Adam Werner - Solo Acoustic Guitar & Harp Guitar
Adam Werner ~ Progressive Fingerstyle Guitar
Adam Werner is a solo acoustic guitarist with an interest in unconventional techniques, styles and applications to fingerstyle guitar playing. He has an impressive musical background of experience and education. Adam continues to move forward and grow as an accomplished musician and artist. Indigenous to California, Adam grew up with rock guitar legends, such as: Randy Rhoads, Steve Vai and Joe Satriani, among many others. Adam started his first rock band, IMAGINE, in the early 1990's and gained much respect as an innovative and progressive musician who incorporated odd meters, unorthodox key changes and intricate instrumentation with compositions that pushed the boundaries of rock music. He soon found the desire to explore the acoustic guitar when introduced to Windham Hill and its artists, such as: William Ackerman and Michael Hedges. Soon after, Adam decided this was the direction he was destined to go.
Adam Werner’s debut label release, "Signatures,"has become a new addition to solo acoustic guitar. This album is a culmination of emotionally intense compositions with technically exceptional playing and profound musical energy. Merging the traditions of finger-style techniques with provocative percussive elements adds an extra flavor to this music. A touch of electric bass, masterfully created by Kentaro Otsuka, is featured on this album.
Adam’s extensive performance schedule, as a solo artist, as well as with Chris Yeaton and the Woodsong Acoustics Group, has exposed many people to his wonderful guitar styles throughout the Mid-Western United States and the Hawaiian Islands. He has performed with such people as Alex de Grassi, Michael Manring, William Coulter, Ben Verdery, Hawaiian Slack-Key Master John Keawe and Antonio Calogero, among others.
Adam is the founder/president of a new record label, New Land Music, which is the first artist-friendly record label and has released its first Acoustic Guitar Compilation album, "Woodsongs," as well as Adam's newest CD, “Signatures.”
Adam will be seen in venues throughout the United States and Japan. For more information about Adam, his projects, releases and tour schedules, please join the email list and sign the guest book! Our policy is NOT to spam. You will only get information that pertains to Adam and this website.
New Land Music - Adam Werner - Founder/President
New Land Music TM
Philosophy
New Land Music is an independent record label that is embracing the Internet and digital-world media.
In an industry, which has been infamous for its unethical treatment of artists, New Land Music plans to be different. Now, with New Land Music’s Artist Ownership/Incentive Plan, artists will have real ownership interest in their record label, and will share in its profits.
Will Ackerman, creator of Windham Hill Records, Grammy award winning recording artist, and gold and platinum record producer, has joined with musician Adam Werner (founder) and Kelvyn Evans (musician and entrepreneur) to create a revolutionary vehicle for the discovery, development, and promotion of artists that will offer a diverse range of musical genres as an alternative to the bland dictates of the music industry at large.
“Our mantra is ‘Artist Ownership and Profit Sharing… Because It’s Your Music,’ and these elements are just a couple of the ideas that we are focusing on to pioneer tangible positive change for Artists everywhere. New Land Music is not a New Age Windham Hill label. It is, as the name suggests, a unique venture to create a radically new platform for music of various genres. It is our vision to create a compelling alternative to the monopolization and homogenization of the music industry.” --- Adam Werner
New Land Music is leveraging Will Ackerman’s many successes and industry credibility to provide an impetus to propel its new artists into the mainstream. New Land Music will initially offer the best of emerging artists as well as veteran artists of various genres such as New Age, Electronica, World Music, Singer/Songwriter, Interpretive Classical, New Grass and Rock/Pop.
“When I was about 12 years old I saw The Hunchback of Notre Dame on TV. It made a hell of an impression. In my memory of the film, there is a scene in which heads are being lopped off at the guillotine and rolling into a wicker basket to the cheers of the crowd. Even as a kid I was perverse enough to wonder whether there wasn’t just enough oxygen and blood in the brain and ocular nerve so that the last thing those severed heads saw was the sunlight glinting through the wicker weaving. This is pretty much where I think the established record industry is today: There’s just enough blood and oxygen still present to give the illusion of life, but the lights are about to go out.” --- Will Ackerman
The fate of the major record labels reads like yet another medical experiment where testosterone runs amok. We watched over a quarter of a century as the independent record labels in the world were gobbled up by a decreasing number of ravenous big fish until there were only three bloated fish left in the pond. The argument for this was “market share,” or “mine’s the biggest.” Never mind that the distribution arms of these megaliths couldn’t possibly give attention to more than a small percentage of the vast number of releases they were saddled with in the process (thereby relegating a lot of good music to nearly certain oblivion). Never mind that the average retail store couldn’t physically stock more than a relative handful of the truckloads of CDs these behemoths are cranking out annually unless those retailers built stores the size of football stadiums.
