Here is an article about Young Sim’s Feel Good Music in the Deseret News. I was interviewed for this one and my contribution is on the last page. Enjoy!
Feel Good Music article
Compilation Sale
Hi folks. We have one week left on our fundraiser, and we are currently only a fraction of our total goal. But that’s okay. Even if we only raise $400, we can still redesign the site with a new and better design (we just can’t do some of the more extensive stuff we had planned). So, in order to help us reach our minimum goal, I’ve decided to have a sale. From now on, ANYONE who donates anything will receive a copy of the Linescratchers Compilation Album, regardless of the amount (this will apply retroactively to anyone who donated less than $20 earlier in the month).
Yeah, you heard me – you’ll receive our special first Linescratchers Compilation Album, featuring 12 awesome artists including Kirby Heyborne, Rumbo Rumba, Young Sim, Idiot Glee, and more, NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU DONATE. But you still have to donate something. Please CLICK HERE TO MAKE IT HAPPEN!
For more information on the album itself, click HERE.
Linescratchers Compilation Album
It’s been a hope of mine ever since I created Linescratchers to eventually make a compilation album that featured the best of our artists every year. I discovered that this is a legally tricky endeavor. In order to obtain copyrights for 10-12 songs I’d have to have each artist sign dozens of pages of paperwork, pay legal fees, and keep up with a ton of legal ramifications of selling somebody else’s music. Lacking sufficient time and resources to do all that, I put the idea on the backburner until a time when I could fully focus my attention on it.
However, with the advent of our newest fundraiser and plans to expand Linescratchers, I have been able to realize that dream in some way. We’re not actually selling the album – it’s a bonus gift for those who donate $20 or more to our fundraiser – and that means our artists could just donate their favorite or most unique tracks to us and we can give out free digital downloads to those who participate! It’s a win-win-win situation for our artists, our fans, and Linescratchers.
But some of you have still asked about the track listing, and I’m happy to oblige. Here are the songs on the first official Linescratchers Compilation Album:
Kirby Heyborne – The Hard Way
Rumbo Rumba – Ya Va A Salir El Sol
Young Sim – I Apologize
The Barefoot Movement – Find Ourselves
Good Morning Passenger – Empty Beds
Australis – Sacred Earth
Idiot Glee – Don’t Go Out Tonight
Mayan Fox – Move
Colby Miller – Collapse!
Kristen Lawrence – The Ghost of John
Roxy Rawson – (new track – to be determined)
(NEW!) The Neighbors – (to be determined)
I didn’t ask all our artists to donate a track. You can see that I really focused on having as broad a variety of music as possible: from rap to indie to violin to Latin to Halloween to acoustic to New Age and more. I think this is an important step in really showing what Latter-day Saints are capable of creating artistically in modern times. No doubt in 100 years, Mormon historians would probably be interested in these tracks, just to see what Mormon artists of the early 21st Century did. Once again, this album is available to those who donate more than $20 to our fundraiser (downloads will be made available as soon as the fundraiser is over at the end of the month). Enjoy!
ANNOUNCING Linescratchers: the Online Magazine, Fundraising Campaign, and Compilation Album
Dear fans, musicians, and readers,
We have until October 30th to win your support!
Linescratchers has been around for over three years now. We’ve existed in pretty much the same form since we began: a little blog. As much as I loved putting distance between us and the “LDS musician” industry and sending out “Are you Mormon?” emails to semi-known celebrities, I soon realized that I couldn’t do it alone. I recruited a group of bloggers from all over the country who are committed to finding and promoting LDS musicians everywhere. We’ve slowly grown into the biggest website of its kind. Where else can you find Alan Sparhawk talking about the “fluke” of making money with music; Ian Fowles talking about punk rock, The Aquabats!, and theology; Kirby Heyborne talking about being an actor, songwriter, and the woes of being a “celebrity” in the Mormon church; Young Sim on his family’s escape from Liberia and so much more? Linescratchers features the largest network of LDS musicians in the world, and we now celebrate the best of LDS musicians in our Annual Linescratchers Awards, the only award of its kind.
Our loyal fans and readers, you have provided the greatest input, comments, suggestions, and general motivation we could ever ask for. Many of you read regularly, comment, and listen to the podcast. Because of that, we want to grow, improve, and continue providing the content you deserve. After a solid run in the group blog format, working out the kinks in our system, we are ready to take this to the next level. And this is where you come in.
Blogs are great for what they are, but we want Linescratchers to be much more. Great blog posts get buried soon after they’re published. Our design doesn’t lend itself to compelling pictures or a polished format. Furthermore, our contributors are a core team of volunteers. Life happens, and creating solid and consistent material can be tough.
Therefore, we’ve decided to expand Linescratchers into an online magazine.
“What’s the difference?” you might ask. Well, the new Linescratchers will have:
- A professional site redesign.
