New Website Updates // Music & Fashion

Message from The Founders:

First, we want to congratulate everyone on making it half-way through 2014! We'll be celebrating our 2-year anniversary this month, and we are extremely grateful for everyone's support for The Yacht Club Company brand and allowing us to live the dream! As a token of our appreciation, here's a few ways that we plan on giving back:

// Music //
We’re developing partner-ships with promoters, venues, and artists to bring you the most up-to-date news on music and events. Our new Music webpage will feature auditory and visual material from artists that inspire us, allowing you the opportunity to discover and download new music with a chance to see a show near you at no cost!

Who doesn't like free concert tickets? Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to stay updated for a chance to win tickets to see your favorite shows!

// Fashion //
We’ve had the unique opportunity to transform our craft into a business, and we’re collaborating with artists, bands, and designers to create new merchandise. We provide complete assistance from concept to completion, creating merchandising for Sol Cat, Levi Ray, Roots of a Rebellion, & many more.

Check out our online store to see new merchandise from designers, like our most recent project with TRVLR/// Collective in Nashville, TN.
(*Available exclusively at Local Honey)

Our Print-On-Demand production process allows anyone the opportunity to make your dreams tangible through merchandise! Find out how today!

#YACHTON

Check out this video featuring Josh Carter of Phantogram wearing our Dark Night Illuminated Crew

Festival Evolution: FestEvo App

     With festival season approaching fast, we’re all in a scramble to find out what festivals we’re going to attend and who of our friends are going too. Well ease your mind and scramble no more, we’ve found the perfect app to assist you during festival season. Our dear friend, Tucker Gumber, and his team of dreamers have a passion for festivals and they are in pursuit of developing and funding an app called FestEvo.

Tucker’s quest of FestEvo spawned from spending the last three years of his life reviewing festivals from his website: www.TheFestivalGuy.com. His ultimate goal from the start was to find ways to improve the festival experience. His idea was to go to as many festivals as possible with the belief that eventually an idea to improve them would soon come into fruition.

Suddenly, the idea came to him after attending South By South West. After returning home and catching up with friends on Facebook, Tucker saw pictures being posted from many of his friends that had attended SXSW as well.  Missing the opportunity to connect with his friends because he didn’t know that they were attending the same festival, Tucker realized that festivals would be improved if everyone knew which of their friends were going to each festival ahead of time.  So he created a mobile app and website to diminish this problem, and he continuously added new features through the concept of “wouldn’t it be cool if…”

FestEvo makes sure you always have people to go to festivals with by showing you which of your friends are going (or want to go) to each festival. FestEvo makes it easier to know the entire lineup by giving you access to every festival lineup and letting you listen to each artist via Spotify and SoundCloud. The more artists you know, the more fun you will have. FestEvo also helps the festivals improve by having the users fill out surveys so they get real data on ways the festival can improve. 

The biggest feature in FestEvo is the Camp feature. Every member is encouraged to create a “Camp” with the people who they are going to the festival with. Having everyone in a group chat leading up to the festival will help everyone get to know each other leading up to the event. FestEvo will also work with the camp creators to encourage its members to stop bringing trash (plastic water bottles, glow sticks) to the festival and pick up their campsite once the festival ends. 

Fast-forward 10 months and FestEvo has everything you need to prepare for your favorite festival. The only thing FestEvo is missing is the funds to fully develop the application, so they need your help! They only have a few days left in the campaign to raise funds and you get awesome festival gear, tools, and accessories for your donations! You can help make FestEvo possible by donating and sharing this campaign with your friends!

Sharing is caring and caring is love, so show some love to FestEvo! Become a part of something much larger than the individual and change the festival going experience forever! And for that, we would salute You!

Check out the video below to learn more about the Festival Evolution!

