Help us make World of Difference

Hello!

On March 23rd and 24th, 2024, I'll be recording a collection of new pieces called World of Difference, alongside Ross Gallagher , Ryan Blotnick , Mali Obomsawin , Brian Shankar Adler , Emma Stanley , Aaron Henry , and Alex Truelove. We'll be recording at Portland's very own Acadia Recording Company, engineered by Mr. Fox Schwach.

I'm asking for support to make this project come to life -- to pay the musicians fairly for their time, to rent the studio, to pay the engineers for recording, mixing and mastering, for travel costs, for printing CD's and LP's, for publicity, and all the little things that go into making a record.

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I started working with a large ensemble while living in New York, and it quickly became the most significant vehicle for my creative energies. The expansiveness of the pallet with such a big group of improvisers was intoxicating, and it provided me with a space where I felt like I could include every idea I had, every feeling I wanted to explore, every experiment I wanted to try. I had the opportunity to make two albums with The Danny Fisher-Lochhead Large Ensemble (Tools of the Abstract and On Ceremony) and to play a number of shows with the group while living in New York. When I left almost 9 years ago, I knew that I would have to re-build my network of relationships in my new home in Maine before I could work again in this medium, and I've been here long enough now to have met the people who inspire me in this direction again.

So last year I reached out to this incredible group of Maine-based musicians, and started imagining what this project might sound like, how it would come together, where we would perform, and what would happen after that. Some of the people I enlisted were collaborators who I had worked with extensively over the last 15 years (Ross Gallagher, Ryan Blotnick), others were more recent acquaintances (Brian Shankar Adler, Emma Stanley, Aaron Henry, Dan Barrett) and a few I had never met but whose work I was aware of (Isla Brownlow, Mali Obomsawin).

The process of assembling the group was exciting for a number of reasons-- for one, writing the music knowing that this particular group of musicians would be playing it added all kinds of energy and inspiration into the creation of these pieces, and also because it felt like an affirmation of the wealth of creative energy in the state of Maine, and a statement of self-sufficiency for this community of musicians to be able to put this project together here without the approval of an established urban center (like New York, say).

We played three shows last year -- our first one at the incomparable Tinder Hearth Bakery in Brooksville in June, and then two shows in the fall at the University of Maine, Orono and the College of the Atlantic. Each of the shows was very different, and each gave us a chance to get to know the ins-and-outs of the music a little better, and to feel the potential of this group (massive potential).

Here's a video from our show at Tinder Hearth, playing a piece called "Dream Journal"

Also from a our Tinder Hearth show, the end of "Clock Time"

And now we're going to record it! The plan is to play a show somewhere in Portland the night of 3/22, and then spend 3/23 and 3/24 in the studio.

I'm asking for your assistance to make sure that this project is done right -- that the musicians get paid fairly, that we don't skimp on mixing and mastering costs, that we're able to print CD's and LP's, and do our due diligence to promote it when the record comes out.

Every time I make a record I think I learn something about how to do it a little better the next time. And one thing that always seems to be the case is that it's more expensive than you think it will be, especially with a group this size, so I'm asking for such a sizable amount of money because that's how much it actually takes to make a record. The other thing I've learned is about lunch. I've learned you have to figure out lunch in the beginning of the day so you don't completely fall off the horse in the middle of the day trying to decide what to eat. But I digress...

If you feel compelled to help, that's amazing. If you feel compelled to pass it on to someone else who you think would be interested in helping, that's amazing. If you feel like outwardly (or inwardly) saying "no thank you", that's amazing too in it's own way.

For any support you are able to give to this project, I will offer these small tokens of my gratitude:

$50 ... a CD

$100 ... a CD + an LP

$500 ... a CD + an LP + a bound copy of one of the scores

$1000 .... a CD + an LP + a score + a credit as a producer

$5000 ... a CD + an LP + a score + credit as an executive producer

$10,000 ... wow, let's talk

I'm happy to sign any of these items if you're into that sort of thing. I'm also happy to negotiate, if there is something in particular you're looking for.

Thanks, in any case, for reading about this project. I'm excited about this. If you're interested in reading more, I've taken this opportunity of asking for your support to reflect a little bit on my experience of "the music industry", and have written about it below. I think this is an ongoing conversation that needs to be had, in the hopes that we can bring about some systems that do better to support all the people working as musicians and artists in this country.

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This past year I was reading an article about the screen writer's strike, and there was a particular passage that stuck with me. It was a quote from someone who said basically "We don't want what happened to the music industry to happen to the film industry," and I think it really drove something home for me that I've always known, but never fully realized; that the music industry is a big mess.

I grew up in what seems like the last generation where there was any sense of a coherent model for what making a living as a musician might look like. As young person I played with older musicians who experienced the collapse of the musicians union era in New York, when union members could easily go and get work with the many local and touring bands (that was at least how it was described to me). When I told one of them I was planning to go to college for music, he told me "Don't bother, there's no work." I still don't regret the choice to study music in college, but he also wasn't wrong.

In the early 2000's record labels were still an understood vehicle for getting music out there and funding the process. At the moment labels are a shadow of what they used to be. There are still some bigger ones that have money, and smaller ones that put out great music and help people in the ways they can. With some labels you pay to put out music. On others they don't do anything for you but lend their name to your cause. And they're not necessarily stealing money from artists, it's just that the bottom has fallen out from under the industry, and more often than not the musicians are the ones who shoulder the costs and the risks.

In large part, this is because of streaming services. Streaming may work for the most established, the most famous musicians, but not for the vast majority of other people. The rest of us put our music on streaming services because we want it to be heard, and because that's how most people listen to music. But I've never seen any money from it, and neither have most people I know.

Of course, this is not why we make music. For me music is a kind of spiritual pursuit that sometimes pays the bills in various ways -- performing, recording (usually on other people's projects), teaching -- and when it doesn't I do other work, most recently as a carpenter.

Grants sometimes help, although anyone who applies for grants knows that they can never be counted on, and that they're notoriously fickle. Also, the amount of money offered by arts grants, while I am grateful when I get them, is often inconsequentially low compared to what it costs to put a project together and pay people fairly for it.

SO, that's why I'm turning to "the crowd". To you, whoever you may be. Or to people who you may know who are in more of a position to help. In the past I haven't been drawn in this direction, for one reason or another, but at the moment the potential for a kind of direct connection to the community around me, or people adjacent to that community, feels exciting. It also feels more straightforward and honest in a way.

Thanks for reading.