In January,
set the perfect tone for the benefit for Haiti at the
when he began the evening with a cover of the Beatles' "
." He then rushed across town to appear at the True Stories reading series at
. Last month, he joined
during her show with the
.
None of that got him e-mails and phone calls from friends in New York. To get those, he needed a Tweet. But not just from just anyone. On Feb. 19, while playing the "
"radio show, comedian Sarah Silverman, who was at the Mission Theater that night,
to her 496,428 (as of Tuesday morning) followers that she was watching Holcombe Waller.
This immediately got him somewhere between 60 to 100 new followers on his account, and he picked up more e-mail addresses to his mailing list. It probably accounted for a few dollars in his goal to fund his current album through the Web site
.
For the past few months, Waller's been offering "The Winter Songs" -- free downloads of the album in progress at
-- as he finishes each tune. So far he's posted 10 songs of what we'll call gorgeous art-major folk, because he's an art major playing folk music. Now he's hoping for donations to help finish the project.
It's another attempt to fund a record in a world where everyone's looking for the next way to fund the next record. Technology being what it is, Waller said he can track all the vital information. For example: When he sends an e-mail to the roughly 2,000 on his mailing list, on average, 1,000 read it. With two shows at
on Friday night (the early show, with Storm as a guest, is sold out), Waller sat down to talk about all of this. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q:
Why this approach to doing a record?
A:
Beyond just me making music myself, I'm generally interested in how all musicians can make a way now that the industry has completely transformed itself into we-don't-know-what.
Holcombe Waller and the Healers
What:
Two shows to celebrate the completion of a new record. Each person in attendance will be encouraged to go home and download the record at no extra cost.
When:
7 (sold out) and 10 p.m. Friday
Where:
The Woods, 6637 S.E. Milwaukie Ave., 503-890-0408, thewoodsportland.com
Cost:
$10
Web site:
Last fall I incorporated a business with a friend in San Francisco. What we're building is a way for musicians to serially release individual songs. We don't exactly know what the collection mechanism is, but we're really committed to the idea that artists need to support the production of music. Because it costs money -- and listeners and fans like to be involved, and have an inside view, and value that enough to pay for it.
What I think we're looking to try to do is create a service that gives basic tools that are easy to use for artists, in a way that optimizes the fan-artist interaction for the highest value of everyone.
There are lots of awesome services, but how do you create value in an interaction? Because I believe you can't really sell music. You sort of can, but people can get it for free, and I don't see that changing.
Q:
Can't you try guilt? You know, "Hey, you enjoy this music and I enjoy eating, how about we work something out?"
A:
It seems more from the comments, as well as the amounts people are giving, that people are enjoying giving at whatever level they can. I really don't think guilt works, actually. I really don't think it works. I think it's more about information and connection and participation.
Q:
What have you learned so far?
A:
The one thing I was shocked by is I thought I'd have a really high number of $8, $15 pre-orders of the CD. What I'm finding is most people came in at $35. Now, I structured it so I'd give essentially my whole music collection as a download, including unreleased stuff, to anyone who paid that amount. I was looking at a lot of Kickstarter sites and saw a lot of people gave around there. So it's an interesting thing. My idea for this was inspired by this concept called the "1,000 True Fan"model, which is: It's not so much about being hugely famous and having a really broad reach, it's really about having 1,000 true fans who are willing to give you 50 bucks a year, because that is a living.
In this age of Facebook and Twitter, 1,000 true fans across the world is a tangible goal for musicians who work hard and bands who work hard.
Q:
So it's a little like the corner store as opposed to the big-box retailer? You know the owners of the family store and you like them and you want them to stay in business. But more importantly, it's inclusive.
A:
I think that's a little bit about what's going to be behind this ethos. Different people will be able to participate in the music experience at different levels, but everyone values everyone participating. I'm really hoping a lot of people come in at the $8, $10, $15 level, because that's what you spend on a record and I'd really like to get it into a lot of people's hands.
Q:
Because everyone wants their work heard by as many people as possible, right?
A:
I have a funny relationship with that concept in that I have, in the past, put huge amounts of work into things that I've been very satisfied with only a handful of people seeing and hearing.
This whole effort is part of me trying to get out of that and actually be ambitious. My particular brand of ambition is not necessarily about scale. I'm trying to make it more about scale.
I really would like more people to hear this music. I really do think it's good. And I really do think you have to work to introduce it to people and to live in the community of music listeners and music makers because I think that's a lot of what drives discovery.