Nurse the Hate: Hate Kickstarter

I recently received an urgent email insisting I contribute to a Kickstarter campaign to help pay for an underground rock band's flights back from a European Tour.  For those of you not familiar with "Kickstarter", it is an internet fundraising method where generally an artist of some kind makes a plea to help them financially with a project.  "We want to do this idea.  Send us money so we can, and if you do we will do something symbolic for you when we finish."  This is the basic idea. 

I do have an issue of having to pay for someone to go on a tour.  Being someone that has gone on low budget, life on the razor's edge tours, my immediate reaction to that email was "fuck off".  We figured it out.  You fucking figure it out.  We play every single day, and have done multiple shows on the same day.  We create merchandise that people want to purchase.  We cut expenses to the bone.  We route correctly.  We make it fucking add up.

This brings me to the real crux of it.  If the band does not have the demand to enable enough club revenue to generate enough money to get back, perhaps not enough people wanted you there in the first place.  Maybe you need to get something going to create demand.  If you wanted to go to Europe to see what it was like, get a job and save money to buy vacation airfare.  Don't clog up my email and try to beg me for the money.  I have enough people with real needs shaking me down during the holidays.  If you have to stay in Amsterdam and suck off sailors to make enough money to get home, well that's a very powerful life lesson.  My guess is that in the future you won't fly to Europe without a round trip ticket, or maybe do something to generate press prior to flying over.  (Quick tip:  On your next trip over, telling the press in advance about crying while performing fellatio in the Reeperbahn for a handful of euros is sure to get you coverage!)

Maybe I am not with the times, but "kickstarter" to me seems like "begging".  If the market won't pay for it, maybe you don't need to be doing it.  Also, the tone of so many of those kickstarter campaigns are "hey, kick in some money already, we want to do this stupid thing".  I don't show up at your gigs and bug you saying "Hey!  Hey!  When you are done, I need all of your merch money!  I want to go to Epcott Center!".  Take care of your own business.  Put on good shows that attract people.  Make records and gear people want to buy.  Get to work.