The Brilliance!

Music…they don’t make it like they used to. So we sample it. Old soul, R&B, rock, funk, groove, lounge, etc…whatever. I’m starting to get obsessed with old classics. What happened to music with ‘essence’ like that?? Even with pretty poor recording quality it has more FEEL to it than half the stuff coming out today. I always liked a classic here and there, but ever since Virgil gave me that ‘Welcome to Kanye’s Soul Mix Show’ mixtape I’ve been hooked. Thing is, the music is actually pretty hard to find, almost impossible sometimes. For example, Common’s track ‘They Say’ samples Ahmad Jamal’s track ‘Ghetto Child’ off of his Jamaica album. Seriously took me 2 months to get a digital copy of it. Long gone are those days…enter Anwar’s fairly new blog called Resurgence of the Soul Sample. I could seriously waste hours on the site. All sorts of popular (and some rare) hip-hop tracks accompanied by the full, original, song sampled to create the beat….and often some insightful background on the original artist as well. His site is already getting quite popular. The link below is a pretty comprehensive Ahmad Jamal post he did, and a little shout to us. ***And since I’m a music buyer, I encourage users to pay for the music if there is place where it can be easily purchased, iTunes/AmazonMp3!

&designerMy new ongoing series of posts. I admit I am a consumer and I love design and pay attention to brands so this is gonna work out perfect. So I mentioned I was seriously anticipating these backpacks to come out since I saw the first images pop-up on the net. DHL came by yesterday and dropped one off just for me. Seriously, from the moment I opened up that packaging I go the impression that this is a “designers” backpack. Every single detail was thought about, perfected….colors, material, fabrication, the oversize-ness of the shape, the packaging….how the pocket enclosures work, the whole triangular theme. I was the kid with like 3-4 backpack a school year so I have seen my fair share. On the market, the backpack to beat is any Visvim models, which is like a Burton AK pack with super soft elk leather, the best Cordura nylon, no grain straps etc. The RAF pack is not on that level of material quality but makes up for it with the aesthetic. Like pushing arguably the best backpack of all time, the Louis Christopher with a military tint to a more modern utilitarian place. Raf Simons all together is an unknown designer, check out this perfectly timed article to see why he’s important and why I am doing all this typing about a backpack, ha.

“One of the old jokes from the late-‘90s bubble was that there are only two numbers on the Internet: infinity and zero.” I may be taking that slightly out of context - but I couldn’t agree more. You get EVERYTHING for free on the net, and it costs NOTHING. And if they’re charging for it today…someone will figure out a way to make it free tomorrow. Ever stopped and wondered how this works? I mean yeah, ads, etc…but…really??? Funny too, I’ve been having lots and lots of conversations with friends about the whole concept of all things digital being free. Music, TV/Movies, storage, maybe even software, etc. Seems like every argument I come up with to explain why something will still have a cost to the user…I can find a reason why it won’t in about 5 minutes. Arguing with myself, ha? Yikes. One of the more simple examples would be movies. Sure, they’re pirated now, but not as obviously as music…mostly because they take more than 30 seconds to download. But remember when songs took 5 minutes to download? And that was fast? Or software…what if Photoshop/Illustrator were online tools? Seems pretty hard to imagine a web app that could do that right? But it’s almost like an ‘imagine it, and it is’ kind of a thing you know? If you can dream it…bandwidth, clever kids, and venture cap will eventually make it happen…and by eventually I mean sooner than you think. And it’ll most likely be free. It’s so funny to me…a whole market can exist, all charging an ‘industry standard’ for a product/service. But if someone with a tiny bit of pull makes it free, the whole market collapses. Like…what the hell are they going to do with all that space where the CDs are in Best Buy??? Ha, right? So weird to stop and think about. Even weirder is that we’re, ages 20 and better, not the real internet generation. A whole new generation that sees ‘free’ as totally normal and completely expected is growing up now. Can we compare this to anything that has ever happened before in human history? Interesting stuff to just think about…this fantastic Wired article addresses all these things in great detail. Check it out..for free. ***I guess it’s important read the article and really think about industries that could become digital. That’s when it gets a bit more mind-numbing…to me at least. Also, thanks to Rick and Dennis for sending this link over.

We usually like to end post titles with our trademark exclamation points (!!!) when they are especially interesting, but this kind of defies exclamation points altogether. I found this posted up on Supertouch just a few minutes ago and I don’t know quite what else to say that they already haven’t…”...one of the most inspiring art shows of the decade with Cai Guo-Qiang’s midcareer retrospective extravaganza, ‘I Want To Believe.” I’m not sure if I’ll have a chance to see this in person but I’d really love to, considering Supertouch also said “...creating masterpieces of epic grandeur and subtle detail that must be witnessed in person to be appreciated.” Beautiful and technically and creatively stunning, the cars suspended and ‘exploding’ from the ceiling of the spiral are nothing short of brilliant. The wolves are a classic that were what originally introduced me personally to Guo-Qiang’s work, and the human, ark, tiger, and light sculptures honestly could inspire just about anyone - even the most self-described ‘non-creative’ people - to want to try their hand at creating something. Tons of pictures on Flickr here, clean, pro shots of the show on the ABC website here, and info about Cai here on his site. Unreal.

