For Travis: The NTT Raffle at Buckethead.tk

[Jowaxe]

Hey Travis,
Not sure if you will ever read this or not but I had to tell ya!!

I had the LUCK of coming across two copies of Giant Robot NTT this year (best year of my life) so I decided that some other Buckethead fan deserves one instead of me having 2. What am i gonna do with two right?

Anyway, so I decide to do a raffle on www.buckethead.tk and it just culminated tonight. The winner is taking home (i\'m sending it to them) a MINT condition copy of Giant Robot NTT...

The results: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu0NVUzjjfc (Thats me)

The best part is...all i wanted to do is cover my costs and I told everyone that all "profit" for this raffle will be donated to Buckethead at TDRSmusic.com and everyone was PUMPED. We didn\'t make a huge profit or anything (I think we were $40 over what I paid - I only paid $160 for it!)

I\'m about to donate it but I saw there was no space to write a note...I thought you would probably get a kick out of that. I\'ve been listening to Big B for 10 years (almost 11 now) and i\'ll never stop LOL!

Thats all I got Travis...thanks for being awesome and now that I think about it, I will donate to TDRS music as a whole and hope that you use some of it for yet another collaboration between you and our boy!!!

John Eddison

[Travis]

Thank you for thinking of us.

 Donations are rare, I think less than 12 for all of last year, and a few of those were by the same person bless you, so they are that much more appreciated in times where it becomes harder and harder to make ends meet with music.
 Know that your donations are valuable resources that make possible the production of music that otherwise would never see the light of day.
Like a lot of people this operation and the musicians we try to support live month to month, paycheck to paycheck so to speak. I\'m getting off the original posters topic, but as much a we appreciate donations, the best way to support the independent artists ( and I know everyone reading this already does this,
thats why i\'m thanking you, but I\'m speaking of music consumers outside our circle ) is to buy the CDs directly from the artist as on this site or the many many websites musicians have set up for themselves.
I set up the donations page because I know that music is now considered public domain. A google search for any of the CDs we offer here will bring up page after page of torrents before any mention of the place to buy a CD. I know the CDs I make are downloaded tens of thousands of times and yet we only sell CDs in the hundreds, if lucky. I also don\'t really have a problem with that, I\'m here to make music and have it heard first and foremost. But I hope along with the culture of free music, in discussions on forums about torrents and rapid share, megaupload and so on, a little consideration for the artist can be inserted into the discussion. It should be part of the culture of the age of digital art that it can\'t exist as a one way street.

Sorry to hijack the thread, and again thank you so much for thinking of us. I have been talking to all my independent artist and producer friends over the last several months and a mood of despair is setting in. I\'m sure the economy isn\'t helping, but more and more of my friends are giving up and moving on and its hard to watch to know but for the good graces of all our friends and supporters here, you all, that could be us.

So I guess being that this is Thanksgiving, I give my sincerest thanks  to all of you.

[beau810]

I can't imagine a life without the music I have bought here at TDRS, so THANK YOU for all that you do and sacrifice.  

[Jowaxe]

Yeah right on Travis!! We\'ll keep doing stuff like this!

You have a lot of LOYAL fans over at TK (and here as well obviously!!)

We\'ll keep paying an donating! Hopefully next time we can raise some more dough for you guys!

Again,  thanks for everything you do for Buckethead and all of his/your fans! We love you guys!

[Ripplin]

Thanks for laying it out like that, Travis. It\'s unnerving, but important to hear.

[Jowaxe]

Agreed with Ripplin...

Travis, you\'ll see some donations roll in over the next couple of days I think based on what I\'ve been hearing.

The music industry is a tough gig...you guys deserve better for all you do for us.

[Travis]

I\'m very grateful for your attention and support, thank you so much.

 I fear though I was misunderstood a bit about what I was trying to say. I really wasn\'t crying poor and asking for donations. I was hoping to encourage buying music.  Though I won\'t turn anyone down. My point was really about the artist support page and donations, that it wasn\'t very successful.

