Matt Sharp, former bassist for Weezer, announced on January 1 that his band The Rentals were going to embark on a yearlong journey of multimedia. The project, entitled Songs About Time, is a literal pilgrimage through 2009 using film, photo, and music. It's an anthropologists dream. A time capsule of life. The concept can seem overwhelming when you approach it as a viewer, the band, after-all, is asking for a year of your support in order for you to fully grasp their project, but when you get involved with it you will become more than simply intrigued.
The ambitious project includes:
1) A daily photograph posted on their website that documents in some form or fashion the creation process, lives, and/or the surroundings of the band as they go throughout their project. Each day the band will also take one roll of 35 mm film, that is 365 rolls of film, which will be unprocessed, labeled, and stored until the end of the project. These rolls of film will then be sent to fans who choose to purchase the bands limited deluxe edition box set at the end of the year.
2) Every Tuesday the band will post a short black and white film, filmed during the prior week, on their website. As the bands says "These films will follow us through the writing, recording, and mixing of our three mini-albums." The films will be completely scored and arranged by the band.
3) Finally, every three months, the band will release a mini-album available for stream and purchase on their website. The albums are scheduled for release in April, July, and October. The first mini-album was just released on Tuesday and is entitled Chapter One: The Story of A Thousand Seasons Past.
All of the multimedia is available exclusively and for free on The Rentals website. You can also purchase different packages of the multimedia which will allow you to download and keep photos, films, and/or music. The package I bought which included the first mini-album, a couple of photographs, and the mini-albums own film was $6. I strongly encourage you to check it out.
3 comments:
I may check it out, but I'm not sure this is "ambitious." 10th grade emo kids all over the world do this stuff everyday.
The fact that this project may be more substantive doesn't give credence to grandiose lauding of effort put forth by a few guys that don't have jobs.
Doing what they are doing everyday for a year is "ambitious". Don't check it out if you're not interested. We don't care.
finally, new rentals content!
Post a Comment