Paul Schomer

Well, I’ve made it Radio Crowdfund #22 — a long fire road plowed through the wilderness. New this week is a PledgeMusic campaign review: secret goal but they can tell you how close they are…

Guess something has to be said about iTunes radio and that something is that it makes entities like crowdfunding platforms and Radio Crowdfund even more important to the survival of new, independent music. Streaming services are great, don’t get me wrong. But they are not the be all and end all and a side effect is the further separation of artist and audience. My hope is that crowdfunding and RC will fill in that widening gap.

Thanks to all the artists in advance for letting me use photos and allowing me to link directly to your wonderful, original music. Let me know if credit is due for photos.

On to campaign updates…

DRUM ROLL, PLEASE…
> MARK SCHWABER: As of publication, he’s just $144 short of his $2500 goal, so in my book, that’s a gimme.
> KEVIN CALABA: And one for Kevin, too, as he’ll easily hit $20K in the 60+ hours left. Great work!

ANYONE? BUELLER?
> THE NEWMAN BROTHERS: Up a couple hunj to $1045 with 32 days to make it to $5K.
> DOE EYE: She’s up $1800 in a week to $6K, but only 2 weeks left to hit $15K, so the pace needs to quicken.
> SASHA BELL: Still almost $900 shy, but great progress. Goal is $8K, 8 days.
> TAPE DECK MOUNTAIN: Refusing to budge from $605. Needs $3400 in the next two days.
> OLIN & THE MOON: Another stubborn stall. $2K of a $20K goal. 17 days.
> JOSH NETSKY: He’s got two days to add $900 and make his $2K goal.

CROWDFUNDED CREATIONS
The new section! This is where the crowdfunded cookies come out of the new music oven.

Pale Cowboy from Northampton, MA, raised a bit over $3200 in 30 days ending in early March to cover Nashville mastering of their Shelter EP and some merchandising costs. The EP was released last Friday!

Here’s one of the bouncier numbers, Don’t Wanna Discuss — the other four tracks are available on Bandcamp.

NEW MUSIC IN THE MAKING

LANGUAGE ROOM (Austin, TX)
$??? (42%) pledged of a $??? goal / 13 days to go
This is my kind of crew: together for 7 years and this is their THIRD crowdfunding campaign! All the way back in 2009, Kickstarter’s launch year, Language Room raised $10K to buy a used RV for touring and was crowned the first Austin-based act to complete a successful Kickstarter campaign. They followed up by raising over $5K on Kickstarter in the fall of 2011 for their EP Skin & Heart & Lungs, released in January 2012.

They have moved on — up? — to PledgeMusic, so who knows how much they are shooting for this time, but I forgive them the secrecy. The sound is on the pumped up pop side of indie rock, an elevated platform for the clear purpose of Todd Sapio’s lead vocal. Let the chorus hit on the band’s most popular track, Open Air (All I Ever Got From Love) and you’ll hear what I’m talking about — great rhythmic balance, nice punch.

For a gentler side, switch over to YouTube for I Won’t Let You Down (Acoustic), link below, really exposes and strips down the rush with quick shots of vocal harmony that can get lost in the bigger studio sound.

- Language Room on PledgeMusic
– I Won’t Let You Down (Acoustic) on YouTube

GRAND LAKE ISLANDS (Portland, OR)
$490 pledged of a $3500 goal /  26 days to go
This is some very spare stuff — clean and lean, searching. Recorded in Brooklyn and transported across the country earlier in the spring, three EP tracks by singer/songwriter Erik Emanuelson have traveled well, you can just tell by listening. Makes you wish he brought along the band he worked with back east to Portland.

Erik is on Kickstarter crowdfunding the full production of the EP, Wake of Waking, and is looking to finance a video directed by Ellis Bahl (Alt J) and take his new collective on tour. I got a feeling about this guy… and it’s spelled Break City. I think a listen to the GLI track Flood should get you on board with my prediction.

Another wrap. Thanks for stopping by and see you next week… be sure to follow me on Twitter @radiocrowdfund for updates on discoveries during the next week.

Paul Schomer

MAJOR BIG HUGE CHANGES FOR Radio Crowdfund #21!!!

True to my commitment to finding great NEW music, the first artist segment of each post FROM NOW ON will feature crowdfunded new music THAT HAS ACTUALLY BEEN RELEASED. Campaign over, music out there. Some will be from artists previously covered during their active campaigns, others will be new to everyone, including me.

But the main criterion is that the music will have been released within the last six months, probably even more recent than that.

Thanks to all the artists in advance for letting me use photos and allowing me to link directly to your wonderful, original music. Let me know if credit is due for photos.

On to campaign updates…which, right off the bat, features BRAND NEW CROWDFUNDED MUSIC!

