Topspin™

Just another week here at Topspin HQ. Bob Moz is handing out ice cream sandwiches, Will has a scrolling light thing hanging on the wall showing what’s currently playing on the office AirTunes, Brad is oozing like a zombie, and Tim set up a gorgeous drum kit which supposedly fits in a backpack or some such. And as always, everyone is either building the next version of the Topspin platform or helping artists release and market music direct to their fans. Here are a few of the things we’ve been working on lately:

I first heard Eminem on The Wake Up Show long before he had been produced by Dr. Dre. I was blown away and bought the EP mail order from SandboxAutomatic.com (their site hasn’t changed much since). A lot has changed for Em since then but one thing has not: Eminem is one of the most talented MCs in the history of rap. Love him or hate him, it’s hard to deny his skills (or Dre’s beats (or Beats — that one’s for you, Jimmy)). They’ve done it again and it’s a blast to help them with their direct-to-fan campaign. Come on over to Eminem.com for a soon-to-be-rare limited edition package including Eminem’s John Hancock, a commemorative pill bottle (!), vinyl, hoodies, and optionally an Undefeated t-shirt made in a limited run of only 313. Maybe someday it’ll be worth what this Nike from Eminem’s last record is going for on Ebay.

On a slightly different note, this month has seen the launch of not one but three different projects where the music sold raises money for charity:

First off, David Byrne has released an EP of live music from his recent (and ongoing) “Songs of Brian Eno” tour. The EP is only $3.99 and the proceeds go to Amnesty International.

Waxploitations’ second installment in their “Causes” series brings together everyone from My Morning Jacket to Gnarls Barkley raising money for relief efforts in Darfur. Play the video above for a preview.

And Arcade Fire have signed 250 limited edition DVDs of their fabled Miroir Noir project, for sale for $250 each, with proceeds to benefit Partners In Health. Every DVD purchase comes with a digital download of the movie (high def available!) for instant gratification. Tis a great way to give with to a good cause.

You may remember Van Hunt from his incredible albums on Capitol Records, Van Hunt and On The Jungle Floor. If you don’t, let me tell you that while he was mis-labeled early on as “neo-soul”, according to his Wikipedia page his influences include David Bowie, Serge Gainsbourg, and Iggy Pop in addition to Curtis Mayfield, Sly Stone, and Prince. Van is the real deal and we’re honored to have helped him release a collection of b-sides and rarities entitled Use in Case of Emergency. Take a listen, pick up a copy, tell a friend, and we’ll see you at Van’s shows at Zanzibar on the 15th and 22nd of this month.

World renown DJ and producer Adam Freeland put a band together and is releasing their full-length album, COPE™, in June. Pre-order the record now from the FREELAND site. Check out the above for a great sampler from the record where Adam takes you inside the recording and behind the songs. A great way to introduce the record, IMHO.

Beck released not one but two albums in 1994, his breakthrough Mellow Gold as well as the critically acclaimed One Foot In The Grave, recorded by Calvin Johnson and released on K Records. The album has been reissued with nearly twice as many tracks, and the version on Beck.com comes with vinyl, a tote bag, and a signed poster from Mr. Hansen himself. They’re almost gone, so if you’re interested, come on through.

There was much more, but there are already WAY TOO MANY Flash widgets on this page. Please also check out releases by our friends Chester French, the US release of the AMAZING King Khan and The Shrines record “What Is?!”, plus free tracks from The Everybody, Water and Bodies and Limetree Warehouse. Apologies to everyone I’m leaving out. Back to work!

ian c rogers
Topspin

ps - I’m just realizing that the Byrne/Eno record came with a little pill, the Em record comes with a pill bottle, and Josh Freese was offering “take shrooms and drive around in Danny from Tool’s Lamborghini”. Coincidence or inadvertent direct-to-fan theme?

