Mural “Blown Away Guy” by John Ball & Katia Engell
(same artist as my previous post)
This multiple-photo post is super complicated.. so I’ll try to make this as Instagram easy as possible.
1) This is the right side of a mural by John Ball and Katia Engell that they did back on August 22. They have a timelapse of this on his Instagram
2) This is the left side of the same mural. It was hard to photograph when I went by because someone is always smoking a cigarette just where I wanna be.
3) This is the actual television commercial that this is depicting.
4) This is what the original wall looked like back in 2016.. but it was tagged.
5) This is what this wall looked like back in May of this year. It’s a mural of Kacey Musgraves @spaceykacey promoting her latest album. Artwork by Katia Engell. They kept the face in the new artwork.
Wall Background
This mural is on the side of a store called “Numberone Sound” which sells “car audio systems, navigation system, remote starters and car alarm security. ” since 1980. I guess that original mural was their promotion for the store.
“Blown Away Guy” was very famous in advertising – from Wiki “In the 1980s, Maxell became an icon of pop culture when it produced advertisements popularly known as “Blown Away Guy” for its line of audio cassettes. The original campaign conceived by Art Director Lars Anderson began as a two-page spread in Rolling Stone Magazine ad in 1980, and was made into television spots in 1981 which ran throughout the 1980s.”
“His hair and necktie, along with the lampshade to the man’s right and the martini glass on the low table to the man’s left, are being blown back by the tremendous sound from speakers in front of him—supposedly due to the audio accuracy of Maxell’s product. “.
Family Guy even spoofed this !
So now you know !
