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It's how new talent gets signed. Post up on YouTube. Get noticed...and it all flows from there.
Teddy Swims was posting up covers on YouTube and...bang.
Now...he's huge.
I first discovered him before the plague with his incredible cover of "I Can't Make You Love Me."
On this Music Friday we offer his breakthrough track, "Lose Control."
And then...there's this. In a Dublin bar.
Love it.
Catching up on some reading over the weekend, I saw a report issued by Travel Advance back in April that identified the top priorities for Destination Marketing Executives.
And it wasn't Room Nites (finally).
By a significant margin it was Destination Brand Awareness.
Hell yeah.
When I saw this story out of Nassau County NY the other day I immediately thought of that classic esurance commercial where the friend of a woman who clearly didn't understand how Facebook worked said, "that's not how any of this works."
Because that's what happens every single time that a government (or Chamber or EDC or Park District) steps in thinking they can do Destination Marketing better than the DMO from which they've just yanked the contract. Because what sounds like a good idea to amateurs in this space (for that is what they are) is very rarely rooted in research and ROI.
Take Nassau County, which recently decamped from the sensationally successful Discover Long Island, believing they could do better. Their first campaign out of the box is to run "branded" buses from midtown Manhattan and transport consumers directly to Nassau destinations. And then back to Manhattan that evening. Never mind there is a train that already does that.
How does that generate overnight stays (which is how destination marketing is generally funded)? Yeah...it doesn't.
Nice try through, rookies.
As I noted a few days ago, the daily e-blast from my friend George Tzougros at the Wisconsin Arts Board is always a must read. Great quotes to ponder and often a cool music video to pursue. And yesterday was no exception.
Hard to fathom that it has been eight years since we lost Prince...but his music lives on. I remember my first time in Minneapolis' First Avenue, where most of the concert scenes in Purple Rain were shot. And, this Music Friday video takes me back.
This is 600 people in First Avenue singing "I Would Die 4 U."
So cool.
Thanks George...
It should be TALK.
There was a time in my life here in Madison that I filled in for a few weeks for a news radio icon in the Mad City as he recovered from a health scare. I guess that gave me cred a few years later to be considered to do fill in on talk radio. After a few shows under my belt, I was called into the program director's office. He said that I was doing it all wrong.
Take a position and drive it home, he admonished me. Don't say that an opposing position is an interesting concept. Shut them down hard, he said.
But, I offered, it was an interesting alternative. He just shook his head and I never worked on air there again.
That day came back to me when I heard that Chicago radio icon Steve Cochran got axed at the once legendary WLS. Because that is what he was trying to do with his morning show there.
Interesting story from BNM. And he's so right. That is what talk radio should be.
Not the shit we are forced to listen to from the corporate shills that only care about drama and contention.
I've been getting these e-mails recently, promoting a new restaurant here in Madison that sounds really cool. They claim to be Wisconsin's Finest Chicken. And, I'm in...I'm ready to go. Fried Pickle Day. Friday Fish Fry. Wednesday Wing Day. Let's go.
But where? Where are you located? In every e-mail I receive, I look for an address and come up with nothing.
And the Visit Our Website link is broken.
Really?
Now that I want fried chicken (and thank you for the tasty suggestion), I guess I'll go to Zippy Lube.
Which is not what I believe your intent is with these e-mails (that I never signed up for).
Sigh...
Terri and I have endured a really shitty run of concerts over the past year...to the point of coming close to saying no mas. Sensational talent...but really horrible sound. It's as if this next generation of audio geeks posing as sound professionals only know 11.
Mercifully, that all changed last weekend as we found ourselves in an acoustically challenged outdoor venue in downtown Madison to see Robert Plant and Allison Krause with J.D. McPherson.
Sublime perfection. Their vocals were PERFECT on their own and intricately intertwined on cue. And the sound crew was dead on. I can't remember a concert in which the sound was that perfect. Almost studio quality.
As he walked off stage, Robert said, "come see us again...I have no fucking idea where we're going next but you can look it up."
Well, I did. They're in Toledo tonight and hanging with Willie and Dylan next weekend in Charlotte.
On this Music Friday, this was one of our faves last weekend. And, the original.
We might just venture out to another concert.
Imagine your town square. Now imagine it as a one-million square foot game board. That’s what Macomb CVB CEO Jock Hedblade and his community have done in transforming Downtown into the world’s largest Monopoly Board. On this episode of DMOU, Jock joins us with the backstory of how a succession of destination wins produced a sensational visitor magnet and has set the community up for future successes. And, the Bonus Round features the story of a home town kid…who came home. Join us.
Checked The Weather Channel app yesterday morning to start my day and saw that there was a 2% chance of rain.
By Noon, the app said there was a 100% chance of rain.
Not a drop fell here at the compound.
And you want me to pay for an upgraded version?
One of the e-mails I look forward to each weekday is from my friend (and past DMOU guest) George Tzougros, Director of the Wisconsin Arts Board. His daily missives are packed with (naturally) news about the Arts here and around the country. But they also contain video links to cool performances and quotes to ponder. Last week, he shared this one:
“Man's most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe.” – Euripides
If Euripides was correct, we're doomed.
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