Historic audio interviews of The Beatles – John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr – will be auctioned to the highest bidders as digital NFT files during the week beginning Monday, December 6 – these interviews have not been heard in decades. The auction represents the first time ever that NFTs of rock music icon interviews are being offered to the general public. The announcements were made today by Jonathan Firstenberg, Managing Director of the Voices of Classic Rock Archive (VOCR.)
The VOCR Archive is home to 650 historic interviews and radio shows featuring virtually every major rock music icon during the period of 1964 to 2008. VOCR executives’ target audience for bidding on The Beatles’ interviews includes virtually anyone of any age, with a special emphasis on the aging “Baby Boomers” who actually grew up with Beatles’ music in their ears every day. VOCR executives are also targeting the various “Gen X,” “Gen Y,” “Millennials,” and “Gen Z,” classes believing many may have inherited from their parents a love for the music of The Beatles – and other classic rock artists – whose music was literally the soundtrack of their childhoods.
The four Beatles NFT Interviews are entitled: John Lennon on "A Day in the Life"; Paul McCartney on "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard"; George Harrison on "Abbey Road"; and Ringo Starr on "His Lost Medallion." To hear a portion of each of these Beatles interviews currently being auctioned by VOCR, please see ½ way down this page: https://nft.vocr.org
From The Beatles to the Stones and the Who to Led Zeppelin; from Springsteen and Clapton to Hendrix and Alice Cooper; from the Doors and Elton John to Janis Joplin and Grand Funk Railroad; from Emerson/Lake/Palmer and Foreigner to Queen, Pink Floyd, Tom Petty and Rush; and from the Eagles and Phil Collins to U2 and Creedence, the VOCR Archive contains intimate and revealing interviews with hundreds of superstar musical heroes of every wave of contemporary rock music. The archive features interviews dating from the early era of the British Invasion and ranging from hard rock, acid rock and heavy metal, to the California sound and progressive rock to Southern rock and new wave. The Voices of Classic Rock Archive chronicles over four-decades of audio interviews with the men and women who literally defined the “Classic Rock” era for hundreds of millions of people located in every corner of the world.
Each VOCR/Beatles NFT will include unique artwork and a WAV file of the interview. Important to Note: Bidders can ONLY use Ethereum (ETH) to make a bid – the NFTs will be minted on the Ethereum blockchain.
Interested Bidders Can Follow These Steps To Enter The Auction
- Navigate to: https://nft.vocr.org
- Create an account or log in.
- Afterwards, the interested bidder can click on the NFT he/she wishes to buy.
- On that page, the interested bidder will be able to place his/her bid.
- Please note, you will have to have Ethereum in your MetaMask wallet, or deposit to your Origin account prior to bidding.
Regarding today’s announcement, Mr. Firstenberg said, “The extensive variety of Beatles interviews that we have in our collection are, perhaps, our most comprehensive and valuable assets – that is why we wanted to launch with John, Paul, George and Ringo – the ultimate Classic Rock Stars! The owners of VOCR acquired this remarkable archive from its creator, Kathleen Wittbold, because they understood that there would always be future growth in the value of audio content for all things related to classic rock music. All of the interviews contained with VOCR are unique, and, like any other important and unique object or artwork, they will continue to grow in rarity and value over time.”
Firstenberg continues, “While we considered many ways by which to introduce this archive to the public, we chose to start with NFTs because the current market demand for unique NFT properties comprised of original content seems to be growing at a rapidly accelerating pace. Also, NFT auctions are a remarkably simple and efficient way by which to market audio interviews. We believe there will be great demand for single interview auctions and that single NFTs represent a strong case for the notion that the sum of the parts of our overall archive will be much, much greater than the whole. We are confident that NFTs as a new medium are here to stay, and we are very interested to see how this new medium will evolve. In particular, we are going to be studying how the market determines what rights to a property need to be embedded within an NFT itself for it to have real intrinsic value.”
“The VOCR owners and I would also like to thank Ben Kopec and his company OnChain Music for helping us with integrating the technology by which we are offering this auction to the general public. Ben has quite literally been ‘the glue’ that has melded this entire, and truly massive, project together,” Firstenberg concludes.
About THE VOICES OF CLASSIC ROCK ARCHIVE
The Voices of Classic Rock (VOCR) interview and programming archive is the result of more than three decades of continuous accumulation, creation, and production by the late radio icon Kathleen Wittbold. Wittbold worked in virtually every facet of radio and television production within both the public and private sectors during her remarkable career.
Wittbold’s work within the music industry began in 1982, when she became one of the original interviewers and producers at MTV. Following nearly a decade at MTV’s New York headquarters, she went on to helm the largest independent syndicated radio production company in the United States, where she created The Rock of the Century (ROTC) program. One year later, she transitioned ROTC into one of the longest-running syndicated, weekly radio programs in history, The Classics, which aired on more than 250 stations nationwide and abroad.
Wittbold wrote and produced every single weekly two-hour edition of The Classics from May 1999 through May 2009. The VOCR Archive interviews are solely owned and indemnified by VOCR LLC. See: https://nft.vocr.org
