Maybe it was a generational thing. Not even one reader correctly guessed the June issue's song reference. It was "Safe and Sound" by the electronic music duo Capital Cities. That song's title was also the title of David Maloney's June BigPicture column on forklift safety on page 17.
Capital Cities (pictured above) consists of Sebu Simonian and Ryan Merchant, jingle writers who met on Craigslist in 2011, according to the All Music Guide. They worked on one another's solo projects and collaborated on TV commercials (including an ad featuring their cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity"). Eventually, they put out a song together and released it online. That song was "Safe and Sound."
Their success is a testament to musicians' ability to guide their own careers in the Internet age: The song got a lot of attention on music blogs, and Merchant and Simonian undertook a campaign to get it played on radio. They booked themselves on an international tour.
THIS MONTH'S ALTERNATE SELECTIONS
Wrong guesses are turning into kind of a thing with this contest. This month, one reader—Bryan Boyce of material handling automation and software provider Intelligrated—found "Air cargo and global value chains: Made for each other" on page 37, which he thought might allude to the song "We Were Made for Each Other." Bryan evidently has an encyclopedic knowledge of country and pop; he was able to tell us that one song by that title was written and recorded by Buck Owens and another was written by Carole Bayer Sager and George Fischoff and recorded by the Monkees on their 1968 album The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees.
Bryan's last name and familiarity with obscure Monkees cuts made us wonder: Could he be related to Tommy Boyce of the songwriting duo Boyce and (Bobby) Hart? They wrote many of the Monkees' hits, and they had a hit of their own in 1967 with "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight."
NEXT CONTEST DEADLINE
The deadline for the July-issue contest is Friday, Aug. 18. If you think you've found the rock song reference in that issue, send your answer to dcvrocks@dcvelocity.com with your mailing address by midnight Pacific time on Aug. 18. We'll pick a lucky prize winner from the correct responses. The winner's name will be announced here and on social media.
Hint: The artist whose song is mentioned in the July issue was a good friend of Andy Warhol's.
