Rickie Lee Jones Is Selling Her Clothes & Address Book

Rickie Lee Jones seems like a nice lady, but her crowdfunding campaign video is weird as hell.

Name: Rickie Lee Jones
Project: New album
Current Status: 26% of goal achieved. 77 days remaining.

It has been over ten years since Rickie Lee Jones released an album of new material, but she's ready to drop one in 2014 and in order to raise the necessary funds, she is clearing out her cupboards at the same time.

She is offering some pretty great perks for those who want to help and a few kinda creepy ones too. Her address book went for $140, different pieces of clothing she has worn – scarves, hats, dresses – have fetched a pretty massive amount of money and a topless self-portrait she drew went for $540.

She's already offloaded the liner notes she wrote for her ex-boyfriend Tom Waits' Blue Valentine, but there are posters, merch and a whole heap of instruments from her collection still available for those who want to help out. Of course, if you want her to come to your house and play a show then that is possible too. It's just that it'll set you back around $54,000.

Name: Box Of Stars
Project: Last Box of Sparklers, a tribute to Mark Linkous
Current Status: 384 pledges, 37.4% ($18,709) of $50,000 goal achieved. Nine days remaining.

Mark Linkous' passing was nothing short of a tragedy. We all knew the Sparklehorse leader was a depressed guy, but that didn't make his suicide back in 2010 any less upsetting to his incredibly dedicated horde of fans, many of who are musicians themselves.

Box Of Stars, an organisation that promotes mental health awareness through music, have decided to release an album in tribute to Linkous, with some incredible artists coming on board to offer their own versions of some of his songs. We're talking acts like The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Mark Lanegan, Cowboy Junkies, Portugal. The Man, Jason Lytle and heaps more, and the whole record will be mixed by Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Tame Impala, Neil Finn).

If you pledge to help make the record a reality, you'll not only be helping out a great cause but getting some incredible music. You can also get extra perks like paintings, merch and you can even get your song mixed by Ted Richardson. It's a record that needs to happen for a cause that needs support.

Name: Best Of Street
Project: Best Of Street New Orleans: A Music Compilation
Current Status:

Best Of Street want to take musicians who play on the street, record them and share their music with people around the world. They want to give recognition to amazing musicians who don't usually get any at all and they want help getting the project off the ground.

The first city they'll focus on is New Orleans – which makes a lot of sense – and they hope to have a record ready for us by February of next year. If you pledge $5 you can get a download of it when it is released, for an extra $20 they'll throw in a t-shirt or if you pony up $100 you can get a signed copy of the cover art.

Of course if you're flush with funds you can always get right amongst it and drop $1,000, which will get you a night in a New Orleans hotel and a tour of the best in New Orleans street music or for $10,000 you get three nights and you'll even have your name sung in one of the songs!

Also in crowdfunding this week:

If you're a musician and you use MIDI, then you need to check this shit out.

The PUC looks to eliminate all wires that connect your MIDI controller of choice to your iPad. Instead of cables, it connects to the device using WiFi and it's cool as shit. There is only a couple of hours left to get on board the campaign (they raised all their funds already) and grab one $50 cheaper than they'll retail for, so check it out.

If you have concerns about the longevity of crowdfunding, then you might be interested to read what Ryan Caldbeck, CEO of equity-based crowdfunding site CircleUp has to say in Forbes today. Caldbeck believes that an equity crowdfunding site has the potential to be the biggest marketplace on earth, but he's not 100 percent convinced. One thing he says is for sure, though, is that “equity crowdfunding will massively disrupt the existing broken markets” – time will tell on that point.