Radiohead continues their complete domination of media marketing. Today from Breitbart/AFP.
Last year, the group employed carbon analysts to assess the impact of their tours and decided the next one would set an example in an industry famed for its conspicuous consumption.
Friends of the Earth says the group has minimised its carbon pollution by “using energy efficient lighting, transporting equipment by train or boat rather than by plane and by using recyclable materials.”
Radiohead, one of the most respected and popular rock bands in the world, has also encouraged fans to travel to shows by public transport or in shared cars and city-centre concert venues have been chosen to reduce driving.
That’s nice, Radiohead is touring green. And, it’s a story even without the green angle. Radiohead going on tour is a story. They’re the biggest band in the world right now.
Anything Radiohead does is a story. Radiohead says jump the press says how high. Check this out.
Not content with pressuring fans and setting an example to other energy-guzzling bands, the tour is also being used as a media education programme.
For the concerts in France, the band’s record label Beggars offered only 50 places for the first concert on Monday night to journalists and gave them away on a first-come-first-served basis to the first reporters that presented themselves — on bikes — at the label’s Parisian headquarters.
Are you kidding me? To get a press pass, you have to be one of the first 50 reporters to show up on a bike? That’s funny. Radiohead is just screwing with these guys.
I wonder how many showed up. I wonder how many reporters raced to the record label office, on bikes, and didn’t get a press pass because they weren’t one of the first fifty.
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Tags: Cycling Journalists, first come first served basis, media education, Radiohead, radiohead tour
Pat and Exaggerated Friends wrote,
Only 50 journalists were present Monday night … journalists [received entrance] on a first-come-first-served basis to the first reporters that presented themselves — on bikes — at the label’s Parisian headquarters.
With Lance Armstrong their pace-maker out front, and press agents using stand-in’s from Carrera Cycling Team and Ceramica Flaminia-Bossini Docce Italian Cycling clubs, to race in for them, the event rivaled Tour d’France qualifying runs.
The frenetic crowd of cyclists, and reporters, including George Wein, Bill Cosby, and Ray Kurzweil and a few ticket scalpers… got to the gate and a loose ruck incurred. The front runners were pushed into the chain-linkage fencing, and well.. “It isn’t pretty,” said Lance.
Mercenary looters from Morocco had a field day with their pick of high end racing bikes, biker wear, and gear. “We just went for the Badges, and also got these Pearl Izumi Slice Ultrasensor® Shorts off one lady,” exclaimed one sideliner.
“There weren’t enough police there, and looked to me like they weren’t too eager to rush right in,” reported Lance Armstrong. Lance got away with all his gear, wear, bike and badges; and is unharmed.
“Lot’s of guys and gals got thrown into the barbed wire on top of the fences when vandals put rods in their spokes,” said Messeur Armstrong.
Tony Hawks said “It was real cool. Really aluminum!”
Rolling Stone says: “We never told our reporters it would be easy!”
“Not since Bastille Day, you know the real one, have we seen such a display of elitist random acts of incorrigible nature,” said the police sargent at the site.
pd-mpw France
Pat and Exaggerated Friends’s last blog post..The Customer Service Hall of Shame
Link | June 8th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Pribek wrote,
Mercenary looters from Morocco, very nice PD
Link | June 9th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Lewis wrote,
I read Fantastic Voyage, The Age of Spiritual Machines and The Singularity is Near, and they changed my life. I even found some of his lectures on Itunes and I find myself impatiently awaiting his next book.
Recently read another incredible book that I can’t recommend highly enough, especially to all of you who also love Ray Kurzweil’s work. The book is “”My Stroke of Insight”" by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. I had heard Dr Taylor’s talk on the TED dot com site and I have to say, it changed my world. It’s spreading virally all over the internet and the book is now a NYTimes Bestseller, so I’m not the only one, but it is the most amazing talk, and the most impactful book I’ve read in years. (Dr T also was named to Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People and Oprah had her on her Soul Series last month and I hear they’re making a movie about her story so you may already have heard of her)
If you haven’t heard Dr Taylor’s TEDTalk, that’s an absolute must. The book is more and deeper and better, but start with the video (it’s 18 minutes). Basically, her story is that she was a 37 yr old Harvard brain scientist who had a massive stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. Because of her knowledge of how the brain works, and thanks to her amazingly loving and kind mother, she eventually fully recovered (and that part of the book detailing how she did it is inspirational).
There’s a lot of learning and magic in the book, but the reason I so highly recommend My Stroke of Insight to this discussion, is because we have powerfully intelligent left brains that are rational, logical, sequential and grounded in detail and time, and then we have our kinesthetic right brains, where we experience intuition and peace and euphoria. Now that Kurzweil has got us taking all those vitamins and living our best “”Fantastic Voyage”" , the absolute necessity is that we read My Stroke of Insight and learn from Dr Taylor how to achieve balance between our right and left brains. Enjoy!
