Neil Diamond & Billy Corgan

[illusionofjoy]

Sometimes I come across an ad which makes me do a double-take. This has happened with a couple of memorable billboards, which were never photographed and preserved for posterity in this humble weblog due to the fact that joi_division and I kept forgetting to bring out the camera. So, you'll just have to nod in fake appreciation as I reminisce about my reactions to the Quiznos "Santorum Sub" and Fitting Group's "Brand Spanking" campaign.

The "Santorum Sub," as Joi and I nicknamed it after Dan Savage's fairly successful campaign to redefine santorum, was a Quiznos marketing campaign for a Philly cheesesteak sub. However, to myself and Joi, it looked like a giant bisected roll that someone had left a massive stool sample on and then covered with either ejaculate or lube - the jury is still out on exactly which it could have been. The simple tagline - "EAT ME!" - did nothing to improve this image of what we both already considered an abhorrent sandwich. I think it was the urine-yellow background colour of the billboard which, to this day, keeps both of us from ever setting foot inside of a Quiznos sandwich shop.

Meanwhile, I have nothing but fond memories of Fitting Group's "Brand Spanking" campaign. These billboards, which rightly should have been made permanent fixtures of Pittsburgh's highway landscape featured a photo of a woman clad in black vinyl, photographed against an orange backdrop from a rear, right-side view. Only her back and extremely shapely posterior are visible. In her right hand, she is holding a whip. The tagline was this: "Do some brand spanking." That billboard made me happy every time I rode by it on the trolley each morning and afternoon. Call me nostalgic, but I wouldn't care if Fitting Group decided to recycle that particular ad campaign forever. Sadly, they've yet to reuse it once, which is appropriate as they are supposed to be a firm known for innovative and unique advertising. They have Quiznos beaten by light-years, that's for sure.

The latest ad to capture my attention has been running in local newspapers. As I didn't want to pass up a chance to share my ad observations with an apathetic public once more, I scanned it in as soon as I remembered that I wanted to inflict it upon people. To give you an idea of how my brain works, consider that I first saw this ad in the Entertainment section of Monday's Post-Gazette. Now take a quick glance up at the date of this post. Pathetic, I know.

In any case, this ad was a simple half-page spot for an upcoming concert. Neil Diamond is going to be performing at Mellon Arena in the not-so-distant future. Usually I wouldn't give this a second thought. Something about this ad caught my eye, however...take a look and tell me if you see what I see...

Now, I know what most of you are thinking: "That is odd....an old wash-up like Neil Diamond couldn't possibly fill up a venue like Mellon Arena, where those superstars Green Day played just last weekend." One would think this is true, but then again, this is Allegheny County where at least half of the population is old as dirt and highly allergic to the sound of an electric guitar. Given such demographics, Neil Diamond will probably fill up Mellon Arena with little difficulty.

It is the pose in the ad I find disturbing. In the limited greyscale world of newsprint, the persons putting together the layout of this ad chose a pose where the light and shadows interplay in such a manner that it appears as if Neil Diamond is asking you to attend his performance in exchange for your immortal soul. The outstretched hand does nothing to subdue this perception. The first thing that pops into my head is a creaky elderly voice intoning, "come here, little girl...have some candy," with barely-masked lecherous intentions. I'm sure that someone with Photoshop is just itching to have a go at this image. A flame rising from Neil's outstretched hand would be obvious, but still hilarious.

Despite it's creepiness, I still rank it above the Quiznos santorum sub. Demonic crooners over shit sandwiches any day.

Turning to the world of musicians whose concerts I would be willing to attend and whose albums I do plan on buying, Billy Corgan has recently become of great interest to me. It is no secret that I am a fan of Moby's journal. Unlike your run of the mill pop superstars, he writes in a manner that one can relate to. In a nutshell, it turns the musician back into a human being, rather than just an avatar on stage or photographed for the liner notes of their CDs.

