SANDI THOM

An AAPA feature - May 2006

Sandi Thom`s debut album ‘Smile ... It Confuses People’ will be released on June 5th through BMG. It is preceded by the single ‘I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (with flowers in my hair)’ on BMG or RCA depending on region




It was during the cold, short days at the start of 2006 that Sandi Thom had her Eureka! moment. Instead of driving to gigs up and down the country with her band in her clapped-out car, as she had done for years, the singer from Scotland resolved to try a different approach. She bought a webcam, and announced a run of 21 shows to be performed on consecutive nights during February and March in the basement of her flat. The audience capacity in the flat itself was limited to just six people. But the half-hour shows were to be broadcast, free of charge, via her website. The first night, 70 people tuned in to watch, the next night it went up to 670. And by the middle of the second week she was performing to a peak audience of 162,000. By then, the suits from every major record label had visited the flat to see the show for themselves. What they heard was a singer with a sensational voice - strong and expressive enough to fill the largest theatres, but also warm and soulful enough to win over hearts and minds in the most intimate of settings. All the record companies put in offers, and a fortnight after finishing her virtual tour Sandi Thom signed a recording contract with RCA executive Craig Logan, live in front of her webcam audience.

This is now being reported as "the first webcast signing in major record label history" - Sandi Thom has become an overnight internet star who won a global audience and a megabucks handshake thanks to her investment in a £60 webcam. Needless to say, the story goes a little deeper than that...





Back in 2004 we tipped fellow Scot KT TUNSTALL and in (May) 2006 we are now both curious yet cynical about SANDI THOM ... If her story is to be believed then we could have another star in the making who is more than capable and talented to blow the likes of Katie Melua and all those other manufactured sub-standard pop acts (Idols, X factor, etc) away! Or maybe this is just a different slant on all those Pop Idols types? - Because even if Sandi Thom has just signed her recording contract no one seems to want to write about the more lucrative publishing deal she already had in place before her webcam activities? - bit odd that don`t you think?!


‘Smile ... It Confuses People’ is released by BMG on June 5th.



TerryA - May 2006