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Isto posts his youtube videos on three separate youtube accounts:
istothehalfabee (his original account, where he
posts original songs)
lumberjackisto (his second account, created
when he had to remove his arrangements of other people’s songs from his
original account)
istolive (his account for posting live
videos)
A Brief History of Isto on Youtube:
Isto first started posting videos to youtube during the Summer of 2006. He posted many original
songs, and many standards. In 2007, the video of his “The Banana Song” was
featured on Youtube’s home page. This led to many
thousands of hits for that song and others. For a couple days, emails were
flowing in at a rate of a thousand a day. By 2009, the total hits for all his videos on youtube
was approaching 3,000,000. By that point, his “Banana Song” had been
watched about 750,000 times, and his versions of “Over the Rainbow,” and
“What a Wonderful World” were around 200,000. A few other videos of his
were around 100,000. It was an exciting new world in which fame, fortune
and glory had at last arrived and were here to stay. Or so it seemed.
In the Fall of 2009, Isto had to remove his
covers from his youtube page, or risk having all
his youtube videos deleted by music publishers.
It was sad to see all the hits on his arrangements of jazz standards
disappear. The one remaining video that showed any evidence of his once
rampant youtube stardom was “The Banana Song,”
which was never really representative of the sorts of things he usually
posted to youtube.
At this point, Isto began posting his old videos to a new youtube account: lumberjackisto.
He also started a third account, istolive, for
posting videos from his shows. It was a slow process, but Isto’s old audience gradually started to discover his
new pages. However, it seemed he would never again know the sort of fame
that had once been his. But there was always hope.
Then, one day, Isto was playing through his new arrangement of Irving
Berlin’s “Be Careful, It’s My Heart,” in the music
room of his apartment. He happened to be filming himself. Just as he
reached the climax of the instrumental segment of his performance, he heard
a rumbling from overhead. He stopped playing and looked up in confusion.
What were they doing upstairs? And then… more noise. This time from the
living room! “What is going on here?” Isto
thought to himself. He got up to investigate. It turned out that there was
an earthquake. How exciting! It was a shame that it had to ruin a perfectly
good take though. Or did it?
Isto quickly realized that this was
a video that his friends online might be interested in. He posted it, and
it went slightly viral - 150,000 hits within a day. It didn’t acquire
nearly the number of hits of a “The Banana Song,” nor did it get him very
many new followers. And, actually, the comments posted below the video were
mostly mean-spirited rather than appreciative. But it was something. A
minor triumph. And this time, Isto was wise
enough to know how to take it.
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