All our time gestating this year has really paid off! Dan received word that his US paperwork has finally been approved this last Monday afternoon and an hour later, coincidentally, we hit the recording studio and were able to knock out four songs for our new album in just three hours, live-off-the-floor, including bass and drums! Now free to get back to our lives already in progress, it feels like a huge burden has just melted off our shoulders and to top it off we are incredibly pleased with our studio back-up band and the first mixes of our new CD. We hope you will be too!
For the California Central Coasters, we'll be celebrating all the good news at our big show this coming Sunday, November 30th, 7PM, at Don Quixote's International Music Hall, in Felton, CA (see the left sidebar for details). This show christens the sound and musicians that we'll be featuring on this upcoming second studio album - celebrated Santa Cruz artists Jimmy Norris, drums, Tracy Parker, bass, and Patti Maxine, lap steel. We plan to have the new 12 song CD finished by our upcoming 40 concert Canada tour (January 20 through March 24th, 2015) and we'll officially release the album in the US at shows in early April 2015.
However, WE NEED SOME FUNDING HELP by December 31st, 2014 at 11:59PM in order to make the album a success. For your generosity, we've spent many hours this week dreaming up gifts for you. Besides the new album or our joint and individual discographies, we're gifting prizes like violin, guitar, and songwriting lessons, hypnotherapy sessions to stop smoking, lose weight, or sleep better, personal mixed tapes, care packages of our favorite things while on the road, private concerts, etc. etc. Check out our Kickstarter page for details: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/452731129/dan-and-laurels-second-album
What's Kickstarter? Kickstarter is a popular "crowd funding" platform used to help fund creative projects. Friends, family, and fans pledge a donation amount of choice to help fund the project to completion and in return may chose a gift to receive should we reach our goal. No money is spent and no gifts received unless we reach our target amount, in our case, $6,500 by 12/31/14 at 11:59PM PST. If only a portion of the funds are pledged, we receive NOTHING, no credit cards are charged, but you also receive NOTHING and we may not be able to complete our CD by tour time. If more money is pledged than our target amount, we might invite a few other musicians record with us, send the new album to a few more radio stations, or even take ourselves out to dinner on New Years Eve to celebrate! If we're funded, you'll receive your gifts by January or April 2015 depending on the nature of the gift you've chosen.
We've just launched this Kickstarter, a first for both of us, and are happy to report that we already have $175 pledged towards the album. We feel it's important to create a buzz right away with early mailing list support. The fact is, if we get enough traffic and support in the next few days it's possible that Kickstarter will feature our project, in which case our project would be shared with thousands of music supporters who wouldn't otherwise know about us.
Will you help us show people who have never heard of Dan and Laurel that we have strong support and are worth their notice?
If so, please head over to https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/452731129/dan-and-laurels-second-album, check out the video we put together with footage from our recent recording session that will put a smile on your face, and pledge your support. Pledges start at just $1 and the gifts you can receive start at just $3. Any amount helps and you can pledge multiple times as well if you are interested in receiving multiple prizes should we reach our goal by New Year's Eve.
After you check it out for yourself, please share our Kickstarter project link and/or this email with your friends, family, on Facebook, or anywhere else the music lovers and supporters congregate in your life. We want you and your friends to ride along with us through this creative and joyous time.
"The sun is shining, all over my life, and baby you're the reason for the season of my new disguise." ~ Dan Frechette, from "New Disguise", soon to be released!
Thank you for reading and for your continuing support!