After spring and summer in the crowdfunding market was as depressed as the rest of the economy, things have suddenly come roaring back. Rather than scouring sites to find three roots-oriented campaigns, I find myself having to pick between […]
Since I started doing this column, I’ve been looking for a way to devote one to roots-focused projects other than album releases. Music is a very small part of the crowdfunding landscape, both in number of projects and funding. The […]
I can’t think of anything in my lifetime that has fundamentally changed the music business as much as COVID-19 has. Napster would likely be the next most explosive, but even that was nothing like the effective shutdown of the […]
I’ve seen a lot of things threaten to tank a crowdfunding campaign, from accidents to natural disasters to the total implosion and bankruptcy of an entire site. Most campaigns have a “risks and challenges” section, which is the equivalent […]
For months now, the COVID-19 outbreak has stifled the crowdfunding market as artists tried to figure out what their business model was, when touring might resume, and whether physical rewards for campaigns could even be produced. While crowdfunding is […]
Being a devotee of fairly obscure acts in a relatively obscure genre, one thing I get asked regularly when I share these columns on social media is “Where do you even find these bands?” The answer, as with the people […]
I have been intending to do a full Bandcamp feature since this column began, but never got around to it for the very reason I am getting to it this week: There were always other, time-limited projects that were going […]
Two things initially drew me to direct-to-fan sites of the early days of the internet and eventually to crowdfunding. The first was the sense of community with the artists I loved. With no label between you and them, artists had […]
This is a column that almost wasn’t. In the wake of the past week of protests and calls for racial justice, it almost felt frivolous to me to write about crowdfunding music projects. But as I spent the week processing […]
Just as some states are starting to slowly open restaurants, salons, and other services, crowdfunding campaigns are starting to come back as well. While, with the exception of the suddenly exploding Patreon, crowdfunding is nowhere near its pre-COVID levels, there […]
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