100%
Juliana's new fan funded project launched today.
A whole brand spanking new album is in the works.
Juliana:
This is my third Pledge Music project and I am optimistically jumping into it because I have been so encouraged by your energy and your generosity and your many ongoing kindnesses. I am excited to bring this new batch of songs to life. I am going to make a mostly (but not totally) acoustic album but I am not going to overthink or overproduce any performances. It will have the loose energy of, say, my album “Bed”, without all the distortion (but maybe with some) and with more prettiness.
The 'incentives' include an online acoustic performance on Aug 10, more original artwork, a signed guitar, an unworn high school varsity jacket (!) and a whole bunch of back catalogue on cd.
There's also some tour books, and unreleased demo / master tapes - but most if not all of these high ticket items are already gone having been snapped up in seconds by the eager kings and queens of browser refreshing.
Tantalisingly Juliana goes on to say:
Throughout this process, as I work on the new recordings, I will be sharing other music with you that you might not have ever heard before, music I have recently unearthed from my vast archives.
Marvellous.
tomorrow, 2 p.m., EST (eastern standard time[massachusetts time]) we will launch my new pledgemusic.com peoplefunded project
— Juliana Hatfield (@julianahatfield) June 1, 2013
That's 7pm British Summer Time, 6pm UTC.
As spotted by Andrew on the This Is The Sound group, there is a new* song titled Miles Away available to listen at Juliana's PledgeMusic profile page.
Bring on tomorrow.
*it's a new old song
Who will you be covering and was it hard to narrow down the songs?
A funny thing is that a bunch of the songs are from about 10 years ago. I don’t know what it is about that period of time, but I keep going there. One example is the song “Fruit Fly” by Nada Surf, a band I like a lot. And I was lucky to have Matthew Caws (the singer from Nada Surf) sing on a few of the songs on the album. He did not sing on his song, “Fruit Fly,” though.
You can read a short Q&A with Juliana on PledgeMusic's blog.
New pledges have been added to Juliana's Covers Album project at PledgeMusic since the launch earlier this month, including the return of the 20 questions by email thing which she did last year.
Today, she's brought back the offer of a personalised song, which you'll recall was a fundraiser of sorts she did in 2010 before the original PledgeMusic project.
Juliana:
I will write you a personal song! I’ll create an original song exclusively for you, to you, about you... [] ...Think of it as a commissioned sonic portrait. I will send you an mP3 and a CD of your song and will never release it to the public.
This offer is available now for up to 3 potential pledgers for, ahem, $1,000.
But you all know this anyway because you're all pledgers, right?
Q: Do you dance?
A: only alone. but yes. alone.
Another of the PledgeMusic 20 Questions has been made public. Read Juliana's responses to emailed questions raised by Foxopoly at Internet Poison.
If you missed the earlier posting of Juliana's 20 Question exchange with N'Awlins Contrarian you can read it as a pdf here.
Juliana has made further quantities of posters available and added the artwork to the PledgeMusic project.
PledgeMusic have announced that Juliana has broken the record for an artist to achieve their target.
As pledgers will know, Juliana has been updating regularly from the studio. A number of song titles have been revealed, random pledger only videos posted (including Juliana shaking it like a Polaroid), lyrics shared, the now obligatory canine photography, and gearhead porn.
She has also revealed that the album could be released as soon as July, or even sooner. Ooh.
Juliana has also been posting other typical offbeat photos via Twitter, and 11 teasing seconds of Pro Toolsian music.
Juliana today sets off for the recording studio with her band to commence work on the new album, her first 'electric band' record since 2008's How To Walk Away.
In keeping with this fan assisted project, she will be updating pledgers on the progress.
Exciting times.
If you missed the chance to take part in the Q&A email incentive offered in Juliana's PledgeMusic project, one participant has kindly shared their exchange via the This Is The Sound group.
If you're not a member of that group (and why not?!) you can view the Q&A as a pdf here:
A big thanks to N'Awlins Contrarian (and Juliana) for making this available. If anyone else wants to share theirs (or parts thereof) please feel free to do so.
As promised, Juliana has added several items of her artwork to the PledgeMusic incentives, mostly offered at $125 each.
Also, prior to her heading to the studio at the end of the month we now have 2 acoustic songs in progress, available only to those of us who have pledged on this project.
We're called 'pledgies' don't you know.
It would be an understatement to say the PledgeMusic project is going well.
Juliana reached her main target within hours of launch, with many of the incentives selling out before some of us in Europe had emerged from our slumber.
A look through Juliana's updates suggests she is really enjoying this and genuinely overwhelmed by the response.
To her fans this will be less of a surprise. She has a small but remarkably loyal following. The list of pledgers is so familiar it could have been compiled by Keyser Soze. It looks like some of us have been wanting something like this for a few years.
Juliana has just increased the allocation for some of the previously sold out incentives and added a few new ones, including custom guitar picks, a 20 question email Q&A, signed books and posters, with the promise of more artwork related options to come.
On the basis of the last couple of days, you might need to be quick. This is a good time to be a Juliana fan.
The cat is out of the bag. This is Juliana's new project. A new (possibly double) album project. Electric band, baby.
All the details are at Juliana's PledgeMusic project page where she says:
I invite you to participate in the making of my new album. You are the modern Medicis and I need your help to make this happen. Your pledge for any of the items and experiences I am offering will directly support the recording, production, packaging, and marketing of my new album.
Various options are available from pledging to buy the CD, through signed artwork and up to a day in the recording studio(update Apr 8 - the studio offer has now been withdrawn).
Some kooky options are there too, including a 15 minute Skype call which has already been snapped up, and the creeptastic prospect of a 'lock of Juliana's hair'.
This seems a natural progression from the honor system downloads, running her own record label and selling custom made songs.
Would anyone be surprised if Juliana lost money on How To Walk Away yet turned a small profit on Peace & Love? This, despite the latter selling far fewer copies? disclaimer: this is 100% uninformed speculation. smiley winking face.
Without a traditional advance from a record label, can non-stadium filling artists justify the expense of a full studio production and promotion?
In the dying days of the Juliana forum, there was a frequent debate on how artists can earn a living from their work in the digital age, a debate only heightened by Juliana's 'Song For You' custom project.
Often veering into the awkward territory of indirectly telling Juliana what we thought she should do (doubly awkward as she never asked us!), the forum consensus seemed to suggest something similar to Kristin Hersh's CASH Music projects and using some of her Strange Angels ideas without the subscription model.
Basically, most of us seemed to come up with the main principles of PledgeMusic before PledgeMusic existed. Now it does and it seems to make perfect sense for Juliana.
Let's really hope this works out for her, and by consequence for us fans too.