Grateful Dead wall of sound + more

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The Grateful Dead Wall of Sound. An amazing documentary about the sound system that The Grateful Dead used to tour with.

Grateful Dead at the Warfield 10/09/1980
Grateful Dead at the Warfield 10/09/1980 by Chris Stone

The scale of it is very impressive. Having listened to Grateful Dead bootleg recordings, the sound system is also extremely impressive for the high fidelity sound that came from it.

Fantastic case study from TBWA\Chiat\Day for Adidas. Billie Jean King your shoes. The background was that Billie Jean King played her iconic game against Bobby Riggs in a pair of blue Adidas shoes back in 1973.

To celebrate this win, Adidas would spray paint whatever trainers you had to look like King’s. There is also a connotation of ‘ownership’ in the graffiti world by overspraying someone else’s work. That makes this campaign work on a number of levels, in particular when you see a Nike Air Force 1 ‘Kinged’.

The North Face Japan put out this great video that shows how to make a wallet from cardboard packaging. It is interesting the way it strays straight into Patagonia territory and taps into the spare time that people would have self-isolating. It keeps a brand aligned to the great outdoors engaging prospective customers indoors.

RZA goes in-depth on the Wu-Tang Clan’s love of vintage Hong Kong wishu films and how the influenced their music. It also works as a great tour of all the classics in Hong Kong cinema. I am surprised that this hasn’t been done earlier.

Great vintage recording of Kraftwerk. What I like about it is how the simple instruments that Kraftwerk had fabricated and played allow the mix to ‘breathe’. There is clear space allowing each instrument to be heard. This was partly due to the simplicity of the technology. It was also influenced by a wider movement in Germany to define how the country should define itself moving forwards. Kraftwerk looked at a modernism as a way to redefine what it meant to be German. The music is somewhat influenced by the Bauhaus school of design.