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And Finally Artist News Digital Live Business
Mick Jagger and Dave Grohl launch Eazy Sleazy NFT in aid of grassroots venues
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 16 April 2021
Following the release of their collaborative single ‘Eazy Sleazy’ earlier this week, Mick Jagger and Dave Grohl have launched an NFT auction for ownership of an exclusive piece of digital artwork related to the record. Money raised from that auction will go to supporting grassroots live music venues in the UK and US.
Jagger described the post-lockdown anthem as a piece of “much-needed optimism”. Reviewers have variously described it as “the kind of silliness … bands routinely knock about in rehearsals – before they get down to business” and “a tune that is as funny as it is ridiculous”, while also using the release as a reason to call for a “moratorium on culture that directly references Zoom”. A future classic ‘Eazy Sleazy’ is not, then, but of the moment it surely is.
And if you’re going to do something of the moment at the moment, then you need to sell an NFT as part of the project, obviously. If you’re still struggling to get your head around NFTs and what they are, I’ll try to explain it to you in simple terms: NFTs – or non-fungible tokens – are a massive load of meaningless bullshit. Right, now you’re up to speed. But, and I guess this is the important bit, they’re meaningless bullshit that you can make a lot of money out of. For now, at least.
Based on the same idea as crypto-currency, rather than representing money, NFTs represent a digital object. Or, more accurately, the ownership of that object. Unlike when you buy a piece of physical art, you don’t actually have the one copy of that object in your possession, but there is a thing on the internet that says you own it. And you can sell on that certificate of ownership to someone else. So that’s great. Meanwhile, the thing you apparently own is probably still online for everyone else to enjoy.
There’s a whole verse in ‘Eazy Sleazy’ that mocks conspiracy theorists and climate change deniers. So it’s slightly ironic that this NFT sale is happening, given how bad such blockchain transactions are for the environment. Thanks to all the energy used up when computing such transactions on the blockchain, buying one is a great way to rapidly increase your carbon footprint.
Anyway, this is all for a good cause, so maybe I should stop being so down on it. The auction will be live for 24 hours. In fact, as we publish this there are less than eight hours left, with the top bid over $10,000.
Profits from the sale will be split between the Music Venue Trust in the UK, the National Independent Venue Association in the US, and the Back Up charity, which supports technical professionals working in live events, theatre, TV and film. “A percentage”, the announcement for all this adds, “will also be going to environmental causes”. So maybe it’s all going to be alright.
