Song Of The Week: Sun-Do Q'lisi - Susan Sarandon

I posted about this group a while back and have since been tracking their moves with increasing interest. Sun-Do Q'lisi, the electronic/dance/I'm-not-actually-100%-sure-what-genre-they-are band from Cape Town, are definitely doing something fresh.

Apart from being on-trend and extremely well produced, their music is also incredibly unpredictable - a quality that's definitely lacking in most local music of late. Take a listen to their new EP, Susan Sarandon and let me know what you think in the comments below. Happy fucking Friday people!

Ticket Giveaway - FABIO & MOON in Cape Town

International progressive trance sensations Fabio & Moon - notorious for their excessive passion for parties and a knack for the appropriate bumping music - are set to hit Cape Town shores for one night, and one night only. The event is brought to you by the joint forces of AfterHours and Hype Media, and promises to be a killer by the sounds of things.

You can check out Fabio & Moon on SoundCloud below if you want to get an idea of their sound.

I'm giving away 2 x VIP and 2 x General tickets to FABIO & MOON on August 4th at The Side Show. To enter, all you have to do is the following:

• JOIN the event page. 
• Comment on why you should win the tickets AND make sure you include the fact that you found the competition on my blog, otherwise I won't know who to give the tickets to.
• Share this blog post. There are little buttons under this post for Facebook, Twitter etc.

See you on the dance floor.

Zombie Inception Drawing

I know right, the title of this post is impossible to ignore; there is just too much awesome. Remember earlier this week, when I mentioned an upcoming post about drawing? Well this is what I was talking about, and if you're interested in this particular artistic outlet, then you'd do well to subscribe to marydoodles' YouTube Channel.

You can follow marydoodles on Twitter too; it looks like she gets a lot of her ideas from tweeted suggestions. Later.

Monday Inspiration: Think Outside The Box

First, watch the video below...

Pretty cool right? Now, to be honest, the stop-motion clip above has little to nothing to do with the point of this post, but think of it as an extended metaphor for thinking outside the box. I digress. I often find myself stuck in a state of mental block; wandering aimlessly, mumbling random phrases until I find something that works for whatever I may be doing at the time. Lately, I've been trying to kick-start my brain into thinking differently by experimenting with a few things. I've found that the tips below can trick your mind into tackling a problem in a new (sometimes more effective) way - often forcing you to rethink an entire situation. So here they are, in no particular order.

• Say YES to random
  Stop what you're doing. Look at something else. Take a walk with someone. Make tea instead of coffee. Break a habit for a while. Do something you wouldn't normally do. Surprise yourself.
• Get a kid's opinion
  Often, a child will cut straight to the heart of a problem because they're not really too focused on the details. I don't believe that kids have some unspoken wisdom that adults slowly lose as they become conditioned by external influences, but I think kids will always offer some kind of fresh insight.
• Do it in reverse
  What is your goal? Fantastic. Now use that as a starting point and work backwards until you've reached where you are now. It's actually harder than it sounds, but it's like jogging for your brain. If you play guitar and have ever tried playing the other way around, you'll notice that you have to rethink the shape of every chord and strumming pattern. It's the same with any other activity.
• Doodle
  It doesn't have to be a masterpiece. Just doodle something. Get your thoughts out on paper so you can make room for some new ones. (Also, I've got a great drawing-related post coming up later this week, so keep an eye out for that).
• Think in terms of another industry
  Reading up on the best practices and processes of another industry can often lead to helpful insights that might apply to your own line of work. As the saying goes, there is more than one way to skin a cat, so if your job is skinning cats for a living, you've got your work cut out for you. Lastly...
• Take a shower
  This is my favourite one, and it totally works. The shower is a beautiful place. Just you, your thoughts and your naked body trapped inside a cubicle while your dirt is washed away by jets of water. It's probably the purist thing we can do as humans and often leads to great ideas (like a luminous shower head that changes colour according to the temperature of the water!).

