Peter Murphy in Maxell cassette ad

Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy in a 1980s TV ad for Maxell cassettes. Press the eject and give me the tape?

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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Anonymous

that’s the only commercial tom waits has ever done (apart from his song “i’ll never let go of your hand” used in a commercial for feedingamerica.org)!
i love that one. butcher blends…i love that.

and as for the original post, if you were once a YSG (young suburban goth) you’d have been aware of this before :)
retchdog

[procrastinating pedant]many (most?) tape players had the ejector coupled to the stop mechanism to prevent the horrible from happening[/pp]
insatiableatheist

I was always a TDK D90/60 man myself.
Manooshi

Nice little retro robot toy. I always thought Peter Murphy was f*cking hot back then! Hair and all.

@Anon: As others have noted, “Press the Eject and Give Me the Tape” is a Bauhaus reference for their seminal 1982 album which included their popular song, “Bela Legosi’s Dead” – a song which was immortalized by the David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon 1983 vampire cult classic film, “The Hunger”.
- skeletoncityrepeater
  
  I hate to be nit-picky, but ‘Press The Eject And Give Me The Tape’ is not a seminal album. It’s a live album. ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ was Bauhaus’ first single, released in 1979. And it was immortalized by being a great song which is popular in clubs to this day. It may be also be interesting for readers to know that Murphy has been a Sufi Muslim for years, after converting from Catholicism.
  - Philipshade
    
    I always assumed he had moved to Turkey to be closer to his source, (I’m referring to poppies not God).
    /snark
  - Manooshi
    
    @skeletoncityrepeater. Thanks for being ‘picky’! I appreciate the correction. :)
Jack

I think there are multiple threads mixed here. The original photograph of the â€œBlown Away Guyâ€ was by Steve Steigman. Lars Anderson was the art director for the ad. The Peter Murphy commercial is derivative of what came before it.

And thus, a legend is muddled.
dia sobin

Wow! Never expected to see Peter Murphy on BoingBoing! Thanks so much, David, for a vintage clip of the most exquisite male face ever to grace the planet.
Shibi

Love it! This rainy Sunday is perfect for some Bauhaus or Deep!
Anonymous

As far as CDs and Floppy Disks, you never went wrong with a Maxell disk…

I was too cheap back then to buy Maxell cassettes to record my Commodore VIC-20/64 programs on.
paogle

I had heard about this for AGES. I never bothered to look anywhere to find out if it was TRUE. I now have a new bit of certified (and useless) knowledge in my head.
Philipshade

And of course Blixa Bargeld’s Hornbach ads
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=blixa+bargeld+hornbach&aq=3

As for Mr Murphy, man, cheek bones you could cut glass with! Very hot indeed.
Anonymous

The interesting thing is, Murphy actually pitched that ad when he was an advertising exec (something he did before and after Bauhaus).

It is always a little weird when you find out your rock stars have day jobs…when I was in the industry, it was always weird knowing friends who made it big still were hanging on to their old job just in case things didn’t work. Or to stay sane when things did.
- Phikus
  
  Yes, but what did Brian Eno do before and after science?
- Anonymous
  
  I have to ask, I have never heard about Peter being an “advertising exec” in all these years of being a fan. Can you corroborate?
  - Anonymous
    
    The thing I heard was that his ‘side job’ was actually part of the reason the band broke up, but that Murphy tries to distance his musical personae from his advertising one. Or at least did. A few years ago, he recorded a series of cover songs that were intended to be drop in replacements, for artists that didn’t really care for their music to be used in advertising (i.e., if you own the mechanical rights, but not the writing rights, you can restrict your sound recordings from being used — but you can’t stop someone else from recording a sound alike…eerrrr…a sounds similar…you can still get sued if you make it sound TOO MUCH like the original).
    
    I know he did a John Lennon commercial for Chase a few years back, and then rerecorded a full version of it for his fans. Regardless of what he may say, the track for the commercial far precedes the full — and was only about 45 seconds of music designed specifically for the ad.
    
    Back to the story, what I heard was that he was actually in on the pitch for the Maxell ad and had never intended to be the actual model. They liked the set up enough that they decided to use it as is for the European market, but when it came to America, decided to get a real ‘actor’ to do this campaign.
icastico

It is always a little weird when you find out your rock stars have day jobs…when I was in the industry, it was always weird knowing friends who made it big still were hanging on to their old job just in case things didn’t work. Or to stay sane when things did.

I actually think having a day job helps with the artist endeavor. If you aren’t living a life outside of music, it is really hard to having anything to create art about. It is, I think, one of the reasons so few musicians have long careers…
shmageggy

Kinda like Bruce Dickinson as an airline marketing manager?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/sep/16/iron-maiden-singer-airline-job
Lydia9

Almost as good as the Tom Waits dog food commercial.

http://boingboing.net/2008/03/21/tom-waitss-dog-food.html

ALMOST.
Anonymous

I know it seems absurd, but tapes aren’t like CDs. You have to press “stop” before pressing “eject.” Then I can hand you the tape. :)
- Anonymous
  
  “Press eject and give me the tape” is a Bauhaus reference. But you knew that, right? ;)
TNGMug

Didn’t Maxell use the logo of the guy in the chair with his hair getting blown by wind, through the 90s?
- pidg
  
  Yes, they did. I’ve also seen this ad parodied on Family Guy (I think), so I thought it was pretty well-known.
darren

I was a TDK man, myself.

And I used Elephant Memory Systems for my 5 1/4″ floppy disks, because an Elephant never forgets (unless you leave your disks lying on top of the disk drive).