Today I signed a lease on an office building for DFTBA Records. We still only have two employees, Hank and me. We have three interns, including Monica, Karen Kavett and Beka. But we’ve outgrown the spare bedroom and garage here at my house, so we need some more space.

Meeting with the building owner was fun, but it was hard to explain we were an online business and wouldn’t be opening our doors to the public. He thought people could come in and buy a shirt, which might be fun, but I can’t see anyone randomly walking in off the street to buy a Pizza John or a Nerdfighterlike tee.

The location is perfect. Our new office is directly across the street from the post office, so dropping off outgoing packages will be convenient, even if there are enough to require multiple trips like there sometimes are.

I’m very excited about the way DFTBA has been growing and the future just keeps looking brighter. It’s a great feeling to have started a company that makes everyone involved so happy. Most of our artists can make a living from their music, our listeners can finally own the music they’ve wanted in their iPods for so long, and I make enough to do all this full time. I own a freakin’ record label! I’m releasing CDs! And I’m making money doing it! That’s insane!

The only thing that bums me out is how far away Hank lives. He and I should be celebrating together today. He and I should be painting the offices and setting up shelving units together. We should be placing our sign in the window together. But the distance is just impossible.

Instead, Mike Lombardo, one of our newer artists, will be flying in to stay for about a week to help paint and move boxes. Also, I hope we can talk a bit about laying down the groundwork for my next album, on which Lombardo will play a pretty big part.

This is a big step. I just got off the phone with the power company and the office now has working lights and central air. Tomorrow I deal with the water and gas companies.

Thank you to everyone who has ever made a purchase at DFTBA, and everyone who continues to. You’re supporting some great art, helping some very talented musicians live out their dreams and participating in a great community of awesome people. I only hope that support continues. As we continue to grow, we will continue to be a source of inspiration and fun music.

Rock on!

Alan

{ 37 comments }

YouTube and the Guggenheim museum have partnered for the “Play Biennial” currently being promoted on the YouTube channel http://youtube.com/play

Through this partnership, any registered YouTube user can submit or nominate one creative video for consideration to be displayed at the Guggenheim this fall.

The Play channel on YouTube will feature about 200 of the best submissions while only the top 20-25 videos will actually be on display at the Guggenheim. According to the official Terms and Conditions, YouTube and the Guggenheim want the most creative and original videos out there, they are “not looking for now, we are looking for what’s next.” The Guggenheim partnered with YouTube because YouTube is the first distribution method in which everyone is on equal ground, in which everyone can… play.

I submitted my video “Social Life, With Friends”. Social Life is a kinetic typography video I created to visualize the poem “You Want A Social Life, with Friends” by Kenneth Koch. Koch was an American poet, playwright and professor who passed away in 2002 at the age of 77. Koch’s poem states that in life, we must choose how we spend our time, and that between the three options of friends, love or work, we only really have the time to choose two.

The audio recording I used to narrate the video is a recording of Koch himself reading the piece just a few months before he passed away. The audio recording was made by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, she had recorded Koch reading his poem for one of her personal projects. Amy is a Chicago creative who I recorded an unrelated podcast with back in 2007.

With Amy’s permission, I used her recording and began animating the kinetic typography using Adobe Illustrator and AfterEffects CS3. The entire project was created over two days, taking approximately seven hours of work time.

My goal was to share Koch’s poem with a broader and younger audience than his poem had reached before. Visual media, and YouTube specifically, reaches an entirely new demographic than published poetry. My YouTube channel has a slightly larger female audience than male, with over 59% of total viewers under the age of 24.

Social Life reached over 100,000 viewers organically (ie it was never featured by YouTube) and the vast majority of comments are positive and thought-provoking as viewers consider their own balance choices between friends, love or work. So in regards to my mission to share Koch’s work with a broader and younger audience, I believe I was successful. Now, hopefully with the help of the Guggenheim, I can expand the video’s audience even farther if they choose to honor and display my work.

