Beck discusses 'Song Reader' in LA

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LOS ANGELES, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- Rock artist Beck made a rare public appearance in Los Angeles to talk about his sheet music project "Song Reader" and answer audience questions.

The Thursday night event at Sonos Studio creative space was in celebration of "Song Reader" -- a book of 20 songs on sheet music published without any accompanying recordings, released on Dec. 11, The Hollywood Reported said.

Beck said he had no preconceptions going into the project: "Yeah, I had no expectations. I thought at least it'd be a beautiful book to look at because of the design they put together... But I think the thing that's really interesting is I'll never know the things that people have done with these songs. We just know the ones the ones that are on YouTube or that people share..."

"Song Reader's" editor Jordan Bass added: "When we started this in 2004, 2005, I don't even think YouTube had been invented yet. So it would have been amazing if we could predict that but I don't think we had any idea that that kind of world was gonna grow up around the book as we were figuring it out. It was this lucky thing where we sort of stumbled into this audience who knew what to do with it."

Along with a question and answer segment, the night also featured performances of some of the songs from the book by other artist, including my Regan and a member of the band the End of America, who played "America Here's My Boy."

"I think this is a very timely project and it asks a lot of questions," Regan said. "To me, it's not just a album. It's a discussion to be had."

A hoard of fans were in attendance, along with members of the music industry and celebrities including Giovanni Ribisi, actor John C. Reilly, Kyle Gass from Tenacious D and Oscar nominee Anne Hathaway.