The downside of working from home is that sometimes 14 hour work-days become the norm for weeks on end. We even worked both Saturday and Sunday last weekend. I'm on the verge of complaining, but since I'm slurping my second vodka/Italian lemonade in as many seconds, I won't.
While I'm here, thanks to Craig's T,T and T, , I found a band website distributing their new album for free via the internets. Harvey Danger explains why, here. I downloaded the Bittorrent, haven't even decompressed the file, yet I donated $5 to Harvey Danger, because I think they are attempting an interesting experiment, one that I wish to encourage more bands to contemplate in the future. I would have gladly payed Wilco the same, especially since Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was a fave for a while.
In preparing to self-release our new album, we thought long and hard about how best to use the internet. Given our unusual history, and a long-held sense that the practice now being demonized by the music biz as “illegal” file sharing can be a friend to the independent musician, we have decided to embrace the indisputable fact of music in the 21st century, put our money where our mouth is, and make our record, Little By Little…, available for download via Bittorrent, and at our website. We’re not streaming, or offering 30-second song samples, or annoying you with digital rights management software; we’re putting up the whole record, for free, forever. Full stop. Please help yourself; if you like it, please share with friends.Of course, the CD will also be for sale on the site, as well as in fine independent record stores across the country, in a deluxe package that includes a 30-minute bonus disc that serves as a companion piece to the record proper (retail price for the package is $11.99).
We embark on this experiment with both enthusiasm and curiosity—and, ok, maybe a twinge of anxiety. Why are we doing this? The short answer is simply that we want a lot of people to hear the record.However, it’s important that people understand the free download concept isn’t a frivolous act. It’s a key part of our promotional campaign, along with radio and press promotion, live shows, and videos. It’s a bet that the resources of the Internet can make possible a new way for musicians to find their audience – and forge a meaningful artistic career built on support from cooperative, not adversarial, relationships.
Alright, back to the stone grinding.