The Play Biennial is accepting open submissions until July 31, 2010 and selections will be on view at the Guggenheim from October 22 through 24th in New York. You can submit your video at http://youtube.com/play and you can watch my submission below:

{ 2 comments }

Today I launched a new project called Sharp or Flat. Sharp or Flat is an online instrument tuner. Which in and of itself is nothing new, however, this particular tuner operates visually, like its real world counterpart, and that is new. The vast majority of current online instrument tuners simply play back tones for you to tune to, requiring you to have perfect/relative pitch. My tuner allows you to be tone deaf and still tune a guitar perfectly.

I developed the Sharp or Flat tuner with programmer Sam Rudge. He coded the javascript and applied it to my visual design. Then, with Mike Lombardo’s help, we coded the frequencies and it was ready to beta test. The Sharp or Flat tuner will use your computer’s built-in internal microphone, or any external audio source you plug into your computer.

The beta team had some good suggestions, most of which we implemented, and it’s now ready for public release.

In the future I hope to include tuners for other instruments, namely the ukulele, as it seems to be a favorite of YouTube musicians, but can’t be tuned with the current tuner because there is no C string option on the guitar tuner.

I’ve updated my personal projects page to include Sharp or Flat. I hope the tuner gets used often. If you have any ideas or suggestions for future Sharp or Flat updates, please leave them in the comments below.

{ 7 comments }

My friend John Green likes to remind me that once we finish a project, it no longer belongs to us, it belongs to the audience, the readers, the listeners, the viewers. This is difficult for me to accept sometimes.

For instance, in my iTunes library, all of my albums are organized by release date. By default, iTunes lists albums alphabetically, so I know everyone is listening to my releases out of order. Storytelling and chronology is important to me. Overall, it’s a small concern, but a concern nonetheless.

No matter what I do in the foreseeable future, I will probably be known for my song “Can’t”. It has over 520,000 streams on YouTube, it’s been covered dozens of times in every genre you can possibly think of, and it remains my best selling song on iTunes, even though I’ve released three new (and in my opinion, better) titles since.

It’s a total crap shoot, which work becomes known and which doesn’t. A quick in-the-moment work might blow up while other projects you spend months on may stall.

My friend John asks me to photoshop lots of weird things for him to use in his videoblogs. From Zuckerberg’s head up a giant squirrel’s ass, to shanedawson-type neon thumbnails to attract views. But this one time he asked for two giraffes, humping.

Given the popularity of the vlogbrothers’ videos, I think more people have seen the giraffes I photoshopped having sex than any other piece of art I’ve created.

And if that’s not depressing enough, I think my second most viewed work is the thumbnail of his childhood dog’s poop in his Nintendo that I was asked to photoshop by John (used in multiple videos).

Now I’m not saying these aren’t fine examples of my artistic abilities – okay, yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Ten minute bestiality photoshop sessions should not be viewed millions of times more than week-long digital paintings. But lowest common denominator stuff always does better than pieces that require a little more work to access or appreciate.

John has this great quote, “What is the point of being alive if you don’t at least try to do something remarkable?”. It’s just too bad that the real remarkable stuff is usually only appreciated by a small audience, while the rest celebrate poop jokes.

{ 9 comments }

After reading my blog post from yesterday regarding YouTube and Viacom’s court battle, my good friend Aaron posed this question: “If this was the RIAA suing a site like the Pirate Bay and DFTBA Records songs were proven to have been downloaded for free, would you be on the opposite side of the coin here?”

I didn’t immediately answer his question, but decided I would here, in my journal.

Would I be on the opposite side of the coin? No. And how do I know that? Our actions have spoken louder than any words here could. For over a year now DFTBA Records has allowed – nay – encouraged all YouTube users to use our music, for free, in their vlogs, dancing videos and animations.

Hank (the other co-founder of DFTBA) and I have realized the power our listeners have in helping us spread the word about our releases.

Word of mouth or recommendations from friends are the best possible kind of promotions. When new listeners hear recommendations from friends, they aren’t hearing an advertisement, or even a pitch from someone who stands to profit from their friend buying the album, it’s an unbiased review and recommendation. That’s way more powerful than a recommendation from Hank or me.

By encouraging our listeners to use our music in their videos (or to cover our songs), we bypass any licensing or legal hassles. And while we might not profit directly from those streams like traditional music labels want to, we do profit by way of goodwill and, for lack of a better phrase, free advertising.

