Ohmigod just realized I nearly missed the boat on a HUGE viral marketing.... well, not so much "marketing" as, well... viral
weirdness campaign surrounding Fringe.
Bout a year or two ago, JJ Abrams did an interview about the concept of mystery, in an issue of 'Wired' magazine:
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-05/mf_jjessayHe ended it with this little couple of paragraphs:
Think back, for example, to how we used to buy music. You would have to leave your apartment or house and actually move your ass to another location. You'd get to the store, where music would be playing on the stereo. Music you may not have heard before. Perhaps you'd ask the clerk what it was and she'd send you to a bin?those wooden containers holding actual albums or CDs?and you'd look through it, seeing other album covers that might catch your eye. You'd have a chance to discover something.
But wait, you say, iTunes gives you the chance to browse! To that I nod, concede the point, and say, "Bull$hit." Those little icons you scroll past mean almost nothing to most of us. Why? Because we didn't get on the train, brave the weather, bump into strangers, and hear music we didn't choose. In other words, we didn't earn the right to casually scan those wooden bins. Lately I go to Amoeba Music in Hollywood just to watch people flip through albums. It's a lost art.
Also, in that same issue of Wired... if you blinked you missed it... was this little article about hidden messages embedded in records.
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/17-05/pl_music1971 The liner notes on Violet Sedan Chair's album Seven Suns list a missing 11th song, and the penultimate track is rumored to produce hallucinatory effects when played on multiple turntables.
Violet sedan chair? WHO the heck are they?Well, if you saw the episode of Fringe entitiled 'The Firefly' last couple of weeks ago, you'd know Violet Sedan Chair is Walter Bishop's favorite band... they disbanded in 1985 when the band's keyboardist & creative force Roscoe Joyce--- played by Christopher Lloyd-- broke them up following the sudden death of his son.
...but back in 2009, reading Wired magazine articles, you wouldn't have known that. You ALSO wouldn't have known that, when THIS obscure video was posted on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfsyYGN_Jpc Possible translation of what he seems to be saying:
face #1: I guess somehow through playing the keyboards he could tell that I had a great voice even though he never heard it....
Interviewer (offscreen): Guitarist blank, blank, blankety is here--- blank, just tell your viewers what are you gonna play for us?
face 2(guitarist): I I.. garbledygook.. my favorite track on the album was "Slow Vibration", because it dealt with topics that were ??very real?? Anyway... there's also this video been put out there:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNAB60WXZqQNot to mention this deleted scene which is really just a fricking commercial for a CAR-- but look close at the song that's played on the radio, and listen to the discussion of that song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K_vzgN9zlUWell... as I said above, the band is fictional. HOWEVER...
Turns out, quite some time ago, JJ Abrams-- or an operative under his direction-- had an album recorded by a genuine band , pressed to an unknown limited edition of vinyl albums... delberately & professionally aged to look like a used record... and distributed to independent record stores with strict instructions to put them in the 'Used Vinyl' bin-- and even better, put them in with the 'used vinyl- new arrivals' so it's not listed by the band or album title.
That last part is especially important because-- now that fans know this album exists, they are on the net, on the phone with record stores scramblin' lookin' for it.
But they can't find it that way... because of how it's been stuck in the 'used vinyl' bins it's not in the store's "system",
so they don't know they have it. Abrams has actually created this album (
which I FOUND it myself on the web, been listening to it for 2 days straight and must say it is magically delicious!) but then told NO-ONE about it, and took great steps to insure that a VERY small, cliquish margin of Fringe fans/vinyl afficionados would see it, and recognize it for what it was!
It is more likely these albums are in the hands of unique & curious vinyl lovers who 'liked the cover' and have no idea it's a "fake" album, than in the hands of the show's fans!
Of course.. with all us nut-ball Fringe fans telling everyone about it, the cat is now out of the bag... so grab it if you can!
If I ever had any doubt that JJ Abrams & Bad Robot were not just totally wickedly crazy cool-- and I didn't ever, but presuming I might have had, it would be gone now.
You can stream it here, but it's too late to download it from here:
http://soundcloud.com/letitplayout/sets/violet-sedan-chair-seven-suns-lp-side-2/By the bye.... Fringe has been consigned to the friday Night 'death slot' -- same slot that prematurely ended the reign of Freakylinks. Tho it HAS done well in the slot, this week Fringe will be tested against the returning 'Supernatural' and 'CSI' which also provided some competition for Freakylinks, too, back in the day. I know most of us here have kinda got sick of Supernatural.. let's kick 'em while they're down & watch Fringe this week!
