This track was first recorded in 1982 by the Joubert Singers, a choral group from the First Baptist Church in Crown Heights, NYC. It was produced by Phyliss Joubert & George Rodriguez Jr and became a hit on the local scene, eventually being heard in places like the Loft and Paradise Garage. It was here where DJ legends Tony Humphries and Larry Levan picked it up and remixed it for a 12" release in 1985. The Levan rework appeared on a couple of compilations last year, including the Unabombers Electric Chair and has seen a nice resurgence in popularity since the Disco revival of late - a timeless classic.
The Joubert Singers - Stand On The World (Larry Levan Mix)
The results are in from Ireland's first all star roar off. We pitted Cork legend Sean Óg O' Hailpin against Leinster Rugby star Rocky Elsom to help launch Lynxroar.ie, an interactive online competition to find Ireland's ultimate caveman. Sean Óg out-roared Rocky giving GAA fans and Corkonians a bit of good news in these turbulent times. Stunning cavewoman Jenny Lee Masterson was also at hand to referee the clash, with Sean Óg roaring an impressive 72.3 dB (Decibels) compared to Rocky's close 69.3 dB. A very close call.
Head down to Tower Records on Wicklow Street or Easons O’Connell St where you can pick it up on double cd/triple vinyl or Towerrecords.ie for digital download for just €12.99. For the full track listing and more info visit darkwasthenight.com.
Last night, Bitches With Wolves helped Ireland’s gay community celebrate GCN’s 21st birthday by performing at their ICON party. We’re not gonna lie, but we have a vested interest in the Wolves as Thinkhouse’s sparkly knicker wearing James O’Neill is the man behind BWW. Already getting props for his ‘fun, dark, glittery, and very danceable’ music from music blogger Una Rocks, we can’t get it off the Thinkhouse soundsystem. Rock!
This week’s musical treat comes from down under and The Presets with Steamworks. Its driving bass line has a sort of retro feel, like the sleazy mid eighties funk classics of yore.
The New York Museum of Modern Art is doing its bit to brighten up New Yorker's daily commute, it has taken over all advertising space at the Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street Station and replaced them with replications of work from the museum's permanent collection, including Monet's water lilies and Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon". Not only will this provide a lovely backdrop for commuters to go about their business, it should also inspire a few people to head down to MoMA too. Maybe with the cost of outdoor advertising falling we will see more of these kind of initiatives repeated around the world. It is also a amother example of the ‘free marketing' trend that seems to be growing in popularity around the world. We can get a little taste of it too with this virtual fly through.
No but seriously….. If you dig deep enough past the grim day by day analysis of our beloved countries economy you can find solace in the rise of our burgeoning young sporting talent…
Irish sport is buoyant again and the good ol’ golden generation of Irish sportsmen – O'Driscoll, Houghton, Harrington et al – have been strengthened by a new generation. In Rugby Luke Fitzgerald and Rob Kearny have both been outstanding in the six nations campaign so far showing bravery on the big stage. McGeady’s man of the match performance against Georgia has not only helped us believe his own hype but made us actually consider a cheeky ticket to S. Africa for an Italia 90 repeat. To top it all off this little country of over achievers has taken on the incredibly competitive golfing world with the meteoric rise (15th in the world) of teenage sensation Rory McIlroy, he’s just about beat off every top golfer and his dog with that little 16 inch driver.
There will be the usual negative spin of course, even O'Driscoll did everything he could to put the lid on the bubbling anticipation of a nation…. But come the 28th Feb a nation will be glued again, England may not disintegrate like the Italians at the weekend but we don’t think Wales should be reaching for that silver polish just yet!
