Daryl Hall's Microphones are Unplugged (or This is the Most 80's Keyboard Ad of All Time)

Daryl Hall's Microphones are Unplugged

This evening I have stumbled upon a goldmine of late 80's nostalgia, in the form of a stack of old "Electronic Musician" magazines. These were piled atop the tank of my leaking upstairs toilet (that leaking being the circumstance that lead me to them).


What strikes me the most are the ads. Perhaps it's nostalgia or what have you, but there is something charming about that late 80's advertising. It has a sort of old-schoolness about it,  perhaps some sort of lingering 50's/60's sensibility. It was on the cusp of the digital revolution, so it was either no photoshop, or like photoshop to the max. There was no in-between. And the words, my God ... so many words! Look in a magazine today, I'm telling you. Nothing ... a glossy picture of the thing (whatever it is), probably under harsh fluorescent lighting, and probably on top of a reflective surface of some kind (i.e. "everybody wants to be an iPad"), the name of it (maybe) and a web address. That's it. Nobody writes multiple paragraphs of condescending ad copy like this anymore.

"we'll get to that glaucoma test after this
bitchin' solo"

Here's another thing: every photo appears to be depicting a scene from inside an Optometrist's office. Perfect lighting, bland if well-appointed interior decorations, and strangely the musicians appear to be dressed like they were just off to Church and decided to swing by the old home studio on the way out the door. It's uncanny. I mean have you ever ... ever ... seen a musician dressed like that in his own home, just jammin'? ... and there's just pages and pages like this.


But really, if I had to narrow it down, there are really only two things that I found so incredibly lulzy that I just had to break out the scanner and post snarkily about them on the internet immediately.

Behold exhibit A: the most 80's keyboard ad of all time.

behold the power of revolutionary "virtual Fonzie modeling" synthesis.
(also you can order a poster of the ad)

But really THE thing was this. Words simply fail:

the lead bad guy from "Superman 1" plays his Chapman Stick

Aw hell ... here's a bonus.
This was Mainstage before there was Mainstage, yo: