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Every time a new technology comes along that affects the music industry it changes the industry. Piper Jaffray found 72% of teens own an MP3 player, and 79% of those are iPods. (2006)



Hello there --
               
I thought I'd drop you a line - I just read your post about Straight No Chaser...my group.    I'm "mikado95" on YouTube....in the videos, the bass, on the end, on the far left.   Dan Ponce (musical director and founder of Straight No Chaser, currently a reporter for ABC7 in Chicago).
       
I'll try and give you a simple low-down on the group:  we formed in 1996, sang together through 1999, then auditioned new guys for the group, graduated, left IU.   Six of us moved to Atlanta, signed a deal with RCA Records, got half-way through recording an album, when 9-11-2001 occurred.  Like most other new artists, we got dropped...we tried to stick it out in music, but eventually got "real jobs."    However, Jerome Collins (lead on This Is How We Do It) is in Hong Kong now as Simba in Lion King (he's coming back to the US in March), and Steve Morgan (solo on Lion Sleeps Tonight) is in Momma Mia on Broadway in NYC.
           
In April 2006, Indiana University hosted a ten-year-reunion concert for us, so we all flew back to Bloomington, IN, and sang four songs at the current group's concert.   It felt good, and we had a standing ovation from an audience who had no idea who we were (they only knew the current guys).   In honor of the reunion, I dug up videotapes from a 1998 concert, originally just to make a DVD (or 10) for all the original guys.   Well, I couldn't press less than 1000 if I wanted a dual-layer DVD, so I shelled out my own $2000 to make the DVDs.   I was teased by the guys that I'd be tiling my kitchen with the leftovers...   I posted 12 Days on YouTube to promote the DVD....for a full 18 months, I had only about 100,000 views.
           
Cut to December 2007...while skiing in Aspen, my iPhone is buzzing constantly with mail from YouTube, saying "new comment on 12 Days."    Sure enough, our views doubled, tripled, and then were hitting 300,000 views daily...all the way to now, 5.3 million views.   This YouTube thing has been incredible.   The 1000 DVDs I made?  Gone?   I pressed 2500 more, which won't be ready until January 21st....they've all sold-out already too.   So I ordered another 1000....half of those are already pre-ordered too.   We've been on WGN-TV and WTTW here in Chicago.  Made the news in Atlanta, Indianapolis, and I'm told (from YouTubers) that we've had radio play in California, Texas, Florida, DC, and even over in London.   I want to get the songs on iTunes, but I want to make sure the royalities are set-up properly and that the current group will get the proceeds.  Sure, we'd all like the cash ourselves, but then, we wouldn't be very good role-models for the current guys...  I just haven't had the time to set-it-up yet.
 
Anyway, it's 2am Christmas morning, and I'm rambling, but I thought you might be interested in some of that...   I won't lie, several of us read your column and said, "wouldn't it be nice to be singing again, and getting paid for it?"   Let me know if you want a DVD and I'll mail one out to you from my personal stash.   Also, if you want any MP3s or anything, let me know.   Our CDs (original group's) are sold out, and I don't even have any to send you!
 
Randy Stine
Chicago, IL

P.S. Oh, and one other thing you might find interesting...Ken Kreisel, the man behind M&K speakers loves "our sound" so much that he has offered to re-mix our DVD in 7.1 surround....for free.    Mark Cuban (IU grad, billionaire) wrote me an e-mail and said if we shoot a new concert in HD 1080i, he'll broadcast it nationally on HDnet.  Now to figure out how to fund a live concert HD video shoot...any ideas?