Drums/Surfer Blood Tickets, Mogwai Live on Facebook, and Sonoio

As you likely noticed via Band of Horses, The Pixies, Eminem, Ziggy Marley, The Dandy Warhols, or others, Topspin’s platform now sells tickets.

We’re particularly proud of The Pixies example; when we started working with The Pixies late last year their email list was size = NULL, today it is six figures. In May/June of this year The Pixies and their UK agent, X-Ray booked two shows themselves (no promoter, no traditional ticketing company) at London’s Troxy Theatre, put 6,000 tickets on sale (one low price, 30 Pounds, no fees) on a Web site set up just for fans (http://LaLaPixiesLoveYou.com), sent a single email to this newly accumulated fan list via Topspin, and sold every ticket in a week. Then at the venue every single person was checked in via Topspin’s iPhone ticket scanner. Five iPhones got all 3,000 people through the doors in less than two hours. See for yourself here:

100% of fans acquired via Topspin, all marketing direct-to-fan via Topspin, every ticket sold via Topspin, and every person entering the venue after being checked in by the Topspin iPhone application. Extra special kudos to Bob, Kris, Timon, Tim, Steve and everyone involved in pulling this off soup to nuts. I couldn’t be more proud.

We haven’t talked about this before now because a) we’ve been terribly busy and believe it or not we don’t have anyone doing marketing or PR at Topspin, and b) we weren’t sure if it would send the right message. We aren’t anti-ticketer or anti-promoter, in fact we’re looking forward to working with companies in both of the aforementioned categories. What we liked most about this Pixies experience was the focus on the fan. From the band directly to the fan: “Thanks for supporting us and connecting to us, here’s something just for you.” We would love to work with anyone who would like to deliver these sort of experiences. Bring it on.

But this is all really a long-winded way to tell you about a great tour announced today which hopefully is coming to your city, The Drums and Surfer Blood together. Pre-sale tickets are available now and come with a limited edition show poster which you’ll be able to collect from the merch stand. Get ‘em before they’re gone.

In live music news of a different kind, hopefully you caught our tweet (you follow @TopspinMedia on Twitter, right?) and subsequently joined in on the live screening of director Vincent Moon‘s amazing Mogwai movie via Ustream on Facebook. Call me crass or just a Topspin cheerleader but note the advertisement for the direct-to-fan pre-sale of the new Mogwai album (with deluxe bundles) across the video window.

I’d be remiss not to mention Topspin staff favorite Sonoio’s pre-sale launched today with four free songs. Sonoio is Nine Inch Nails keyboardist/collaborator Alessandro Cortini making incredible landscapes with a keyboard which is literally a museum piece. Note one of the options in the pre-sale is for an actual piece of limited edition electronics, a custom-created portable synth! Highly recommended. But don’t take our word for it:

Speaking of Trent Reznor I assume you noticed he has a new band/project outside of Nine Inch Nails called How To Destroy Angels? This came out a bit ago but since I didn’t get a chance to blog about it then I’ll take a moment to mention it here. Visit their site to download their EP for free, upgrade to an HD version, or pick up a t-shirt or three. Given the fact we’ve cribbed more notes from what Trent has done on his own than any other artist it was a tremendous honor to be chosen to help Trent and How To Destroy Angels with their EP release.

Oh and if I may sneak in just one more from today, Secretly Canadian (from the home of my college alma mater, Bloomington, Indiana!) hit us with a new (and FREE) Lens Jekman track today! Christmas in July!