Ya’ see, artists find new fans and connect with audiences on sites like Twitter, Youtube and yes, Facebook — the bittersweet time-consumers that haunt our time management skillz. And those sites are being threatened by SOPA and PIPA. Homie don’t play that. MySpace? Sorry, I’m not familiar with that site, anymore.

Of course, Zuckerberg decided not to participate in the blackout, even though Google, Reddit, Wikipedia and other notable swashbucklers did. Why? All signs point to money. A single day of outage on Facebook would cost the company $12 million in revenue, according to Mashable. But that’s chump change when you make$4.25 billion per year. I don’t know about you, but I’m writing Mark in for the 2012 election as “biggest sellout ever”.

Speaking of selling out, now’s your chance to download our many musical numbers via iTunes, CDBaby and pretty much any other music outlet you can think of. Or download Changin’ Tones for free by clicking on this link to Noisetrade. Changin’ Tones features a full band, but we do have plenty of other acoustic music selections.

But copyright law isn’t all bad – it protects our works and gives us some street cred for what we’ve done. Of course, most of the time we’d just rather have our tunes pumping through the ears of those who love it – or like it, we’re not picky here. SOPA and PIPA threaten to block websites without due process, which means that artists could be censored. That’s kind of like someone saying that we can’t write the word #@%& on our own blog. Wait, #@%&, it’s already happening. #@%&!!

To help the SOPA and PIPA protest:

1. Download our music for free.

2. Spread it around to all of your favorite pirates, including pirates that steal art online and those that wear an eye patch.

3. Tell all of your friends that you’re proud to be a pirate.

Since it’s technically not piracy if we give you permission to download our album – please don’t download our music and spread it around to scallywags.

Once again, here’s the link to our free album: www.noisetrade.com/20mtp

To see the SOPA bill

To see the PIPA bill

And let’s not forget ACTA

To learn about navigationally-challenged Italian captains

To learn about space program cuts

To learn about 20 Minutes To Park

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20 Minutes To Park is acoustic music duo out of Nashville, Tennessee, but some of their albums feature a full band. Instrumental music is available upon request.

• 8 songs that dip into all of our records
• A catchy little design
• Some commentary to follow the release (this might include topics on anything from Mitch’s take on people that take life to seriously, to Josh’s recipe for making your own pizza)
• Possibly some video (we can probably be cajoled into digging out that old camcorder )

In honor of our country’s 235th birthday, we’re leaving the download up through the 4th of July week until the 14th of July (Mitch’s birthday!).

This is your first warning or threat, however you see it. (insert smiley face)

Thanks all for your support! We truly do appreciate it. Feel free to email us at band@20minutestopark.com with any questions, comments, concerns, ideas, compliments, criticisms or just plain jibber jabber. We’re all ears.

20MTP

The Weather Channel contacted us, and we’ll be featured again on the Local On The 8s nationwide in the U.S. If you hear “Australia” or “Loveless Cafe,” let us know!

Getting back to giving things away, you can now download “Rules of the Road” from our NoiseTrade widget at https://www.noisetrade.com/20mtp

Lots more to come as we get a fresh start in the new year. Stay tuned!

• Mitch started paying rent for his own place for the first time (no roommates!).
• We released “Changin’ Tones,” our first full-band album. It took many months, but it was well worth it. I think it’s a great sounding record for a 2-man operation, no sound engineer and no mastering. I’m very proud of “Changin’ Tones” and I’m looking forward to doing another full-band album in the beginning of 2011.
• “Australia” was a part of the Microsoft Windows music campaign, and was downloaded over 3,000 times.
• We played our first of several shows at 3rd and Lindsley in Nashville – a music venue that I grew up watching some of my favorite musicians throw down, including David Mead, Dave Barnes, The Loft, Old Union, The Wooten Brothers and numerous others I’m forgetting. This was also our first full-band show in Nashville.
• We released the single (full-band version) of “Loveless Cafe” a month after releasing “Changin’ Tones.” We were hungry to release new music, and we pushed for this to be out before Christmas 2009. We did it.
• Six months later we released “Back to Basics,” our first-ever live release. While the album wasn’t performed in front of an audience, it was performed live in-studio with no over-dubs, punch-ins or mastering magic. It was the rawest thing we’ve ever released and forced us to live with the flaws that make live music so captivating. We officially had 24 new songs released within about 8 months.
• “Loveless Cafe” and “Australia” were played on the Weather Channel throughout August of 2010, which was the first time our music has been played on national TV (that we know of). Mitch did the pitching, again taking matters into our own hands.
• We sold more music, both digitally and physically, during 2010 than any other year, despite playing less and giving away more music than ever before.
• We dissolved our old LLC, and created a new LLC – 20 Minutes to Park, LLC.
• We cleared up old lingering debts, and still ended up making a profit. 20MTP became completely debt-free.
• We created a brand new t-shirt, which was only the second one ever made over the course of our 9-year career.
• We had a good time, made music we love, and met great people.

Take a minute to look back – it’s good to note the little things that made a difference.

Cheers to accomplishing more in 2011!

December is here, which means lots of holiday activity. We’ll be laying low most of December to share time with friends and family, but we’ll hit the ground running in 2011. We’ll be focusing on recording a ton of new material in the first part of 2011, hopefully with a full album or two complete by May. Once the new album is complete, it’s also likely that we’ll finally make our way back to some of our favorite cities for a show – Chicago, Indianapolis, Nashville, and Atlanta are likely suspects. Plans are in the works, so we’ll keep you posted. Enjoy the holidays!

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