Buzz Masters Unite: Folds, Kulash, Palmer & Gaiman To Write, Record 8 Songs In 8 Hrs At Rethink Music

A Mashup Of   Music,  Marketing & money

For a growing number of artists immersed in the immediacy of the web and social media, the act of creating music has become completely integrated with the act of marketing it. Now four artists who have mastered this mashup of music, marketing and making money – Ben Folds, Damian Kulash (OK Go), Amanda Palmer and author Neil Gaiman -are joining together for a special project with the goal of proving "how record companies are becoming superfluous to building buzz and distributing music."

The quartet of artists have pledged to write and record eight songs in eight hours (4 p.m. to midnight) at Berklee College of Music, Monday, April 25; and then to release them 10 hours later during the Rethink Music conference in Boston.

"If the recording industry is supposed to be a means of connecting musicians to music listeners, well, then, here it is -spontaneous and circular," commented Kulash. They send us ideas and a day later we have an album, a show, and some semblance of a documentary."

"The four of us are creative internet addicts with our own huge Twitter circles, added Palmer. "This project is exciting as it will give us the opportunity to collide our circles… (at Rethink) I'm hoping to engage in a dialogue about things that are very close to my heart, namely the importance of audiences and artists creating a new society of patronage and virtual busking.”

The collaboration will be broadcast live from the recording studio at rethink-music.com. The album will be released through Bandcamp with proceeds from the first week of downloads benefiting Berklee City Music, which provides free music education to underserved teens. Tuesday, April 26, they four will a presentation on the recording project at Rethink Music, and perform a private concert for conference registrants that night at the Berklee Performance Center.

The concert also features Basia Bulat and Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears.