Poulation Override has arrived

[Megan]

I\'d donate $ to TDRS if there weren\'t any strings attached to it.

How about this simple and maybe more direct approach:  buy multiple copies of favorite titles and give them away as gifts to friends and to strangers that feel like friends.

Megan

[Travis]

Thank you all for your generosity. I appreciate all you support. I\'m not the first person to try to use the internet as a way to try to create and market music directly to the people who want it. In fact a working business model is on the minds of everyone in the music business right now, from the biggest major label to the smallest singer songwriter trying to be heard. I know my approach of making the music first then trying to sell it is just the opposite of the way music marketing usually works, figure out who your audience is then make music to sell to them. I\'m a musician and the people I work with are artists and musicians and they have always had a hard time breaking through the marketing schemes of the music business. I think the internet is the perfect place for these artists. It will take two things to make a go of it, music, music that has some appeal even if it\'s just a small following of interested music consumers. With the internet a small group of people can be focused on an artist and any moneys generated can go directly to the production of music and not as the majors do, to promoters, advertisers payola, executive salaries and stock holders. The second thing it will take is word of mouth. I think if an artist has a steady presence and their art has merit a steady state can be reached, few will get stinking rich but a balance can keep a career going for a long time. Look at the Grateful Dead, they had an amazing career but never sold any real numbers conventionally. The metal movement in the eighties was created totally by the grass roots. The record companies wouldn\'t touch it. It was peoples word of mouth, trading cassettes that did it. In fact when the majors figured out there was money in it that\'s when the whole thing went up in a spandex fueled ball of flames.
Any way I guess what I\'m trying to say with all this rambling is that while I\'m all for a PBS type support for the arts I think a small artist driven enterprise like this ( at least I hope so ) can and should try to be a self sustaining market driven thing . When you folks buy a record here, know that the money you give goes directly to the production of the records and hopefully to the long careers of artists you enjoy. I don\'t have a big problem with music downloading, I thinks it\'s part of that word of mouth thing. I think people who can, still buy music. I think also however people who think they should never have to pay for music should realize that good innovating music is made by people who spent all their time making it and that\'s hard to do when you are busy flipping burgers.

Here\'s an idea of a slight compromise to what you all are talking about. Right now this site offer free downloads of MP3"s. These song get downloaded thousands of times. That area of this site is scary busy and it has been one of my preoccupations to keep it up and running and I would like to add a lot more content to it. It\'s part of that word of mouth thing. The problem is bandwidth, it takes a lot of it. I have upgraded my server so many time it\'s nuts. I have even set up a server in my studio just to dispense these MP3\'s. I have some of them served off  Bucketheadlands server (thanks Greg) and still it\'s a cash munching bandwidth eating machine.
If I were to have at the MP3 download page a shopping cart input button that you can make donations of any size you choose to the cause of more free ( in a PBS kind of way ) MP3\'s would that make sense? Any money generated there would go to more bandwidth and more MP3\'s could be offered. If in the slim event more money than necessary is generated that money could go toward the production of records that the popularity any particular  free MP3" might suggest, or the pressing of a CD that might not get pressed otherwise because there is no money to do so.

Any way any feed back or suggestions you might have let me know.

[zuzu]

the pressing of a CD that might not get pressed otherwise because there is no money to do so

Travis, your offering free mp3\'s for download is a great thing and I\'m sure a lot of folks would help support that, but I don\'t think anyone wants any CD\'s laying around cos there is no money to have them pressed. how much does it cost to do that?

[Travis]

Zuzu,

You are truly a tireless supporter of artists and the arts. O.K. if someone drops a $1500.00 to $2000.00 donation in the box I\'ll press some CD\'s with it.
But I was thinking of something slightly smaller.

[zuzu]

when you\'re dealing with such large musicians, you\'ve gotta think big  

just let us know where the donation box is

[Megan]

Travis, your compromise idea for the mp3 page is totally reasonable  and really lovely how this music consumer hears "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need."
Megan

[JSTHERACON]

1500 to 2000?
That\'s not that much  
Let\'s play a game...

Set up a pay pal for this site... and I will chip in 20 a month. I\'m use to this being in clubs and paying dues.

That is 200 in 10 months. 10 months will be here before you know it.

Anyone else  that means we only need....


10 people to donate steadily..for 10 months we will have 2000 dollars

Thats easy....

0r 20 people to donate 10 dollars a month.
That\'s probably better.

Let\'s take the pressings and shelved projects can go up in mp3.


Set up the button and I will donate.

I think it\'s time we all stepped to the plate and contributed. Probably 20 people will be easy to get.......

10 from TDRS
10 from Bucketheadland

if there is more people then we have more money to utilize.  

If I come into alot of money someday I promise I will donate to TDRS  enormously.

p.s. Travis, don\'t kill yourself shipping Population discs
 

everybody put in your sig:  "For Buckethead projects to order:  http://www.tdrsmusic.com"  
on different boards you frequent. This way you are advertising without spamming....

