The other day I wrote about The Hold Steady’s efforts to get fans to upload videos they can use in promoting their new record. I chided them demanding the copyright on those videos. Here is a better version of the same idea in promotion of Yo La Tengo’s new record called “I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass.” This is a YouTube group:

The concept of this Group is simple. Videotape yourself saying “I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass”, upload the video, add the tag “beatyourass” and add it to this group. Once the YouTube servers update (between 6-12 hours), your video will appear on the wall of videos located here: http://www.iamnotafraidofyo…

Both the YouTube group page and the Iamnotafraidofyou…com page then have links for more information and samples from the new album. In contrast to The Hold Steady, this has all the appeal of a bottom-up buzz vs. a top heavy fan phenomenon, even though the concept is pretty much the same. With this one you can check in continuously to see if there are new contributions, so it engenders much more continued involvement. It’s a lot less clear in the Yo La Tengo site whether the band and their label (Matador) are responsible for launching this or if it’s a true fan-led initiative, but either way, they’ve succeeded in keeping the feel of a fan-driven activity, and that’s great.

Thanks to David for the tip. Tips are always welcome, so if you see cool stuff happening, please don’t be shy about shooting me an email and letting me know.