Bum Rush the Charts Sales Data - Initial Returns

IODA and Black Lab have released preliminary numbers for the Bum Rush the Charts campaign, and the estimated sales for the band came out to $3,500, or approximately 6,000 99 cent purchases. Of that, Black Lab will donate an estimated $1,750, combined with IODA's donation of $250 and the Student Loan Network's matching contribution of $1,000, for a total of $3,000 in scholarship funds to be disbursed. The drawing for the Bum Rush Scholarship will be held during the month of July and will be randomly drawn from registered users of Scholarship Points. Thanks to everyone who participated in the campaign!

Virtual Hot Wings CD steps around music industry

Matthew Ebel, a Nashville-based piano rock musician and podsafe music rock star, is taking the landmark step of not only allowing fans to share his music on podcasts (downloadable Internet radio shows), but even going so far as to let fans make bootleg copies of his music for sale, culminating in a virtual CD to be released at the Coca-Cola Pavilion on crayonville island in the virtual reality world of Second Life.

On Friday, May 25, 2007, Ebel will release his new CD "Virtual Hot Wings" and will play tracks from his album during a live lunchtime concert at the Coca-Cola Virtual Thirst Pavilion on crayon's Second Life Island (www.crayonvillesecondlife.com). The album will be available at the concert for purchase for L$5,000 Lindens which at the current Linden Lab's Second Life exchange rate is approximately $20 US in real world money. Fans can download, burn, and enjoy the new CD when they want, where they want and how they want with no DRM constraints. For those not currently using Second Life, the downloads are also available from www.virtualhotwings.com.

The fans took their interaction to another level by building virtual vending machines as the in-world distribution vehicle for the album. Fans that purchase the album will be able to download it immediately and burn it to a CD or listen to it on a computer, iPod, or other portable music device.

Ebel is embracing and supporting his dedicated fans that created, produced, distributed, and marketed the album on his behalf. In a new twist on bootleg recordings, fans taped his concerts digitally (with his consent) and subsequently created the cover art, ring tones and other digital media, in addition to choosing and arranging the song selections.

Most important of all, the distribution of Virtual Hot Wings puts no money in the pockets of any traditional music distribution source, from distributors to iTunes to the recording industry. It's entirely a grassroots album that does not contribute a dime to any of the organizations currently attacking independent music artists and listeners.

Get your copy of Virtual Hot Wings today!

Numbers?

According to the fine folks over at IODA, sales data from iTunes can take anywhere from 30 - 90 days to be reported - and more often than not for non-RIAA labels and distributors, it's closer to the 90 than the 30. When Bum Rush the Charts data comes in, it'll be posted here.

SCOTT SIGLER'S "ANCESTOR" ON AMAZON, APRIL 1

The incredibly talented Scott Sigler's indy smash podcast novel ANCESTOR comes out in print on APRIL 1. Scott's been bum rushing the literary world pretty much since podcasting started and has been planning this blitz for months and if you like the idea of supporting independent media, check out ANCESTOR and help make it #1 on Amazon on April 1 at 12 PM ET, 9 AM PT!

Find out more! - click here

LISTEN TO AN ANCESTOR PROMO!

THANK YOU!

Just a big THANK YOU from us to you, the new media community, for making Bum Rush the Charts a very memorable and successful social experiment. I know we raised a lot of dough for a good cause and had a lot of fun doing it.

Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff (Pacific Coast Hellway, Shadow Falls: Badlands, N1B)

Mike Yusi (UC Radio, Pacific Coast Hellway)

Chris Penn (Financial Aid Podcast)

Neil Bearse (Podsafe Revolution)

Jersey Todd (Jersey Toddshow)

C.C. Chapman (Accident Hash)

THE RESULTS ARE IN!

Our one day push led to 72 hours of excitement as the charts slowly aggregated. I believe these were our highest chart positions:

iTunes Rock Charts

US: 11
Canada: 10
Netherlands: 2
Germany: 12
Sweden: 7
Portugal: 31
UK: 71
Australia: 35
Austria: 25
Denmark: 40
Finland: 42
Ireland: 54
Italy: 30
New Zealand: 56
Norway: 23
Switzerland: 42

Overall Top 100 Songs Chart

Netherlands: 15
Norway: 55
Canada: 53
US: 99
Germany:98
Sweden: 98

Please let me know if I missed something.

If you were to look at all of the other bands on the charts at the same time, Black Lab was the ONLY UNSIGNED BAND.

Just getting onto the charts is pretty huge. Note that there are record companies out there that can't do what we did on the 24th.

Was there movement on the charts that wasn't apparent because they only updated 3x in 24 hours? Possibly. Was there an Apple conspiracy to shut down the charts on Bum Rush day? I really doubt it. Were the iTunes servers probably swamped because of the release of Apple TV and an update to the iTunes software? That would be my guess.

Did traditional media take notice? Washington Post, BBC, San Jose Mercury, Billboard, Spin, CBC, Businessweek and others. Raise your hand if you've ever heard of any of these.

Was it a success? You tell me. The whole experiment was set up to show that podcasting and new media is a social movement that has a pretty far reach across the globe. Bum Rush got a lot of people inside and outside of new media talking, shed more light on podcasting and helped get some exposure for an unsigned band and helped them tell their story about how they were mistreated by a major record label.

And in the end, even though we may not know the final sales report for 30 days, I'd wager that we raised thousands of dollars for the scholarship fund. Some kid who couldn't afford college before will get to go this fall because of the podcasting and blogging commuities. I don't know about you, but that makes me feel pretty good.

Honestly, 100 percent the credit belongs to you, the podcasters, podcast listeners, bloggers and blog readers who took part in Bum Rush the Charts.

Imagine what we could have done if we had made it a whole Bum Rush week instead of a day?

IT'S NOT OVER YET!

Updated:

Apple's charts are finally on the move! As soon as the numbers solidify, we'll post them here. Early returns as of 11:55PM Pacific Time 3/23.

You can still Bum Rush!

Canada Rock - #10 (Yes, we outsold the new Rush single in Canada!)
Canada Overall - #53
US Rock - #11
US Overall - #99
Netherlands Rock - #2
Netherlands Overall - #15
Sweden Rock - #7
Germany Rock - #12
Norway Overall - #55
Portugal Rock - #31


Source: Apple.com

Also, check out this post about Bum Rush on Spin.com (http://www.spin.com/features/everybodystalkingabout/2007/03/070323_bumrush/)