NEW UPDATED (time sensitive) INFO (at bottom of post)
It's still a secret, so keep your voice low... but Derek Webb has found a "loophole." We're still trying to piece it all together, but Webb seems to have had some dispute with his record label over a song on the album he is currently working on, "Stockholm Syndrome." Over the past few years Webb (the former front man of the Christian band Caedmon's Call) has grown increasingly controversial (at least in the circles where Caedmon's Call traveled) writing scathing songs about the marriage of Christianity and the Republican party, the marriage of Christianity and material wealth, the marriage of Christianity and... well, you get the picture.
It seems at this point that Webb went a little too far and his record label said they wouldn't allow him to release the "Stockholm Syndrome" with one of the songs he had written on it. So Webb went about "leaking" the song. He sent an email to all his fans, which he also posted to his website (derekwebb.com), that contained a code. That code spelled out "paradise is a parking lot." So we googled it... and that took us to paradiseisaparkinglot.com. There Webb posts directions as to where to find "artifacts." Once 5 people show up at the physical location to collect the artifacts these people are email the code to a given email address and they are given "stems" which can be downloaded from paradiseisaparkinglot.com. Then all can download that "stem," which is a two second clip of the song which can then (if one has the proper software) be pieced together to create a song... THE song... the banned song.
We're not totally sure how this all works exactly or how all this gets around the legal issues with the record label (the rednoW legal team is currently on a team building retreat, so we were unable to ask them to look into this for us), but apparently it does, as recently Webb tweeted from his "secret" twitter account (twitter.com/ssyndrome) that they were negotiating with the record label and making progress. Then today this tweet came:
"all" "need to" to pay attention to important announcement coming from http://derekwebb.com. More specific info coming soon.
Not really sure what that means, but this whole saga with secret codes and "messages to follow" has caught our attention... and all because of a song. Let us not forget how powerful art can be and because of this power how threatening that can feel to those in power.
websites to keep up with in this story:
derekwebb.com
paradiseisaparkinglot.com
twitter.com/ssyndrome
UPDATE!: There is a full song for download hidden if you follow the code (look after a dash... it's all spelled out there)...but only until 11pm Central time on Thursday June 11th... maybe we weren't right about the stems and what they are for... this is getting excited...
If you want a copy of the "banned" song and don't get to the download it in time email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and I'll see what I can do.
