Author: Scott Deems

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Historic Harvard organ moves to Austin

Harvard pipe organOn May 3, staff from the C.B. Fisk Company—the famed mechanical action pipe organ manufacturer of Gloucester, Massachusetts—dismantled the pipe organ at Harvard University’s Appleton Chapel. A delegation from Redeemer Presbyterian church in Austin traveled to Massachusetts for the instrument’s farewell recital, which has served Harvard since 1967 and will begin service in Redeemer’s new sanctuary.

In 1965, when plans for the organ began, Harvard entrusted the design, construction, and voicing of the organ to one of its own, Charles Brenton Fisk (’45). His study of early American and European instruments helped him and his company to set a new course for American organbuilding.

No official date has been set for the organ’s première at its new Austin homesite… so pipe organ fanatics will have to stay tuned!

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Sanctuary screen printing in Austin

South Side Sanctuary El CaminoIn a warehouse in South Austin, the talented artists of South Side Sanctuary toil away on their computers and at their presses creating fashion that comments on art, music and fashion itself. Leaders Jon Pattillo and Jed Taylor do this for fun, cranking out three to five thousand t-shirts per month of their own design. But their designs are anything but mass-produced. Services also include custom designed screen-printed t-shirts, letter press-printed posters and business cards, banners, murals, and stickers. The duo started out creating merch for a record label and its touring bands. Today the company is housed in a 5,000 square foot location on South Congress Avenue. In addition to the three screen printing presses, SSS operates a 1947 Kluge open-face letterpress.

During this past year’s SXSW festival, the SSS crew could be seen rolling around town in their super-rad 1979 El Camino “delivery vehicle” equipped with a working screenprinting press in the truck bed.

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Miller Beer “Vortex” bottle

Miller Vortex bottleIf you are like me and have seen the Miller Beer “Vortex” bottle billboard, you’ve probably also wondered why anyone might want their beer to pour out into a “vortex.” In recent years MillerCoors introduced its cold-activated bottle, a useful innovation where the mountains on the label turn blue when your beverage is at its optimum temperature. However, I don’t see the same level of creativity with the Vortex, which, according to a MillerCoors sales rep, is a bottle with specially designed interior grooves that “create a vortex as you’re pouring the beer.” This innovation is intended to “create buzz and excitement and give consumers another reason to choose Miller.” For me, it’s just a different-shaped bottle that won’t provide much consumer benefit. MillerCoors’ advertising agency is Saatchi & Saatchi.

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Past Perfect vintage music

Past Perfect vintage musicIt may seem odd to write about music in these pages but I just received a distressing e-mail newsletter from a British record label called Past Perfect that specializes in restoring 20th-century (primarily jazz) recordings, whose very fine engineers utilize the latest audio restoration technology. In a word, the sound is incredible, considering the sources are from the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s.

The distressing part is that Past Perfect’s chairman has had an unhappy birthday due to the recent lack of orders! To help keep them going, I urge you to browse their site and sample some of the many riches found there, from Fred Astaire, Benny Goodman, and Noel Coward, to flappers, World War II, and film music. Each holiday season my family and I enjoy their Christmas songs CD. While a great starting place for the uninitiated is the Past Perfect music sampler, they’ll gladly ship a pre-loaded “Vintage Collection” iPod (starting at roughly $419.00). And most of its catalogue is available for download from either Past Perfect or from the popular eMusic site.

I’ve bunged in my support by ordering some CDs and downloading several eMusic tracks. Don your spats and topper, tuck in with a P.G. Wodehouse novel, and pop Past Perfect’s music on the Victrola. Now where did I set down my g & t?

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“Off-the-shelf” logos

Your Name HereThe recent concept of prêt-à-porter or “shelf” logos involves the online offering of pre-designed corporate logos with exclusive ownership (i.e., the logo design may not be resold). A few companies have cloned the online business model, but the geniuses at South Africa-based LogoAnts.com appear to have perfected it, offering clean, perhaps generic-looking logos for those with a small budget. The customer browses categories such as swoosh, Christian, building, 3D, etc., then adds its organization’s name to its choice. Clearly, target industries are small-time entrepreneurs, startups, builders, and churches. Despite claims made to the contrary by the manufacturer, most of these logos are forgettable. But it’s hard to fault business owners wanting to explore these options, as the prices are astonishingly low (shelf logos start at $99!).

Pundits will argue that one’s logo should be a unique symbol of the brand and the people behind it, and working one-on-one with a graphic designer is the only way to achieve superior results. Indeed, some sites do offer graphic design consultation, and LogoAnts.com offers custom logo design services from $179. Professional graphic design firms specializing in corporate branding should prepare to lose a share of its smaller clients tempted by these budget services. And maybe, it will spur professional designers to produce stronger creativity (and avoid clichés).

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Austin Anarchist Soccer

Austin anarchist soccerSince 2000, Austin has hosted an “anarchist” soccer game on Sundays. Anarchist soccer has many names worldwide—such as radical, revolutionary, punk rock or community soccer. Why anarchist? Participants usually offer a blank look when asked. According to its website, anarchist soccer is community soccer, which differs from the usual pick-up game in many ways. Organizer “Simon Z” emphasizes that there are rules, just no rulers. The game is open to players of all skill levels and gender (several females play regularly). All that’s needed are a few friends and a ball. Boundaries and usual soccer rules—such as corner and penalty kicks—are ignored, and keeping score is unimportant. Hand balls tend to be followed by a hearty laugh, with the perpetrator subject to mild derision. The focus is on fun, rather than on scoring goals and ball skills to fuel individual egos.

Players are encouraged to sign up for the email list where posts keep players abreast of social events, as well as important world events impacting social issues. Environment is a sincere concern, as more than half of the players ride a bicycle to the match, oftentimes from a great distance. And the anarchists have a standing “leave no trace” rule: Leave the soccer field in the same condition or better than it was.

What seems to be most important to the anarchist players is fair play, fun, gathering, running, talking, falling, laughing, kicking, and building community.

  • What: Austin Anarchist Soccer
  • When: Sundays, 6 p.m. until dark (summer), 2-4 p.m. (rest of year)
  • Where: Rosewood Park in East Austin, 12th Street and Chestnut Avenue directions
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Today’s “Shack” is more than radios

print ad for The ShackYou may have seen the phrase, “Our friends call us The Shack℠.” Electronics retailer Radio Shack’s new branding experts—California’s Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners, hired April 2009—added the service mark symbol to their clever phrase as a wink and a nod that you are now in the cool club, in anticipation that “The Shack” will gain traction amongst consumers, employees and investors. Some years ago Radio Shack began updating its image by creating the circle-R logotype, and by dropping the space between “Radio” and “Shack.”

The corporate identity nip and tuck continues as Radio Shack joins an expanding list of shorthand names whose companies either wish to appear friendly, to obscure their original identity or to clear up confusion over the original name. The names Chuck (Charles Schwab—”Talk to Chuck!”), KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken—so much more than fried chicken!), The Hut (Pizza Hut—so much more than pizza!), and The City (Circuit City—so much more than… erm, circuits?) are similarly victims of hipster hucksterism. Burger giant McDonald’s has acquired many friendly-sounding nicknames around the world, such as The Golden Arches, Mickey-D’s (Mackey-D’s in Britain), and Makku or Makudo in Japan, to name but a few. FedEx (Federal Express) and Coke (Coca-Cola) are other successful examples.

Will a name change improve the flagging electronics brand? It did not help Circuit City, which declared bankruptcy January 2009. Founded more than 80 years ago, Radio Shack was known as the place to buy soldering irons, capacitors and cheap car speakers. Today the company’s focus is on capturing a share of the small electronics market–particularly T-Mobile’s phones.