- A quarterly, downloadable PDF/mobile edition featuring the best articles and interviews of each quarter, so you will be able to access Linescratchers on your mobile device and e-readers.
- More LDS art-related categories, such as film and theater. While music will always be our primary focus, an online magazine format will allow us to venture out into other categories that you might also be interested in.
- A network of advertisers and other professional relationships. While ads normally suck the cool out of good websites, we will feature neat and relevant partners like venues where our artists perform, studios, music shops, LDS-related sites, and labels. Above all, this will allow us to provide you, the readers, with…
- Higher-quality content. We aim to produce even better content than we ever have before. We will be able to do this by giving our contributing staff and editors compensation for their work, so they can make more time for it.
For this to work, we need your help. I am happy to officially announce a month-long RocketHub campaign to fund our website overhaul! Funds raised throughout the month of October will go to graphic design and other costs associated with running a slicker, higher-traffic site for the next year while we wait for advertising to kick in.
You might ask, like Peter of old, “Behold, we will donate and follow you (on Facebook and Twitter); what shall we have therefore?” The answer: our Linescratchers Featured Artists are behind us 100%. We are offering a special bonus compilation album featuring tracks from some of our best LDS Featured Artists to everyone who donates more than $20 to Linescratchers! This compilation will include songs personally donated to us from:
Kirby Heyborne
Young Sim
The Barefoot Movement
Roxy Rawson
Idiot Glee
Colby Miller
Australis
Canoe
Kristen Lawrence
Good Morning Passenger
Rumbo Rumba
This compilation is not for sale. It will only be available for those who donate more than $20 in our RocketHub campaign. Anyone who donates at least $10 will receive a special mention in our first quarterly magazine. For our high-roller fans, donations of $50 or more will receive the compilation album and Linescratchers merchandise. All reward levels are available on our RocketHub site.
Thank you to everyone for participating in all our struggles and joys over the last three years. We hope to be around for a long time, and we want you there with us! So what are you waiting for?
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT FOR LINESCRATCHERS NOW!
Rumbo Rumba member Angel David Lindes goes solo
Hey folks, I wanted to let all of you know that a very talented and outspoken former member of Rumbo Rumba, Angel David Lindes, is currently working on a solo project. However, he needs your help. He has created a Kickstarter page to help him raise funds to create his solo album. I have nothing but respect for Lindes and his talents, and I think he totally deserves this chance to get his album done right. If you want to find out more or pitch in, go to his Kickstarter page!
Video – Colby Miller, “The Bull Kissed The Seagoat”
Colby Miller is turning out to be an almost frighteningly prolific composer, as he releases yet another album available online (free to stream, not free to download) HERE. Edit – free to download too.
He’s also released a nice little music video. Enjoy.
LDS Musicians Facebook fan page
We at Linescratchers noticed that there isn’t an “LDS Musicians” Facebook fan page worth mentioning. There IS an old “LDS Musicians” Facebook in the old group format but it’s about to get archived (and featured some questionable spam due to disuse), so we took the initiative to create one, just as Facebook is about to become obsolete… *cough*
If you are an LDS musician or would like to date an LDS musician, this is the perfect fan page for you.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/LDS-Musicians/187461927985311
I am open to the idea of inviting members of the Community of Christ and our other cousin-branches as well, for a bit of diversity. Tell your friends.
Interview by Project Conversion
I was recently interviewed by Andrew Bowen, who is doing a 12-month project, experiencing one major religion per month. This month he is exploring Mormonism, and he wants to know about culture and art as well, so he contacted Linescratchers. You can read the interview here.
Seeking applications for blogs, writers, or musicians!
We have a couple items of blog business to share with all of you.
1) Are you a…
…featured Linescratchers artist?
…LDS musician/writer/blogger with your own music blog?
We are currently working on a secret Summer project and we are seeking out all our friends and fellow musicians out there who have your own music blogs, publications, or organizations. If you don’t have one, and you’d like one, start one! If you need help, contact us and we’ll help you set it up!
Email me at arthur@linescratchers.com and let us know if you have a blog that you update regularly. Please let us know what kind of blog it is: a discussion blog with cool questions, dialog, stories, or discussions, OR a blog containing news about your band (or any combination of the above).
2) Are you interested in interviewing cool musicians, reviewing free music, raising interesting questions, or otherwise working with us at Linescratchers (for FREE)? We are always seeking out bloggers, writers, and web administrators to help out! Send a message to dallin@linescratchers.com to find out how you can help.
3) Are you an LDS musician who doesn’t write LDS music, who has never been featured on Linescratchers? If so, please send a link to your music, a bio, a couple mp3s, or just an email to arthur@linescratchers.com and we will let you know if you’re what Linescratchers is looking for.
Thanks everyone, and keep rocking!
WWJD
Today I got an email from Davey Morrison (yes – the Davey Morrison) about a new Kickstarter page for his new short film WWJD based on a play of the same name. I have written a song for this film, and Ian Fowles will be playing on it, so it’s doubly worth supporting! Here’s Davey’s message:
Hi, friends!
