The stellar Bay Area rock band, Pine & Battery, featuring D/C’s Larissa “Larry” Waters on backup vocals, has been selected as Local Artist of the Month by one of San Francisco’s biggest, most venerable rock radio stations, KFOG (104.5 on your dial or listen online). Big ups to Larry and co. Now let’s all help them extend their reign by putting in a request for the Pine & Battery song “Southern” at 1-800-300-KFOG or on the KFOG site.
D/C’s own rock ’n’ roll expert, Robert Duncan, has just returned from St. Petersburg, Russia, where he delivered a two-hour multimedia presentation on the history of rock to a full house of students and professors. The former managing editor of Creem and author of The Noise: Notes from a Rock ’n’ Roll Era was invited to speak by St. Petersburg State University’s Smolny College, where pop is part of the curriculum. His lecture, titled “The Noise: Notes from a Rock ’n’ Life,” was a 25-year update of his book, covering his experiences with music and musicians from the ’50s to today.
It is probably no happenstance that Duncan’s son, a Russian language major, attends the school, the first liberal arts college in Russia. But when the faculty heard that dear ol’ dad, a widely published critic and scrivener of three books on rock, was coming for a visit, they asked the son to sign him up.
According to the utterly unbiased Duncan, the lecture was a smashing success, with much furious note-taking by the mostly Russian crowd (who are required by the college to learn English) and rousing applause to cap it off. During a Q&A session at the end, one professor politely protested Duncan’s dismissal of prog rock and the band Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Otherwise, controversy was kept to a minimum.
Though Duncan had been counseled that the young audience might be naive about both historical and contemporary rock, there was surprisingly broad recognition when the discussion turned to punk pioneer Patti Smith. And one young Russian, an aspiring rock critic, his blond locks combed over one eye, collared the errant D/C ECD after the lecture to talk about Sufjan Stevens. Another student sporting a jam-band beard danced vigorously in his seat through every song of the presentation, from Elvis’s “Hound Dog” to the Hold Steady’s “Chips Ahoy.” Duncan was later informed that said student usually just talks to himself.
The complete playlist and text of the lecture is posted in the Noise column on this site.
Tetley USA, the American division of the second largest tea company in the world, has picked Duncan/Channon for web design and online communications projects for their Tetley and Good Earth Tea brands. The assignment will also include other communications projects, strategic consulting, and media planning and buying. Overall, it rates a big pip-pip from D/C.
It’s already being talked about as the latest “What is this world coming to???” pop cultural event. And, no, we’re not just talking about the videogame itself. We’re talking about the videogame’s commercial.
The game is “Condemned 2: Bloodshot”, the next-gen follow-up to Sega’s 2005 horror hit. And, most assuredly, it raises the bar for psychological terror and realistic hand-to-hand combat. But as the game’s launch approached, the Duncan/Channon creative team was faced with an even more terrifying challenge — how do you capture in a TV spot the demonic spirit of the scariest (arguably) game ever?
The ad’s concept is simple. Playing “Condemned 2” is so frightening it will continue to haunt your thoughts long after you’ve stopped playing. To do the game justice, the TV spot had to capture the raw, visceral brutality and gut-wrenching horror that are the game’s hallmarks. So, after an exhaustive search, D/C put its script into the capably bloodied hands of feature film director — and horror specialist — Jim Sonzero, fresh from directing Pulse.
Now, out of the perverse dedication of the production team and director, sick support from the clients at Sega and, of course, D/C’s own twisted creative prowess (hey, it’s our site, we gotta toot our horns a little) has emerged an ad that’s making gamers’ jaws’ drop — and stomachs turn — even as we speak.
Open, indeed, and spurting merriment over the 400 some revelers who came to downtown San Francisco on March 28th from as far away as New York and as close by as 111 Minna.
D/C’s tin-ceilinged, black-and-white penthouse lounge throbbed to the music of DJ Spesh and his Qool Records posse until well past midnight in a celebratory frenzy of dance and drink that could only be described as pagan. So named because, um, it’s at the top of SF’s historic Adam Grant building, the Tip was envisioned as a Zen-like place of refuge and reflection. When that didn’t work out, it turned into the most off-the-hook party space in the western marketing world.