A few weeks ago I spoke on a panel at Leadership Music Digital Summit in Nashville and was asked, “So you’re saying that email marketing is still more important than, say, Twitter or Facebook?” I responded, “Yes. Quantifiably.” I went on to say that in the campaigns Topspin has run so far we’re seeing Facebook represents 2-4% of first-week sales and Twitter 1-2%.

Then, just two weeks later, Jimmy Eat World made a liar out of me. Through killer Twitter integration into their tour (via the band’s support for the medium and spearheading by one of our favorite young geniuses, Lee “Chauvin” Martin at Silva Artist Management) Jimmy Eat World managed to accumulate 200,000 Twitter followers in just over 30 days (as of this writing they’re over 350,000 followers). Considering I started bringing bands online in the early 90s and remember it taking 5+ years to collect more than 100K email addresses, this is a pretty impressive feat of modern technology and critical mass around social tools IMHO. The tour culminated with a release of the music from their hometown show in HD audio. The band posted news of the release to their Twitter stream, and offered fans a chance to enjoy an encore performance live via Ustream. All of this was connected to a live Twitter feed featuring fans comments about the album and performance (via the hash tag #claritylive) on the front page of their site. The fans re-Tweet’d the news and boom, copies of the album were sold. Lee explains it well, “It’s as if you were in a record store looking at the new Jimmy Eat World release and 1000 people standing next to you told you how good it was.”

In the first day of release, Twitter lead the traffic drivers to the Jimmy Eat World site, with more than 22% of all traffic coming straight outta Twitterland. Twitter was third as a driver of revenue, though, driving just over 20% of all sales. Still, with the large number of people reached, and email a smaller percentage of total sales in this campaign than we see on average, it’s very reasonable to conclude that Twitter was a meaningful driver of incremental revenue in this case, and there’s no question they proved you can do much better with Twitter than I led the crowd in Nashville to believe just a couple weeks previous.

Trent Reznor drove a separate but similarly interesting Twitter event when he re-Tweeted one of my Tweets about the Arcade Fire DVD release, Miroir Noir. Arcade Fire started selling a feature-length film from their Website (via Topspin) back in December. It was a successful release, but sales had died down as of late. A few weeks back, the deluxe DVD I ordered for myself came in the mail to my house, and I simply Tweet’d that fact. Trent saw the Tweet, checked it out, liked it, and Tweet’d that he thought it was a great way to release a DVD, and that he bought one. Trent had about 250,000 followers at the time (as of today he’s well over 400,000), many of them visited, and some of them took the liberty to re-Tweet themselves. Check out the report below from TweetReach to see the spread of the re-Tweet activity over the first day or so (reprinted with permission from Hayes Davis at TweetReach — thanks, yo).

Tweet Reach Http Awe Sm 2q5

What’s interesting is this single event added meaningful incremental sales to the project, many months after the original release. The behavior mirrored that of a “Slashdot Effect”, large volume and low conversion (conversion to sale was less than half a percent, compared with 11% for the email campaign), but an impressive and needle-moving revenue number simply from one person giving a less-than-140-character endorsement.

Also interesting are the tools we are able to use to track this sort of thing. Note Trent re-Tweet’d the shortened URL I Tweet’d originally, http://awe.sm/2q5. This was made with a URL shortening service Awe.sm (full disclosure: this is my good friend Jonathan Strauss’ company and I’m involved on an advisory basis) and as a result I can easily track the click-throughs on the URL. Between Twitter Search, TweetReach, Awe.sm (or other great services like bit.ly), Google Analytics, and the Topspin sales data one can pull together (and cross-check) some pretty interesting data on reach and conversion down the path to purchase. One interesting finding: 25% of the clicks on the URL came from OUTSIDE the Web, that is, mobile and AIR/desktop clients.

