Can the public radio model work for bands?

[Leviethan]

Indeed.

[Leviethan]

Hit the $800 mark today!!

[Leviethan]

I've raised about $1000 now! Anybody who is interested can pre-order one copy of the CD at my website.

[surf's up]

If you're truly trying to emulate the public radio model, shouldn't you offer the album for free to those who choose not to make contributions?

I'm all for novel approaches to what is at times a frustrating business to be involved in (and I enjoyed the one song you posted), but I tend to agree with earlier respondents who think this is not an ideal way to go about funding a record.

Congratulations on having raised so much already, you obviously have some loyal supporters.

I especially agree with the poster who suggested you can make a record for so cheaply these days that its hard to imagine needing to spend too much unless the intentions of the project are explicitly commercial. I'm not sure what the breakdown of your projected expenditures are (something i'd like to see if you dont mind sharing), but if this is something youre doing for family and friends and your small cache of loyal fans, it seems like you could accomplish it for a lot less. i guess it all depends on what your goals are in terms of recording quality, aesthetics, artwork, etc.

I'm all for it if your personal artistic goals necessitate a certain budget, but I don't think that access to that budget should be pre-ordained via the kindness of strangers (nor non-strangers). You're a talented musician, you could make some extra cash playing coffee shops and other venues and find other ways to save up and generate capital for the album. If you don't break even or turn a profit, life goes on. If this is truly a labor of love you need to be able to bite that bullet. It just sort of makes my skin crawl to see an artist generate funds that way; it presupposes commercial non-viability and just sort of leaves a weird taste in my mouth.

Anyway it's a bold idea, hope you are able to fund it one way or another.

[Leviethan]

I had this same argument with someone else on another message board. Surf's Up, that's NOT the way public radio works at all. They give you "incentive gifts" for contributing money. They don't just give away CDs or laptops or whatever, why in the world would they do that? Why would I give away CDs to strangers for free, unless they are reviewing it, or trading something else to me? Do you give your time away to your boss? I'm also not interested in giving away CDs to goad people into buying useless merch like t-shirts or something. Merch is not valuable, music is, at least to me. People who think music should be free, but are willing to shell out $20 at the drop of a hat for a t-shirt blow my mind. It's a really immature and soulless way of thinking. I can't believe so many people would rather other people knowing that they like some band than actually give that band 10 dollars for the CD they've labored over for months on end. Mind boggling. I don't mean you specifically, Surf's Up. I've just heard this argument before. "Why don't you make shirts and give away CDs to sell the shirts?" Uh... no thanks.

I don't consider thousands of dollars to be cheap. Indeed, you can make a record, mastering yourself and put it on a chincy CDR with a hand drawn cover. That's fine for people just starting out. It's a cheap way to get your music out there. No offense to people who do this (I've done it too), but now I take my recordings a little more seriously. If I had my way, this would be a campaign to release the album only on vinyl with download coupons. Unfortunately, CDs are still the ubiquitous format that everyone can deal with. Enough people aren't going to shell out for vinyl. If I raise enough, I will make LPs, too.

I did make my last album for about $1300 including mastering. I only made 500 bulk CDs and had little LP style covers printed locally. This time I'm making 1000, so I have copies to promote with, and I'll need cash to commission that promotion. There is a full cost breakdown here http://www.leviethancecil.com/proposal.html The numbers are of course, flexible. To just make the CD and send investors their copies, I'll need at least $2000. To promote it, and be able to license the photo I want to use for the cover, I'll need probably $1500 more than that. Not too much dough in the grand scheme of things. Even in this economy (insert "woe is me" sigh here). If I get close to the goal, of course I'll kick in the remainder. I'm pretty confident I'll raise all the money I need from friends, family and fans. I don't expect strangers to help me at all, I just want strangers to know that this can be done. It's a really fun experiment.

I am indeed going to be playing some fundraising events/shows in the coming weeks. Any money I make from selling the last CD is going into this, too. Again the point is not to have my friends and family to foot my bill so I can avoid debt. That certainly part of it. The point of this campaign is to enlist people in the actual creation and distribution of art, instead of passively consuming it after the fact. So many people have said that they love my last album, and that everyone they play it for loves it too. That led me to believe that I should enlist all these people in getting the next CD out there. I'm asking people to put their money where their mouth is. Actually support art instead of just paying it lip service. I'd rather start a community effort of support for art and music, than to desperately try to sell CDs to pay off debt. I live in a city that claims to be such a hotbed of creativity and artistic support, but most of that is idle chatter. I'm all about action.

Thank you for your thoughtful post, and your kind words. I'm really interested in keeping a debate about this going. We need to change the way we look at music and art in general in this country. We've allowed it to become a meaningless throwaway commodity like soda pop. It's so much more important than that!

[Leviethan]

I forgot to answer your question. My goals are: first to see if it will work. It is working. Second, indeed to have a document of my work for my family, friends and fans. Third, yes it's commercial. I want to get the music out there to a wider audience. I can't do that without some kind of promotion. Hopefully this campaign will be part of that. People seem to like the music, so why not?

