I walked by with my headphones on, but glanced down and noticed the sign in his guitar case. It said something like, "Alabama singer/songwriter. Free CD. Donations appreciated." I dropped 3 dollars in his case and then jumped on the Q. I turned the sleeve over it my hand. It was a cut brown paper bag with ink stamps on it. It had an image of the singer's face and read Jamey Hamm, Get You A Slice. I appreciated the simplicity of it. I got home and ripped it onto my Mac. It's sort of the polar opposite of me in terms of musical taste, there's a touch of Christian & Country in there, but I like it.
This is my last week making the daily commute into Union Square. I take for granted the really great musicians banging, strumming, and belting out tunes in that station every day. Mecca Bodega are regulars, for instance. Some are not my taste (Chillean pan flutists, for instance). I usually stop a second for the singer songwriters and there's this guy who played classical guitar that's great.
I regret now, that I didn't buy a CD from every one of those musicians I gave a few minutes to. Some were so excellent, but I'm always 1/2 tuned out and eager to get home. Figures it took me a year to realize that I'll miss that now that I won't have it as part of my day. I don't know. Maybe I'll start making an effort now to collect the CDs of every halfway interesting musician I come across that's playing in the subway and start blogging about them. Might be cool.
I don't care what the chairman of the TLC thinks. I think this is ugly. How this brings the appearance of taxis into the 21st century is beyond me. Unless it is following some purposefully ugly concept where the designer is co-opting the style of some cultural group or phenomenon. That's very trendy. The style feels kind of retro in a bad way to me, as in bad the way fussy ironic hipsterism tries too hard to be bad. The mishmash of the new NYC logo (ugh) and the smushed-in TAXI with the bad kern is painful. The checkers are fussy and weak. Couple this with the loud Garden In Transit flower decals parading around town and we have a truly garish movable feast.
Here's what other designers had to say:
cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/reviews-trickle-in-...
I agree with Michael Rock. Bring back the stencil. Or use Richard R's simple design concept here:
cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/readers-redesign-th...
Holly Palmer is in NYC on 10/26 @ The Living Room, 154 Ludlow St.