Of course, the revenue we lose might not be the best business decision – and in order to remain in business and continue producing the fantastic releases that we do, we have to make money – but Hank and I are also YouTube users first and foremost. And we know the frustration of wanting to use that perfect song in a video and not being able to. We don’t want our listeners experiencing that same frustration if we can do something about it.

I’m fairly certain the majority of our listeners can already see this, and because of it, I believe our music is pirated less than any other peer label. Of course, I could be wrong, but until I see data proving otherwise, I’ll think positively.

Please don’t misinterpret yesterday’s entry, I do not think Viacom is wrong for wanting to protect and get paid for its copyrighted material. I do think, however, that they are placing blame on the wrong parties, and demanding more than they should be. They should be participating in this exciting new landscape, not suing it. I’m not okay with copyright laws being broken. If a musician has not given permission, you should not use their work. But I also don’t think things have to be as “locked up” as they are, and I think DFTBA is leading here by example.

{ 14 comments }

Over the last few weeks I’ve been quietly helping YouTube fight Viacom in their ongoing court battle (along side a dozen other prominent YouTubers). I can’t say much about it, but YouTube has made our recent legal brief public, so I will talk about that.

Viacom recently referred to all registered YouTube users who post original content as a “sideshow”, suggesting the original content posted to YouTube was worthless when compared to the unauthorized copyrighted content that is illegally uploaded. So together with the vlogbrothers, lisanova, whatthebuckshow, smosh, and others, we formed “The Sideshow Coalition”.

We recently all wrote brief statements for the court to read on how we’ve used YouTube to not only reach an audience with our original work, but how we’ve made YouTube a home, a business, or a place for friends and family.

My piece focused on DFTBA Records, and how this little company Hank and I started, run out of my garage, promoted only on YouTube, is now supporting numerous musicians full-time, myself full-time, and making tens of thousands of listeners from every country in the world, happy.

And none of that would be possible were it not for YouTube.

If Viacom wins this lawsuit, YouTube may be forced to manually approve every video uploaded to the website, making it impossible but for a select few to post videos on the site. No longer would YouTube be a place for everyone, it would be a place for Partners who are legally bound not to upload copyrighted content. This is obviously not what YouTube, or any registered YouTube user, wants.

Our testimonials and personal stories will hopefully help the court decide in YouTube’s favor. Viacom doesn’t understand YouTube, or the community. And Viacom wants every registered user to have to pay for the actions of a very small portion of dishonest users.

You can read the full legal brief we wrote by clicking here.

You can help by bringing this case to the attention of others. You can simply tweet a link to this journal entry, or you can read the brief and write your own thoughts on your blogs.

If YouTube loses this case, we will all lose.

{ 27 comments }

Someone asked on twitter why I don’t reply to the comments here on my blog. It’s not because I don’t want to, it’s because it’s impossible, Blogspot doesn’t have a reply or threaded comments system. I could leave a comment with an @symbol so people would know who I was talking to, but no one comes back and rereads blog post comments the day after, looking for replies. So, I didn’t see the point.

If there is something that needs addressing, I will blog about it the next day, or email that person privately (if they include their email in the hidden part of the comment box that asks for it).

But believe me, I do read (and sometimes reread) every comment on this blog, they are emailed directly to my inbox.

For example, so many new names have popped up in the comments over the last two days from Lena’s musical project, thanking me for my donation. First, you guys are welcome, seriously, it was my pleasure. Second, thank YOU for all the heart felt thanks and brief introductions as to the parts you play in this huge project Lena and Mallory are putting on. It sounds like such a wonderful thing and I wish you all the luck in the world. I’m excited to hear the end result.

I do appreciate your guys’ comments here. But if you want to discuss something as a dialogue, it’s probably better to reach me on skype, if we’re friends there, or on twitter (@AlanDistro). I leave my browser open to my @replies page most of the day while working. Or you can always email me (alandistro at gmail dot com) and, if I can, I will get back to you. I’m usually pretty good about it.

Okay, it’s been a long day, so I’m off. Talk to you guys soon!