Facebook is overhauling its fanpage layout and content management in the coming weeks. This came as great news to Thinkhouse who, as operators of many brand fanpages, are often frustrated by the limited features available. While it’s perhaps best that you can’t mail everyone directly (although only silly marketers would spam facebook fans unnecessarily) the limited appearance of updates meant unless someone searched for the brand directly it was hard for word to spread virally. This meant communicating with brand fans was very limited as the current ‘updates’ system was mostly overlooked by facebook users. The new plans mean that brands will be able to update their status - just like any user - and this, along with wall updates and other news, will appear in fans newsfeeds. Other changes include a shift from the current ‘movable box’ format to the tab format in use on new personal facebook pages. This marks a giant leap for brands, celebrities, small businesses and bands using social media as a marketing too. Needless to say, we at Thinkhouse can’t wait to get stuck in
Barry's Tea's new ad has hit the airwaves! The ad continues the company’s new marketing direction with its youthful energetic vibe that still manages to maintain the traditional heart warming Barry's feel. The ad comes from the creative minds at Irish International who have worked to bring life to the intrinsic emotional connection that exists between Irish families and Barry's Tea. Drop by the Barry's Facebook page and youtube channel for more info on all Barry's news.
The Sunday Times published the first part of their 100 best blogs feature yesterday. There were plenty of interesting ones in there as you would expect, Dave Trott’s adverting blog was a nice find, on the whole though, with nearly 200m blogs out there, it's really all down to personal taste, in the spirit of things we had a quick sconce round the office and picked out some of our own regualar haunts. So in no particular order here are a few of our favourites. We hope you enjoy them as much we enjoy that picture of the soft focus dog.
Fashion Sartorialist: This made the Times list too, really nice look at fashion around the States, doesn't stick to the usual young trendy types either, lots of handsome older men and glamorous older ladies in there too. Trendspot.ie: The Fresh Prince of Kildare offers an interesting point of view on all things cool -and not just in Kildare too. Still in Berlin: Berlin based street style blog that takes regular trips to Europe's other fashion capitals. fashion-ation.net:Lots of fashion shoots from around the wrold along with street style wars Male-mode: Fashion blog exclusively for men with occasional posts on movies, publishing and a bit of street style too. Dublin Streets: Compiled by Thinkhousers Andrea and Matt and up for a gong at the upcoming blog awards, this is a local version of the streetstyle blogs so popular all over the world. Music 20JazzFunkGreats: Top class music blog from Brighton, all kinds of stuff can be found here from retro disco to Po-Co bangers, it looks gosh darn pretty too. Fluokids: These guys started out like any other music blog, posting illegal tracks and ramblings on nights out in Paris. A couple of years ago Busy P chose them to play the Daft Punk after party in Paris setting a bench mark for other bloggers everywhere that mark music blogging as a viable source of income. Lovely pictures too. Dublin Bus Disco: You may have noticed we like our disco around these parts that's why we were so thrilled to find this disco blog from one of Dublin Bus's finest. His interests are listed as 'Spinning on the audio + automotive wheels of steel, collecting records, editing songs with weak parts or bad arrangements, sharing music, beating up hippies'. Full of disco gems. Stereogum: A broad range of tastes here, specialising in the unsigned and up and coming. ClimaXXX: Another thinkhouse teamster creation, climaXXX is a look at the clubbing scene in Dublin with music from around the world too. Sports Football365: A super addictive blog for football junkies, it carries a serious cult following and looks at all that is absurd in the modern game Okeydokefootball: A blog and a rant all in one, discussions on all things football, the good, the bad and the ugly. Peterbills: With Ireland's 6 nations hopes rising high you can be sure Peter Bills's blog will be getting more hits. The Chief rugby correspondent for the Independent discusses the hopes and dreams of Irish rugby, past and present. Funnies Assistant to the brand manager: Very funny look at marketing and advertising from an anonymous Irish marketer. Pantibar: Infamous queen of the drag scene in Ireland, recently opened her own bar and keeps this blog regularly updated with funny musings. Celebrity Stephen Fry: The king of Twitter still finds time to update his blog too. Perez Hilton: The first true 'celebrity' blogger, still blogging about celebrities. dlisted: Much wittier than Perez but a similar vein of celebrity mick taking. Random Geekologie: Self confessed geeks and what the gadgets they like to turn on. Saul Williams Blog: American musician, poet, writer and all round creative type Saul Williams has supported a mixed bag of acts such as Nine Inch Nails and the Mars Volta in the past. Saul provides some poetic food for thought on a meandering range of topics including pop culture, politics and the state of things in general. Some literary nibbles can be found on his MySpace blog.