What to conclude from all this? That Twitter is the marketing machinery of the future? Naw. This isn’t about “the next big thing”. It’s about how little we know about how marketing will work and how transactions (not just purchases, but any kind of value exchange) will be earned (and I do mean earned) in the future. Success is highly variable. Execution matters (as James said). Unexpected events can make an impact. People are powerful marketers. But not only are the drivers for traffic evolving, the tools we use to measure the attention economy are going through a really interesting growth phase. It’s hard not to be excited by seeing some of these tools work in ways that are more than just novel, they’re shuffling meaningful amounts of attention around and making real money for artists. Exciting times indeed.

ian c rogers
Topspin

It’s hard to believe I am only 100 days into my gig at Topspin. When I mentioned that anniversary to Ian Rogers recently and told him it felt more like 3 years, he replied “Good, that means we’re getting our money’s worth.” We’re both getting our money’s worth actually. I have the best job on the planet (or to borrow some legalese from entertainment lawyers circa 1991, the best job “in the universe”). After gathering data from 100,000+ transactions across 50 artists big and small, brilliant marketers, analysts, and web designers like Gary Brotman, Adam Bates, and Peter Brambl (in marketing, analyst and web designer order) on the Topspin Artist Service team have actually applied that learning in real time to bands like Beck, Jimmy Eat World, Metric and Beastie Boys. In just 100 days, the Topspin Artist service team has learned and applied an incredible amount of knowledge about marketing music in the 21^st century for artists of all sizes. To estimate the difference between best practices execution on the Topspin platform and simply slapping buy buttons on your web site, enter your data below. We can’t name names, but we’ve seen artists either totally ignore or totally embrace best practices. The difference in revenue is ridiculous and we have hard data to back it up. Check it out and share it with your music industry friends.

Here’s the embed code!

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I realize this bold opening paragraph begs many questions. Two that come to mind are “who are these Artist Service people?” and “what exactly did they learn?” Fair enough. We owe you more than the hollow hyperbole that often fills the blogosphere. So before you call bullshit - an oath. I hereby solemnly swear to add a second loud Topspin voice to the music community to answer and expand on these questions (and others) over time. My voice will be different mind you. (Not to mention any names, but the world of music doesn’t need another irreverent, punk rock loving, skate boarding, CEO of a much hyped music start-up adding to the chorus.) My voice will be filled with data. Lots and lots of data. It’s flowing in people and we need somewhere to put it. Why not in the hands of artists and their managers, labels, marketers, and web designers?

So who are these Topspin Artist Services folks anyway? Many theories are out there, most are incorrect. Allow me to clarify. We’re here to discover new ways to create demand for our artists, immortalize this knowledge in the Topspin app, then educate and train our partners on how to apply it. One theory I want to dismiss quickly. We are not a marketing services company. In fact, the word “partners” in the previous sentence encompasses marketers of all flavors – independents and in-house teams with managers and labels. We want to train you on our software and ideate with you on how to kill it in the direct-to-fan space. Said another way, we are not your competition. ‘Nuff said.

I will end my virgin Topspin blog with one challenge and one promise. The challenge - we all need to help our artists execute with excellence in the direct-to-fan space. The business of music is much better for fans and artists when we are thoughtful and focused in this channel. The promise – we will share more data on best practices over the coming months and years via this blog and the Topspin Green Room. Join us there please and join the conversation.

Sorry there haven’t been more posts on this blog this week. We’ve been busy working on the next version of the Topspin platform and releasing tons of music. Things are boiling over today, though, so I wanted to take a moment to drop a few links into this blog post…

For those who missed it, back in 1999 Jimmy Eat World released an incredible record called Clarity which set the blueprint for a certain kind of rock (which will remain unnamed to prevent flames to the contrary in the comments). The record was mostly overlooked at the time but has grown in cult status in the ten years since. To commemorate its tenth anniversary, Jimmy Eat World did a ten city tour playing the record in its entirety. They recorded each show, but the hometown show in Arizona was so killer they ended up mixing and releasing it for all the fans worldwide who didn’t get a chance to catch it in-person. You can buy it direct from their Web site at JimmyEatWorld.com in a variety of formats, including 24-bit wav. Hell, even the Apple Lossless files are 24-bit. Huge downloads, yes, but also very high quality audio, preserving every bit from the mixdown. Not only that, they’re performing an encore performance streaming live from JimmyEatWorld.com tonight at 6pm PST via Ustream. It’s been incredible to watch the band accumulate more than 200K followers on Twitter in just the last 30 days. Check out the Twitter chatter about the album today. Incredible. It’s a brave new world.

