Hudson K, Quartjar seek alternative funding for new albums
Local and regional musicians don’t have it easy.
The majority of them work 9-to-5 jobs, busting their asses during the week so they can rock and roll all night, or something like that. And since most are regular folks with bills to pay, there’s not a whole lot of discretionary income to put into the band kitty.
Which is why several local musicians are turning to creative and alternative methods of funding future album projects. We reported on local troubadour R.B. Morris doing so for his most recent CD, “Spies Lies and Burning Eyes,” back in September. It’s out, it’s fantastic, and next weekend — Jan. 30, to be exact — Morris will have a proper CD release show at Barley’s Taproom, 200 E. Jackson Ave. in Knoxville’s Old City. It’ll feature many of the Nashville players who helped him make the record, he told me, as well as his long-time guitar player, local god Hector Qirko. Former Tenderhooks dude Jake Winstrom opens the show.
Over the past several weeks, I’ve received several notices of other bands following suit:
- Hudson K, fronted by the lovely Christina Horn, is taking pre-orders for its as-yet-untitled new CD, the band’s first full-length and a follow-up to the gorgeous EP “Safety Line.” Horn writes: “It’s super easy. Here is a link to Pay-Pal where you can pre-order your CD: Click here. If you are uncomfortable using Pay Pal you can mail a check. Just email Christina at hudsonkbooking@bellsouth.net. Either way, we will mail you your CD if you do not attend the CD Release Party … which of course we hope you can!” There are several levels of donation, from a simple loan of $10, which ensures a copy of the new CD, all the way up to $300, which guarantees you a private Hudson K house concert. (Although the $200 deal is pretty sweet — you get to be on the album, playing an instrument or singing backup, or you can choose to be on the guest list of any Hudson K performance “for life.”) We last interviewed Hudson K in 2008; read that here. And check out the band online. The band is slated to perform at 10 p.m. Friday, Jan. 22 at Downtown Grill and Brewery, 424 S. Gay St. in downtown Knoxville; usual cover is $3.
- Quartjar, fronted by our pal/ace local music chronicler/happy-go-lucky gadfly-about-town “Ramblin’” Randall Brown, is taking a cue from Morris and Hudson K to front “42,” a follow-up to the band’s quirky, blues-rock masterpiece “Years of a Monkey,” released in 2007. (We profiled that record here.) It’s all set up through a website called Kickstarter, which gets the ball rolling. (Click here to check it out.) He writes: “The Kickstarter deal is that it will collect the pledges if the funding goal is met by our deadline of April 16. If the deadline isn’t met, the project remains unfunded. We’re basically offering an album pre-order, with “rewards” for various levels of funding pledges. It’s a pretty nifty idea for funding independent projects of all kinds.” Like Hudson K’s project, there are various levels of funding — $10 gets you a completed copy of “42,” while if you have an extra $500 lying around, you get all kinds of goodies — autographed copies of both Quartjar CDs (“42″ and “Years of a Monkey”), plus, Brown writes, “we will perform a complete concert for you within a day’s drive (4-5 hours) of Knoxville, Tennessee” and “you will be credited as an executive producer in the liner notes.” Check out Quartjar on Myspace.