Musician Christopher Bryant 'Opens For Himself' To Connect With Fans... And To Find New Ones

from the cool-ideas dept

Tue, Dec 29th 2009 6:50pm — Mike Masnick

We're always interested in cool promotional and marketing ideas from content creators, and Hypebot alerts us to the news that musician Christopher Bryant is planning a neat concept for his solo shows: throughout 2010, he'll "open for himself" when playing live. Basically, he's playing two sets, but the first set will all be music by another artist. The first such artist is Ben Harper, who is apparently a huge inspiration to Bryant:

Now, of course, this might not sound like anything special. It's just a musician playing a bunch of cover music before playing his own music. But the positioning is quite smart. It's positioned in a different way that draws attention and helps better connect with fans. Not only that, but it helps this up-and-coming musician get some additional attention from fans of a much bigger artist. It's a very smart move.

Filed Under: ben harper, christopher bryant, music, promotions

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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 29 Dec 2009 @ 7:13pm

Been done
Paul and Storm (best known for supporting Jonathan Coulton) found themselves in the same city on the same night as They Might Be Giants.

P&S decided to join, rather than fight, them and performed TMBG's epic album Flood in its entirety. (To rather mixed reviews, but then they only had a week or so notice.)
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The Anti-Mike (profile), 29 Dec 2009 @ 8:15pm

opening for yourself isn't a very new concept. Frank Zappa did it pretty much for his entire performing career.

For at least one tour, Gwar opened for themselves as X-Cops.

What is old is new again, I guess.
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Jake, 29 Dec 2009 @ 9:15pm

Credit where credit's due for thinking out of the box, but unless the opening set is radically different in style and content, there isn't much to this concept beyond the buzzword.

Quite frankly, it says nothing good about the state of the recording industry that a minor gimmick like this even merits a plug on Techdirt.
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:), 30 Dec 2009 @ 12:12am

Would he pay?
Is he paying the covers?
Have him already clear with the folks from ASCAP or wathever?
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:), 30 Dec 2009 @ 12:14am

Did he ask permition from the original artist?
Hope he did or people will be calling him a immoral pirate to say the least.
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Tony Ray, 30 Dec 2009 @ 2:24am

ben harper christopher bryant music
Same thing I've been doing for years!
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Svante Jorgensen (profile), 31 Dec 2009 @ 4:59am

Very nice concept
...and nice music :)
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