Kia-ora "Too orangey for crows"

Not sure why but this old ad came to mind recently

Tasteless?

I'm not sure how these malgorithms work but if you know anything of the story of Marc Bolan (he died in a car crash) then you will recognise how tasteless this ad on Youtube is.

Hovis ad

I like a good ad. This is one.

Black Horse

Lloyds is nothing special as a bank but this is a good ad

Adverts on facebook

From my facebook page (more or less)

Be More Dog

I like this current ad - very clever and very well done.

Pretend it's not an advert

This great almost to the very end.

Castrol Mahler

I think it was this brilliant advert from the eighties that persuaded me I might like Mahler. This is from his seventh symphony not his fifth.

Cadbury Twirl

If you have a minute, you may like this ad. I do. A video on how it was made is here. Fascinating.

Fat Books from ICM

Noticed these fat tomes on sale at ICM currently. See here.

Oh for a human being!

I don't want to keep bringing these examples before people but sometimes they are so stupid it is unbelievable. So much for the intelligence of computers. Is there an explanation?

Male female

This current ad neatly highlights something of the difference between men and women.

Bow those knees

Over on one of my other blogs here I have adverts. They have done their homework matching ads to me fairly well as you can see. The knee pain advert is particularly ingenious I reckon.

Spot the join

I've enjoyed seeing this ad from UBS. I quickly spotted all the references except for the racing driver who turns out to be the great Fangio. I couldn't resist tinkering with it (apologies to Salvador Dali, who I excised. Perhaps the surrealism would have appealed to him.)

Football Focus

This new Nike ad neatly combines two subjects - the upcoming world cup and my favourite band Focus (Hocus Pocus is the main music - though it starts with something else).

Ironworkz

My father-in-law put me on to this Australian meat commercial.

Autumn

I don't want to fill the blog with adverts but the season set me thinking on Keats' wonderful Ode to Autumn and then I saw this ad. The added bonus here is the well chosen Golden Brown by the Stranglers (yet more high brow low brow). The reader is, of course, Roger McGough. Sadly, this is a link not a video.

Learning guitar

Guitar Lesson- Hocus Pocus - Focus

This is partly in the vein of high brow low brow again though mainlyan advert. I don't play guitar but one of my sons had guitar lessons once so I urged him to ask about learning Hocus Pocus (a lifeling favourite of mine). As this advert reveals, it's not a song for beginners.

(Video no longer there I see)

Great Tube Advert

I'm not a tennis fan but I am interested in popular culture and for Wimbledon fortnight the sponsor's HSBC have this brilliant ad on the tube. This version has been cropped so you can't see the Cliff Richard CD in the bottom left hand corner but most of the other references are observable if you click above. Do look out for Tim Henman. Let me know if you spot any really subtle ones. There should be more than ten! (If you count the Cliff Richard).

PS I can see the Cliff Richard CD after all - down on the right next to the Wimbledon mug!

Vashti Bunyan

There is a series on Radio 4 at present on lost albums fronted by Pete Paphides. (See here). I enjoyed the one on Beach Boy Denis Wilson's album but hardly listened to the Duran Duran one. Then today I caught most of one on an album by a woman called Vashti. It was a very poignant tale. She had been depressed, travelled to Scotland, made an album, had a bad review and then not picked up her guitar for 30 years! The only Vashti I had heard of was Vashti Bunyan whose name I'd seen on a track in my son's i-pod. At the end of the programme they played her most famous song (Diamond Day) which I knew from the T-mobile advert. Anyway I checked her out in i-tunes and Wikipedia as I do. All very interesting.

This English singer-songwriter has been labelled "the Godmother of Freak Folk". Her 1970 debut LP, Just Another Diamond Day, is considered an important album in the psych folk genre. Following the release of this LP, Bunyan disappeared from the music industry until interest in her music was reignited in the early 2000s.

The surname rings an obvious bell and yes she is directly descended from the author of Pilgrim's Progress. Vashti was born in London in 1945 to John and Helen. In the early sixties she studied at The Ruskin School of Drawing and fine art at Oxford University but was expelled for failing to turn up to classes and spending her time writing songs. At 18 she travelled to New York and discovered Bob Dylan through The Freewheelin Bob Dylan album and decided to become a full-time musician. Returning to London she was discovered by Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham and in June 1965, under his direction, she released her debut single, "Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind" (by Jagger and Richards - their own version is on the outtakes compilation Metamorphosis) for Decca. Released using simply the name Vashti, it was backed with her own song "I Want to Be Alone". The single and her follow up "Train Song", released on Columbia in May 1966, produced by Canadian Peter Snell, received little attention. Her only other performance of this time to find release was her distinctive vocal on "The Coldest Night of the Year" with Twice as much (which eventually turned up on their second and final LP, That's All, on Oldham's Immediate label in 1968). After recording further songs for Immediate Records, which remain unreleased, and making a brief appearance in the 1967 documentary Tonite let's all make love in London, performing her song "Winter Is Blue", she decided to travel with her boyfriend Robert Lewis by horse and cart to the Isle of Skye to join a commune planned by friend and fellow folk singer Donovan. During the trip she began writing the songs that would eventually become her debut album.
During a break from her trip at Christmas-time 1968, she met Joe Boyd through a friend and he offered to record an album of her travelling songs. A year later Vashti returned to London and recorded her debut LP with assistance from Simon Nicol and Dave Swarbrick (Fairport Convention), Robin Williamson (Incredible String Band) and string arranger Robert Kirby, today best known for his work on Nick Drake's first two albums. The album appeared on Philips to warm reviews in December 1970, but struggled to find an audience. Disappointed, she left the music industry and moved to The Incredible String Band's Glen Row cottages, then Ireland. Much of the ensuing 30 years were spent raising her three children and tending animals. In this time, entirely unbeknown to her, the original album slowly became one of the most sought-after records of its time. It has sold on eBay for as much as $2000.
In 2000, Just Another Diamond Day was re-released on CD (with bonus tracks), assuring her influence over a new generation of folk artists. She has now had an influence on a new generation of folk musicians. Details at Wikipedia. A second album (35 years on) was well received by critics and fans alike. Her music reached a much wider audience when "Just Another Diamond Day" was used in a TV advert for a mobile phone company.