Link | June 15th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Pat Darnell and wrote,
Hey Lewis your name was Andrew on my blog, but that is okay. You wrote the exact same thing on my entry about Kurzweil. But I get what you are talking about. This singularity is always with us by the way. As humans we don’t invent singularity, it is discovered by us, then we reverse engineer it to our understanding.
I haven’t answer you yet in my blog, so I will do it here in Pribek’s. I hope you come back and give us more than your publicist opinion.
In 1973, I had a professor in Biologic Basis of Behavior, Dr Frey. We were in the auditorium the first day, and prof had a brain in a pain on the lectern. He was going over the syllabus, and got to the part about our lab would be dissection of rabbit ears, goat eyes, and a cow brain… at which point he began slicing the brain and eating it.
One guy in the front fainted, while Ellen Riley next to me said, “Cool.” She’s from White Plains.
Why all the levity? Dr Frey and the entire psychology/psychiatry college at Trinity knew that in 1973 we human scientists knew so little about the brain that the only thing humans were interested in was brains as food source. No kidding. I secretly think that humans still cannot grasp the brain as an organ drastically under stimulated, under-nourished, and not used to its full potential in 2008, 35 years hence.
Lewis, I truly believe the last half of the 20th century was dedicated to feminine hygiene, and this century will be Brain Industries. That’s my call, so inform your friend to keep writing those books.
Thanks Jack for the comment space to get this done.
Intuitively yours,
pat aka moopig
Pat Darnell and’s last blog post..Did I earn my Stripes today, like they Did?
Link | June 16th, 2008 at 8:15 am
Pribek wrote,
“Lewis, I truly believe the last half of the 20th century was dedicated to feminine hygiene,”
Are you mixing Mescal with your Metamucil again, PD?
Thought you might find this one interesting, I was having a regularly scheduled check up with my neurologist last week, and at one point in the discussion he said; “Traditionally, Neurologists as a group, are a bunch of passive Nihilists.”
Link | June 16th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Pat Darnell and Femi-Nihilistz Mucilage wrote,
Rothko passive collective Nihilists, or D.I.Y. Lowe’s passive aggressive home-improvement Nihilists? Pin him down on the history of neurology, genome and the last few years for sure. Interview that Doctor.
I don’t know, I’ll have to see if I accidentally grabbed my octogenarian Mom’s generic Mexican metamucil.. but judging the way I’ve been behaving lately, I thank you for alerting me to the possibility of a switch.
Once again blogging proves its worth, and saves an espaliered palikar’s six. To your health and well-being a meta toast…. “Hey, What’s in a Name!”
Link | June 16th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Pat Darnell and Femi-Nihilistz Mucilage wrote,
am I repeating myself?
Link | June 16th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Pat Darnell and Femi-Nihilistz Mucilage wrote,
..am I repeating myself?
Link | June 16th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Pribek wrote,
PD-”passive” in that, historically, many neurologists have often been reluctant to prescribe medication-”Nihilists” in that, they do not believe the medication will work.
This guy has been working with M.S. patients about as long as I have been bending strings and would be considered by many as “aggressive” in his approach to treatment. For instance, the medication I take hasn’t been around for 20 years yet, thus no 20 year studies. This doctor has been in the game a while and believes that he has seen positive results.
I have “interviewed” him quite a lot; it’s a continuing dialog every time I go. On this last visit, I did ask him about genome research and the types of things I heard Kurzweil discuss. The good Doctor says that we are close (few years maybe) from seeing that sort of thing for MS specifically but, it will be outrageously pricey. He always emphasizes a “let’s deal with what we have now” sort of attitude in these talks.
One time, as he was preparing to give me a spinal tap, I asked where he stood Spiritually. This seemed to make him just the slightest bit uneasy and he said: “Most people would probably call me an Atheist.”
I said; “That’s good, because I don’t want somebody sticking a needle up my spine that can fuck it up and then go home and pray their way out of it.”
Link | June 16th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Pat Darnell and some Friends wrote,
hmmmm…. let me see here, just a minute I’m checking…
tennis elbow, dodgy right eye, numb toe, trick knee, stiff neck,…
Nope, just like I thought, nothing here compares to SPINAL TAP this morning.
Pat Darnell and some Friends’s last blog post..One of 50 million hearts a’pounding Tuesday
Link | June 17th, 2008 at 5:53 am
Pribek wrote,
sounds worse than it is
Link | June 17th, 2008 at 6:31 am