And in relation to your last point, would me going into debt to make CDs all of a sudden give it commercial viabilty? No, I'd just have a box of debt in my closet. Just because it exists doesn't mean it will sell. There are 1000s of CDs by millions of bands coming out every week, and most people just steal all their music anyway. You could release Pet Sounds with a twist of Ziggy Stardust and dash of Thriller right now, and nobody would care unless Pitchfork was salivating all over it. People buy what they're told to like nowadays because there's a massive over-saturation of mediocre music out there, thanks to Pro Tools and the internet (a whole different debate). Mix that with people's sense of entitlement that everything should be free, and you've got a real mess. What the hell are we supposed to do? I've seen a lot of real, vital music getting lost and ignored in the wake of all this crap over the last ten years. I don't want to submit to it anymore. I'd rather get people involved than blindly charge on the same way, over and over again, to no avail.

[Leviethan]

God, that would be am awful record wouldn't it? Brian Wilson meets David Bowie for a party at Michael's house? Scary!

[;ivlunsdystf]

God, that would be am awful record wouldn't it? Brian Wilson meets David Bowie for a party at Michael's house? Scary!

You are referring to every Animal Collective album?

[surf's up]

I had this same argument with someone else on another message board. Surf's Up, that's NOT the way public radio works at all. They give you "incentive gifts" for contributing money. They don't just give away CDs or laptops or whatever, why in the world would they do that?

I think the thing is that with public radio, the incentive gifts are just fluff for most people. They can be a nice little token, or even a way to be conspicuous about your patronage. But the real benefit and reason that people are paying that money is for the continuation of quality programming. Which is something that all the non-contributing "moochers" will get to enjoy even if they dont pitch-in a dime.

One possible analog to that would be the example you cited, of giving away music freely while relying on merchandise purchases at inflated prices. To me, that more closely mimics the public radio model. Attempting to translate what you are doing to the public radio model, one could say that your music (the CDs) are the incentive gift, and the core product is...i dont know....your solvency?

I guess I just think what you intend to do differs from public radio in that key way. Not necessarily a bad thing, but something to consider I suppose.

I did make my last album for about $1300 including mastering. I only made 500 bulk CDs and had little LP style covers printed locally. This time I'm making 1000, so I have copies to promote with, and I'll need cash to commission that promotion. There is a full cost breakdown here http://www.leviethancecil.com/proposal.html The numbers are of course, flexible. To just make the CD and send investors their copies, I'll need at least $2000. To promote it, and be able to license the photo I want to use for the cover, I'll need probably $1500 more than that. Not too much dough in the grand scheme of things. Even in this economy (insert "woe is me" sigh here). If I get close to the goal, of course I'll kick in the remainder. I'm pretty confident I'll raise all the money I need from friends, family and fans. I don't expect strangers to help me at all, I just want strangers to know that this can be done. It's a really fun experiment.

Sounds like you have a pretty good fiscal plan going. I think that's probably encouraging to potential contributors.

The point of this campaign is to enlist people in the actual creation and distribution of art, instead of passively consuming it after the fact.

That's kind of a cool idea. At least there is something sincere about that endeavor. I don't know that the average person cares enough about other people's art to want to do that but it's nice to think they might.

Thank you for your thoughtful post, and your kind words. I'm really interested in keeping a debate about this going. We need to change the way we look at music and art in general in this country. We've allowed it to become a meaningless throwaway commodity like soda pop. It's so much more important than that!

I definitely agree there. The way that music makes money for musicians and artists is clearly going through a metamorphosis (kind of like the weird crossroads that newspapers are at), and I'm all for exploring new methods to sustain a productive and innovative artistic community.

I don't think public fundraising is ever going to be a practical solution though. You are probably fortunate that you are one of the few if not the only artist in your community doing something like this. Just imagine if a dozen or twenty or thirty bands had something like this going on....the competition for those scarce dollars would intensify and let's face it who is going to win out? Those whose music is most appealing, has the strongest draw to consumers; the ones would could probably afford to go into debt or obtain private financing of their music because they would be likely to win it back.

The way I look at it, if youve got talent and the right approach you can probably manage to utilize this method to fund an album or two. But do you really want to devote your time to hawking your work like a salesman? It's something that has never made me comfortable, particularly when the advertised good in question is one as sensitive as a person's personal artwork. I would absolutely hate to ask a friend or family member for money to bankroll an artistic endeavor which they may or may not enjoy. That's just my view. If this is what works for you, more power to that.

[Leviethan]

I think the thing is that with public radio, the incentive gifts are just fluff for most people. They can be a nice little token, or even a way to be conspicuous about your patronage. But the real benefit and reason that people are paying that money is for the continuation of quality programming. Which is something that all the non-contributing "moochers" will get to enjoy even if they dont pitch-in a dime.

