Got an interesting proposal today. There’s an artist—songwriter, perhaps—who’s putting out an album, and is asking for, well, investors. I could contribute anywhere from $1 to $750, and I’d get a sliding scale of goodies depending on the size of my contribution. For my dollar I’d get a free download of the single of my choice, for instance, and for the $750 she’d come do a concert at my house, bar, Legion Hall, or whatever. (That last is pretty attractive.) She’s trying to raise $8,000.

I like the idea. I’ve had people talk up such proposals before, but this is by far the best thought out. It is tempting to contribute a little bit, just to be able to keep track of how the process goes.

I could do this myself. I’ve talked about doing another album, but am painfully aware there is not the money to do it with. This would be a way to afford it.

Why would someone want to invest in me? Well, I’m not assuming they would; I would rather ask them to invest in The Cause. An entire album of Failed Economy songs, in other words, with half the proceeds after production costs going to the Garibaldi Food Pantry, Deathgrass’ adopted charity. People might be willing to invest in that. And I bet I could keep the costs way, way down.

The process? Pick the songs, first. On an album like this not all of them would be mine—but we can do (and have done) 2-hour shows of Failed Economy songs; we have quite a repertoire, these days. Assemble the band: I’d want to use Deathgrass, of course, but probably include a few extras—female backup vocals would be nice, and so would a fiddle and saxophone (not necessarily on every song, and not necessarily together). We practice—because we’re going to do the recording “Patsy Cline style,” live and (mostly) in one take; that’s the biggest money-saver in putting out a record. I design the cover and label and liner notes (no cost there) and I know which replicating service will give me the best deal (and be able to reproduce my artwork—not all of them can).

Because we’re doing this for The Cause, there are a few other beneficial things we can do. For the songs written by (or co-written with) others, we can ask for waivers of the copyright fees (that was suggested by a music publisher I know); with the requisite paperwork (which I can do) those become tax write-offs for the writers. Any discounts off regular price in the name of The Cause from any service we have to purchase are also tax write-offs for those parties. The more we can get the cost down, the more money can go to the Food Pantry—and not many people would have a problem with that.

And then we promote the heck out of the idea. Radio, newspapers, posters, e-mails and the rest of the Social Networking stuff—and at least one concert, too, to show folks what the product is going to be like. Yes, I’d do the goodies for the investors, too, but carefully—I’d want to make sure everybody who invested got a tax write-off (emphasis on helping The Cause), so their goodies couldn’t be worth as much as the amount of their investment. At the same time, we line up opportunities for sales of the record (and we have to do better than with the Deathgrass CD); if we “press” 1000 CDs (the maximum, I think, this market could take), it could generate upwards of $5,000 for the Food Pantry. We could always start off with less CDs (not trusting that market, with as poor as everyone is these days) and order more later.

Doable? I think so. And it would be a lot of fun. This winter?

Joe