Arcade Fire Miroir Noir Deluxe DVD Unboxing from ian rogers on Vimeo.

Speaking of Twitter, Trent Reznor twittered about the Arcade Fire DVD release on Sunday and drove a ton of RTs. It was very fun to watch all the interest one person with a large number of followers could drive, and with any luck we’ll post a follow-up on this effect over the next couple of weeks. Btw, the Arcade Fire deluxe DVD packages look great. I did an unboxing on my picnic table and posted it on YouTube.

What’s another word for pirate treasure? After the classic Paul’s Boutique, Beastie Boys were quiet for another three years. Since there were no live shows and the Internet was limited to a few of us on usenet, there was no outlet for those of us who were huge Paul’s Boutique fans to show our love. So when rumors of a new album were followed by the “Pass The Mic” video and single, we Beastie Boys fans awakened from our silence. Beastie Boys delivered again, another mold-breaking album overflowing with creativity, endless singles with enough songs on each to be considered EPs, and a never-ending two-year tour. On Check Your Head Beastie Boys redefined their own future. We were very proud to release a remastered version of Check Your Head last week in a variety of digital and physical formats, including lossless digital audio and a 4 LP cloth-bound vinyl box set including 16 b-sides and (optionally) iPhone-ready versions of every video from the album. Go check out what Entertainment Weekly called “their best record”, again. Also, they sold out of the t-shirts but you can still get the remastered Paul’s Boutique here.

Our friend Josh Freese is having quite a run with his “Since 1972″ release. If you haven’t already heard about this madness, check out the packages on JoshFreese.com, or these Wired interviews with Josh here and here. I love seeing that Josh is SOLD OUT of many of the high-end packages but what makes me even happier is watching the Twitter chatter and seeing that not only do people think the packages are funny they also LIKE THE ALBUM and are telling their friends to buy the music. It’s working, yo. I actually had the good fortune of meeting the purchaser of the $20K package on Sunday night and he’s a super cool guy who said he was having a ton of fun with Josh. Josh took him to a Vandals show on Sunday, then for pizza at Mark Mothersbaugh’s house (with a crazy view), then to the Puscifer show downtown. All of this before he even started on the promised package!

If you’ve been reading this blog for a few months then you might remember my plea to one of my favorite bands, Australia’s The Drones, to release direct-to-fan worldwide. So it was a big moment for me when I received an email from The Drones last night sending people to thedrones.com.au to purchase not just their latest record but their entire catalog, including a massive yet inexpensive package with vinyl of their latest along with digital versions of their incredible previous records for one low price. Wait Long By The River won Australia’s version of the Mercury Prize a few years back — if you like rock music, don’t sleep on these albums. IMHO the deluxe Drones package is the best value in rock.

Metric’s new album, Fantasies, finally dropped last week, along with a stunning video for “Gimme Sympathy” which is getting play everywhere I turn (in my house, at least — my two year old wants it on repeat). I can’t tell you what a joy it’s been to work with such a forward-thinking band and management team on an extremely well-run campaign. Their digital, CD, and vinyl offerings are amazing and the pre-sale was a success (sold out of the deluxe packages in less than two weeks). It’s incredibly rewarding to work with bands people are passionate about, and to say Metric is such a band is an understatement. Stream the video and entire album above. They are the future in so many ways. We love you, too, Metric.

Jay Reatard resurrected Shattered Records and is now offering a subscription service. For $75 you get Jay’s next Matador album, two 7″s, a t-shirt, and tons of digital goodies. The perfect outlet for the underground’s best and most prolific.

I have to say I’m really impressed with how Riverboat Gamblers manage their Web site and MySpace. Great design, and great use of the Topspin tools. Thanks much, y’all.