Oh I see what you mean. I think giving away an MP3 or two serves this purpose. People can have songs whether they contribute or not. I'm fine with that, it's promotion.

One possible analog to that would be the example you cited, of giving away music freely while relying on merchandise purchases at inflated prices. To me, that more closely mimics the public radio model. Attempting to translate what you are doing to the public radio model, one could say that your music (the CDs) are the incentive gift, and the core product is...i dont know....your solvency?

I think what I'm trying to go for is the idea that there isn't a "core product" as you say. The CDs or records themselves are technically products, but the music itself is what's important. The sharing of communication. It's not about me being solvent, either. I am solvent. I could easily put this on a credit card, and probably pay it off in a few of months. But I want to try something new. I want to see if people will really engage with something like this, not just buy a CD after the fact and forget about it. It's not about the money, and it's only partly about the CD.

That's kind of a cool idea. At least there is something sincere about that endeavor. I don't know that the average person cares enough about other people's art to want to do that but it's nice to think they might.

Of course. I just want to do my best to try to get people to start thinking about music for what it really is; sharing and communication. It's not just something that you consume. Since music has become something that is just a commodity, people have no problem stealing it, or file sharing it. It's meaningless. There's no thought to the people behind the content. TV and the internet have totally separated us from each other, at least in this regard. Everything is to be consumed and should be as cheap or free as possible. Nothing means anything. I'd like to do my small part to change that, or at least call attention to it where independent art is concerned.

I don't think public fundraising is ever going to be a practical solution though. You are probably fortunate that you are one of the few if not the only artist in your community doing something like this. Just imagine if a dozen or twenty or thirty bands had something like this going on....the competition for those scarce dollars would intensify and let's face it who is going to win out? Those whose music is most appealing, has the strongest draw to consumers; the ones would could probably afford to go into debt or obtain private financing of their music because they would be likely to win it back.

[/quote]

You're absolutely right. I've thought about this. The one advantage I have though, is that most bands are totally lazy. I don't think most bands would feel comfortable doing something like this, or have the work ethic to see it through. Wouldn't bands with the strongest draw to consumers attract investments from people who are interested in commodifiying music? Isn't that how it's always worked? Why would commercially viable bands even have to do something like this? But again, I'm not as interested in the commerce side of this experiment. Of course I would love to get picked up by a label, and have the right people pushing it to the right people so I could sell a lot of records and get my music into movies and make a bunch of money. Who wouldn't love that? But should I sit and wait around for that to happen? I'd rather engage my community in helping me to spread my art than try to pursue a path that is only open to a very select few. It's like sitting and waiting to win the lottery instead of going to work in the morning.

The way I look at it, if youve got talent and the right approach you can probably manage to utilize this method to fund an album or two. But do you really want to devote your time to hawking your work like a salesman? It's something that has never made me comfortable, particularly when the advertised good in question is one as sensitive as a person's personal artwork. I would absolutely hate to ask a friend or family member for money to bankroll an artistic endeavor which they may or may not enjoy. That's just my view. If this is what works for you, more power to that.

So you're saying it would be more pure if I just made the CD and then hawked it to people after the fact? What is the difference there? Personally, I feel really uncomfortable trying to sell people CDs at shows. I'm not a salesman, I don't like hawking stuff to people, even if it's my art. This isn't a sales pitch. I'm trying to engage people to be patrons, and get involved in supporting something they believe in. I'm not selling them anything. There isn't even a "product" yet. If people don't enjoy the music, they shouldn't give me money. If they don't like it after it's done, I'll give them their money back. I'm only planning on doing one CD like this, I don't really see this as a sustainable business model. By the time I make my next record, I don't think CDs will exist anymore. At least I hope not.

[;ivlunsdystf]

If you're calling your contributors 'investors', and you are confident that your album will appeal to many people beyond your initial 'investors,' how about giving the contributors a piece of the action? What I mean is, if you have 100 people who each contributed $10 and then you kicked in $1000, say, then you should get to keep 1/2 the profits and the other 1/2 of the profits should be distributed 100 ways among those 100 'investors'. That's not how public radio does it (duh) nor do I mean to criticize you for not doing it this way, I am just asking so we can examine this general question in a new and different way.

[Leviethan]

Yeah, maybe investor is not the right word. I think patron would probably be more accurate. Although, the concept is that people are "investing" in the music, not so they can make a profit like traditional investors. They're doing it only if they believe in it. $10-20 isn't really a traditional investment either. It's a drop in the bucket.

If I did sell all the CDs and make a profit, I could surely send back everyone's money at the end. Then everybody wins. Not a bad idea. First I have to sell a ton of CDs...

[Leviethan]

Hey,

I'm almost to $2000 on my CD campaign. It's been slow, but it has worked. I'm pretty stoked!

[;ivlunsdystf]

rad

[firby]

One quick thing. Don't let all of the wanks on the net or whatever get you down. There are serious buzzkills out there recording cover songs in their basements that will talk alot of shit. Seriously. Try to weed the valid criticism from the rafts of internet hate.