We have had this little old virtual web radio sitting around for a while. We call it AKRadio. Behind the scenes, we’ve been quietly soliciting tracks from our artists, getting a live cut here and a b-side there, slowly building a library of interesting sounds to broadcast over these virtual airwaves we call Internet. 

Since it is The Rafter Half-Week of Love, and we realized we should launch AKRadio before the World Wide Web moves to holo-mp3s and leaves us in the lonely dust of obsolescence, we figured we should probably launch this. We asked Rafter if he had anything sitting around. Of course he did, gifting us with some rare tracks he recorded in 1997.  That’s ten years ago.  Besides, it’s Casual Friday out there on the cubicle front, and that means lots of good people need a little something to get them through the day.

You can access AKRadio by clicking on the the link at the top there, just beneath our banner. We’re starting with some Rafter tracks, but we will rotate out and add new tracks from other artists later on. Until then, enjoy the streaming Rafter goodness!

Master remixer David Stith, available via the web and MySpace, recently contributed a haunting remix to My Brightest Diamond’s Tear it Down. But he couldn’t resist adding to the Half-Week of Rafter Love with his own poppy rendition of  the Music for Total Chickens track "merchandise." Download the mp3 here. Thanks for the Rafter Love, David!

What a week for Rafter!  Just when you thought things were slowing up,  Rafter has been invited to play the Vienna Festival in Austria on May 25, 2007.  He will be playing at Radiokulturhaus with fork&knives and Baby Zithers.

Also, we are happy to announce that Rafter has been picked up by the Free Agency Booking.  He joins an incredible roster of artists including Slim Moon, BARR, Wooden Wand, Excepter, Jana Hunter and labelmates Castanets.

As we mentioned before, we would like to showcase some of our favorite entries for the Music For Total Chickens video contest. Here is one by chussell.

With an impressive 8591 views (at last count), we would like to honor this video as the Quantity Award runner-up. These two energetic young woman know the true meaning of rocking out, viral marketing, and tagging with integrity! Hurray for kitty8joe.

Back in November of last year, we announced our official Music For Total Chickens video contest. We offered two $500 prizes; a Quality Award, and a Quantity Award for the most YouTube views. Over 40 entrants picked one of four offered mp3s and created a music video. They submitted those to a YouTube video group. Meanwhile, we enlisted the help of seven highly qualified celebrity judges. They critiqued each video with the keen eyes of experience and talent, and have found a quality winner.

Well, it’s The Half-Week of Rafter Love, and that’s as good a time as any to announce our two winners. But first, we’d like to thank everyone who contributed. We were overwhelmed with the quality – and quantity! – of responses. We’re also a little sad that there couldn’t be more than two winners. These videos were really good. Throughout this half-week, we’ll be featuring our own favorites. Until then, the winners:

Sporting an action-packed forest chase set, the Quality Award goes to the video above created by whaun of WilliamHaun.com. Thankfully, William has generously provided higher quality versions of the video here.

With over 25,000 views and several blended eggs, the Quantity Award goes to pigetstuck:

Thanks to all, and congratulations our two winners!  Our highly trained Prize Distributary Committee will be in contact with you shortly! Click "more" to see the two runners up for the Quality Award.

haejungkimmy:

watercounter: