Allen Thompson

October 17, 2009 22:40

What a year! When everything around you happens so quickly, it can be hard to remember how wonderfully life has treated you. That’s definitely been the case for most of the year down here. Until now. For those of you who aren’t aware, I’ve undergone some big changes over the course of the past few months.
First and foremost, I’m now a married man! The ceremony took place on Oct. 4 at the Country Music Hall of Fame here in Nashville, TN. The Reverend Terry Peters officiated a beautiful ceremony that was followed by what I’m told was a rowdy and fun reception at Cha Chah! Love is an amazing thing. If you find it, I recommend holding onto it.
In my typical style of biting off much more than I can chew, I decided that in addition to getting married this year, I would also release an album. 26 Years came out in August. I’m very proud of this project, and judging from the responses from you guys at the shows and on the Internet, I think its safe to assume that y’all are as well. That’s what I’m writing to talk to you guys about today.
This record, its predecessors, and its successors are not only for me. They are for you as well. This goes for the shows, too. If I were doing this only to satisfy my desires to record and play, I’d record and play at home for myself. I surely wouldn’t bother with the logistical and financial headaches involved with delivering these recordings and performances to the public. As it stands now, these recordings and performances are yours as well as mine. In fact, now that they rest in your homes and hearts, they belong more to you than they do to me. I’ve been brainstorming some ways for us to strengthen our familial bond and carry this thing into the next decade, hopefully keeping it afloat for a few more decades to come. I’m going to share with you what I’ve come up with. Everyone is encouraged to provide feedback either by posting comments or by emailing me directly at athompson@allen-thompson.com.
In short, I’m putting all of you in charge of the 2010 Allen Thompson tour and the live album documenting the tour experience. The plan is to record an album of all new material over the course of a few months’ worth of live shows, edit, mix, and master the recordings, then release them around the beginning of 2011. Here’s the catch: The shows are going to be in your homes. This means that you guys are completely in control of every aspect of the new album. The good folks at http://www.sellaband.com/ are going to be facilitating this exciting new adventure!
Basically, what this site does is it lets you make donations to an artist and for these donations you get incentives. You can snoop around my site and read the upcoming blogs, which will be plastered just about everywhere for more information about the initial incentives. The incentives I want to talk about here are the ones that are integral to this experiment having a positive result: Private Concerts. For a certain sized donation to the cause, I’ll come to your house, or the venue of your choosing and play a private show for you, or you and the guests of your choosing. Each one of these shows will be recorded. The shows themselves will be made available for name-your-price downloads on My Website. When the shows are over, we’ll return to Nashville and listen through to all of the recordings and choose the best ones to be on the final album. Then when the album is released, not only will you get a free copy that states which songs were recorded at which parties, but you’ll also receive 50% of the revenues from the sales of the album to new people we turn on. The entire experience is as much yours as it its mine. After all, just like a marriage, we’re in this together. I wouldn’t be who I am without your love and support, and I assume you guys get something from me, otherwise I probably wouldn’t get so much love and support from you.
This is a completely democratic method for performing, recording, sales, and distribution. The album you guys get is the album you bought. Pure and Simple. If you want to hear an album of solo acoustic songs, donate the minimum required, and I’ll come to your house and play for you by myself. If you want to hear a full-band record that rocks the house (your house, remember), get some friends together and donate enough for you to throw a party. You’re in control of the scene at shows and in stores. It’s our scene. Lets all work together to preserve it.
The idea for this experiment came about during the planning for my upcoming tour. I was thinking about how nice it would be if everyone got the show they wanted every time I played. The Audience. The Band. The Venue. Everyone. When I stumbled across SellABand. I realized this was the perfect tool to allow us to undertake this together. Think about it, you get to see a show without having to deal with any of the negative aspects of seeing a band in a bar. It’s your venue. You make the rules. You don’t want sports interfering with your listening experience? Unplug the TV. You don’t want drunk kids talking over the music? Don’t invite drunk kids to your house. Don’t want there to be any rules? Don’t set any. Its your show, I’m just providing the music.
I know this sounds pretty complicated. As I said before, there will be more updates regarding this process. They will be frequent, and they will attempt to answer any and all questions and concerns. In the meantime check out this Page to get a better understanding of how all of this works. Don’t worry too much about dates, and logistical things like that right now. All of those types of announcements will come as they should. Plus, remember, you are the ones setting the dates. This is your show in every sense of the word.
I hope all of you are as excited about this as I am. This little experiment will be a good opportunity for us to create an entirely new model for the music industry. Think of it as a traveling one band (or one man) festival. I look forward to hearing your feedback on this and hopefully working with each and every one of you through MY SITE AT SELLABAND.COM! See ya along the way.

Cheers,
Allen