We should also have a monthly questionaire. "What producer  would you like for Buckethead to collab with"
"What project would you like next a band/electric solo/acoustic solo/


We should also send Buckethead riffs for submission for the AirAmericaradio bumper music.


Okay Im contributing. That\'s 19 more people we need.

Get one less pizza a month   You won\'t even know it\'s gone.  

[Megan]

Any money generated there would go to more bandwidth and more MP3\'s could be offered. If in the slim event more money than necessary is generated that money could go toward the production of records that the popularity any particular  free MP3" might suggest, or the pressing of a CD that might not get pressed otherwise because there is no money to do so.

Travis, there\'s only one thing that gives me pause in what all you wrote:  the part about driving the creative direction by popularity of downloads.   Letting the market govern that part of the process- ?  You would go that far for us?

[Travis]

Megan,

Actually, there is a lot that gives me pause about all this after having thought about it for a bit. I don\'t mind putting up a donation input button on the MP3 page, that way people can pay if they want, what they want, to help keep a service that people obviously enjoy. The reason I said what I said about the popularity of a certain download is I\'m very mindful of that fact that even though I work with a lot of artists the vast majority of people who are on this board have an interest in Buckethead. I was thinking that a Buckethead fan might not be too keen on having made a large donation and me pressing a CD for some other band.  The whole point of my original post and I may have wondered on to long to make it is, the best way to support an artist is to buy their records and see them live and spread the word. If an artist can\'t sell enough to keep putting out music it\'s because the music\'s no good or the word isn\'t getting around. I don\'t want to take donations for producing records. In effect your saying I\'m willing to pay more for a record of this or that artist than a more popular one. But how much more? $20.00, $100.00 and what would you want for having invested so much. Now this artist is beholden to you for having invested so much money in them, and now what have you got? A major label record deal that\'s what. Now we have come full circle and it only took us a couple of hours. The Ideal is artistic freedom, to make the music you want to make without having to worry about where the money came from, to a point. If you can\'t sustain yourself with your music, your done. There is nothing you can do about it it\'s just the realities of life.

So go ahead, spread the word bless you, but use your money to buy records.

I may still put up a donation button for the purposes of improving the MP3 download area and if there is more money than needed I might just press a CD of a band you never heard of, that\'s just a chance you will have to take if you donate.

[CMA]

travis,

the last bit you said about pressing a disc with an unknown bandon it, well to me that sounds great because a lot of great music is being produced by many buger flipping people out there and especially when the muscian dosnt want to break big with a huge huge record deal which only allows him to record commercially popular music and feel pissed off about it. personally i\'d like to get some kinda music out there with no money involded just some thign i love and enjoy doing, also retaining an artistisc licence, which is one thing i admire about you travis, you give somthing which some fat cat wont...the freedom a musicain needs. this might sound cliché but if i had the money i\'d love to listen/buy everythign available on tdrs, as i would a lot of things. and i think pressing a unknown band would be great i\'d liek to see more "underground" music  being released.

im not sure that made scence but i hope so.  :-/

thanks

chris

[Travis]

I forgot to mention one thing, JSTHERACON, you\'ve got spunk, I like spunk.

And Chris, yes sir, front row.

[CMA]

one thing i forgot to add, why do you have to have beautiful looks to be in a muli million pound record deal? what ever happend to the bands with bad teeth and long hair? as an example the darkness made me smile this week after refusing to play at the glastonbury festival due to the main guy saying they wouldn\'t last a year, and they did amazingly last a year and more then anyone including me would think they would...this is probally off topic but it makes me pull a strange face when i think about it!??!?

[T-Man]

Just out of curiosity, Travis, how many albums do you have just lying around, waiting for money to be pressed?  How many of them involve Buckethead?

[JSTHERACON]

Travis, as long as the music is different I will donate.

Maybe we have to make it a TDRS Music Artists Fund  if you make it nonspecific  people know what they are funding.

I guess we need to newsletter this thing to customers to let them know about the fund.

As far as pressing up cd\'s? I think you can override that for the projects you have that give you pause in pressing them up. The ones that really must be on cd and you feel have a viable market for? Do that. The ones that don\'t?

Make them downloads


I think it is simple and I don\'t think you should pass on the idea because I think it has potential to be a way for artists to be heard who have no fanbase yet and quite possibly a great solution to artists to get a chance to be heard.

Can\'t you ask Vigo to be a partner?
He seems to like TDRS Music and he is a celeb. Do a Lord of Rings cast album  
I\'m sure he\'d like to put TDRS on some soundtracks and what not.

BTW I also stepped up to the plate and ordered the Vinnie Dicola piano solo download album.

[CMA]

Maybe we have to make it a TDRS Music Artists Fund  if you make it nonspecific  people know what they are funding.  
I guess we need to newsletter this thing to customers to let them know about the fund.
As far as pressing up cd\'s? I think you can override that for the projects you have that give you pause in pressing them up. The ones that really must be on cd and you feel have a viable market for? Do that. The ones that don\'t?  
Make them downloads

amazing idear.