The Future of Artist Revenue Streams

     As we pursue our dreams in this Digital Age, the Internet has equipped artists of all kind with the power to accomplish their career goals in Music, Art, Fashion, and Action. Crow-funding sites like KickStarter provide emerging artists the opportunity to acquire the funds necessary to fuel their passion and develop their craft. Corporate company cast-offs focus beyond brick-and-mortar and open up shops on Storenvy, Etsy, Shopify, and Big Cartel. Also, the torrent of streaming music services has erupted, with Spotify and Pandora creating a digital distribution platform for musicians and entertainers. Although there are many options for sourcing revenue, The Yacht Club Company specializes in providing quality artist merchandise as a fundamental tool in establishing a brand and growing your network.

     Listeners have flocked to this easy abundance of an all-you-can-eat model for music, but many musicians have been far less enthusiastic. According to Billboard and Canadian Business, a musician penned a frustrated screed noting that his BMI Royalty check showed that three song writers received 21 cents for 7,800 plays on Pandora and $1.05 for 5,960 plays on Spotify. That works out to per-stream royalties of $0.000027 and $0.0000176, respectively (Peoples, 2012). So for a small monthly fee or the occasional annoyance of advertisements, music lovers have access to a vast collective record library, which most likely includes your favorite artist. Forcing artists to rely less on record sales and focus more on building a brand and revenue stream through artist merchandising.

     As CD sales continue to decline, music merchandise is becoming an increasingly essential piece of artists’ revenues. According to Rolling Stones, Arena headliners like Tom Petty and Mötley Crüe get multimillion-dollar advances for signing deals with merchandising and apparel companies to manufacture their items. Concert tees, especially black ones, remain the best-selling products for artists (Hiatt, 2006).

     We have had the unique opportunity to create artist merchandise for several local artists, including Ariel Hill, Laura Reed, Alex Saad, KDSML, SOSA, White Noise, and many more. We are committed to providing excellent quality in all that we do while maintaining our environmental integrity throughout our screen-printing process. In our effort to bring people together to experience something so much greater than the individual, we encourage artists to create a tangible asset to their music and build a brand through artist merchandise.

Feel free to visit our website to learn more about our company and mission to impact the world through Music, Art, Fashion, and Action. If interested in artist merchandising or apparel printing, please contact us at ContactUs@TheYachtClubCo.com.  

Barmak, S. (2013). Can't stop the music. Canadian Business, 86(1/2), 67.

Christman, E. (2013). Pandora's Bigger Slice. Billboard, 125(26), 4-6.

Hiatt, B., & Knopper, S. (2006). The Big Business of Rock Tees. Rolling Stone, (996), 10.

Peoples, G. (2012). The Myth Of The Penny Pinchers. Billboard, 124(44), 10.

The Black Cadillacs

The BlackCadillacs are a blues‐based indie rock band from Knoxville, TN. With members from each of Tennessee's major cities, the state's famous sounds are well represented. Nashville’s recent brand of rock n’ roll revival takes center stage, but a wash of authentic Memphis blues‐soul and a tinge of Knoxville country distill into a sound as rich and Southern as it is alive.

Alongside their native influences, The Black Cadillacs are heavily impacted by rock history. "Bands like The Rolling Stones, The Who, and Pink Floyd laid the foundation for us. With the success of artists and bands like Jack White and My Morning Jacket, it’s easy to see that blues-­‐based rock n’ roll still resonates with audiences,” says guitarist, John Phillips. "We were inspired by the same bands; we’re just trying to keep those sounds alive in our own way."

From Memphis to Knoxville, Mick Jagger to Jack White, The Black Cadillacs' sophomore release, Run, pulls together more than 40 years worth of influence over this 11­‐track offering.

"Run is a veritable tapestry of lush blues and Southern soul with Phillips and guitarist Matthew Hyrka weaving varicolored webs of texture and melody over the solid foundation of bassist Philip Anderson and drummer Adam Bonomo," says Metro Pulse's Mike Gibson.

Released in June 2012, Run represents the band’s attempt to capture the dynamic energy of its live performance. The instrumentation was tracked live with the entire band in one room, just as the songs were written and perfected on the road.

The Black Cadillacs’ live set is where this well‐orchestrated yet explosive blend comes to life. Playing more than 100 dates in the past year, including sets at SXSW as a Red Bull Sound Select artist, The Black Cadillacs use raw emotion in frontman Will Horton’s voice to energize an audience and crank up the sound. "The group displayed a repertoire (old and new) of grooves, rockers and ballads," Red Bull Sound Select says of their SXSW performances. "They are often best when Horton showcases his voice over spare instrumentation ‐ the connection is undeniable.” 