This month also saw Topspin releases from The Decemberists, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Tom Peloso, Japanese Motors, Buddyhead, Lionsgate Music, Corbin Bleu, A.i., Jacob Fred, and The Do to name a few. Sorry I can’t write a paragraph about each one of you. It’s truly an honor to work with each of you.

Until soon,
ian c rogers
Topspin

ps - I’m speaking at Dave Hyman’s Music Technomica in San Francisco tonight (Tuesday, April 7th). It’s invite-only but if you’d like an invite Tweet to @iancr and I’ll send you the info.

We were pleased to see some good pick up of this week’s announcement on TechDirt this week, but we were disappointed to see our position misconstrued as “Topspin can’t/won’t help the little guy”.

Those who know me know my personal tastes and anyone who reads this blog know we work with a lot of bands with smaller audiences because they’ve seen me ramble on about Imaad Wasif and White Denim. There are many more but I invite you to check out Les Blanks, Neal Casal, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, AI, Ben Taylor, The Old Ceremony, or Wendy and Lisa.

The honest truth is that who is using Topspin currently is a bit ad hoc, gated by how many hours we have in our day and how many people we think we can help be successful at the moment. As we mentioned this is ramping up, but still limited. Sorry about that. We appreciate your patience. We have even established a mailing list for *all* artists to come and share marketing ideas. Just mail us to get added. I assure you that our passion and interest lies in bands of all sizes. Compare that with solutions like Echo Music or even Sparkart, both of whom have a self-professed interest in “established” artists only. Our current limitations are practical ones, not philosophical ones. Be patient with us and we will get there. Our goal is to be a successful, long-term business.

Hearing Imaad Wasif and The Drones thank Topspin from the stage “for all your support” this week was refutation enough in my book but if you’d like a little more, check out this comment left on TechDirt by Joe Purdy’s manager:

Hello,

Nice article except that I think that possibly you may not know that Top Spin DOES work with smaller artists. Not just Byrne or Beasties.

Have you ever heard of Joe Purdy? HELL NO you haven’t or you would know he used Topspin to launch his 10th album this week. Ok and I manage him so this is also a shamess plug as well but the point is that we’ve been working within Topspin’s philosophy for a few years now. Selling direct to fans without a label. His catalog has sold over 800,000 tracks on Itunes in the US alone.

When I heard about Topspin I went over to the office and they showed me what they had built and I crapped my pants. The platform is everything I was doing but on steroids. It’s true that they aren’t picking up every single artist under the sun out there. That’s for companies who build ugly widgets. They are picking up artists who have a growing base or artists who can expand their already successful base. I think that will set them apart from companies that pop up every 3 months with a Ralph Kramden idea to save the music business.

Joe Purdy’s new album sold about 500 downloads in the first 24 hours via Topspin. I was able to release it 2 hours after Joe finished his cover art and approved the mastered audio. His fans knew that from the email that we sent to them and they felt special! They knew that they had it immediately and felt empowered. AWESOME! Word of mouth, instant back end info on who is buying and where, direct email thank you to the fan, viral player that spreads our store across the web, super distribution, more fans, I love it!!!

Check out what I’m talking about. Buy the new album, hell buy the other 9 albums direct from Joe Purdy Records. http://joepurdy.com/lastclockonthewall.html

Thank you for reading my ramble.

Brian Klein

Thanks again for your patience and support,
ian c rogers
Topspin

We’ve been so busy lately trying to get our acts together for SXSW, we nearly forgot to update you on all the awesome bands using our platform for a variety of releases. Sorry! To make it up to you, we’ll give you some free PBR and great music if you swing by our cosponsored daytime showcase at SXSW this Wednesday - Friday.