{ 3 comments }

On Friday I mentioned that Alex Day sent me a review of my debut full-length album, Erase This. I thought I would publish it here for anyone who cared to read it.

Alex wrote:

Production-wise, you can’t fault Luke Conard. (I’ve CC’d him in to this email – hi Luke!) I was never clear on how much was Luke and how much was Jason, but either way, the production rocks. The way that the radio changes during Shortwave Part 1 and briefly plays a bit of Shortwave Part 2 is AMAZING. I cheered out loud. I love that bit SO MUCH. The album feels so unified from track to track, and it really is an album, not a collection of songs. Alan, you’re great at writing songs that fit together, and this really showcases that. Tom, Ed and I had a post-Erase This conversation once we’d all individually heard the CD, and we all agreed that (especially given how you created it, with so many people in so many different places) you aimed high, and you got where you aimed for. It’s a triumph.

That said – Luke, I think some of your vocals let some of the tracks down. And before I go on, most of this isn’t your fault, you obviously have a good singing voice, it’s not your singing specifically that’s the issue for me … it’s more a Raven issue. I never really liked Winter’s Song because Raven wrote the melody, and then Luke sang to it. It wasn’t designed for your voice, it was designed for a sultry warbly girl voice. I think it would have benefitted hugely if you’d rewritten it to fit your style. The same is true of Making A Scene, which, OH MY GOD, when the album first starts playing, I’m thinking “this is the best thing I’ve ever heard, that song is fantastic”, but then the melody isn’t really your style, and it just takes the edge off it a bit, for me at least. I was fortunate to hear Raven’s fantastic demo of the song back when Alan gave a shit about erasethis.com (lol) and I was so excited to hear what it would be like all finished, but I’d have been happier hearing you make the song fit your voice even if it meant it was significantly different, than trying to adapt to work with what she had already done, as she’s the kind of gal that writes very intimate music to suit her specific individual style.

I also think there can sometimes be a gap in translation between Alan writing the lyrics and Luke singing them. For example, in Boxcar Blood, there’s that great line about skipping school but not skipping cracks in the street; I read that line before I heard it, and the way it was sang was completely different to what I expected. To me, it wasn’t delivered in a way that gave the line the same kind of impact. It’s witty and brilliant, but on the song, because of the way the words are emphasised and structured, it doesn’t come across as well. I have no idea why that might be; maybe Alan’s possessive of his work and wouldn’t let a single syllable be changed, maybe Luke didn’t want to suggest said changes because Alan was the lyrics man and he was the music man. But if I had to guess, I’d just put it down to one of the unfortunate weaknesses of having the band spread so far across the country – and that’s more than made up for by its strengths. Speaking of lyrics, Luke, I don’t think lyrics are one of your best strengths, and on ALL CAPS I think Kristina is the master at lyrical ideas of the two of you, so having Alan write for you here (as he did on Summer Of 09) worked massively in you guys’ favour, I think.

I preferred Tom’s version of The Mirror Song to Luke’s, but I preferred Luke’s version of Forgiven, so in terms of the re-releases, it’s evens on that.

My points to take away from this would be: be proud of this CD. The melodies are strong, the production soars in a way that I haven’t heard from you before – Luke, hearing you work on completely organic instruments and no electronic stuff was something I was massively curious about, and I’m glad Alan made this happen cos it paid off massively. It’s a LOT stronger than Bmin/E, of which I only kept three tracks that I enjoy listening to regularly out of fourteen (in order of preference; Delete You, Summer Of ’09 and Don’t Unplug Me – speaking of which, I would be pushing Delete You a lot more, putting it on the Volume Two comp, hitting it out on the radio hour … it’s amazing). On Erase This, I have five favourites out of ten, and I like those odds; Boxcar Blood, Forgiven, Shortwave Parts 1 and 2 (though I think part 2 is a little slow, hence my uke cover) and All I Am (although Ed did an incredible version of it, but I’m biased towards fangirling over Ed’s voice/songwriting ability). Shortwave Part 1 is my favourite by far, though I would have absolutely ADORED Making A Scene if it wasn’t for the style clash that I mentioned prior; as it is I’m happy listening to Rebecca Brickley’s cover of it instead, as her voice suits the melody a lot more. (On that note – the idea of releasing the whole album again by other artists is something I’d never be bold enough to do, because I’d be terrified that people would like the cover more than they liked my version. It’s a strong move. And it’s a great way for an audience to be exposed to new talent.)