Billy Corgan (who you should know from The Smashing Pumpkins, probably ignored in Zwan and had never heard of in The Marked) has recently decided to throw off his veil of mystique through the chronicling of his life story online in The Confessions of Billy Corgan. The entries (which are initially posted to his Myspace blog and then archived on his site) are similar to Moby's in how erudite they are with two notable differences: 1.) Billy is focussing solely on past experiences and 2.) It seems that Billy has a greater appreciation for proper punctuation and capitalisation than Moby.

Regardless, the story of Billy Corgan's life is a fascinating one. Told as if Billy Corgan is almost Billy Pilgrim, he jumps around from era to era in the narrative. In one chapter he'll be telling the reader about playing with The Marked in Florida in 1987. One clicks to read the next chapter, and suddenly he's six years old, living in the suburbs of Chicago with his alcoholic has-been/never-was musician father and apathetic stepmother. It appears jarring at first, but it actually works, because that is how memories work. You can playback a mind like a cassette tape; memory is non-linear - it is fluid.

Several years ago, while still attending SUNY Potsdam, I met a girl online. She had been at CMJ 2000 where she had gone to the same performance. While we didn't meet at that show, several months later she found my old journal (the infamous TSWP) and, upon reading that I had been to the show, emailed me to ask if I had managed to take any photographs of it. Unfortunately, I hadn't, but this still evolved into a continuous email exchange and what I thought was a friendship. She then turned out to be the biggest pretentious Goth twat I had ever encountered at that point in my life (given a few more years, I would encounter quite a number of pretentious Goth twats).

At one point this girl was on my Livejournal friends list. She never returned the favour, which was probably my first clue that I should have ditched the bitch. I recall one entry of hers where she copied and pasted an online conversation she had engaged in with a kid obviously too young to know better. At one point, the kid had asked her, "do you like Goth bands, like The Smashing Pumpkins." She had bluntly replied that The Smashing Pumpkins weren't a Goth band and then went on to brag about how she had made fun of the kid mercilessly for his error.

Now, I shouldn't really be casting stones at the walls of my glass house, as I have been known to make fun of people for their musical ignorance as well. Still, I believe there is a line and I also believe that one should resort to a well-reasoned argument before jumping on the train of verbal abuse. I would also argue the idea that maybe...just maybe The Smashing Pumpkins were a Goth band (then again, this girl went as far as to refuse The Cure her beloved Goth label and then went ever further, saying that they didn't put out anything good after 1982).

Reading Billy Corgan's journal, it becomes obvious that his roots were dark. Some of his favourite bands were The Cure, Echo & the Bunnymen, Siouxsie & the Banshees and The Sisters of Mercy. The cover of Adore, the most underrated and unappreciated album in the Pumpkins' discography practically screams, "Goth!" Examining the songs themselves, sonically and lyrically, there are plenty of Smashing Pumpkins songs that embody the Goth aesthetic quite well; "Adore," "Daphne Descends," "Eye," "Tonight, Tonight," "Zero" and "Bodies" just to name a few.

In my mind, the best Goth bands were the ones that didn't sound like Goth bands - not all of the time in any case. Mope and write labyrinthian poetry all you want, but if you're writing with the goal of sounding as "Goth" as possible, you're going to suck (like the Cr xshadows). The pretentious, conformist shit - and let's face it, this scene has been invaded by a lot of pretentious, conformist shit - is just that: shit. Good art should know no boundaries. Fuck the labels and that sick desire for acceptance that makes you drive away those who don't fit in and fucking make something beautiful, instead of something superficial and fucking meaningless!

I do plan on buying Billy Corgan's album when it is released. Robert Smith sings on one of the songs. I have a feeling that it will be a good purchase.

Comments

[evilkellychan.livejournal.com]

the last time i saw a alot of people at mellon arena was the last time Barry Manilow was in town. Andy and i were driving and wondering why there was so much traffic in downtown. i was amazed... Neil Diamond wouldn't be too bad... but i only feel that way because of SAVING SILVERMAN.

[ruined888.livejournal.com]

dood....
seriously.
I know we differ in our musical tastes....
but don't
diss
the diamond!

that's just not cool...

--Angel
*walks off humming solitary man*