Well, I hope this has helped... or at least taken your mind off work for a while. Go now, and vanquish this week!

Converse Announce Top 10 To #play100club

Remember this? Well, now this happened.

Voting opened at 13:00 today, which was over 30 minutes ago, so make it count. Click here and cast your vote. You can follow the conversation on Twitter @Converse_Africa and with the #Play100Club hashtag. Do it.

Song Of The Week: Jack White - Freedom At 21

Here's Jack White's latest music video for Freedom At 21, a song off his debut album, Blunderbuss. Directed by Hype Williams and featuring racy visuals and scantily dressed women, this video is oozing Rock & Roll. 

Thanks for sharing weareawesome.

Madvertising: It All Started With A BACARDI Party

What do free running, texting, planking, vibrating mobile phones, video games and music downloads have in common? Well, until recently, the origins of the above-mentioned activities have been a mystery (for the most part). Now, thanks to BACARDI, there is an answer.

Yup. Amazing things have been starting at BACARDI parties for years. Want proof? Join BACARDI and the Wedding DJs at this party and see for yourself. And you can check out the rest of the BACARDI: It Started With A Party videos here. Later.

Ticket Giveaway - The Labyrinth, ALIVE @ Trinity

This Saturday, Trinity will be host to yet another Labyrinth party... and it looks like a killer. Okay, bad jokes aside, this one is gonna RIP! Did I say 'bad jokes aside'? I guess I did. Regardless, this is going to be a party to die for.

Line Up:

ALIVE FLOOR

BROKEN TOY

HEADROOM

DEAN FUEL

FROZEN GHOST

ZION LINGUIST

DEPSYPIL

SILO

INCENDIA FLOOR

SYNCHRONIST

DIGITALL

NOPSIS

PHATGRESSIVE

Luckily, you don't have to die. Just enter my competition and roll in VIP-style. I'm going to try something new with this one; I have a bunch of tickets to give away, so whoever can come up with the best caption for the picture below will get the VIP set. Runners up will take the rest. So:

• leave your funny caption in the comments below this post
• leave your name, surname and email address

EDIT: 

And the winners are... (captions will be shared on Monday)

VIP guest list:

Jenn Southwell

Tessa O'Malley

Regular guest list:
Keanau Mark Pearce

Brendon Pearce

Brett Powell

Charne M

You're all on the guest-list. Go forth and party.

The Best Way To Block Ex Lovers

This app is just all kinds of awesome. If you have a close friend who is constantly going back to the same dead-end relationship, regardless of how many times you take him out for shots and strippers, this app is for you. And him.

Basically, you convince your buddy to download the app. He then chooses three close friends to alert every time he feels the weakness coming on. These friends then get a notification whenever he tries to call evil ex girlfriend. The best part? Even if he ignores his comrades and decides to call the bitch anyway, the app automatically posts his activity to his Facebook wall so that all his contacts can see just how weak he really is. Genius.

Thanks for sharing @StefMarent! Have a great weekend - don't drink and dial!

I Met The Walrus

I watched this video a while back (thanks @Ch0pp3r!) and have been meaning to blog it for ages. In a nutshell, it's an interview with John Lennon conducted by a 14-year old Beatles fanatic named Jerry Levitan. The clip uses the soundtrack from the original interview and is accompanied by animated visuals that delve deep into Lennon's thoughts and beliefs. It's a vivid insider's glimpse into the mind of one of the greatest musicians and thought provokers of our time. You are missing out if you haven't seen it. Go on.

 

Mind blown right? Please share this.

How To Write A Formal Apology

If you've ever had to write a formal apology, you probably will have noticed that it's a pretty hard thing to do while maintaining a sincere tone. This - I believe - is because people don't like apologising, even when they know they're wrong about something. Even worse is when you're right about something, but you're being forced into writing a formal apology because of circumstances that are out of your control. The following document breaks it down so that you don't have to. It even has a sincerity scale so you can stipulate just how serious you are.

Just click on the picture to view the high-res version. Happy Humpday!