Intentional | Audio Identity Blog

Let’s skip the brandspeak and business chitchat for the morning and cut straight to the music. A few of this week’s musical-radar tidbits:

BoingBoingTV has a good interview with Big Peter of New Orleans’ Hot 8 Brass Band, one of a handful of smokin’ second-line bands in the city today…including the beloved Rebirth, the Dirty Dozen and my personal fave the Treme Brass Band. Watch:

Meanwhile, the kids can’t seem to get enough Man Man — especially the Ballad of Butterbeans. This Philly-based band is like Tom Waits with an espresso and a trampoline. This is the music your sedatives warned you about.

And finally, Birds & Batteries‘ Ocarina has quickly become my earworm of the week. Beatrix and I drove around town running errands all day yesterday, but it wasn’t a total waste because I had Ocarina on repeat-repeat-repeat. The song’s a scintillating throwback to 70’s-80’s keyboard album rock — which I’m not normally a huge fan of — and the simple, transformative lyrics make this a left-brain+right-brain treat.

Happy listening.

– Noel Franus

I’m not Canadian. But I do likes my hockey (go Sabres) and I grew up near Lake Ontario, which makes me almost one-quarter Canadian.

So I get it when people refer to the “Hockey Night in Canada” theme (formerly used in CBC hockey broadcasts) as Canada’s second national anthem…after 40 years in use, it’s more than the signal for the start of a show. It’s Pavlov’s dog on ice — for an entire country.

A few weeks back CBC blew its licensing negotiations with the theme’s composer; lo and behold the competing network CTV came in with a sweeter offer and swooped it away from the CBC.

In nabbing the rights to the theme, CTV removed decades of identity and authenticity from CBC. Just like that.

CBC will have a new theme in place this fall, but the Ottawa Citizen calls this a New-Coke move that’s bound for mediocrity at best…not because of what the new one is or isn’t musically speaking, but because of what the old one represents.

The Ottawa Citizen doesn’t stop there: “CBC committed a litany of business mistakes from surrendering a valuable asset, to tampering with an established brand, to trampling all over the customer experience.”

To-may-to, to-mah-to: you say it’s a song, I say it’s a valuable brand asset. What I’m wondering is why on earth the NHL didn’t jump into the negotiations; they’re the product. They should manage control of the emotions associated with the product — not leave it to the highest bidder who can do with it whatever they wish.

Take it away, YouTube:

– Noel Franus