…Kick…drum…Kick…drum…Kick…drum…Kick…drum …man this is my theme song right now. I have been on this stretch of relying on streamed internet music and dumping my iTunes library cause my computer is super full. So what I have been doing is just streaming the same song over and over and over and just zoning out. This right here is a designers track, melodic music that keeps you goin on laptop marathons. Anything that Feist touches easy listening, but the Gonzales touch adds that perfect energy. Dude is awesome. You gotta check out the making of his track “Working Together” Its like a kids show theme song for grown ups. You’ll see what I mean. Click away.

Kind of weird that I hadn’t posted this before…probably cause I didn’t want to ‘blow-up-the-spot’ as the kids say. If I wasn’t into cycling I’d be into this stuff. THIS is branding. Start off with a super strict focus - in this case it’s cycling. Make really, really amazingly classic products. Differentiate yourself in your industry by being a bit more understated. Then display, not market, your product as more of a lifestyle purchase than a ‘oh I need this widget’ type purchase. Then add some magic…like all the good brands have. Then keep it up. I just got turned onto Rapha last year…such awesome stuff. I guess the only thing I can compare it to would be maybe what Louis Vuitton is for Travel, Rapha is for cycling. Maybe minus the logo blow-out that LV can sometimes come across with when in the wrong hands. What’s awesome to is how there is just nothing that compares with Rapha in the cycling gear market…like, nothing. It’s like, multi-colored spandex or Rapha? Ha. And their prints?? Actual art prints. I think anyone who sells a physical products should aspire to sell pages from their catalogs as art. Seriously. ***Hey, if anyone has a connect for me to get the white Grand Tour gloves in small…PLEASE let me know. Seriously, hit us up at the email address on our about page.

I’m sorry. It’s been forever since I posted. I honestly want to blame it on the weather - cause its seriously bumming me out. But I guess thats just an excuse…so instead I’m just going to jump back into it with one of my ‘random’ posts. And…action. So we got like maybe 4 weeks of chilly weather before we hit the 60s here in the middle west. I seriously can’t wait to ride my bike to the office everyday. Speaking of bikes…the small but strong fixed-gear/late night Grand Rapids cycling scene looks like it’ll be growing a bit bigger this season. I’ll be posting on the details in like a month, but its pretty awesome. I’ve also been spending a hair too much on my bike to get it ready for the season, its a bit over the top…I’ll post pictures to our Flickr. Eating healthy. I’d love to start, seriously. I just don’t really have an y direction you know? I’m sick of fast food everyday - so I’d like to have about 4-5 different meals I can make quick and easy at home and the office. Any suggestions? Vans sneakers, I think I might just wear them for the rest of my life. Maybe. A really awesome, kind of victorian, but kind of modern greenhouse…I’d love to have one attached to my home one day. Can you imagine in the middle of winter going out to have a glass of wine at the bistro table in your greenhouse?! Have I ever made a Rapha post? I love when a product is so good it creates its own genre…Rapha has truly done this. Too all the car companies showing off their awesome hybrid concepts: stop showing concepts, and blow us away with a production model. Who wants to go to Paris? I do. Who’s going to be at SXSW? Me. The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations is such a good track. I think I stopped drinking Diet Coke…its been like two days. I think thats it for now…again, sorry for the lack of posts. ***Oh yeah, we have a pretty “ace” interview coming up this week.

Now that the Justice video for DVNO has properly blown everyone’s minds I am left wanting more inspiration from the 70’s television network logo style. And I ffffound it. This artist James White over at Signalnoise.com has just started a cool blog showcasing his work and inspiration. Like the Superman opening sequence. Super cool. Watching all this now, on youtube no less, makes you wonder what programs and computers they were making all these killer graphics on. I am here debating if my new Mac has a big enough graphics card and these designers were creating magic outta thin air. Graphics, graphic, graphics….the never ending pursuit of the one.

Didn’t I just post on these guys?? I guess that’s whats fun about running a blog like THE BRILLIANCE! Just hit-up whoever we’d like to interview…and sometimes they even agree, ha. We thought it’d be funny to do a group chat using 37signals’ Campfire product…and it was. Really random, and really funny. Jake jumps in and out of character while Amir stays in character pretty much the whole time. Or is that his ‘character’? Ha…who knows, but the interview was quite funny. Many thanks to them for taking an evening to chat with us. Keep up the hilarious stuff guys. Everyone else, enjoy the interview. Have a good monday too.

We get email from people pretty often…its actually one of our favorite things, always fun to get some positive comments from like-minded types. But true story, we really, really love the hate mail. It’s hilariously entertaining. In fact, and some of our friends know this, we got this whole site rolling by using negative press and ignorant internet squares to sling shot us into popularity. Gotta love that. So yeah, we got a great zinger today from a sharp-as-a-tack gent who has a hotmail account…awesome. We won’t say his name cause we can’t really give shine to folks of this type…BUT, we couldn’t pass up posting his email for everyone to enjoy. I’m not even going to state my thoughts on his comments, I just want to know who is SQUARE enough to actually send emails like this?! Who really even cares that much? I don’t. Ha. He’s the definition of a super square…take a break from the internet my man. This guy needs a big internet hug, you know?? And by the way, THE BRILLIANCE isn’t our jobs…obviously. Ha, here goes:

“You guys completely ruined the interview with Jake and Amir. why were the interviewers trying to be funny? they werent. at all. everybody thought you guys ruined every funny thing they said. awful. benjamin and the other guys should be fired from your website. This interview will only make people not want to ever go to your site again. what a horrible job you guys did. just check the comments on the interview on jakeandamir.com . everybody feels the same.

quit your job,
- his name”