Then there’s radio. In effect there is one company that has somehow managed to take all of the common sense out of anti trust laws and basically gain a monopoly in this media on a scale that would stun legislators who thought in the 1920s that they’d put an end to this sort of thing. What stations that company doesn’t own are nearly all centrally programmed by great seers who have managed to make nearly every radio station sound just exactly like the other one. For the most part, this has been again an era of huge centralized corporate control and homogenization; not much of a medium for a culture of creativity and art.
For the brick and mortar stores and stations that still cherish offering an alternative to the dictates of a homogenized industry, we thank you for keeping your finger in the dyke.
Out of the ashes of all of this rises the Phoenix, the Internet, This entity which reinvents itself every few months, like a microbe mutating to shrug off man’s latest antibiotic, is in constant motion and redefinition, but it’s clear that this is where the world is heading, our music with it.
The beauty of the Internet is its’ wonderful escape from the dominance of corporation in its democratization. Anyone can have a website; anyone can make their music available on the Internet. The flip side of the gift of this democratization is, well, the democratization. There’s a huge sea of music floating around out there, much of it wonderfully good, inventive and inspirational. But for the individual and emerging artist it is often a mysterious maze of new technology. We at New Land Music decided that the notion of strength in numbers is probably a viable strategy. To gather a group of artists together who can offer a range of musical styles while constantly looking to offer an alternative to the dictates of the industry and media at large. The plan is to earn the trust of record buyers by actually standing for something worthwhile. The plan is to gather these artists together so that together we can make a bigger noise and reach more people. The plan is to treat musicians as something more than cattle; to assist them with health care and childcare payments for example; to enable profit sharing and ownership in their own company as it grows.
“The New Land Music business model will encourage artist vision and will provide something they have never had…signing choices and perks to make everyday life less of a hassle, so that they may concentrate on their art, and each of our artists will have a dedicated project team recruited from an ever increasing veteran pool of disheartened-by-the-big-label-mentality experts. I am investing my time and money in New Land Music because I believe it is news-worthy and will help transform the industry to the good of musicians everywhere, and because it has the ingredients for success.” --- Kelvyn Evans
We believe this is really revolutionary thinking. If we are true to our word and create a remarkable community, which generates remarkable music we will, with the help of technology, be an attractive home for artists and reach a loyal and growing audience for the alternative we represent.
Our own radio station… not just devoted to our music, but opening doors to the music that inspired us and we think needs to be heard. We’ll create an interactive Internet presence that will actually care what our fans think and give them real access to musicians they care about. Beyond our label tours we’ll encourage house concerts and performances that unplug and put the musicians in the same room and on the same plane as those who support them. We actually believe that if the profits of this company are flowing to the musicians instead of going to international corporations, our listeners will support what we are doing and in turn will support those whose music touches their lives. And we’ll do our part, offering music and services for our fans that we’ll gratefully give.
”Years ago I created a record company called Windham Hill with the help of some brilliant and talented people. I’d pretty much given up on the notion of expansive ideas in the music business, but in the level playing field of the Internet, in the creation of a community of artists and in the establishment of enlightened business I am again a believer." --- Will Ackerman
A Will Ackerman perspective…
"The wheels have pretty much come off an industry I’ve worked in for over three decades and much of the landscape is unrecognizable at this point. The vast majority of music is in the hands of a few mega corporations who have become so bloated and unwieldy that much of what they release will never be given the resources necessary to have them be heard at all. Radio is homogenized to the point of numbing sameness. It’s clear that the Internet is the wave of the future, but few companies are showing any real innovation in the creative use of this medium. In the meantime, artists are struggling to be heard in a vast and undifferentiated sea of new music.
At NEW LAND we believe that a carefully picked roster of musicians who together represent a wide but cohesive segment of the music spectrum will be a stronger presence than those musicians would represent individually. Call it strength in numbers. Whatever changes take place in the format of music’s distribution some things will never change and a record label that can consistently offer new music which offers intelligent and meaningful alternatives to the music marketplace can and will prosper.
NEW LAND will be an oasis for musicians seeking unparalleled fairness. Our efforts via the Internet will create an interactive access that will be a hallmark of our presence. We will create a community, not just a label and that community will be a wellspring of musical alternatives, which can and will foster a loyalty from music buyers who will return to NEW LAND again and again. NEW LAND will actually stand for something beyond sheer commerce and will emerge as visible and distinctive in the world of the Internet."
Will Ackerman
Windham County, Vermont