To start off, Yeah Yeah Yeahs had the misfortune of having their album leak over a month before the intended street date. The folks over at Interscope were quick to react, and our Artist Services team was more than happy to help out, turning around an official digital direct-to-fan release in about a week. All is not lost when an album leaks — there are still lots of fans who want to pay for their music, especially when purchasing directly from the artist, and some of the fans who downloaded the songs elsewhere still came back to the band’s website to pick up physical copies (I know I was one of the nearly 50% of buyers who chose vinyl as part of their purchase). We’ve said it before, but fans will buy music if you give them desirable options and quality content – Yeah Yeah Yeahs have certainly done both.

Speaking of “Yeahs,” Clap Your Hands Say Yeah recently used Topspin to capture an audience from a traditional TV appearance. They premiered a new song, “Statues,” on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and offered up a free download of the demo track on their website immediately following the program — Jimmy Fallon even thought the idea was cool enough to plug it before they played. We always encourage artists to use our platform in conjunction with all their other marketing efforts, rather than thinking of it as an exclusive channel, and this is a prime example. Again, doesn’t hurt that they offer quality content, too.

Keeping with the young and hip theme, Vice Records recently put out a couple records using our platform. They’ve offered up Black Lips new album “200 Million Thousand” for free full-album streaming, and the download is a steal for $8 ($12 if you want the physical CD). Even more recently, Japanese Motors released an EP with a couple acoustic tracks and a demo, again with full streams, and again at a bargain price - $1.50.

It’s not all new releases – folk singer Joe Purdy and rock goddess Bif Naked have released their back catalogs on their websites, each capturing added fan engagement in anticipation of a new album. In shorter form, She Wants Revenge posted an EP that was previously only available on tour, and Modest Mouse’s Tom Peloso released a folksy EP (with definite hints of Modest Mouse) on his site.

The releases will be fast and furious in the coming weeks and months, so we can’t even hope to keep up with them all. For our part, we’ll keep building our direct to fan music marketing platform, and hope it helps the bands reach you. We’re deeply honored to work with each and every one of these artists, and look forward to helping more great music find its way to your ears. Stay tuned.

Ty White
Topspin

Not sure what else I can say about Metric that hasn’t already been said, they’re a band so good they’ve had to try to stay small. Personally I love a band with indie ethos and broad appeal, and they don’t come along every day. Metric are the real deal. But don’t take my word for it, click play on the above and see what you think.

If you like it, check out the pre-order that went live on their site today. Buy now and get an immediate download of the single, a B-side, an acoustic track, and a killer cover of what is probably my favorite song from The Wall, and then expect an email with a link to the full record on the day of release.

Also, please click the “Share on Facebook” link in the lower right of the pre-order page to add the Metric media player to your Facebook wall. Perhaps it’s no surprise a noticeable percentage of artist sales are coming direct from Facebook even though we haven’t invested a lot of effort there. This share flow is just a first step toward more meaningful integrations into Facebook — not just “add an app that no one uses” but simple ways for you to send music from the Web to your friends on Facebook. Try it out, it’s very liquid. Two clicks to your Facebook wall, then easy to mail to others and two more clicks for anyone to take it from their inbox or your wall to someone else’s inbox or their own wall.

We’re incredibly proud to be part of the “hand-picked” group of people mentioned in this interview. It’s an honor to be included. Thanks for having us along for the ride.

Oh and apparently the kids love it — my daughter off at college asks me for a copy of the album DAILY. What’s it say about how protective I am of the music we’re working with that I wouldn’t give it to her? She called me yesterday to say she BOUGHT THE SINGLE ON ITUNES so she could open her radio show with it last night. Stream Zoe’s show on MIT’s WMBR here (starts at 4:16 minutes into the stream). If she’d have waited one day she could have downloaded the single and oh so much more…

ian c rogers
Topspin

I don’t think any album has actually changed the course of my life as much as Beastie Boys’ 1989 masterpiece, Paul’s Boutique. Therefore it’s with tremendous pleasure and pride I announce you can purchase a deluxe edition of this classic album –

Wait, before I go into that, let me share my Paul’s Boutique story. We’ve all got one and you can share yours in the “User Photos and Stories” section of PaulsBoutique.BeastieBoys.com, but if you’ll indulge me for a few lines I’ll share mine here.