And on Friday the 28th, the Tip was just the tip of the iceberg, as D/C’s grand re-opening extravaganza also saw the agency cut the ribbon on the rest of its new global HQ — conveniently located one floor down from the lounge via unprepossesing fire-stairs or scary, 1937-era private elevator.
There on the 14th (and main) floor, distinguished guests were serenaded by the Baguette Quartette and entranced by a leaping, swirling, cymbal-crashing Chinese Lion-Dance troupe. Meanwhile, delectable eats were dished out by our old homeys from Sol Food — San Rafael’s temple of Puerto Rican cucina. And complimentary, post-prandial stogies were rolled on the spot by the masterful (if irascible) Rene Garcia of Havana, Cuba (via Bradenton, Florida).
Oh, and, for no apparent reason, a giant, ill-mannered bunny showed up.
Still, judging by the fact that the bartenders emptied the well-stocked, custom-made bar three times and the DJs went into overtime, an exceptionally good time was had by all.
Many thanks to all our clients, friends (many of them one and the same) and family. And very special thanks to our long-suffering (due to a profoundly short schedule) contractor, Charlie Phipps of Richlen Construction, who managed (among many other wondrous feats) to turn a graceless pit of a room into a glistening Tip.
Q: Who is among the finalists for this year’s O’Toole Awards?
Presented annually by the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the O’Toole’s are among the most prestigious U.S. ad awards. Or, as the 4A’s explains: “Because they honor creative excellence for an agency’s body of work over a period of a single calendar year, the AAAA O’Toole Award competition is one of the most challenging awards programs in our industry.”
So there we are, one of just three finalists in the under-100-employees category and, with our direct competitors (Arnold and TAXI) being local offices of way bigger companies, the only one that’s truly under 100.
D/C’s four submissions represent a wildly diverse set of work for a wildly diverse set of clients: Birkenstock, ZoneAlarm, Hard Rock and Vertigo. And while the winners won’t be announced until April 29 at the 4A’s annual conference, it’s already an “extraordinary honor,” according to one industry insider, to even make the finals. Indeed, the finalists in the larger agency categories include two of the most frequently honored creative shops, Crispin, Porter, Bogusky and Bartle, Bogle and Hegarty.
So, hooray for us. And, btw, hooray for the great clients that let us do that great work.
Wanna see the work? Birkenstock, ZoneAlarm, Hard Rock, Vertigo.
Duncan/Channon submitted 20 entries to this year’s San Francisco Addy Awards and wound up taking home 20 — count ’em — 20 awards, including eight golds. The golds crossed multiple disciplines, including advertising, design and collateral, with prizes going to work for Hard Rock International, Vertigo, Birkenstock and Ruffino, among others.
D/C would like to simultaneously thank the Greater San Francisco Ad Club for the recognition and apologize for the rowdy celebration. Evidently, apologies are also due to the Fairmont Hotel’s Tonga Room, where the “celebration” — which apparently involved copious tropical cocktails, vociferous female arm-wrestling and high-stakes wagering on same — traveled next.
It’s fun to be sworn to secrecy. And for the last two months, until 9:30 this morning, Duncan/Channon has been just that.
Two months ago is when Microsoft gave the greenlight for D/C to create the first website to use Deep Zoom technology. Part of the new Silverlight plug-in, Deep Zoom effectively adds another dimension to the navigation of web pages, beyond scrolling horizontally and vertically, allowing users to seamlesssly zoom in — way in — on an object or group of objects.
Needless to say, this unreleased technology was a perfect match for the new memorabilia site we had begun designing for Hard Rock, which is to ultimately encompass 70,000 items from an unparalleled collection of historic rock treasures.
At a meeting in Redmond, Microsoft liked our proposed design — conceived by creative director Mike Lemme — so much they not only shared their new technology, they invited us to share the stage at their prestigious MIX Conference in Las Vegas, which kicked off this morning.
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