University Star

by Brett Thorne

I thought as soon as my band released its first EP my life would be a whirlwind of Playboy Bunny Mansion parties, Bentleys, bell-bottoms and Benjamins. 

OK maybe not. But at least being able to afford gas for the van trip to our next show would be cool. The industry isn't what it was when this picture was taken. Who can afford pants like that anymore? From a fashion standpoint, that's not necessarily a bad thing. From the vantage of a young band trying to do what it loves, this really isn't that big of a deal. No, you didn't misread that. The fact that there is no money to be made selling albums is really just a minor detail for musicians who care about... music. There have been a few services like KickStarter and BandCamp that have been riding the same social media wave that brought the world Twitter and Gowalla.  

Recently, my band launched a KickStarter account. For those who are unfamiliar with the new tools available to bands through the interwebs, this service might be The Next Big Thing. 

The service is mostly employed by mid to low-level bands who, while having received enough exposure to be deluded into believing they could actually make a comfortable living playing music, are not about to be interrupted by Kanye West at an awards show. 

The artists normally ask for donations in exchange for exclusive merch like CDs, posters and shirts. Then the donations go toward recording or releasing (two completely different concepts) an album. Look at it as a glorified merch table. You give a band money. You get some swag. You can have a pretty good amount of assurance your money is going to fund a creative endeavor and won't end up in someone's nose. 

My band opted to take the route of donations in exchange for exclusive merch (along with a Robert Zemeckis-esque offer to "change history, LITERALLY!").

An alternative music news site, AbsolutePunk.net, pimped our KickStarter out to the masses in the news feed on their site and the posting got (what I thought to be) an unusually high number of responses for a small band like mine. There was the usual smattering of "These guys are cool," and "Digging the music!" and "I absolutely hate these guys." Toward the end of the thread, the conversation devolved into a debate about KickStarter and its validity as a tool for young bands. 

One comment—a personal favorite of mine—came from someone who posed that question grandpas have been asking ever since Eli Whitney unveiled that dang cotton gin of his. "What ever happened to hard work?" My initial response was a series of roflcopters, a roflwaffle and an lmfao. This coming from a guy who has slept in a van on countless occasions, had that van broken into and gotten all of his non-clothing items stolen (I guess Chicago thiefs don't like skinny jeans?) and carried my equipment, literally, blocks from the nearest parking space to the venue in below-freezing temperatures. And I did it all with a smile on my face.

One user went so far as to condemn our use of the site as "using and abusing fans."  

Using and abusing? Them be fighting words, bro. Let's get a few things straight. Abuse of fans occurs every time Kings of Leon sells a shirt for $25 that cost them $3 to make ($0.07 to the labor in Indonesia and $2.93 to pay some Mac-toting shmuck to come up with an image that implies "This sex is on FIRE!"). Abuse of fans happens when the RIAA makes a woman pay $62,500 for each song she shared on Kazaa (the fact that this money is wasted on violation of copyright law of songs by perennial suckfests like Aerosmith and Greed Day adds insult to injustice). 

If one of the Followill brothers were to take a sock full of pennies and beat one their fans senseless, that would also be abuse. But there's (almost) no money to be made for that kind of spectacle. Instead, the Followill clan decide to make music like this. Perhaps their most heinous offense.

So my question is, how is a KickStarter different from a merch table or a pre-order? Bands have been employing this tactic for years and one thing I have noticed 100-percent of the time? It's ALWAYS voluntarily. No one gets their feelings hurt if you don't pick up a shirt or album at a show.  "Pre-order our album in one of seven different packages, each with its own unique bundle of shirts, posters, cassettes, hats, Christmas ornaments, etc." Yeah. KickStarter is just a new take on an old classic. 

It will take some creative problem-solving if musicians are going to be able to make a living (or at least be able to afford a VERY expensive hobby). KickStarter is certainly a creative solution for funding an artistic endeavor. 

So KickStarter fixes everything right? Well—sigh—no.

My AbsolutePunk colleague who vaguely accused us of "using and abusing" failed to note the over-saturation that can occur when everyone thinks their band is "just one step from blowing up." 

Bands use The Next Big Thing to fund their Next Big Thing and soon the world is swimming in a sea of Big Things, each more forgettable than the last. 

It's the same thing that started happening when acoustic guitar-toting Conor Oberst began making waves as Bright Eyes. Right around the same time this quaint little web site called MySpace began blowing up. With the advent of cheap recording software like n-Track and Garageband, all those Oberst fans needed was a platform to tell the world about the girl in their homeroom. They got it when Tom Anderson launched MySpace. Soon, every 15-year-old with a book of poetry and a rudimentary knowledge of what an E-chord looks like thought they were The Next Big Thing. 

This has led to over saturation. And this is where we find ourselves now. 

So I propose you don't support our KickStarter. Don't make a donation. In fact, don't support ANYONE'S KickStarter. Unless you want to. If you like what you hear, throw $5 in the direction the music is coming from. Lord knows you probably won't buy the CD otherwise. Shoot, I have yet to pay for my favorite album of 2010. By the way, Foals, I'm really sorry about that. I swear that as soon as I get done writing this, I'll go on iTunes or Amazon or AmieStreet and snatch up Total Life Forever. 

So please, for the love of God, don't support my band or any other. Unless you want to. We have freedoms in this country and I'm pretty sure separation of Church of Rock and state allows you to listen to and throw your money at whatever and whomever you want. 

So yeah. Donate or don't. It's not that big of a deal. 

Either way, we're going to keep playing. 

EDIT: this is not a request for donations. I never mention the name of my band and if you care enough to find out our name, you've got your work cut out for you... either way we'll be releasing our album Noble Ancestry on Dec. 3 at Emo's. Jus' sayin'.