My original reasoning for putting that page up was that if people were downloading out of print music, they could, if they enjoyed the music, still support the artist by making a direct donation. I really should have posted this in another thread because what you all were trying to do is a bit of a separate issue but it triggered my thoughts about donations in general. The music business, or the business of music is in a real malaise. I started this site 15 years ago, when the music business was still ruled by big corporations because I thought there was a real opportunity for artists these companies didn\'t give a damn about. The idea was to bypass them altogether and record and produce music and sell it directly to the user.

Since then everyone from independent musicians and big corporate music has tried to do the same thing, to try to make ends meet. As I said before, a culture of the attitude that music is free and shouldn\'t be paid for is the norm. Who can blame anyone. The music is everywhere and everyone does it and even I think for an independent artist its a great way to build an audience. The problem of coarse is after you build an audience you have to find another way of making a living, touring, selling merchandise or anything you can\'t download.

So, I guess what I was trying to say is I thought the best way to support an artist you like instead of donations, not a good business model really, is to buy CDs directly from that artist. And given that everyone here already does that, I thought the next best thing would be in the coarse of normal discussion you might have about music in forums and any other communications to remind those that might not realize it, that these musicians are not rich and need some way to find a means to continue to do what it is they do that those people enjoy so much.

So as much as I love you all for wanting to help our cause here, I think it would be better for you to use your money and buy music with it. Try something you didn\'t think you would enjoy, you might be surprised. Buy somebody you know something. Buy someone you don\'t know something.

I know I said musician friends including people I work with are feeling a sense of despair and this place and what I try to do here has always been a struggle, I love what I do and would be thrilled if donations were not necessary. So buy music form your favorite artist and encourage other to as well.

[hexaChord]

I really appreciate this business model and prefer buying my Buckethead CDs here - but when I see things like this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380083388746

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380082637658

How can a reseller put CDs on eBay for half the price?

Or at least 35% down:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180299317343

[Travis]

The top two are ION records. Thats the label that put out the Cobra Strike and Bucketheadland CDs among others. They got a few TDRS CD\'s through a complicated distribution deal we made that really has not been successful for us. Why so cheap? That tells you a little about the desperation out there.
Again, this underscores the importance of buying directly from the artist. When you buy from an artists website directly you can be sure all the money goes to them. When you buy from another retailer, ebay or online probably nothing goes to the artist or very little, unless its the artist is selling for themselves.

[Travis]

Also, the last 24 hours I had more donations then in the last few months. A couple of them very generous. I don\'t want anyone who donated to take my above post to mean that I don\'t very much appreciate your generosity. Your donations will be put to good use.  I was just thinking out loud about a business that sells things as opposed to something like NPR or PBS. I prefer the former.

[nuff_said]

I\'m glad to hear that support is coming in.  I\'m sure there will be plenty of takers around the first when Albino Slug is for sale as well.  

I don\'t frequent any boards besides Bucketheadland.com, but I\'m always sure to point people to TDRS when they\'re looking for music there.  I hope people will take your advice in these other types of music forums that you\'ve mentioned, and at the very least, give the artist some credit.  

[Jowaxe]

Hey Travis, I know what you\'re saying and i\'m sure you\'ll only get donations if people can afford it. We also buy the albums so its a double whammy!

I think my take on donations in this case is to help make up for some of those yahoos out there who ARE downloading it and not doing the right thing and donating. All of us pump up TDRS whenever we can and point people in your direction all the time.  Hopefully with Buckethead\'s rise of popularity right now, you\'ll get some more traffic here and people will spend their money on the cds you guys make!

You have some insanely loyal fans and thats a good thing...we all want you to keep going forever! hehehe

Don\'t feel like you guilted us into this! Its the right thing to do and we love the music. Its all good Travis!

[toons321]

I was guilted!!!!!!!! NOT
Travis..Thanks for everything