UPDATE (11/30)...
One day! That was all it took. :D
I want to thank everyone who took the time to donate to the cause. You guys raised more than the $642 that was required to save my hard drive, and there's still 29 days left in the fundraiser!
I can officially pay to get my hard drive recovered now, but there's not reason for anyone to not be able to purchase any of the perks that are still available!
The $15 perk is a physical and digital copy of the album and a subscription to next year of Caleb Orion. For $15 you basically get two albums worth of music! That's an awesome deal no matter which way you cut it. I can use the money for other things that are directly related to Chromatose getting released.
1) I can pay for the printing of the cds! I was going to save up and pay for this out of pocket. Printing of CDs costs a couple hundred dollars, anything that I save up after the original $642 will first go towards the printing costs.
2) I can pay the wonderful guest musicians who took time out of their lives to record for my cd! I had a drummer, ROK, who played for most of the album, Jon York and Shane Costigan played electric on a song each, and Jay Harps played the blues harp on 1973 Barbara Dane. They all did a wonderful job with their work on the disc, and I'd love to recompense them for their help!
3) More music! A lot of you put in enough dollars to get a subscription to Caleb Orion, which gets you a whole years worth of music released every three months. I can put extra money into the project and ensure that every track you receive is a beautiful production worthy of your ears.
Lastly, a HUGE thank you to everyone who donated yesterday! You made a massive difference, and I feel like the most fortunate person in the world for having such a caring and giving collection of friends, family, and fans. :)
Our Story So Far...
For the past two years, I have been working on a follow-up to my last album Hendiadys [That And This]. Hours were spent making sure each guitar, bass line, and vocal were on pitch and in time, and I even solicited help from a solid drummer from Canada to tie the entire production together!
But then something hit me from the left hand.
I lost the hard drive that I was temporarily storing all of my information on. One of these pieces of information was the entirety of my album Chromatose. Every pluck, every strum, and every beat of the drum was lost. It's one of those moments where the world stops spinning on its axis and just slows to a crawl.
I tried everything that I knew how to do. I handed the drive off to friends, and their friends, but nobody could get at my data, and the hard drive just wouldn't spin up.
A New Hope...
A friend of mine mentioned sending the drive in to a recovery center.
"It'd be very expensive," he said, "but they would be able to do it."
So, after a minimal amount of hemming and hawing, I sent my broken dreams in to one of the recovery centers that I was able to find. After a lengthy wait, I received a phone call from my case manager at the recovery center. They will be able to save the hard drive!
But, it's expensive. $642 to be exact.
What I Need...
All I need is $642 to help me pay for the data recovery service. All of the work I have been doing in the past two years will be for naught if I can't get these songs back. And they're great songs! If you haven't yet, please listen to the video up top. It contains the last 30 second samples that I have been able to cull from my SoundCloud.
Perks...
For helping me out, there's a lot of perks!
For starters, everyone who supports me with the smallest possible amount will get a free digital copy of the album when it is released. This is my way of saying, Thank you for helping me raise the money to save my music! I want people to hear the fruits of their care.
Other perks will be a hard copy of the album, hard copies of Hendiadys, and even a hand-made hard copy of my first album, Plumb. Plumb never even saw the light of day as a physical release, only as a digital download. I will gladly hand-make a numbered, limited edition, physical version of the album for this project to succeed.
For those who fund at higher levels, I offer hand-made t-shirts with designs of your favorite food or favorite animal. These shirts will be completely designed by me by hand, converted to stencil format, and painted onto a t-shirt. They are guaranteed to be one of a kind, and you'll be able to tell people you got it by helping make music happen!
And the biggest perk of all, if you fund the entire Hard Drive recovery fee, I will write a song dedicated to you (with a topic that we agree upon beforehand), which I will write and record specifically to append as a bonus track on the end of Chromatose. That's right, I will hasten a track just for you, and it will sound delicious!
Caleb Orion Subscription?...
Everyone who donates $15 or more to the recovery cause will not just earn their perks, but they will also be signed up for a year of Caleb Orion. What does that mean?
Instead of having to wait a whole year or more for my next release, everyone who subscribes to Caleb Orion will get four new songs every four months, for a total of twelve songs a year.
Every year I will compile all of these songs together for a full album release to distribute to anyone who is not already a subscriber, but with a subscription comes the great responsibility of having to enjoy all the songs in four-track increments. Imagine being the talk of the town by hearing all the new material months before anyone else! Awesome.
Please Share...
Share with your friends. The only way I can ensure that I can release my album is by your help! If everyone gets together to help out, we can all be a part of the process.
Thank you so much in advance. You have no idea how much it means to me. :)