Blimp Rock is a venture capital band founded for the purpose of raising $700K for a concert on a blimp floating above Lake Ontario.
On behalf of parent company Blimp Rock Enterprises, the band (or “marketing team” as they are referred to internally) formed in 2012 with the intentions of raising the funds through selling albums and vintage office equipment such as rolodexes and floppy discs.
The team’s 2012 “strange and delightful” self-titled debut failed to meet revenue targets set by B.R.E. executive. In a tense late light board meeting the team decided to pivot.
Over the next 3 years the team worked closely with B.R.E.’s legal department to determine ways to increase revenue generation. It was determined that simply releasing another album of “increasingly sophisticated rock & roll” would not be sufficient.
By now it was 2015 and the Toronto Blue Jays were on a historic playoff run. The city was united by the teams new slogan: #cometogether.
But wait, didn’t Blimp Rock use the phrase “Come Together” in their 2013 song “Oh, Baseball” about the Blue Jays!? Yes, they did indeed. What better way to generate revenue than blackmailing a major league baseball team with a lawsuit?
The confrontation led to an unprecedented amount of hate mail, some of which has been immortalized in the slideshow music video In The Doghouse.
While the legal dispute with the Blue Jays remains unresolved, the team continued to explore revenue generating alternatives to supplement their continued release of songs full of “charm, humour and uncomfortably painful truths” through buying the naming rights to Phil Elverum’s Band Naming Service, releasing an album inside bars of soap and launching a micro-festival birds.
Despite all these efforts, Blimp Rock’s funding total currently sits at $-2388. With seed funding about to dry up, the pressure to turn things around has never been higher. Where will the invisible hand lead them next? Driverless blimps? Blimpcoin? Time will tell. In the meantime one thing is certain: Blimp Rock has nowhere to go but up.
Sincerely
Owen Nowlan
Chief Executive Officer
Blimp Rock Enterprises