“There is a heavenly account with your name on it…Every seed of faith you have ever planted has been deposited in a heavenly account with your name on it…As you would receive a corresponding ‘receipt’ from a bank here on earth when you make a deposit, you are the holder of a heavenly receipt with God. And by your faith, you can tap into your heavenly account with God any time, according to His Word.”- Oral Roberts
OK, as I’ve made clear before, I have some basic issues with Kickstarter. Look, you think Hank Williams would have been on kickstarter? Hell fucking no! But that aside, there is a line to be crossed there where people take their audience for granted to such an egregious level that you may as well toss in poor ol’ Jesus’ name into the mix and get a show on TV. Oral Roberts meet The Dirty Guv’nahs. Now of course The Guv’nahs haven’t gone so far as to say that the lord will “call them home” if they don’t meet their goal but there is something just horribly sleazy to me in the way they grovel for cash. Here is what you are greeted with on their website (emphasis mine):
We Are Partners! (Photo: Ashley Hoskins Photography)
“THANK YOU SO MUCH! We are completely amazed at how supportive you guys have been! This update is to let you know that The Campaign is Not Over! You have successfully helped us pay for the recording budget of this album ($20K)… but the overall cost of this album (including promotion, music video(s), mixing, mastering, and distribution) will easily approach $50,000! Because we have decided to stay independent, we will continue to stress the fact that You are our Record Label! THEREFORE… we have set some new goals, and we have created some new reward packages! GOAL #1. If we reach $30K then we will be able to pay for 3 Months of Publicity and Radio Promo…” and so on…
Wow! Does this sound a little familiar?
Oooooh, The Lawd has seen how ya Dirty Guv’nahs fa-yuns gave and he was evah so pleased but the right and powerful Lawd knows you can do bettah… much bettah. Sho we asked you for $20,000 and you gave that and moe, but the good Lawd wants you to dig evah so much deeper into that pocket. Give more and the goood Lawd will favah ya with some new Reewa’d Packages. Hallelullia!!!! Amen Brothas and Sistahs.
Now, I know a lot of bands that can record an album a hell of a lot cheaper than $20K and those records can sound pretty solid. Hell, I know people who recorded with Steve Albini for a hell of a lot less. But that is neither here nor there, what gets me is that they turn around and ask for more?!!! What a bunch of fucking ungrateful douches! You just got $20K… fuck no, you got $36K at this point and you still want more? Wow! Their fans may see it differetnly but all I can think of when I see that picture of the band as they hold-up their cardboard sign at the corner of the digital intersection, is the words of the great Ignignokt whe he raised his middle finger and said…
"I hope he can see this 'cause I'm doing it as hard as I can."
Here’s my thing about Kickstarter for musicians, which I’ve brought up before: if the artists is offering their fans something of value in exchange for a “donation-” $10 donation gets you a copy of the record, $15 gets you an LP, $20 for a t-shirt, etc.- then all the band is really doing is putting a fancy label on a pre-order of their record. No big deal. You can even get creative and offer something other than your usual merch that still has value. Last year my wife bought me a chance to fire a cannon onstage through a band’s Kickstarter campaign. I don’t feel bad about that at all.
But if you are straight-up begging for money, that sucks. Musicians are not charities.
Well they aren’t just begging for money – you get stuff like a t-shirt, or backstage passes, a poster, etc. – but like I’ve said before a lot of these “packages” strike me as ego-centric and money grubbing. I don’t know if getting an advance copy with my name in the thank yous is worth the mark-up. I guess others do but to me the higher you go on the package deals the more they try to sell things like dinner with the band or meet them backstage which to me strikes me as horribly self-centered. In the end, for me, it is about the music and the audience’s interaction with it first and foremost, sure it’s nice to meet bands but I sure as hell ain’t gonna pay for that privilege. And I sure as hell ain’t gonna pay $500 for is described as a “FRAMED COMMEMORATIVE CD PLAQUE to hang on your wall. It will look a little bit like the kind of Gold records that you see hanging on the walls of famous recording studios”
I dunno, I just am not comfortable with that kind of thing – it just never seemed very “punk” to me to beg your audience to fund your albums directly but then, we do it the old fashioned way by saving money from shows, putting our own money into it, and that kind of stuff and look how far that has gotten us.
I don’t think we need to posit an ironclad definition of “thing that has value” in order to agree that having your name in the liner notes or dinner with some no-name band or some framed piece of bullshit is not a “thing of value.” That shit is even worse than begging. Chrissakes, just get a job already!
I have the Ignignokt t-shirt. It says most of what I have to say on most topics, including this one. I have to agree that I find the whole Kickstarter concept pretty douche-y. It is economically interesting… sort of like an IPO for a band, or maybe selling futures or stock options on a band’s potential notoriety.
But the whole concept begs the question: who wants a backstage pass for some band that needs something like Kickstarter?
Boy I’d love to offer “backstage passes” to some of *my* band’s fans… “Hey dude, here’s your backstage pass” “Uh, hey, that’s not a backstage pass, that’s a Marshall 4×12 cabinet”. “Hey, you are a fast learner! Now put your back into that thing…”
We don’t have to posit an ironclad definition of “thing that has value” but that’s the trick. If it has value it has value. It does seem that the public is pretty willing to play along with kickstarter. So the economy moves there.
Well sure. But this isn’t about predicting what fans are willing to play along with- it’s about judging people!
haha so true.
Tim O’Reilly, founder of O’Reilly Media, just tweeted this btw:
I do think it is very cool too. Especially for shooting cannons on stage at a rock show. Post pictures please.