The Concept

"Before the Goldrush" is an album consisting of song styles that influenced this generation's parents which, in turn, proved a retroactive influence on the current generation of singer-songwriters. The title - Before the Goldrush - is a take-off on Neil Young's Baby Boomer classic 'After the Goldrush'.

These aren't "hits" -- no "Fire and Rain" or "Teach Your Children" -- but, rather, songs that are emotionally deeper and may have a different interpretive quality 30 years later. Artists whose songs will be covered include: Cat Stevens, Donovan, Jefferson Airplane, Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles, Aretha Franklin, George Harrison, Tom Rush, Dory Previn, others. You can read an overview of our insight into the songs here.

The intended stylizing of these songs is reflective of, say, a Damien Rice song - simple, elegant, personal. While some of the originals are up-tempo, it's felt that a downtempo version of the song could work. Click here to hear and read about the working list of tunes...

The Charitable Tie-In
We've been approved to do this by/for "Teach for America", the group that givens new opportunities to kids in low-income communities. Given the impact that teachers have had on everyone, especially Artists, we think it's a great tie-in. Remember your mentor?

This is an extension of what we did for "A New Kind of Blue" where we donated 10% of all proceeds to the funding of Arts-related programs in rural schools. Among other things, it bought lighting equipment for a new Theatre program at a high school that had never had one, paid for transportation costs for a debate team and helped out a high school band.

Who Will Be Involved?
Singer-songwriters in the current generation of 18-34 year-olds - hopefully, a mix of unsigned and signed artists.

Ownership
Each Artist will retain rights to their recordings (not the publishing -- the original writer retains that). They are only lending the use of the song for this project. The Artist will be given the right to offer their song for further synch and repurposing rights that would be acquired by ANOE and any aggregators we may use through our own initiatives*. If the Artist chooses to be involved in that effort, both ANOE, any aggregator involved and the artist will share in those receipts equally. *What the Artist initiates from their side is all theirs as far as propagation outside this project is concerned.

Teach for America Gets What?
All the profits will go to Teach for America. A Nest of Eggs is donating its time, office overhead and efforts but will hold back (a temporary) 15% for Admin fees to take care of any lingering mechanical licensing, production costs, etc. type things with the intent to roll what's left of that back onto TFA's side of the ledger.

Can We Interest You in Becoming Involved?
We'd like you to be involved. With the promotion we hope to get through our tie-in with Teach for America and the digital distribution we plan on achieving through iTunes, Napster and every other download site we can tap, we feel confident that we will bring you some new exposure and new attention.

Some quick FAQs:

Does the Artist Record the Song Themselves?
Yes. We want to maintain the personal connection you have with the song and feel that the best way to do that is for you to record (produce) the song yourself.

Are the Artists Guaranteed to Be on the Compilation?
We wish that were possible, but will try to make every accomodation we can. It may call for a second volume given the early interest the project is getting.

When Does Everything Need to Be In?
January '08

Is This Being Done on a Most Favoured Nations Basis?
Oui.

Are the Songs Going to Be Offered as a Collection or Individual Downloads?
As a collection -- in other words, the whole album has to be purchased. That way, every one gets a fair shake and equal exposure.

Listen to the songs on the player and think about it, would you? We're only reaching out to artists who we think embrace the original emotion of these songs and it would mean a lot to have you on this collection.