Sol Cat

There is no such thing as a landlocked island, except the one where Sol Cat seems to live. It’s like a place where the mind isn’t fully aware of its surroundings, and confusion welcomes the creativity it inspires. Sol Cat’s eponymous self-released de-but album doesn’t necessarily transport you to South Florida from Nashville, TN, but that is an appropriate enough concept. If Music City defines firm lines between genres, Sol Cat’s album champions redistricting, creating challenging new sounds in this arena of the traditional.

Think of a midnight drive somewhere warm, certainly the top is down, and yes, a beauty is in the passenger seat. The six-piece band suggests you can take this foggy, dreamlike scenario with you wherever you go. However, Sol Cat finds its own contentment and happiness in the valleys of Middle TN, grateful for the opportunity to tap into the mystical and spiritual musical foundation on which the land is built. The Athens of the South has an appeal any artist can feel — an enticing, drawing temptation.

Before relocating, Sol Cat’s members spent their time across the country, Miami to Los Angeles, New York City to The Gulf of Mexico. Musical influences span just as wide, yet an eclec-tic and oceanic resonance remains prevalent in their sound. Smooth grooves along the lines of George McCrae mix with semi-psych synth layers, while the likes of The Talking Heads and Laid Back inspire bouncy bass and slick guitar riffs.

With such a range of cultural and artistic influence, the creative process is equally interesting. Vocalist and writer Brett Hammann steers the musical direction of the band while guitarist Johny Fisher leads the group into new and uncharted territory. Drummer Ryan Usher provides the rhythmic backbone for bassist Aaron Martin, who also acts as Sol Cat’s Art Director. Lead guitarist Jaan Cohan brings catchy licks and skills to melt any face, leaving keyboardist and studio engineer Jeremy Clark to play intuitively as the music essentially produces itself. The group is now prepared and eager for the road, with its groundwork set for the message to spread. The Sol Cat sound is not as unfamiliar as it is forgotten; and those feelings and emotions poured into music past are ready to gracefully wash over a new generation. And for that, we salute you! 

Check out this video from their debut album!

Paper Airplanes

In a generation that is engulfed by technology, many entrepreneurs are allowed the opportunity to distribute their ideas through the wonderful world of the Internet. Although much of The Yacht Club Company production is done in-house, from our living room, we depend solely on online market places for the exponential growth of our brand through online retail and distribution. We are constantly inspired by some of the work we find on sites like Esty, Storenvy, and Big Cartel. These sites allow creative business owners the opportunity to distribute music, art, and fashion at little or no cost. We had the opportunity to see this growth first hand through our dear friend and visual artist, Natalie Rose.

Natalie Rose moved to Nashville, TN from San Francisco, CA about 3 years ago. She has been painting since as long as she can remember. Through her own personal and professional network, Natalie was able to sell several of her psychedelic pieces, but she recently decided that Etsy was such a great way to share what she love doing to an online community of over 15 million buyers and business owners.

She just launched her new series titled "Paper Airplanes," and we can’t tell you how excited we were to see the collection after much anticipation! This series is all about stirring that inner youthfulness and innocence in each of us. There is typically only one solid time in each of our lives where we truly believe we can do or be anything. We believe the best in people, and we believe we deserve the best. Fear is not something that we know yet. Failure is not something that has a hold on our soul yet. Life is full of wonder and possibility.

“Often times as we age, we forget about the simplicity of life and clutter our world with work, money, everyday problems, and it becomes so overwhelming that the innocence inside of us fades and we find ourselves walking the streets with a scowl on our face and a bitter taste in our mouth. Suddenly, something sparks our memory and we are left with a question of "what happened"?”

Natalie Rose has been such an inspiration to us by creating art that is colorful and whimsical. Each piece in the “Paper Airplanes” series serves as a constant reminder of some sort of child-like feeling. And for that, we salute you!