Hoi Polloi's
Sufjan Stevens Winter Song
Exclusive Listening Sessions
Named one of the top music stories of 2009 by Pitchfork!
In
the winter of 2007, Sufjan Stevens dreamed up the Sufjan Stevens Xmas
Song Xchange Contest. Over 600 people wrote holiday-themed songs
and sent them to Sufjan in hopes of exchanging the rights for their
song for the rights for a new, unreleased holiday song that Sufjan
penned. I was the winner of the contest, with my song "Every Day
is Christmas." Sufjan's announcement can be found here. You can hear my song here (just click on the box with the musical notes at the top of the page and it'll bring you to the page with the song).
As promised, I received from Sufjan the exclusive rights to his own
winter song of great beauty, called "The Lonely Man of Winter." No one
but Sufjan's closest friends has heard this recording. Until now.
In
an effort to counter the cheapening effects of internet
all-availability, and to recapture an era when to get one's hands on a
particular album or song was a real experience, we at Hoi Polloi would
like to share this song with Sufjan fans in a special way.
We
would like to invite you to our Brooklyn home for an exclusive
listening session of this gorgeous song, with hot beverages and cookies
provided for your enjoyment. We'll share some conversation, slip
some headphones on you, and press play.
Listening sessions will be made by appointment, generally for four people at a time. For
those of you who are not able to make it to New York, both Dave and I
travel quite a bit, and would be happy to take requests in the hope
that we'll be in your neighborhood at some point in the future and can
share the song with you.
Please e-mail
sufjansongATyahoo.com for more information about finding a time to come
over for a special listening session of this beautiful song.
Here is our Music Director Dave Malloy's manifesto on the Sufjan song and on modern music distribution and rarity.
People who came and wrote about it:
* Annie Scott's Tonic article
* Jessica Suarez's Village Voice article
* M's blog
* Stupidfresh
* Maha is a state of mind
* Sarah Nelson Wright's blog
* One for the good days blog
* The 405
* Happy Ending Series blog
Comments comments comments
* All Good Naysayers
* Metafilter
* Sufjanfans forum site (you have to register to view comments, but there are a lot of good ones)
News articles
* The Chicago Reader
* Pitchfork
* Original Pitchfork article (scroll down)
* Buzzgrinder
* Hypeful
* This article is in French and we don't know what it says
* AGN's original post
We're really looking forward to welcoming you!
Sincerely,
Alec Duffy
Artistic Director
Hoi Polloi
Here are photos from our first sessions!:
Session 1:
Session 2:
Session 3:
Session 4:
Session 5:
Session 6:
Session 7:
Session 8:
Session 9:
Session 10:
Session 11:
Session 12:
