Musicians looking for to cut out the middlemen should try working for CASH.
CASH - the Coalition of Artists and Stake Holders - is an interactional online storefront (cashmusic.org) designed to link artists directly with fans. The key players involved so far are one-time Boston singer/songwriter and Throwing Muses founder Kristin Hersh, L7 co-founder Donita Sparks and the experimental Los Angeles band Xiu Xiu (marked shoe-shoe), which performs at the Paradise on Wednesday.
�CASH is a music patronage operating system,� explained Billy O�Connell, Hersh�s married man and handler and peerless of CASH�s four principal partners, �providing tools to help artists take their work to an audience and grow direct support.�
The core melodic theme is simple: consumers can digitally memory access music online and pay as often or as little as they want; the tax income goes directly into the artist�s pocket.
If the construct sounds familiar, that�s because Radiohead popularized the theme with its pay-what-you-want �In Rainbows� download. But Hersh�s band 50 Foot Wave first pioneered the strategy with its �Free Music� EP more than a year before the British alt-rockers.
Now CASH is helping Hersh finance her recording-in-progress, �Speedbath.� Each month since January she�s released a track and used whatsoever money she makes to record the next unitary. Each song comes with lyrics, graphics and is available in lossless FLAC format as well as mp3.
�(CASH) is a dream come true,� Hersh said. �Taking charge of my vocation this way ends a long, ugly struggle. Everything about the previous scenario felt unnatural - the photo shoots, stylists, the makeup and the pilus - thousands of dollars spent to make me look like a way model. The truth is I never belonged anyplace near that life.�
Xiu Xiu�s latest handout, �Women As Lovers,� came out via traditional means in January, but CASH helped out with promotional assistance.
�At this point, I�ve come to the actualization that the size of our audience probably won�t change much,� Xiu Xiu frontman Jamie Stewart said. �The question then becomes how to best serve the audience we�ve got. CASH has been a capital tool in that respect. Those convoluted are extremely passionate people with systematically good ideas about how to affect a project forward and the technical know-how to make it possible.
�It seems like the perfect direction of escaping from the dumb industry standards,� he continued. �Super-expensive promo videos and other trite techniques feature been ruinous failures for us.�
CASH devised a promotional mini-site for Xiu Xiu�s CD, featuring an ongoing video magazine podcast. Additionally, the site is now providing Xiu Xiu with tour support through a forum that encourages fans to part photos, videos, concert reviews and related stories.
Hersh is utilizing CASH�s interactive features in tied more hardihood ways, giving customers access to her Pro-Tools stems - basically the digital rudiments of each
