needed some additional well known actors to help secure finance and distribution for the film.

However, this is without a doubt Benicio Del Toros’ film. His performance is a revelation. He inhabits the role of Guevara so well, that there are times when I wasn’t sure if the historical footage – recreated in black and white – didn’t have the real Che Guevara in them.

According to the program notes, Soderberg is working an a middle part to Che’s story. This film will apparently cover Guevara’s experiences in Africa. If this is the case, then this trilogy will indeed constitute Steven Soderberg’s masterpiece. I can think of no other biopic to rival it, and the finished series should help to keep the legend of ‘Che’ Guevara alive for at least another 40 years.

Outstanding: Five stars
Image courtesy of 2009 BigPond Adelaide Film Festival

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