Alan – I’d say in future, maybe working in a ‘director’ type capacity to talk with your producer about how the lines could/should be delivered would be a big benefit for the whole thing.

Luke – always make the songs your own, cos your own is great. Don’t try and fit someone else’s style. I’m so jealous of your falsetto melody in Shortwave Part 1, I could never pull that off, would never even try. It sounds amazing. That said, I think you work better when you’re behind the mic producing someone else (like Kristina, as on Delete You), for the same reason I think Tom produces better music for me then he does for himself; having that objectivity and sense of responsibility helps the creative process. That aside, you did great. Now that you’re getting a lot better at writing melodies (I mean, Don’t Unplug Me, Shortwave Part 1, oh my god) the next thing to do is to be different. Stand out from what’s being played right now. Instead of sounding like current music, strive to sound like what current music wants to be. I don’t know how to achieve that, I’m still in the ‘be different’ phase myself with songwriting. But you’ll benefit hugely if you manage to crack it.

In short: you’re getting nerdy girls into badass music, all independently, and it’s awesome. Onwards and upwards, as always. <3

As far as reviews go, this one is everything an artist could ask for. I’ve been able to take away a sense of pride in what worked, and focus on what didn’t work for my next project. Some people fault Alex for his honesty and (occasional) tactlessness, but I love it.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who’s purchased the album so far, and a bigger thank you to those of you who have reviewed it or emailed me or @replied me about it. I’m glad so many of you are enjoying it.

Also, this is my second post today, if you didn’t read my entry from earlier today, called “On Giving“, I really hope you do, and offer support however you can. Thanks.

{ 5 comments }

My friends have awesome ideas all the time. But less than 10% of those ideas ever see the light of day. Mostly because there is never enough time or money to put in the work required for these ideas to become realities. Everyone’s too busy working their “day jobs”.

It’s hard to convince people that creative work is …work. People don’t usually expect you to mow their lawn for free, or fix their car, or replace their windows. But some people do expect songs for free. And movies. And poems. And plays.

But all of these things cost money to produce. And time. And time is money.

Today, Lena Gabrielle and I were chatting and she sent me a rough demo of a new musical she’s working on. That’s right, Lena wrote an entire freakin’ musical! Her score is 760 pages long, and she (along with a cast of 50 people and a 15-piece orchestra) will be performing that musical in just 46 days.

Lena will not be charging for tickets, nor will she be charging for the music, she is giving it all away for free. Non-profit. However, she has a budget that requires $3,000 for her to put on this performance. To date, they’ve been able to raise $1,500 (and that was after a live concert fundraising event).

After hearing this, I donated $1,000.

The musical is called “The Final Battle” (epic much?) and it covers the last 200 pages of Deathly Hallows. That’s right, it’s a Harry Potter musical. I don’t even care about Harry Potter. Haven’t ever read the books.

But what I do care about is independent media, and music, and YouTubers – and in specific – independent music projects created by YouTubers.

I don’t make six-figures a year (yet) and yeah, I had other plans for that money, but you know what, those plans can wait, this couldn’t (46 freakin days! (I just keep typing the number of days left to freak out Lena as she reads this)).

I’m posting this in hopes that you guys, collectively, can make up the last $500 they’re short. They have tiers where you can put shout-outs or links to your youtube pages in the program (depending on how much you donate), and they have a raffle for all donators for one on-stage cameo, if you’re going to be attending Infinitus 2010. I know how many views my new blog posts get on average, so even if each of you only donated $2, they would soar way above their goal, allowing them to stop focusing on the budget, and instead focus on producing a kick ass stage show.

If you want, you can donate by clicking here. And if you want more information on how they built their budget (and to hear a song from the show), you can click here.

PS. I didn’t blog yesterday, missed a day already, gah! But I will post two entries today to make up for it. =)

{ 15 comments }