1989, my best friend Ryan Timmons and I were headed to the Warren Dunes in Michigan from Goshen, Indiana, where we grew up. There was no record store in Goshen, so we convinced my sister to stop at Concord Mall so we could shop for music. I can remember distinctly Ryan looking at the rack of tapes and letting out an excited, “Hey! There’s a new Beastie Boys record!” And I remember just as clearly me looking at him like he just admitted to digging Vanilla Ice and saying, “So?” He bought Paul’s Boutique (on cassette) that day, I bought Honey Bubble by Tar Babies.

Now I don’t mean to dis, but you have to remember that Beastie Boys were these beer-swilling pop stars who had disappeared as far as I could tell. No one was looking for another Licensed To Ill in 1989. Or at least I wasn’t.

Lucky for me Ryan hated Paul’s Boutique. For whatever reason he gave the tape to me, and for whatever reason (curiosity? boredom? destiny?) I played it. But I didn’t just play it, I sat down on the floor of my bedroom with headphones on, opened up the lyric sheet, and dove in. It would be an exaggeration to say my life changed at that moment but it would be an understatement to say I simply liked it — I was mesmerized by Paul’s Boutique. I played it, literally, to death, I wore the tape out and had to buy the CD. It felt as if someone made an album out of my record collection (from Cash to Sly to Mountain to The Isley Brothers) and it was these punk rock hip hop skateboard kids from NYC who took drugs and seemed to love music just as much as I did. I identified with it even more than the punk rock records that seemed to be made by kids just like me. Not only was it cool and accessible, it was musical, complex, and unattainable at the same time.

It was also a relative failure. After selling six million-plus for Def Jam Beastie Boys had jumped to Capitol Records, spent a ton of money, and not managed to find one commercial hit. The record peaked out at a few hundred thousand records and the band never even toured. There was a bit of critical acclaim as the album was discovered randomly but Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique was located very near purgatory; the album had too much depth for your average Licensed to Ill fan and us music nerds who avoided pop music weren’t exactly looking to Beastie Boys for our latest fix. That was respect the band would earn over the next ten years, their cache was near-zero at the time, at least from my point of view as a kid in Indiana.

Just a year later, Zoe was born. I was a few weeks shy of eighteen, working two jobs and just started college full-time. I don’t remember much about that first year of Zoe’s life, but I remember distinctly pacing around the living room in our Section 8 apartment in the middle of the night, Paul’s Boutique playing, me singing along, trying to calm a colicky baby.

Thankfully for everyone, Beastie Boys were far from done. They continued to reinvent themselves, playing live instruments and making another classic in 1992, Check Your Head. My fan-dom continued and in 1993 I moved the discography I’d been maintaining on Usenet to this new thing called The World Wide Web. I kept the Beastie Boys Web site up religiously as a fan through the release of Ill Communication in 1994 when I put up video of Beastie Boys live on Letterman before it aired on the West Coast. After that, I got a call from Beastie Boys management, John Silva (actually Bethann Buddenbaum, who was tipped off to my site by the only guy in the building with a computer, Jason Fiber, who was working for Dave Allen at World Domination at the time). I figured they were calling to shut me down for copyright infringement but John, forward thinking even then, said, “Are you crazy?! I wanted to know if you’d do this for *all* our bands!” I started a little consulting business charging John and Old School Ron Stone $8.50/hour to build Web sites. Laughable today but living in family housing in Indiana in 1994 it was just fine.

I spent a little time on Lollapalooza in 1994 and made friends with Beastie Boys. Mike D had Grand Royal, Yauch had Milarepa, and this Internet thing just might be useful for those low-budget endeavors. I was, of course, excited to be able to help in any way. Late in the year they asked if I’d come on tour with them in the spring of 1995. I was in grad school studying computer science at the time but made a decision to be done with that about five minutes after their invitation. Tour I did, and then moved to LA where Beastie Boys were at first the only people I knew, really.

