Iconic rock group The Allman Brothers Band, in partnership with NFT platform Proof of Art (PoA) and MINT Talent Group’s NFT gallery MINT Studios, is set to release the first of a three-piece NFT (non-fungible token) series & collection entitled Story of the Peach, leading up to the 50th Anniversary celebration of the band’s 1972 platinum album Eat A Peach. Designed by world-renowned artist Chris Consani and brought to life by animator Noah Levinson (aka thippy trings), the series tells a colorful interpretation & fantastical narrative based on the original artwork found in the sleeve of the Eat A Peach vinyl record.
The NFT series & collection will first be debuted on Friday, September 17th, at the Global Blockchain Business Council’s (GBBC) Blockchain Central event hosted alongside the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York City. The featured animated NFT titled Peach Birth will be listed for auction on poa-studios.com during the event through Monday, September 27th, alongside exclusive Allman Brothers Band NFT rare collectibles. The winning bidder of the NFT will receive a pair of lifetime VIP festival passes to the the Allman Brothers Band's Peach Music Festival in Scranton, PA, a guided tour to the group’s Big House Museum in Macon, GA, which will include a personally-engraved granite brick that will live at the museum indefinitely, in addition to an airdrop of 500 Golden Cap Mushroom Tokens which will serve as access to future fan-club NFT drops exclusive to token owners. The second and third installments of the series will drop later this year and early 2022. The Allman Brothers Band will be donating a portion of proceeds to the Big House Foundation and its affiliate charities. Allman Brothers Band founding member Jaimoe proclaims, “We are honored to partner with MINT Studios to debut our Story of the Peach NFT at GBBC’s Blockchain Central UNGA event and raise awareness for the United Nation’s Standard Development Goals (SDG’s). The Allman Brothers Band and our Big House Foundation specifically promotes SDG #4, ensuring an inclusive and equitable quality education and to promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”
The focus of the GBBC’s Blockchain Central UNGA is to bring together leading voices in technology, business and beyond to discuss the role of technology and community in accelerating progress toward the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which provide a blueprint for global peace and prosperity. “Eat A Peach projected a message for peace, unity & equality,” says MINT Talent Group’s Jesse Rosoff, “These timeless and universal themes are just as relevant and needed today as they were in 1972 in the South. We’re ecstatic for Eat A Peach to continue it’s narrative and contribute to this year’s conversations at the GBBC’s Blockchain Central UNGA.”
PoA is committed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, in particular Goals #8 Decent Work and Economic Growth, #10 Reduced Inequalities, and #12 Responsible Production and Consumption. To that end, PoA helps artists, creators, and social impact groups grow their communities, market and fundraise, and connect with brands through use of environmentally-friendly tokens and NFTs. PoA uses Palm, a layer 2 blockchain protocol, which is 99% more efficient than the most-frequently-used NFT protocols with an almost 0% carbon footprint. NFTs are maintained on Filecoin’s NFT.Storage solution. “We are thankful to launch our platform with the innovative team at MINT Talent Group and their inimitable client The Allman Brothers Band. We applaud their support of the UN’s SDGs and look forward to supporting their artists,” said PoA Co-founders Sandra Ro and Heidi Pease.
“PoA checks all the boxes for what MINT was looking for in a partner in the NFT space” says Jesse Rivelis of MINT Talent Group. “They have developed an easy-to-use platform that will help cater to the non-blockchain crowd. Purchases can be made with major credit cards. Purchased assets can be stored on PoA’s website as well. They’re using eco-conscious tech to solve the energy issues at bay and they even cover the gas fees the customer is typically responsible for paying for.”
The artist of this series and life-long fan of the Allman Brothers Band, Chris Consani, shares inspiration behind the artwork. “At age 17, I would sketch different versions of the Eat A Peach album cover toying around with the sarcasm and humor it did so well - It reminded me of those funny vintage postcards that would say something like ‘The World’s Largest Grain Elevator Shaft.’ I’d create my own narrative of what I thought could match that level of humor. I would draw the peach being split open to discover the band throwing a concert inside of it. From a literal point of view, I could never get over the idea of ‘How the heck did this giant peach get on this truck?’ and that’s the narrative that Peach Birth conveys. The two unreleased pieces in the 3-part series, Pit Stop & Home Peach Home, are an ode to the original sleeve artwork of Eat A Peach by artists W. David Powell and J.F. Holmes at Wonder Graphics. They created a magical world reminiscent of The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch with mountains, fairies & rivers reaching into the far distance, and in the foreground was the giant peach on the truck embarking on their adventures which always sparked the questions ‘Where did the peach and the truck go along their journey and where did they end up?” He continues, “I wanted to give a deeper insight and vision of the storyline in this album, while also utilizing the unique ownership capabilities fans like myself can have with NFT’s.”
More about the artist: Chris Consani has designed some of the best loved characters in today’s films — contributing to over two billion dollars in world-wide box office dollars with movies such as: Alvin and the Chipmunk series, Night at the Museum, Hop, Superman Returns, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, and many others. Along with working in film, he is designer for numerous video games, theme parks, traditional paintings for print ads, movie posters, books and album covers for a diverse set of clients. Chris is well known for his widely published series of posters called Hidden Truths
More about Big House Foundation:
The primary mission of the Big House Foundation is to preserve and promote the rich musical heritage and inclusive diverse culture of the Allman Brothers Band through programs revolving around education and exhibition. Founded in 1969, the Allman Brothers Band created a new genre of American music, which was an amalgamation of blues, R&B, country and jazz unlike anything heard before – or since. The band was not only a groundbreaking force in music, however; they also were, in their own way, a component of the Civil Rights Movement in the Deep South of the late-60s. Composed of five white hippies and one African American, the Allman Brothers Band made quite a social impact in their home base of Macon GA. Music is color blind, and the members of the group did not see skin color; they only cared what was being played, not who was playing it. Combined with their family-based lifestyle at the “Big House,” the band’s communal hub in Macon (and the current home of the Allman Brothers Band Museum), the Allman Brothers Band spread a message of peace, love and acceptance. That message is the core of the Big House Foundation’s objectives; music programs for schools that are sorely lacking in funding for the arts have been created, and workshops and lectures on civil rights and equality through music have been presented to students of all ages throughout the world.
The Allman Brothers Band formed in 1969 and quickly became one of America’s most popular rock groups. They are members of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, have won the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award are named at #52 in Rolling Stone magazine’s “100 Greatest Artist of All Time.” The Eat A Peach album, released in 1972, features a mix of live and studio performances and was an immediate success, reaching #4 on the Billboard chart. Rolling Stone’s review of the album said, “And typically, the whole band merges into one organism, one master musician with 30 fingers and six instruments to play on…The Allman Brothers are still the best goddamned band in the land…I hope the band keeps playing forever — how many groups can you think of who really make you believe they’re playing for the joy of it?” (Tony Glover, 4/13/1972)
