From: George A. Gleason <gg@well.sf.ca.us>
Date: Thu, 8 Apr 93 02:32:08 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Musical Cypher CD project
Message-ID: <199304080931.AA02038@well.sf.ca.us>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Excellent news...!  Recall Matt's & my postings about putting cyphertext
into a CD as part of the artistic presentation....?  The idea being to
establish it as part of the overall protected artistic speech as it were.  

Well, I've found a band in the area who have tried doing something VERY
similar and currently have a very decent quantity of material READY TO GO.
Includes hypercard stacks, quicktime movies, macromind movies, miscellaneous
art & screen savers.... a lot of it is footage of the band playing live,
with music tracks included (i.e. show videos), some of it is computer
graphic art, and so on.  The band is called NOW, and they sound like a cross
between Rush, Crimson, and Yes; are incredibly talented, write new songs so
prolifically (sp?) that they could put out 5-10 more albums with what's
already ready... have a couple of albums out on an indie label... and are
ready & willing & way interested in doing a project.  

What they wanted to do was put all the video and other stuff on the first
track of a CD so it would be accessible on a CDROM player.  They got that
far and also some studio sessions with the songs for the album, and then ran
into a wall as far as the tech angle on getting the stuff to work right.  

We have studios available to record the music, the band can go in any time,
and they're hip to encrypting their video stuff & having people go hunting
for the key (put it in the lyric sheets, have people write for it, etc).  

I recall someone from Contra Costa offering to fund this; well, we're ready.

This will easily sell a few thousand copies which will pay back costs; and
given the band's artistic strengths, will probably do better than that.  And
it will certainly be a first, and a decent stake in the ground for crypto as
artistic freedom of expression.  

Email gg@well.sf.ca.us for more info.