Crowd Funding

...or else “power to the people”.  Where the audience decides which artists to support and the artists are sharing their vision and test it against all potential audiences.

This kind of artistic democracy is not entirely new as a concept. In New Orleans for example there are bars with no entrance fee for live gigs. Nor the price of drinks is higher when there are lives. What they do instead, the band has a bucket in front of them and the better they play the more money people throw in that bucket. That’s how they get paid.

Same thing happens in Greek folk festivities. The artists get paid by the audience based on how good they are. The better, the most well paid. People put money in their pockets while they play and at the end the band leader shares the money with the rest of the band.
So this, tested through the ages, technique is adapted to the online community and here we have 2 examples coming from Greece.

2L8 is a Greek collective  with 3 albums (or better say projects) released up to now. Their 3rd one, New Battles Without Honor and Humanity, was released on December 2011 and was fully financed by the band’s fans and whoever believed in their vision, through Music Pledge.

The idea is simple: the artist explains the project they have in mind and ask for a specific amount of money. The fund has to be raised within a specific timeframe.

And 2L8 paid them back in full with more than 1 ½ hours of great music packed with a 48 pages booklet with lyrics, info and a comic.
The music, split in 2 cd’s/sections (Sunlight, Moonlight) has the raw and melodic elements of post-rock (brings in mind dEUS) while the lyrics comment on contemporary social and political issues such as social freedom, equal rights, the role of individual in sustainable growth, love and relationship and the need for activism.
In short the message is fight for what you want to achieve and judging from the album itself and the way it was financed, 2L8 fought well!


You can buy or download for free the album from 2L8 site here!

Another crowd funding project is the graphic novel Elysium Online, by Ilias Kyriazis.

Elysium is a full color, 96 page graphic novel, that is half-finished and the funding process is still open on Indiegogo.

Copying from the site: “The story is about Elysium, a revolutionary social network. By logging in you’ll be able to interact with your deceased loved ones who now exist in a digital afterlife. It’s October 2021 and everyone is eagerly anticipating its official release.

What no one imagines is that the Elysium dead hate us. Just for being alive. And they’re biding their time until they get online. The moment they do, they’ll take over the internet and use anything with net access, from cars to aircraft carriers to wipe out the living.”

Ilias Kyriazis is no new to comics world. Since 2001 he has created some very successful  books in Greece (Manifesto, Blood Opera, Blast), he collaborated with Scott Lobdell (comic writer for Marvel and DC Comics), wrote and drew the graphic novel Falling for Lionheart for IDW and created Melody for DC/Zuda that was nominated for a LULU award.

Your chance to support his new project and get the book and other collectable material here: http://www.indiegogo.com/elysiumonline

http://iliaskyriazis.com/