·News Blog ·

06/28/2007:
"SPREADING THE WORD...and fan's open letter."

This is a post I received from Greg, a fellow who has been a fan of my music for a long time. It was, for me, a very moving and encouraging post. It came at a time (about 1 month ago) when i began to despair of ever reaching new listeners.

In a day and age where "word of mouth" is far more authentic and precious than million-dollar music industry campaigns, I would like to send out a request to those of you who are familiar with my work to send my offer of 2 free records (VolSounds) to at least 5 of your friends who you think would like some "thinking-man's" Americana music. Even if you don't decide to spread the word regarding my work, I would ask you to at least read the thoughtful post below (it gives a great deal of my history over a 25 record career) so you will become better acquainted with the plight/vocation of those who do art for a living. Thanks for your time, folks!

pax,

Bill Mallonee

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Here is the original letter:

Hey BIll

I got your bulletin post via myspace tonite, and I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of writing a post to all of my myspace friends imploring them to head over to your websites and take a listen. In case you can't see the post I sent out, here's what I wrote under the headline "Free Music":
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About twelve years ago, I discovered the music of Bill Mallonee and the Vigilantes of Love through word of mouth. Starting in Athens, Georgia in the early 90's, the music has had overwhelming roots in americana with dabbles in brit-pop, and mass, critical acclaim without much commercial success at all. Mallonee himself - now in his early 50's - has said that record executives have told him, "This is what I listen to when I'm off the clock", and "I love the stuff, but I can't sell it."

These days, the "Vigilantes of Love" moniker has been dropped in favor of the simple and solo, "Bill Mallonee", which is truer to what the music is as Mallonee has been the sole, stable member and songwriter since the beginning. I've had the pleasure of seeing him live about ten times (and even sharing a beer or two) over the years - sometimes with a full band, sometimes with just a second guitarist, and most recently with an accompanying piano player. Each setting has brought out different aspects of the performance while being consistently phenomenal in it's intimacy.

His perseverance has cost him over the years, as spending time away form his family to tour for most of the year, and financing new albums on credit cards (and now, pre-orders by loyal fans) often does. Through all this, though, he's still the type of artist willing to give away his music for free to those willing to listen.

Tonite I received a message on my myspace bulletin board stating that through Mallonee's myspace page (www.myspace/billmallonee) you could download four tracks for free, as well as go to his online store (www.volsounds.com) and get two full albums for free (one needs to be downloaded track by track, the other is free with purchase of another album - a two for one deal.)

It's great news for those of us living in an age where a CD of new music costs anywhere from twelve to twenty dollars a pop, yet for an artist who has been putting out records year after year with little or no commercial success for near twenty years, one has to wonder what the repercussions for such a bold move may be.

Some of you who know me well know that I've worked in customer service for over ten years now, but through it all, one thing I was never good at was feeding a bullshit line to make a sale and Im not about to start now.

I'm posting this to you, my friends, to tell you about the music of Bill Mallonee - a man I've met, corresponded, bonded, and shared drinks with. He's a good man witha kind heart who I hope to one day get the chance to perform alongside. If you enjoy music with roots in americana (i.e. - country, bluegrass and folk) with dabbles in brit-pop, and have ten bucks to spare, I implore you to go to his online store and pick up a copy of any of his records (I recommend 1998's To The Roof of The Sky, 1999's Audible Sigh, or 2004's Dear Life...). You'll get The Peter Buck (guitarist for R.E.M.) produced Killing Floor for free, and be able to download the brit-pop influenced album Summershine for free to hold you over until your two discs arrive.

That's three CD's of music you've probably never heard, and that has more soul and diligence than a lot of what's being pushed to the masses today, for ten bucks that goes directly to the artist.

if you're feeling skeptical, go over to my myspace page (www.myspace.com/year_1) and take a listen to the song "Flowers" off of one of his recent albums, Permafrost. Surely, some of you will find the song enjoyable enough to get three albums for the price of one. The rest of you will have lost nothing but the time it took to read this post, and listen to some new music.

Thanks
G.