I wanted to let you know (if you didn’t already) about the feature film I’m directing this summer. It’s called WWJD–it’s based on a play by Anna Lewis, which I helped produce earlier this year at New Play Project. The story follows four college students over 24 hours when Jesus shows up at their apartment and does the dishes. It’s a wonderful script–a warm, thoughtful, funny, and moving examination of the question, “Why does God let bad things happen to good people?” (If you’re interested in reading the script, it’s available for free online here.) Audiences loved the play, and we’ve been working over the past nine months adapting the script and putting together an amazing crew so we can turn it into a film.
We’ll be shooting WWJD on a very limited budget, but we still need to raise quite a bit of money. Tonight we’re launching a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter. We’ve set a goal to raise $5,000 in 60 days–if we make the goal, we get to keep the money, but if we don’t, none of our donors are charged for their pledge, and we get nothing. We also have rewards for donations at every level–including finished copies of the film. The Kickstarter page provides more information about the project:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1528368836/wwjd-feature-film?ref=recently_launched
We’re incredibly grateful for whatever support you’re able to give (even a dollar or two makes a difference!), and please help us by spreading the word and sharing the Kickstarter link through Facebook, Twitter, and e-mail.
Thank you so much!
Much Love,
Davey
Fictionist and the Rolling Stone Experience
Editor’s note: to vote for Fictionist in the contest, please click HERE!
As you may have recently heard or witnessed, Fictionist has reached the Elite Eight of a contest that will put an unsigned band on the cover of Rolling Stone for the first time in the iconic rock magazine’s history. Whether they move on to the next round will be determined by you, the music listener.
As part of their efforts to garner more votes, Fictionist has launched their own contest, which allows voters to win prizes including autographed memorabilia, CDs, and a trip to Bonaroo Music Festival. Additionally, they have been playing shows and telling fans to get out and vote. We were able to catch up with the guys after a recent show in Provo and ask them about their experience thus far. What follows is an account of Aaron’s door-knocking, Robbie’s hair care tips, and Brandon’s foray into the legal field. Continue Reading →
Cove Reber now producing at his studio
I just got an email from an official rep of Cove Reber about his new studio:
Cove is looking for bands to produce. His philosophy is to aid other artists in getting their music out there. he feels as if his experience in the major label music scene left a bad taste in his mouth, and wants to help others experience a more favorable reaction, by helping them create the vision they have for their record.
If you want to get some info about Cove Reber producing your record, you can contact The Spot Music, at 877-496-5169. You’ll be directed to the booking manager, who will answer any questions you have, and handle all the details. You’re also welcome to email The Spot Music @ : info@thespotmusic.com. However we would prefer you call, and inquire.
Thank YouThe Spot Music
This is a great opportunity for all of us, because Cove Reber, who has seen a lot of the ups and downs of the music industry, is willing to extend a helping hand to musicians who want to work with him at his studio. If you’re interested, call the number and find out if it’s right for you.
Fictionist Signs
First of all, we hope everyone’s enjoying General Conference weekend. Glad you could fit in a little Linescratchers time between sessions.
In addition to creating sheer volume of votes to place Fictionist in the Rolling Stone Cover, one of the goals of the contest is to come up with the most creative ways of getting the word out. To that end, and in honor of General Conference this weekend, we put our thinking caps on to come up with some signs that enterprising Fictionist Fans could display this weekend while marching down South Temple.
Longtime readers will note that we here at Linescratchers love David Archuleta, and still can’t believe he lost to David Cook.
Obey the sign. Vote for Fictionist at http://www.fictionist.com/rollingstone/ZWO.
Please help Linescratchers AND Fictionist!
Here’s your chance to help Linescratchers and one of our featured artists, Fictionist.
Fictionist has advanced in the Rolling Stone cover contest, and they’re having their own contest to help get them votes. The winner of the Fictionist contest (the person or people who generate the most votes) will win $1000 and two tickets to Bonnaroo. Linescratchers has asked the boys’ permission and is allowed to enter.
What can Linescratchers do with the winnings? We could possibly…
- Help pay for the web hosting for our site
- Put on an awesome concert
- Have a sweet awards ceremony with awards for the 2011 Linescratchers Awards
- Something else
- And we could still do something with the tickets, we’re open to ideas from you guys
That’s why we’re asking YOU to help Linescratchers generate votes, and those votes will help one of our very own featured artists get on the cover of Rolling Stone AND play at Bonnaroo. This is a win-win-win situation.
So, if you want to help us out by voting CLICK HERE and follow the instructions!
And if you want to help us out even more, copy and paste the following link on your Facebook, Twitter, or in an email to your friends:
http://www.fictionist.com/rollingstone/ZWO
Low – C’mon trailer
This just makes me happy.