Breaking Up Is Easy To Do (If You Do It With Crowdfunding)

Crowdfunding isn't necessarily just for bands who are looking to make a big next step, it can be used to ensure fans can say goodbye to a band in a fitting manner as well.

Name: Giant Drag
Project: Farewell Tour
Current Status: 13 pledges, 3% ($302) of $10,000 goal achieved, 16 days remaining.

“At this moment, it's gonna be a fuckin' disaster,” Annie Hardy of Giant Drag concedes in the above video. See, she's calling an end to her (great) band following the release of their second album this year and she wants to get over to the UK one last time before it's all over, though it is proving difficult. In her very honest IndieGoGo campaign she admits that she understands how her old label Interscope managed to spend $200,000 on her touring and recording activities back in the day. Of course she doesn't have that kind of cash, so she's meekly approaching fans to help her out.

She's willing to dedicate songs at every show to pledgers ($75 a pop), she's willing to allow people AAA passes for entire tours ($500) and she's even willing to give you the guitar off her back after she steps off stage at the final ever Giant Drag show ($2,000). It's all quite sad, but you have to respect the honestly she has poured into it.

Name: Sea Wolf
Project: Stripped back, fans only album
Current Status: 153 pledges, 14% ($7,119) of $50,000 goal. 42 days remaining.

Alex Brown Church has wanted to make a completely stripped back Sea Wolf record for quite some time now, but has never really been able to make it happen. Now that he has fulfilled his label contract, he's an independent artist and there's nothing stopping him from doing what he wants to do. Well, apart from money.

So he's looking to the fans who have wanted a record like this to chip in a bit of cash and in return he's offering the following. Constant blog updates for a dollar, an album cover lithograph (a few to choose from) for $110, a personalised video with a song of your choice performed by Alex for $250, a guitar used on the album's recording for $1,500 or an executive producer credit for $3,000. That's just to name a few, of course.

"Survivor's Tale" Les Thomas's debut album campaign. from Les Thomas on Vimeo.

Name: Les Thomas
Project: Debut album
Current Status: 86 pledges, 72% ($5,046) of $7,000 goal. Four days remaining.

His recent single Song For Selva has caught the attention of many over the past couple of months, and for good reason. It has a pretty incredible message which is particularly pertinent right now. But now Les Thomas wants to release his debut album, a record packed full of stories of survival in both a political and personal sense.

If you contribute to helping him get the record released you could score a fingerstyle guitar lesson ($50), get a photo of a surivior from your family tree in the album booklet for $250 or have your website completely designed and set up for $1,000 (a very practical option).

Also in crowdfunding this week:

-          The Ubuntu Edge smartphone we have written about has set the record as the biggest crowdfunding project in history this week. Sadly it still needs over $20 million to get across the line and only has two days to do so, so it looks like that record will essentially mean fuck all.

-          Australian writers and lovers of good Australian writing have banded together to support Seizure magazine, a publication run by a group of volunteers focusing on creative and often irreverent content. They need a new website to keep up with the times and they're doing pretty well in their goal to get it made; hardly surprising given the quality of the rewards they are offering. Check it out and help them if you can.