[rumori] The Next Droplift Project


From: Every Man (fuckedupkidsokATpressthebutton.com)
Date: Thu Dec 14 2000 - 17:47:37 PST


The next Droplift Project, but not called Droplift II, please!
It's called Free Speech For Sale

http://freespeechforsale.droplift.org
We need more artists and financial contributors! The project deadlines,
track submission restrictions, and small donation amount required are all
given below.

This is a continuation of the original causes behind "The Droplift Project."
www.droplift.org (often played by Ivan Stang on his weekly Hour of Slack
show here in Cleveland, OH) Droplift has gotten write-ups in zines such
as Entertainment Weekly & the LA Times, and has gotten exposure on
Radio 1 in Canada. The press is just beginning to truly catch on to this
project nearly a half year old, and it's only going to get bigger as we do
more of these. The beauty of this is that as the press covers it more, more
CD's get downloaded, burned, and distributed.

Review of requirements

- Track must be a text manipulation track
- Source material must come from commercials (internet, radio, TV, promos,
campaign ads, movie ads)
- must be 2:30 or less (can donate extra money for up to 5 minutes)
- must donate $50 per track

The theme of the CD is "text manipulation" made entirely from commercials.
This is inspired from the record label Illegal Art, which released a CD
called "Commercial Ad Hoc," with a similar theme, except the majority of the
CD is compiled of recylced SOUNDS from commercials, not necessarily text,
and the majority of the tracks do not project a message of any kind. I felt
it would be cool to have a compilation which was along the same lines, but
required the tracks consist of text-manipulation. After seeing Droplift, I
then realized the appropriate means of distribution for such an
animal....Droplift them! The causes behind this project are entirely the
same...we need to get our art form heard and cannot do it legally if we sell
it, so we must give it away. The reason for a "themed" Droplift CD is
simple. The first drop was definitely perceived by many as a prank, and the
art form itself was given little focus in the media coverage. Having a
themed project like this one, one of text-manipulation, puts power in the
punch; meaning that it puts the focus on its content more than the "prank."
Yes, we're giving it away, and yes, it's technically trespassing to
"droplift" it into stores, but the shock of that aspect is dissolving
now...and we need a new angle to market ourselves or the media will ignore
the second drop. With a theme like this one, the desire to expose the irony
of advertising culture being broken down to a new non-advertising message is
irresistible.

Out most recent email to our current contributors is below:
Free Speech For Sale UPDATE Dec/2000

BOTTOM LINE: From what I'm being told, this is much more restrictive than
the original Droplift Project, therefore, much more time consuming for the
artists. (consult www.droplift.org for more info on what the Droplift
Project is.) Many of the contributors on this compilation are from the
Droplift Project.

1) Track / Money progress

- Have plenty of contributors, have limited results! Most of the artists are
asking for extra time, saying that a text manipulation track is not
something you can just toss together, especially when your source material
is limited to commercials. The 2:30 time restriction has not been complained
about, other than from a select few artists who say it's too SHORT, because
they've finished their tracks, and they are around 3 - 4 minutes. However,
those latter complaints may be remedied quite soon ...

- We now have well over 30 people saying they want to contribute a track,
and yet we have less than 30 tracks and less than the $1500 needed to press
the CD and mail them out. Despite this issue, the number of contributors
required may actually lower very soon...

- The money is getting donated here and there by non-artists, therefore the
time restriction might actually become 3:00 or longer for those few artists
with longer tracks. It will also cut down on our need to have 30
contributors. That being said, *** many of you have haven't donated or
contributed a track will end up being cut from FSFS! ***

- Those who are strictly donaters are welcome to donate on behalf of artists
who have tracks but can't afford to submit them. We still have a couple. One
$50 submission will cover someone's 2:30 track.

- Artists with more than one track can submit two. However, they need to
donate another $50, or have someone else donate their behalf. We are
limiting the number of tracks per artist to 2, to keep the CD varied.

- The time restriction is currently 2:30 or less, but as I said may change
to a larger limit. Artists who need double the required time for their track
can donate another $50 to make this possible. However, to keep the CD
varied, we are also limiting the time per each artist to a maximum of double
the required limit, which would currently be no more than 5 minutes per
artist. The artist may donate more money to help move the project, but it
will not sustain them more than double the required time limit.

- To speed things up even more, I am still going to other mailing lists
asking for contributors. *** If you have not contributed money or a track,
yet said you wanted to be on this compilation six months ago when I first
brought this up, you will be cut out of the project if someone new comes
along and submits them before you do. ***

2) Planned Distribution

- As originally planned, we're still going with "Droplifting" the FSFS
compilation. Mind you, this project is not going to be called "Droplift II:
Free Speech For Ssale", but rather, will be the second of such projects
"Droplifted" in huge masses around the globe. I realize "huge" is a
debatable term. Read on...

The original pressing will be 1,000 CD's, but as with the Droplift Project,
my hope is to make this publicly downloadable by anyone in the world,
encouraging people with CD Burners to duplicate and "Droplift" more of them.
The original Droplift CD has also had 1,000 CD's dropped around the globe,
and judging by the numbers by those who monitor their daily downloads,
several hundred more have been downloaded! If even half of those people
burned at least one or more copies of their downloads, we can safely
estimate that at least another thousand has been burned to disc and
Droplifted.

When this CD is ready, I would like those of you who want to droplift it to
tell me so.

3) LET'S FINISH THIS!

- I have no idea how many of you have been working dilligently and how many
of you haven't. I'm merely making a general statement that the longer you
sit on these tracks, the longer we will be waiting for distribution. That
will bring the whole project down for all the artists involved. A lot of
money has been donated so far, some tracks have come in, this project WILL
happen... but could take far longer than any of you wish.

- I realize a lot of you have a great deal going on in your lives. I happen
to work full time, often longer. I'm also in a band working on albums of our
own, and do a weekly three hour radio show which takes a LOT of advanced
preparation. Taking on this project is quite an extra load of pressure and I
haven't had much spare time to throw into this project myself, but I promise
to do everything I can to finish it!

- I took this on because I have a penchant for this audio art form, I
believe in the many causes and concepts behind the Droplift Project, and I
would just love to hear the finished product! So many possibiities exist
here in the world of text manipulation, particularly in terms of satirizing
advertising.

- I just can't do this without YOU guys, so please help me!

4) Deadline

- deadline for tracks / money is now March 1, 2001.
- Afterwards we need to get them pressed which takes a few weeks
- Then I would like us to Droplift them in July 2001, which would be the
anniversary of the first actual Droplift.

5) Review of requirements

- As of now, these are pretty much the same:

- Track must be a text manipulation track
- Source material must come from commercials (internet, radio, TV, promos,
campaign ads, movie ads)
- must be 2:30 or less (can donate extra money for up to 5 minutes)
- must donate $50 per track

http://freespeechforsale.droplift.org
for more info

Every Man every.manATpressthebutton.com
Press The Button, Midnight - 3 am Sundays
WRUW, 91.1 FM, Cleveland, OH
NETCAST http://www.wruw.org
HOMEPAGE http://www.pressthebutton.com

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