December 17, 2009
A classic song. A brand-new video. Performance Artist The Dark Bob and poet Jack Skelley (also Paolucci Communication Arts’ Senior Vice President) join their old pal, “X” drummer DJ Bonebrake to wish everyone a HA HA HA HA HAPPY NEW YEAR!Ha Ha Ha Ha Happy New Year
December 15, 2009
Roddan Paolucci Roddan (RPR), the boutique communication-arts firm with advertising, public relations and interactive specialty, has evolved its name to Paolucci Communication Arts (PCA). The name change reflects a seven-year transition strategy that has led to the formal retirement of two of the initial principals and the sale of the majority of company stock to its employee owners.
December 15, 2009
Fulfilling its long-range goal to diversify its client base beyond resorts and residential communities, Paolucci Communication Arts (PCA) has been engaged by several new clients from a wide range of fields. New clients include The City of Riverside, Escena Golf Club, Energy Labs and Rolling Hills Country Club. Boasting the most comprehensive client roster in its 20-year history, PCA is emerging from the recent recession as perhaps one of the strongest integrated and diversified boutique marketing agencies in Southern California. Read More
December 14, 2009
This week in Riverside, California, marks the opening of the much anticipated Casey’s Cupcakes & Cappuccinos at The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa. The “confection boutique” is the vision of actress/model Casey Reinhardt, daughter of Duane and Kelly Roberts who own The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa.
Earlier this year, Roberts and Reinhardt called upon Paolucci Communication Arts (PCA) to create the brand identity for Casey’s Cupcakes & Cappuccinos. PCA started with a logo – a whimsical silhouette of Casey holding a cupcake – but far from ended there. After falling in love with initial creative platform for the store, Kelly and Casey allowed PCA to design everything from the interior space to the uniforms to all of the marketing materials and photography.
The best part is that the cupcakes taste as good as the store looks.
December 9, 2009
While Facebook surges past 300 million users, MySpace has lost more than half its previous share of the social-networking market, and it continues to bleed about $100 million a year. And it’s all happened since being bought by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp (Fox News, Wall Street Journal, etc.). As this comprehensive article in the Financial Times tells the saga, “An acquisition that had initially covered Murdoch in glory and offered so much promise was becoming an embarrassment to the News Corp chairman and a liability for his company.” Local fallout from the collapse of MySpace can be found in the office component at Playa Vista where MySpace leases office space that it cannot use and has been unable to sublease. By June of 2010, MySpace’s Playa Vista rent will hit $2 million per year. One thing nobody can deny MySpace, however: It’s still the best site to hear music and learn about new music artists. And that’s the direction it has now chosen, after giving up competing with Facebook.
December 8, 2009
The hot-rod artist who became a fine artist – but who never lost his hot-rod roots – has a new show. And now Robert Williams has thrown sculpture into his repertoire. He may be best known for his Guns ‘n Roses album cover, “Appetite for Destruction,” but Williams’ high-brow side has always been just as stimulating as his paintings that riff on movie posters, tattoo iconography, girlie magazines and surfer art. New York’s Tony Shafrazi Gallery is showing “Conceptual Realism, In the Service of the Hypothetical” through January 23, 2010. An accompanying book is published by Fantographics. Image shown here: “Sculldy Dumpty,” oil on canvas.
December 1, 2009
It’s one thing to dismiss grunge as noise, but not when it becomes crucial to music history. A major grunge prototype band played recently in downtown DC at Constitution Hall – the Pixies. This blogger attended with someone who had never heard of the Pixies. I had to explain that what today sounds like clichés – powerful drums, and stop/start extreme dynamics such as hushed verses exploding into wailing choruses, and melodic guitar cutting into screaming distortion – were actually Pixies inventions.
Gary Smith who produced the Pixies first recording Come On Pilgrim commented on the bands influence: “I’ve heard it said about the Velvet Underground that while not a lot of people bought their albums, everyone who did started a band. I think this is largely true about the Pixies as well.” The Pixies’ sound was too original for mainstream success. However, they became major influences on the flannel wave of Seattle bands such as Read More
December 1, 2009
This promises to be an inspiring event. The Los Angeles District Council of Urban Land Institute presents the first annual LARC (Los Angeles Real Creativity) Awards December 5, 2009 at 5900 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, starting at 6 p.m. It’s an awards show, but don’t expect to be yawning over a plate of rubber chicken. Dramatically expanding from the usual architecture and real-estate awards format, LARC’s categories include: design, an innovative design – product, building, urban land plan, public art – still in its conceptual stage; place, a completed building, public space, neighborhood or art installation which may have world-changing potential; enterprise, an especially effective and innovative company, group, program, grass-roots initiative, community organization or social movement; and idea, a singular “big idea” with profound and far-reaching consequences – a “game changer.” Finalists range from the Flower Street Bioreactor to the Downtown L.A. Artwalk to the Jet Propulsion Lab’s Imagine Mars project.
The presenters are equally inspiring. KCRW’s Frances Anderton (“Design and Architecture”) is the MC, and presenters include Frank Gehry and Stuart Ketchum. The evening begins with cocktails at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s “Urban Light” installation (designed by artist Chris Burden) then moves across the street to official event. Here’s a link to the LARC website, which tells you how to get tickets. And here’s a write-up that appeared on NBC 4.