As of this writing Radio Shack Corporation has no future plans to officially change its corporate name but will market “The Shack” in its advertising. However, branding expert Drew Neisser of Renegade cautions, “Radio Shack is in a desperate battle to remain relevant.” Neisser believes making a half-hearted name change may backfire. “The whole thing could come across as forced at best and confusing at worst,” Neisser said.

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Rebranding America

Rebranding AmericaBranding matters. To countries just as much as they do to companies. Just ask former UK prime minister Tony Blair, whose mission in 1999, together with the Foreign Policy Centre, was to sell new model Britain to other countries. “The central message is that Britain’s reality has changed dramatically and that its image must be transformed to reflect this.” The “Cool Britannia” campaign was sniggered at by a nation of cynics, but many Americans today believe a powerful cleanser is needed to remove a very deep stain from the tarnished US image. So Paper magazine has summoned the leading lights in advertising and graphic arts to the task of “Rebranding America.” The results of which are available on its online magazine.

Kim Hastreiter, editor of Paper in New York, states, “If America were a company, it would be practically out of business. Our brand has been decimated.” Her magazine asked “creative communicators” to “re-present the United States to the global community.”

It may be merely a punning exercise, but perhaps the idea—that multiculturalism and diversity are not just an irreversible fact but a potentially invaluable asset—may catch fire.

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Mahler’s “Resurrection” at ASO

Gustav MahlerThe Austin Symphony’s 2008–2009 season closes with Gustav Mahler’s massive Symphony No. 2, scored for mixed choir, two vocal soloists, organ, and an offstage ensemble of brass and percussion. In roughly 80 minutes of blood-and-guts, the symphony expresses universal longings and signals the bitter end (Judgment Day itself) and beyond (the afterlife), etched out in brazen fanfares.

If you haven’t yet attended a performance of the ASO, I urge you to get thee hence to buy tickets. Support local arts before they vanish!

  • What: Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony
  • When: May 15-16, 2009 8:00 PM
  • Where: Michael & Susan Dell Hall directions
  • Conductor: Peter Bay
  • Featuring: Linda Mabbs, soprano • Susan Platts, mezzo-soprano • Conspirare Symphonic Choir
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Why I support West Ham United FC

West Ham in 1965
West Ham in 1965

It’s too easy to be a New York Yankees fan. (The same goes for perennial winners Manchester United—that juggernaut of English football that each season glibly stuffs its trophy cases). What these clubs have in common is massive worldwide support with smug followers and bandwagon jumpers alike. It takes much sterner stuff to support West Ham United FC, an unfashionable club that plays well enough to maintain its “sturdy middle-table” place in the English Premier League but hasn’t won a trophy since 1980-81. A typical season has “The Irons” (aka “The Hammers”) finishing 10th among 20 clubs.

Since 1904, “The Cockney Boys” have played their fluid style of football at the Boleyn Ground, in the working class East London borough of Newham. The 1966 World Cup-winning England side featured several West Hammers, including legends Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters. In the 1970s, many punks carried the Hammers’ banner. One East End tradition was to blacken a pair of Doc Marten’s cherry red boots with shoe polish, allowing patches of the club’s dark red colors to show through. Astonishingly, since the club’s 1901 inception through 1989, the club has had only five different managers—12 overall—and 10 of them have been English. Some notable players have served the Hammers with style, including Carlos Tévez, Yossi Benayoun, Joe Cole, Julian Dicks, Paolo Di Canio and Trevor Brooking.

So how did I become attached to this homely club? As a youth in Florida I played “under-16” football with a club that had a sister-relationship with WHUFC, mirroring the claret and blue team colors on its kit. We were awful; I was awful—an awkward and shabby defender. But my loyalty to WHUFC ne’er waned (even during occasional relegation setbacks throughout its history). Expectations are never high, freeing one to follow the club’s fortunes with wanton abandon and little regret.

So, you can keep your silverware. My heart (but not my money) will forever be with West Ham. “Forever,” as the club anthem goes, “blowing bubbles/Pretty bubbles in the air…”