Welcome to Abbey Road Live!

Abbey Road Live is more or less a continuation of DiscLive, the pioneer in the market of live discs and media offered to fans immediately after a concert, and Live Here Now, DiscLive's UK/European counterpart. As such, it's important that you learn a little of not only Abbey Road Live's history, but also DiscLive and Live Here Now. What you read about in these pages transipired over the course of two companies, but one primary core team on each continent; dedicated teams which continues to believe in the evolution of this unique and compelling service.

DiscLive
The original DiscLive concept was conceptualized by a student while in college in Wellesley, MA. Blanchard had been kicking around the idea of instant recording for years. Along with a fellow college student, they began discussing ways to make the concept a reality. In early 2003 they began purchasing and perfecting the first manufacturing facility.

Rich Isaacson, former president of Loud Records, and current president of Fuerte, joined the team upon financing, and shortly thereafter, Jerry Blair of Monarc Entertainment (also now of Fuerte) joined the Board of Advisors.

In the Spring of 2003, DiscLive became a reality, performing its innovative new service at three shows in Manhattan. The launch was a success - the fans couldn't have been more pleased with the product and the company garnered press coverage from MTV News to the NY Post. Commercial implementation began just shortly after, with DiscLive's debut show with Jefferson Starship in Niagara Falls. Two more shows with the rock legends ensued, and then DiscLive was on the road with The Machine, America's premier Pink Floyd cover band, Billy Idol and perhaps America's greatest rock band, The Doors of the 21st Century.

The breakthrough concert that put DiscLive on the map was this legendary band's performance at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles on New Years' Eve, 2003. This individually numbered, limited edition sold out almost immediately and after-market sets on e-bay have sold for several hundred dollars.

After several successful ventures, DiscLive received a further financial commitment from its investors and began production of a bigger, better manufacturing facility allowing DiscLive to make over 1000 CDs in just twenty minutes.

In the spring of 2004, two big breaks came DiscLive's way. In March, DiscLive worked with EMI/Sparrow recording artists, The Newsboys, marking the first time DiscLive CDs were available for an artist signed to a major label. It also marked the first trip into arenas, including the 20,000 seat XCEL Center in Minneapolis. In April, DiscLive was on board for The Pixies 15 show reunion tour, anticipated and demanded during the 12 years of the band's hibernation. Beginning in a small club in Minneapolis and ending as the band headlined the main stage at the legendary Coachella Festival in Southern California, all of the collectable, individually numbered DigiPac sets sold out, almost as soon as they became available. The company was the first "instant" live media company to be recognized in Billboard for selling $500,000 worth of product in less than three weeks time.

The New York Times, MTV News, USA Today and other national press have proclaimed the DiscLive product, "The Best New Music Souvenir".

At the same time, another very significant boost came when Immediatek, Inc., a publicly traded company focused on digital, secure music distribution purchased DiscLive, bringing in additional investment and new innovation to the company.

The Patent
Shortly after acquiring DiscLive, the company received a letter from Clear Channel Entertainment stating that they had acquired a patent and that they were offering to "license" their technology to DiscLive and Immediatek. Clear Channel's own subsidiary, Instant Live, was engaged in a similar business, and prior to the acquisition there had been some bad blood between executives of the respective companies.

The company immediately assembled a team of experts, including patent attorneys and digital media experts, and within a couple of months publicly stated that DiscLive's process did not, in fact, infringe upon Clear Channel's patent, and not only that, the team was able to identify no less than 14 instances of prior art that significantly neutered Clear Channel's argument. After presenting Clear Channel with this information, DiscLive never heard back from their attorneys, and went on to successfully record concerts in Clear Channel (now Live Nation) venues. Soon thereafter, Instant Live was dissolved, and in 2007, after much public outcry, the "bogus" patent was revoked altogether.

Changes and Additions
After experiencing some transition after the acquistion and all of the significant challenges involving the patent, DiscLive, in mid 2004, and went on to improve speed and quality, introducing digital offerings as well as "instant" DVDs, and full multitrack capability, and delivery to iPods. The company also spearheaded a relationship with Moving Records, recognized as having superior recording quality by Mix Magazine, and eventually acquired the company and another recording vehicle, which was combined with DiscLive technology to become the only vehicle of its kind.

In 2005, DiscLive rolled out the first "instant" live DVD, featuring funk legend George Clinton. The company delivered several hundred quality DVDs to fans within 40 minutes of the shows end. This apparently got the attention of Dallas billionaire Mark Cuban, who subsequently made an offer to buy the parent company, Immediatek, including DiscLive. During this time, DiscLive also forged partnerships with Billboard Magazine, AEG, Harry Fox, and others.

After almost a year of due diligence, the Cuban deal finally closed in 2006, but by this time DiscLive had lost much of the momentum it had gained in 2004-5, and Mr. Cuban's focus was on the public entity. After several opportunities that DiscLive was unable to pursue due to lack of funding (despite the sale), CEO Zach Bair left the company after a few months, and within a year, DiscLive would be shut down for good without Bair's vision to guide it.

RockHouse Live Media Productions
Bair for a short time took a much-needed hiatus from being the head of a publicly traded company. However, with his interest now being more focused on recording technology than the lawyers and accountants that comes with being public, he continued to look for new and innovative ways to use technology to roll out "instant media." Together with team members - many of the same core experts who were involved with DiscLive - a plan slowly started to come about to eventually relaunch the concept under a different flag, with new technology, and new product offerings.

Just over two years after the demise of DiscLive, RockHouse Live Media Productions was born, bubbling above the radar for the first time with its first major production, Melissa Etheridge's The Awakening: Live, a DVD that eventually aired as a TV special on several networks, including a few of MTV's channels.

In the fall of 2009, the RockHouse/DiscLive team joined forces with Live Here Now to form Abbey Road Live. Our team has revamped and streamlined what we have learned from the old DiscLive business model, and now includes new and even more exciting options which more accurately reflect today's challenging economy while still preserving the integrity of the originaly value proposition: the ability to provide artists and labels with found revenue with little or no upfront investment.