So as I was saying…

I don’t think any album has actually changed the course of my life as much as Beastie Boys’ 1989 masterpiece, Paul’s Boutique, and it’s with tremendous pleasure and pride I announce you can purchase a deluxe edition of this classic album, complete with DVD-style “director’s commentary”, limited edition eight foot long poster and t-shirt, lossless remastered audio in addition to the MP3s, and interactive album art, all via Topspin’s technology at BeastieBoys.com. Hopefully you’ll agree it’s the treatment the album deserves.

If you already know this album, I hope you’ll appreciate the excellent remastering and hearing the band recall those days. If you skipped over this one, well, I envy the experience of sitting with this album for the first time. Grab the below to throw the album on your blog or Web site and maybe even read the 33 1/3 book for some serious back-story. Sampling laws shut albums like this out of existence. Enjoy of of the crown jewels of the era.

The very fun Paul’s Boutique Web site was created by the fine folks at Prod4Ever. Thanks to Jon, Jon, Greg, Nick, and everyone else over there for getting it and making it happen. Thanks to Jen Hall at Silva Artist Management for being the glue that holds this project together. Thanks to Jesse Ervin and Cory Ondrejka at EMI for fighting the good fight from within. And thanks of course to Beastie Boys and John Silva for, well, for everything. Always a pleasure. Thanks for believing in me fifteen years ago and for believing in Topspin today.

ian c rogers
Topspin

ps - Beastie Boys were kind enough to speak to me from Oscilloscope Labs this morning via Skype. Results below:

It’s with great pleasure we point you to an innovative project from Arcade Fire, Miroir Noir, a 70-minute documentary from what Rolling Stone dubbed one of “the best live bands playing right now,” and whose shows are “a religious experience”. If you’ve never seen them live (I missed ‘em), now’s your chance.

Not only can you now see them immediately via a DRM-free digital download without waiting for a DVD to come in the mail, and not only is the quality of the video better than what you would get from an online video store like iTunes, the quality is actually BETTER THAN DVD (1280×720 to DVD’s 720×480 — MOAR pixels == better resolution). As far as we know, this is the first time an artist has done a direct-to-fan digital movie release, and as far as we know it’s the first one to be done in better than DVD quality. Please correct us if we’re wrong about that. If we’re not, h0tn355.

Head on over to Miroir-Noir.com now to grab one of the digital-only versions relatively cheaply, or go for one of the “get a DVD in the mail” versions, including a limited edition in a numbered box. Support Arcade Fire in their first release since the seminal Neon Bible in March 2007.

I want to offer a sincere apology to the fans who tried to download and had problems in the first five or so hours the site was live. We had some issues with our CDN (content delivery network), due to the extraordinarily large file size, that took us a few hours to remedy. All is smooth sailing now though, so long as your Internet connection and hard drive can handle downloading a 2.4GB file.

Enjoy, and thank you to Arcade Fire for inviting us to be a part of something historic and important!

ian c rogers
Topspin

Congrats to our friends in Spinnerette for their first independent digital release, the amazing Ghetto Love EP, featuring four songs and a video by acclaimed director Liam Lynch for $5. For those who didn’t see our earlier Spinnerette post, Spinnerette is Brody and Tony from The Distillers, along with a cast of characters including producer Alain Johannes. Buy the EP on SpinneretteMusic.com.

Here’s the video, please stick this on your blog, MySpace page, whateva:

If you add the video to your site, please take a screen shot and upload it to this Flickr pool.

Also released this week is the new album from Wendy and Lisa. You might remember Wendy and Lisa from Prince’s Revolution or more recently from the soundtrack to the TV show Heroes, but their new album stands on its own. Listen to the album and purchase the colored vinyl here!

Also launching this week, new music from former Hole and Smashing Pumpkins bassist Melissa Auf de Maur, and the re-release of Seven Mary Three’s long out-of-print debut album, Churn.

Congrats on the self-sufficiency!

ian c rogers
Topspin