We go back in time this week, to the golden era of Girl Pop, no not the heady days of the 90s and The Spice Girls, we are talking about the original girl band - The Ronnettes. This song was a hit for the girls when it was released in 1963 and was seen as the embodiment of Phil Spector's Wall Of Sound technique. Phil also produced and co-wrote the song. Since then it has been voted number 22 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and is widely regarded as one of the best pop songs ever recorded (Brian Wilson even said so, so there) our choice comes with a touch of sadness too though as Estelle Bennett, one of trio, just passed away. She leaves behind a daughter, three grandsons and one hell of a musical legacy. More info at the BBC.
Get The Glass - California Milk Board. The California Milk board was developed in 1993 to combat declining milk sales and has been at the top of its game since. They appointed ad agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to come up with a campaign to transform people’s perception of milk from boring nutritional beverage to cool fun ‘brand’ capable of challenging the Pepsi’s and Sprite's out there. It was clear from the offset the ‘milk is good for you’ messaging wasn’t working so they employed similar tactics to the flashy lifestyle brands they were up against, using a lot of humor to develop a fresh take on the brand. They came up with Got Milk?, a campaign that crossed many reaches of popular culture and went on to become the most culturally influential tagline since the advent of broadcast television. So successful it was then licensed out to National Dairy Boards across the States and still has milk moustaches appearing on billboards 15 years later.
Over the years they have developed the brands online strategy, creating a fictional rock band called White Gold complete with myspace, youtube channel and website. More recently after branding milk as a ‘superdrink’ they created an online board game Get the Glass, featuring the Adachi family facing a terrible predicament- life without milk. The game is very playable and the animation superb, the perfect extension of the milk as a commodity message.
These guys really set the bench mark for a digital campaign and for a product that was as ‘unsexy’ as milk that is no mean feat. The Got Milk website is fantastic, it has recipes, great tips on recycling, and is full of fun mini-games to play all, animated beautifully. Raise a glass of the white stuff to them.
Temperatures at Thinkhouse HQ are set to soar over the next few months as we tuck into our latest brand ‘HELL PIZZA’. Born in New Zealand in 1996, the cult pizza chain embarked upon world domination in 2006 and now boasts over 70 HELLholes across 5 countries. The gates to Ireland’s first HELL opens this April on Dublin’s Wexford Street. The ‘Gone to Hell’ sign we posted about a little while back already has more than a few people talking, just wait till they try the pizzas! www.hell.ie
Thinkhouse’s MD Jane McDaid will present a talk on ‘The impact and importance of social networking and blogging in the PR industry’ at the upcoming PR Social Networking and Blogging in Practice seminar hosted by Mediacontact.ie. The talk takes place on the 21st April in the lovely surroundings of the Lighthouse cinema. Jane will give an overview of Social Media in Ireland and will be joined by Tony Bilsborough, Head of Media Relations at Cadbury Schweppes, Will McInnes- Director of UK social media agency Nixon McInnes, Dan Haliwell- Commercial Manager of Mediamarket and blogger Damien Mulley of mulley.net.
Our new favourite actress du jour is Saturday Night Live’s Kristen Wiig, who wipes the floor with the laughs as Ricky Gervais’ self involved surgeon in the upcoming DVD release of Paramount’s Ghost Town. Tina Fey may have stole a lot of the laughs last year with her Sarah Pallin impression but critics have already dubbed Kirsten the next big thing on the female comedy circuit. Catch her in Ghost Town from the 27th February.
A little late with this one, we were snowed under in work last Friday (alas not literally). Better late than never though! So without further ado, here is the next installment of our tune of the week, an italo classic from Sylvester, this track is perhaps not as well known as his other hit 'You Make Me Feel' but it has been one of the most popular tracks in the office playlist for the last two weeks. It was a collaboration with one of the figure heads of the italo sound, Patrick Conway and was released all the way back in 1982. Italo is making a real comeback of late, the London scenesters are already all over it and disco nights in Dublin are on the up too.
