Brad Sucks’ latest album, Guess Who’s a Mess, is dark, funny, witty, creatively produced, CreativeCommonsed, and totally home-made by a one-man band. You ought to buy it.

I asked Brad for a pointer to the lyrics, and he instead sent me an unpolished version. I’m just now getting around to posting them. Here they are.

So download the album, or get it on iTunes or Spotify, give it a listen, and let Brad know that you love him.

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Brad Turcotte, AKA BradSucks, has put out his new album, Guess Who’s a Mess. It is tuneful, dark, and remarkably well done. I like not only his music, lyrics, and voice, but also his skill as a producer. He is, in fact, a one-man band++.

So, you ought to buy his album, first because I think you’ll enjoy it; you can listen for free to decide. Second, Brad’s exactly the sort of artist the Web should support: no DRM, tracks posted for remixing, continuous interaction with his listeners as he develops new songs. He trusts the Web. We should repay that trust. It’s the least we can do.

At my request, Brad sent me an unedited copy of his lyrics. He’ll undoubtedly post a better version soon. But for now, here they are.

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NOTE: The 50 copies are gone. Took about an hour.

I’m trying an experiment with a business model I like to call a reverse referral fee. Here’s how it works…

You click on a link that lets you download a copy of Brad Sucks’ latest album, Out of It. The album of wonderful music is yours for free in every sense. (Share it! Please!) But, I’m going to pay Brad for each copy downloaded, at a bulk rate he and I have agreed on.

This offer is good for the first fifty people who download it. After that, you can buy a copy on your own. Of course, Brad also makes his music available for free (in every sense), but don’t you want to support a truly webby, big-hearted musician who’s giving us his talent free of copyright, studios, and DRM? Doncha?

So, if you want to be one of the fifty, click here for your free-to-you-but-not-to-me copy of Brad Sucks’ Out of It.

[Tags: bradsucks music drm copyright copyleft business_models everything_is_miscellaneous ]free ]

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BradSucks continues to post one new song a month for free download. Of course, you can always download his music for free, or, better, buy it in order to support the webbiest musician on the Web. Here’s his latest (demo): Model Home.

Here’s a music video done by Allen, a pal of his:

[Tags: bradsucks music music_videos ]

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I’m downloading the new Brad Sucks collection…

[Tags: music brad_sucks bradsucks copyright riaa riaa_sucks ]

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Brad Sucks is declaring his Music Video Cliché Contest to be a success. Hard to argue with the collected works…

[Tags: bradsucks music_videos humor ]

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You can now pre-order BradSucks’ new album. And why wouldn’t you? (You can answer that question by giving it a listen…) [Tags: bradsucks music ]

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BradSucks sees a 750GB external hard drive for $159.97 CAD that says it holds 660 hoursdays of MP3s and does the math:

* 660 days around-the-clock is 1.8 years of non-stop music, never repeating a single song
* That’s 15,840 hours.
* That’s 990 days or 2.7 years of non-repeating music if we adjust for waking hours.
* 28 of these hard drives full of music would play for 75 years, the average American male’s life-span. Again never repeating a song.
* 28 drives (18,627,840 hours of music storage) would cost only $4,464 CAD.
* Digital downloads to fill those drives would cost roughly 370 million dollars.

Best of all, you’d only have to listen to “Mandy” once!

[Tags: music hardware bradsucks ]

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Brad Sucks came to Harvard this week and gave a performance-conversation and addressed the class I’m co-teaching with John Palfrey (blogged here and here). There were a few surprises.

What was not surprising was that Brad’s totally delightful, frank, and just a good guy.

First, he pronounces his last name (Turcotte) as Tur-COTT, not Tur-COAT. I stand corrected. Also, he likes his name written as “Brad Sucks,” not “BradSucks.” Sorry twice, Brad!

Second, especially during the class, I was struck by how different copyright looks to Brad than it looks to, well, lots of others. It’s not just that copyright protection looks to Brad like a limitation on how widely his music spreads and his musical career builds. Rather, it was how foreign copyright looks to him. From what he said, it seems like an imposition of an artificial construct place on top of the work.

Here’s what I think is happening, although I can’t say that this is what Brad is thinking. To people who think of music as a work, copyright looks like the natural boundary of their work, the ethical edge of their work itself. Others (Brad, maybe?) think of music not so much as a work as a shared experience, as a connection with listeners. For them, listening is co-creation. The work feels more like a performance to them. The concept of copyright doesn’t fit easily over such a view.

Third, Brad surprised both the class and the attendees at the performance-conversation with his claim that he is a “horrible capitalist” who gives his songs away for intensely practical reasons, not because he’s an anti-copyright activist.

Thanks for coming, Brad. And thanks for being so BradSucksy. [Tags: brad_sucks bradsucks copyright copyleft music harvard ]

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Some time in the early evening of February 11, I’ll be conducting a very special (as they say in the entertainment biz) Web of Ideas session about how the new business models for music are affecting music…by interviewing BradSucks, who will also favor us with some songs.

I’m a big fan of Brad’s, so I’m quite excited about this.

[Tags: bradsucks music ]

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