Stream A Peach: Allmans In Your Home

Hey there sweet family,

The last Peach-O-Gram, about the Allman Brothers Band and Moogis’ plan to bring the Beacon experience home to you, generated a lot of excitement and candid comments. As one Peach Corps member said (slightly edited), “The only way to add more Beacon realism while you watch from home would be to lay sheets of flypaper all over your floor, arrange for some bunghole to sit directly behind you yelling “Whipping Post!” during the entire first set, spill half a beer on your shirt, and stand in front of your own bathroom door for 20 minutes before you actually use it. An optional activity would be to go out on your front porch and smoke during the intermission.” Love it! 🙂

The POG also generated so many questions about the project and Moogis, that Butch Trucks has volunteered to step up to the keyboard and shine it on. But first, a reminder that your VOTE is needed to make the Beacon project and Moogis a reality. We’ll get back to that after Butch’s message. And now, heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’ s Butch:

I had an idea, years ago, to put together a record company that would treat artists fairly. I worked for three years raising the funds to get Flying Frog Records going just at about the time the record business fell apart. What struck me at that time was that the record business, as we had known it, was a dead-end but the demand for music is not going away. What we are going though is a paradigm shift. The trick is to figure out what the new paradigm is going to be.

I believe that’s it’s a no-brainer that it’s going to happen on the internet. I came up with the Moogis concept about four years ago. That was too soon. The band width wasn’t available yet. Now it is in most places. We are still early in this shift but I am convinced that the time to start is now. I came up with the idea of a high def web cast for the Beacon run and ran it by my partners.

There was a bit of reluctance so I suggested that I would do it as a springboard for Moogis. Everyone liked the idea so here we are. What we will do is present a high def multi-camera stereo web cast of every Beacon show. We WILL NOT do what we did when we made the Beacon DVD. The cameras will all be as unobtrusive as possible. At least two of them will be on wires in front of the balcony run by remote control. The stage will be full of family and friends as usual.

What I’m getting at is this is going to be a web cast of the Beacon experience. It will not be a camera crew turning the Beacon into a studio (that is what happened when we made that DVD. We got a great DVD but it wasn’t the Beacon experience. The guys in the sound truck were wondering if there was an audience). In other words we will do everything we can to become a part of the audience and not get in the way.

It is my very strong opinion, and I have been putting my blood, sweat, tears and money where my mouth is for a while now, that the future of entertainment is the internet. Within a year or so you will be able to connect your 50″ high def television to the internet and chose just about anything that you want. I believe as I said earlier that now is the time. We, as a band have always tried to stay on the cutting edge of new technology. HTW (thanks to Rowland) was one of, if not the very first, fan site on the net. We have been involved in it from the start. We did the first instant live concert. Now we are going to try and be the first to offer everyone the opportunity to watch these shows live (and yes you will be able to watch them after they are over at any time. They will become a part of Moogis’ streaming archives).

Whether or not the shows are made into DVDs is strictly up the the ABB. Moogis will be the webcast provider and will stream all of its shows. The band will own all of the content. This is exactly the reverse of what the old model was. In the past the bands paid for everything and the record companies owned everything. We will pay for everything and the band will own it. How they decide to use what they own is entirely up to them, starting with the ABB this March. I think the time is right. Whether I’m right or not is up to you. You will be able to watch these web casts on your full screen and it will be high definition if you have any type of broad band at all. Of course you will need some minimum computer specs, but I would expect that most of you do.

We are offering a one year subscription to Moogis along with the Beacon subscription. It’s our way of saying thanks as well as a way to build a base in Moogis even before we go live. I won’t go into full detail about what Moogis will be but a brief summery is: we are going to wire six of the major “jam band” clubs around the country with 5 camera high def video and 24 channel digital audio. We will also have a mobile truck to catch some of the bigger bands that don’t play these clubs.

You will be able to watch a live show every night of the year. Once the show is aired it will loop for the next 24 hours (which we will also do at the Beacon) so that people in all time zones can watch at a decent hour. All shows will then go into our archives and any of these concerts can be viewed by any subscriber at any time. We will also build a massive library of documentaries and videos of 100’s of the best bands currently touring. There will be a guest book, forums and message boards as well and we are still working on some new twists. Basically what we want to do with Moogis is build a music community that will give subscribers (we’re thinking $9.95 per month) a community that is so full of live and taped music that you couldn’t possilby see it all. What I am excited about is the platform that this gives the bands.

When the ABB started in 1969 FM radio was brand new. Without FM getting us national exposure I doubt if we would have made it out of the South. Radio is not an option for all of the good new bands out there that are trying to do what we did. In fact they really have no national exposure points.

That’s what I want to do with Moogis. I want to create a community of musicians and fans that can not only see there favorite band/bands but be exposed to new bands and sounds. I want Moogis to be the FM of the future. Too many good musicians are selling used cars because they just got fed up with the grind of one small club after another without being able to make a living. I believe that Moogis can give many of these artists the exposure they need to be able to have a career doing what they love.

The Beacon is our “Beta Test”. If it is successful then Moogis will be on-line within six months. Then by March of 2008 a lot of you will be watching that Beacon run on you 60″ High def TV. It’s coming. Of that there is no doubt. I want to be a part of getting it started. Y’all with me?

***

Thank you, Butch! You bet we are!

OK, peeps it’s time to do your thing. The cost for the entire Beacon run and your free one year subscription to Moogis would be $100. Are you with Butch too? Please go to:

http://www.allmanbrothersband.com/beaconyes.html to vote yes
http://www.allmanbrothersband.com/beaconmaybe.html to vote that you might be interested
http://www.allmanbrothersband.com/beaconno.html to vote no

This is a VOTE, not a financial committment at this time. The above links simply gather your opinion, without asking any personal information.

Voting is limited to one vote per IP address period (i.e. not one per day, just one per IP).

Btw, unlike almost every other Peach-O-Gram, it’s ok to share this message, copy it to bulletin boards, spread it around. The Beacon/Moogis offer is not Peach Corps exclusive because there are an unlimited number of great seats to be had.

Take care and know that you are loved,

Lana, Rowland … and Butch! 🙂