| It’s that time of year again, when eager radio minions clamber to pay their pledges and be the first on the street to boast a brand new CJSW T-shirt. With only two days left to make your pledge and get your swag, radio fans had better start dialing.
Renewing their design every year is just one of the ways Calgary’s campus and community radio station "keeps it fresh," according to station manager Chad Saunders. The people have come to expect something different from their city’s premier source of alternative listening and this year’s artwork is sure to delight the senses and inspire envy.
"The artwork was inspired by a submission from artist Adam Bracegirdle that was taken into consideration for last year’s funding drive," Saunders explains. "The artwork wasn’t quite what we were looking for, but we loved his slogan "Take Me to Your Radio." We’d seen the work Adam had done for the Hifi Club as well as some of his collage art and wanted him to do something similar for this year’s funding drive design."
Taking a page from the Beatles, Bracegirdle has amassed a collection of famous faces from the counterculture and grouped them together under the "Take Me to Your Radio" banner that is proudly brandished by an anonymous female flag bearer. Much like Rolling Stone’s recent 100th anniversary edition cover shot that featured a mythic gathering of rock ’n’ roll greats complete with an angelic Kurt Cobain and devilish Hunter S. Thompson hovering over the crowd, the new CJSW design sports 33 visages, some more recognizable than others.
"We’re representin’, yo," says an enthusiastic Saunders. "We wanted to do something that tries to reflect everything. That’s the challenge of advertising radio in a visual medium, unless you’re using it to sell siding it doesn’t mean anything, and we at CJSW try to be everything to everybody. So, we’ve got all these folks floating around on an ocean with a hot air balloon above them ready to go around the world. And nothing says ‘Get the Led out!’ like a good old fashioned CJSW blimp."
Arranged in no particular order the celebrities featured on this 22nd annual funding drive T-shirt include: Debbie Harry, Yoko Ono, Noam Chomsky, Liberace, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), Ravi Shankar, Peaches, Elvis, Nina Simone, John Ralston Saul, Maude Barlow, Mr. T, Pee Wee Herman, Mojo Nixon, David Suzuki, John Coltrane, Joni Mitchell and more. Saunders also points out a few interesting anomalies that are sure to inspire conjecture.
"For some reason there are five Ramones, instead of four. I guess Dee Dee got split into two people. The artist has also put himself and four of his associates into the collage along with some mysterious sock-puppet-like creature that lurks behind Elvis, but it’s the mollusk that they are all riding on that really speaks to me for some reason, especially when I look at the design upside down. It’s neither Monty Python nor Sgt. Peppers, but more based on the old Bombay East India Trading Company matchboxes."
It’s rumoured that the curls in Peaches ’80s prom bouffant spell out "Commercial radio is dead!" In any case, you’ll be lookin’ good in your choice of styles and colours. As an added incentive, donors will also have the option of selecting a limited edition fair trade CJSW long sleeve lovingly sewn by an El Salvadorian women’s collective. Made to order with an alternate design featuring white radio towers on a navy or olive background, these shirts have already done some good work – earning the collective enough capital to add a new sewing machine to their complement. |
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