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS…
> KAYLN ROCK: The great title track from her new album Heart Contagious is available NOW!! You will love the sweeping sound, fab production, quality lyrics…

> KATHRYN LEGENDRE: She broke through her $3K goal with a few days left to go. Her debut album, Old Soul, will be released in the near future.
> ROBERT KELLY: Hit $18K with a day remaining. He starts work on his new LP tomorrow morning in Nashville. Maybe tomorrow afternoon. He deserves to sleep in a bit.

STILL TRYING…
> MARK SCHWABER: Only a few C-notes since last week, but 16 days to bring in $1K and hit $2500.
> SASHA BELL: Sasha is making good progress. Needs just $1500 to hit  $8K goal. 15 days.
> TAPE DECK MOUNTAIN: Up a massive $30 in the last week to $605 of a $4K goal. 9 days to go. He’s just not that into it, clearly, but it’s Indiegogo so he’ll probably pocket a few hunj.
> OLIN & THE MOON: 24 days to hit $10K or else. They need $8200 and have been at it for over a month. Can’t understand this campaign. Great band. Plenty of time. Zero traction.
> JOSH NETSKY: Josh is halfway to $2000 with 9 days left. Kick this dude.
> KEVIN CALABA: Just 10 days left and stalled at $7785 of an ambitious $20K goal.

NEW SECTION!!!! CROWDFUNDED CREATIONS

The new section! This is where the crowdfunded rubber hits the new music road. Below are two new tracks from forthcoming albums by two couples I first discovered on Kickstarter five months ago.

LOWLAND HUM is North Carolina-based husband-and-wife duo Daniel and Lauren Goans — they were featured in my very first Radio Crowdfund post. They raised $12,761 in January for their new album, Native Air, set for release in August. They have posted the first single, War is Over:

RUE ROYALE is another married duo, American groom (Brookln Dekker) and British wife (Ruth Dekker), featured in RC #3. Their Kickstarter campaign raised almost $19K for a new album, Remedies Ahead. The track Set out to Discover is their first single.

NEW MUSIC IN THE MAKING

THE NEWMAN BROTHERS (Ithaca, NY)
$875 pledged of a $5000 goal /  39 days to go
Dirty, Podunk, Taco, Gottlieb, and Paul Blart Jr. Newman are ready to post-punk performance rock your princess phone world. That should give you an idea of what this multi-genre (mostly ska, punk, funk, garage) band with a horn section is all about. In the tradition of true family values, they play two versions of their music: PG and PG-XTREME, allowing their infectious sound to effectively reach and inspire both the little pitchers and their porn-happy parents.

Tongues firmly planted in a collective cheek (try not to visualize that one), the Newmans put it all out there, literally. Listen to the track below, try to imagine the full-on carnival explosion that a local Bro show surely is, replete with cross dressing, gorilla suits, and several styles of carefully applied fake facial hair.

The guys are on Indiegogo raising money to record and release an entire album of stuff like the two singles recorded this past winter (in Ithaca, don’t forget). Here are The Newman Brothers with I Wanna Make You Mine (Wanda). Jump around the room like a 6 year-old on a Strawberry Quick jag, and kick in to the merry madness.

- The Newman Brothers on Indiegogo
– The other Newman Brothers single, Pee Dance

DOE EYE (San Francisco, CA)
$4422 pledged of a $15K goal / 21 days to go
John Vanderslice seems to have a knack for attracting breaking artists in the hours before they break, like The Tallest Man on Earth, Okkervil River, and David Byrne’s recent recording and touring partner, St. Vincent. If the trend is real, ‘Slice’s work producing Doe Eye’s first full-length recording will induce a similar effect.

Doe Eye is a female indie rocker who knocked her first single, I Hate You, out of the proverbial park in 2011. The track was picked up by radio and music television, and her follow-up, Hotel Fire, has gotten the same response. Her sound is Regina Spektor meets Nine Inch Nails, sweet and crushing.

Yet she remains unsigned, not an unnatural occurrence in our American Idol-obsessed world. I’m not alone in thinking she deserves to be. She’s on Kickstarter to raise the funds to get this album done, and she gets many extra points for detailing her budget and pursuing a stretch goal of over $30K.

She’s got big ambition and her campaign has jumped over almost $2K in the last 24 hours. If you listen to tracks from her second EP, 2012′s Hotel Fire (title track below), I think you may find a new favorite.

- Doe Eye on Kickstarter
- Doe Eye’s Hotel Fire EP on Bandcamp

Wrap-tastic. Thanks for stopping by and see you next week… be sure to follow me on Twitter @radiocrowdfund for updates on discoveries during the next week.

Paul Schomer

Welcome to Radio Crowdfund #20. Tough week in the wilderness — way too many campaigns stalled! I’m blaming the holiday weekend.

Restating the RC mission: to discover and share great new music. If you find a new favorite song in here, my work is done. If just one of these bands or artists breaks in the near future? Gravy. This week features three more established acts, I’m seeing a trend.

