Cloud Cult Profiled By The Wall Street Journal

(video via WSJ)

Here's the lede for the piece about MPLS art-rockers Cloud Cult.

A Cloud Cult concert doesn't end with the encore; it ends with a bidding war. After every performance by this rising Minneapolis rock band, fans vie in a silent auction for one-of-a-kind souvenirs from the show: pictures painted to the music by the group's two on-stage artists.
Cloud Cult offers a unique pairing of music with live painters onstage. And proceeds from the art help boost the group's bottom line.

When the drums kicked in at a recent concert in New York City, painter Connie Minowa swiped a streak of blue across a blank canvas. By the close of the group's stormy one-hour set, she'd completed a poster-sized painting marked by rippling shapes and dripping pigment. It sold minutes later for $1,000 -- about as much as the group typically gets paid to perform.

Read the article here. In sum, the piece, written by WSJ's John Jurgensen, contemplates Cloud Cult's unorthodox contracts and methods as an innovative business strategy, with emphasis on how artists will creatively navigate around the tough times in the music industry, and the economy in general. Worth a read.

(Jonathan Graef)