We were pretty shocked to see the pictures of the Dublin bus crash earlier today. Reported on blogs here and here. Luckily no one was seated on the upper deck and all escaped unharmed. Check the full story on the Irish Times website. Only a couple of hours after the initial pictures came through we were then greeted by an email announcing 'latest images from Dublin double decker crash'. We all clicked in with much fervor. Only to see this.
It gave us all a chuckle. - If only Cadbury's were so quick.
We are dead excited about the next installment of Tea With. We know it will be hard to top the last one with Graham Rawle (pics up on the facebook) but as the song says.. we've got high hopes. This time round we have teamed up with our friends at Bodytonic to bring over Greg Wilson, a true music pioneer who has done so much for music as we know it, and in particular dance to it, that he deserves way for fame than most DJs out there.
Through the early 80's Greg was pioneering a sound known as electro funk, a combination of Hip-Hop, Dance, Disco, and Electric Boogie mostly coming from the states. It was a completely underground movement, initially quite specific to the North of England where local b-boy crews started popping up and Greg cut his teeth. He was one of the first DJs in the UK to actually 'mix' records (the technique is now industry standard). He also appeared on Jools Holland doing the same way back in 1983. Not long after this he retired for 20 years but decided after much pressure to step back into the ring in 2003 to great response. Since then he has done remixes for Grace Jones and Groove Armada and more recently recorded an Essential Mix for BBC Radio 1.
We really can’t wait for this one, so if you would like to join us and Greg for a cup of Barry's Tea, come down to the Twisted Pepper on the 21st of February from 6pm. You can also hear the man do his thing straight after.
When the new INQ phone arrived in from 3 last week we were all pretty keen to get a look through. Sometimes these kind of things can be a bit gimmicky but this one packs loads of punches and is a great all rounder. It's the first mobile built in conjunction with Facebook so as you would expect social networking on the move is made extra easy. It has a 3.2MP camera that allows pictures to be uploaded to facebook at the touch of a button. There are tons of other great features too but don't just take our word for it, check out some of the excellent reviews it's been getting all over the web. INQ on siliconerepublic.com INQ on stuff.tv INQ on cnet.uk INQ on mobilechoice.uk The INQ phone is exclusively availably from our friends at 3.
Sending traditional cards can get pretty expensive when you have as many Valentines as we do. That’s why we were delighted to encourage lovers to use this neat little e-card gadget from Swatch. You can send a beautiful personalized card to anyone you like from Swatch’s easy to use website. Just think of all the trees who will fall in love with you. Swatch e-cards.
Many of us in the office were saddened last year with the announcement of the death of Polaroid. There were rumors of takeovers and replacements but so far that's all these have been. Polaroid was very popular in the fashion industry especially where its instant and 'true' reproduction meant it was perfect for castings and backstage snaps, it was also apparently very commonly used in hospitals for taking shots of various afflictions. Obviously digital has replaced some uses but for us the quality, framing and hard copy beat of Polaroid beat any digital reproduction that never goes beyond a facebook profile. Sadly the costs of running the business as it was were too many for Polaroid but it seems hope may be at hand.
Well a little bit of good news came recently, the 'Impossible Project' is a group of Dutch fans who have bought an old Polaroid factory, complete with all original machinery needed to produce the film with a view to setting up production once again. Their aim is not to re-establish Polariod the brand though, rather develop a 'product with new characteristics, consisting of new optimised components, produced with a streamlined modern setup'. We wish them well!
Here is a few of our favourite Polariod sites: sxseventy.com - features Grant Hamilton's stunning work. theinstant.org - features exhibits by some great Polaroid enthusiasts. mentalfloss.com - the amazing stoy of Jamie Livingston. weheartpolaroidblog - all sorts of nice stuff on here. haybale.org - this guy will take a snap of anywhere in NYC and post it to you.
Thinkhouse is a Dublin based PR company specialising in youth communications. Keep up to date with all of our latest news and see what's currently floating our collective boat on the World Wide Web.