Thanks to all the artists for letting me use photos and allowing me to embed your wonderful, original music. Let me know if credit is due for photos.

Worthy cause alert: world music club Barbès in Park Slope, Brooklyn, needs a new house piano and is on Indiegogo to get it. Reasonable goal, incredible, supportive space. Please think about a kick.
- Barbès on Indiegogo

On to campaign updates…

OVER THE TOP… hi-ho
> A BIG YES AND A SMALL NO: Vibes emerge victorious for Brooklyn ensemble. New music soon!

STILL REACHING… this ain’t no tip jar, people
> OLIN & THE MOON: 32 days to reach 10K. Just under $2K now. KICK ‘EM. You won’t regret it.
> KATHRYN LEGENDRE: She’s $400 shy of that $3K goal. 8 days.
> JOSH NETSKY: Rochester’s finest! Needs help to the tune of $1,155 in 16 days. Indiegogo, sure, but he deserves the whole 2K.
> ROBERT KELLY: Must hit $18K in 7 days or else (Kickstarter). Short almost $6500.
> KALYN ROCK: So close!! Just $315 needed to hit $1500 in the next 4 days. Indiegogo.
> KEVIN CALABA: Kevin is the man, so kick him like one! 17 days to hit that $20K. He’s at $7K right now.
> JESSE VAIN AND THE HAPPY HOUR HOLINESS MOVEMENT: Needs $5K in the next 6 days to get dime one.

100% GUARANTEED NEW MUSIC

MARK SCHWABER (Easthampton, MA)
$1321 pledged of a $2500 goal /  23 days to go
Show of hands: who misses Elliott Smith? Well, we’re in luck. Western Mass. wunderkind Mark Schwaber is rollerblading in the very same grooves Smith laid down all these years ago. Throw in a dollop of early Matthew Sweet, some Neil Young, then stretch things out a bit and you’ll get the idea.

The Pressure It Feeds from Mark’s 2006 solo album The Killing Card is quite the glorious six-and-a-half minutes, and has over 45K plays on myspace. Mark’s other songs on up there have some additional bounce and deserve more plays, too.

Schwaber is not just a retro exercise, even though he’s been working and touring recently with good Lloyd Cole (of mid-’80s into ’90s Commotions fame — Rattlesnakes, anyone?). He’s the real 21st century deal and I for one am looking forward to what he hopes to be the result of his Kickstarter campaign: a third solo album. Super modest, realistic goal and he’s already halfway home.

Consider a kick.

- Mark Schwaber on Kickstarter
– Mark Schwaber on myspace

SASHA BELL (Berkeley, CA)
$4151 pledged of a $8K goal / 22 days to go
Since Sasha is at present a pastry chef and hasn’t been in a recording studio in roughly six years, this pick may look like a gamble. But in addition to her plaintive, sincere voice and lyrical talents, this artist has some solid indie rock pedigree. Her last full-band effort, Essex Green, was a late ’90s Brooklyn phenomenon, eventually signing to Merge Records in 2003. She put out a solo record that year as well.

So I’m voting to roll the dice on a 16-year-plus, tightly packed track record, specifically the title track of her solo record, below. Give a listen to this one and more — the entire disc plus everything she’s done with Essex Green, Ladybug Transistor, and her first group, Guppyboy is up there, too. You could get lost.

Sasha is also halfway to her goal on Kickstarter, and she’s working with some (expensive) heavy hitters at Kevin Ink’s Studio That Time Forgot in San Francisco to finish up and release her new solo album at the end of the summer. Kick in.

- Sasha Bell on Kickstarter
– Sasha Bell on Bandcamp

TAPE DECK MOUNTAIN (Queens, NY)
$575 pledged of a $4K goal / 16 days to go
This one took some deep digging on Indiegogo… Cascading guitar effects and ethereal vocals make up much of the shoegaze is all about, and this group (or guy) has them in shimmering, wonderwall-crashing spades. You can almost feel the footwear stare-down with the shift into the first chorus around :40 on 01 P.I. — linked below — and there’s more where that came from on SoundCloud, so listen up.

TDM sprang from the musical brow of San Diego native Travis Trevisan in 2009 and he’s been a busy beaver ever since, working with a revolving cast of collaborators and releasing one full-length LP and three EPs. He’s gotten attention and mentions from Pitchfork, Stereogum, Filter, and Vice, among others, so I guess I’m in good company with this selection?

Travis is crowdfunding his second full-length album, fully recorded during the last year he spent living in Austin, TX, and ready for mixing and mastering in San Diego. Good goal, good music, good times ahead on CD, vinyl, and, naturally, cassette!

Give the lad a kick, doesn’t take much.

- Tape Deck Mountain on Indiegogo
– TDM on SoundCloud

Another wrap. Thanks for stopping by and see you next week… be sure to follow me on Twitter @radiocrowdfund for updates on discoveries during the next week.