My takeaway from the Coachella and RSD has been to fixate on Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Meat Beat Manifesto. At the edge of my conscious thought there’s a loop of “Acid Again” and “Heads Will Roll” beyond my control. On top of that, another topic, is the big thumping In Silico by Pendulum I enjoyed while smashing cop cars and other public property in Need For Speed: Undercover. I don’t mean to drop names here, but it’s becoming clear that good music is not dead. For a while I thought all creativity had dried out, though it was there all along in some other business model. Forget physical retail stores at this point – when I visited Best Buy today it wasn’t easy to find the single surviving row of CDs after rezoning for vast tracts of iPhone accessories. Out in the wild, in the unwashed back woods of the music scene, there are a lot of innovative, talented and well-produced projects funded in the spirit of democratic venture capital.

Over the past few months I have randomly stumbled upon projects listed on PledgeMusic.com. They were in no way promoted or plastered on big ad campaigns. I just accidentally found out about bands I didn’t realize were working on projects and out of devotion I immediately acted on an urge to give them a nudge of support. The way PledgeMusic works is and artist signs up, promising to release some kind of album in the near future, and the fans sign up to pledge some funds in trade for access to behind-the-scenes updates and eventually the mp3 downloads and even extra swag unique to the artist. That ranges from a signed copy of the CD all the way up to a private karaoke party or even the artist’s gently used sporty automobile (UK delivery only). Whatever it takes the artists are offering unique and meaningful souvenirs in trade for support in getting their tracks laid down and in getting a touring band together to hit the road.

Marnie Parting With Her Mini For Money To Make Music

This year so far I have participated in three PledgeMusic projects: Esthero, Marnie, and Juliana Hatfield. When I saw their names listed I automatically wanted to hear about their new work but I also wanted to show my encouragement and support to get the project rolling. I fully support the freedom to work on a project outside of a smothering record contract but I am thrilled to watch up close and add my comments of the discussions that I get a sense of the excitement for the project to come together. In every case I offer up a ‘Thank you’ for sharing their gift of expression. Financially it doesn’t seem they were desperate, with Juliana Hatfield’s project reaching 100% within a couple of days, it seems what she really needed was encouragement to go ahead with the project. The thought occurred I was making these pledges out of charity for hopeless dreamers, but the realm of producing and releasing good music is more accessible than ever, and it doesn’t take a great mass market to find a fan base. Even a ballsy group like Macklemore & Lewis can entirely self-promote and get national attention. It’s a lot more rewarding to seek and and get involved in getting projects off the ground.