I was out and about on the Lower East Side on Monday night and at one bar, my friends and I were greeted with promotional The Ugly Truth shot glasses and napkins.
[Yes, I was the girl taking pictures of shot glasses for her classical music PR blog at the bar. That is, in fact, how I get all the boys.]
Every time I see an expensive mainstream promotion like this I crack myself up thinking about how the same promotion would be applied to classical music (also how I get all the boys). For example, will Deutsche Grammophon be creating promotional Hilary Hahn Bach Arias shot glasses in January? One of my summer interns suggested King’s Singers collectible shot glasses, each with a different guy’s head on it (collect all six!). I told her that that was remarkably similar to my King’s Singers bobblehead idea, which I’m still trying to sell to the team.
Shot glasses are so amazingly trashy, though, that coming across an A Flowering Tree at Mostly Mozart August 2009 one at some Lower East Side dive bar would just make my summer.
Maybe trashy is exactly what Classical Music needs these days…
What would be a trashy promotional giveaway suitable for a Hilary Hahn album of Bach arias, though? Maybe you could do something with Bach’s incredible reproduction ability (I think if Bach were alive today, there would be a reality show about him called “Opus 22”). “Hilary vs. the Babymaker”? Maybe I am grossing myself out.
I was on staff at an orchestra in Boston (Boston Modern Orchestra Project – playing only music from the 20th & 21st centuries) a few years ago, and they have an informal chamber music series in the back room (the Moonshine Room) of a gay bar. For one concert (entitled “Mayhem” – I forget why) we had the bartender there create a special drink called The Mayhem. Whoever ordered it at the bar during the couple of weeks leading up to the concert got a coaster that was a 2-for-1 coupon for the concert. A lot of people ordered it at the concert itself too, since it was nice and tall and red. Not exactly shot glasses, but it was fun.
I’d probably buy each one of the collectible Hilary Hahn shot glasses (And I don’t even drink)!