If you want to learn how to market your band/club/burgeoning multimedia empire in the late oughts, make time to read this
New York Times profile of
Fueled By Ramen, the label that, according to the
Times, "has its acts promote one another as well as the company itself." And they aren't kidding on that last point—flip on
TRL right now and you'll see that a bunch of the label's bands, including Panic At The Disco, Cobra Starship, and Gym Class Heroes, are being interviewed by Snoop Dogg and that Aussie VJ who can't convincingly read a cue card to save her life. But it gets better: The show will culminate in ramen-eating contests between members of the bands and some of their fans. Not only is that some great branding-reinforcement (what other label could have an equivalent contest? "Get a K Records tattoo faster than your favorite band can" just doesn't have the same amount of flair), all this coordinated sucking up of noodles is inevitably going to launch thousands of
bandom stories. We'll have Kate report on those ASAP, don't worry. [
NYT]
Idolator
No matter how cool you are, or how many hoodies you own, parenthood is a pretty big deal. Sometimes it overcomes people in such a way that they feel compelled to make absurd analogies, such as "parenthood is like making a record," a tidy nugget of wisdom for you to sew onto your next throw pillow courtesy of soon-to-be dad Pete Wentz. "You're going to mix it for 18 years," he adds, further digging his own grave.
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Maybe I'm just showing that I'm suffering from severe celebrity-baby-bump fatigue, but this clip of Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson saying they're going to do their part for the world by bringing a Cheeto-soaked infant into it—in part because "you can't download a baby"—made me giggle quite a bit. (Also: How many irony-challenged gossip blogs do you think are going to take this clip as an admission that Ashlee is pregnant by day's end? I'm going to put the over/under at 10.) [
