This Kickstarter is for Arhoolie Records. Arhoolie is like nothing else anywhere. A company dedicated to American roots music started by a German immigrant. Piece by piece, they’ve recorded one of the most stunning libraries of Country Blues, Zydeco, Tex-Mex, Bluegrass, you name it. 

I have a particular affection for Arhoolie because of their superior recordings of Mississippi Fred McDowell, the artist on the first album I ever produced. 

But, you would enjoy Arhoolie’s music too. I know you would. Check out their website, listen to some of their music on your Spotify or MOG some other freemium streamer. 

Then, donate to this Kickstarter please. The world should know a little more about this, because then the world would be a little bit smarter and have a lot more fun.

Bill Burnett is the co-creator of the cartoon series ChalkZone, a Frederator production on Nickelodeon, and a longtime collaborator of mine in too many mediums to count.

Bill’s also a musical theatre writer and composer (he wrote the book and music for our animated TV movie The Electric Piper) and now he’s raising money on Kickstarter for a full scale Broadway style musical called Passing Over.

He describes the show on the Kickstarter page: 

Passed Over is the dramatic escape by the Slaves of Egypt, presented here for the first time from the point-of-view of the slaves themselves, the people in the streets.  It will be a full-length Broadway-friendly musical, with a fresh Rock-Musical score, vivid characters, a gripping plot, irreverent humor, and an universal message that speaks directly to the issues of today, just as it did to the inhabitants of Ancient Egypt.

I’m always happy when someone in our cartoon business works on stories in different mediums, it makes our industry better to have people with rich influences. It makes me even happier when it’s a friend.

Check out Bill’s musical and donate if you can. 

I’d like to ask your support for trombonist Roswell Rudd’s Kickstarter campaign. 

“Rudd extracts sounds from the trombone that go back to New Orleans and further ahead than anyone has yet reached.”
Nat Hentoff, Cosmopolitan

Roswell Rudd is a intensely deep musician, an emotional player whose music —be it dixieland, avant-garde jazz, or standards ranging from Duke Ellington to Bob Dylan— is agnostic to it’s source. This standards project, as he says in the Kickstarter pitch, “songs we all know that mark moments in our lives,” is one that I know from personal experience is one that comes directly from his heart.

Ros has had an profound effect on the way I look at the arts. He wouldn’t remember me from Adam, but we spent a couple of weeks together when he was the trombonist in composer Carla Bley’s first touring band and I was the sound engineer and road manager in 1977.

I was driving a boat of a station wagon around Woodstock with some of the musicians in the band. It was a silent, winter night, black sky with a few stars, and we were coming back from a gig in town to the house we were bunking at. Quietly, from the back seat Ros was humming a rich melody, one that could have come directly out the horn he played. When I asked what it was he surprised me with the answer.

“Queen. “We Are the Champions.”

Why was I shocked? Well, I was in full post-college hipster mode, rejecting the pop music that had formed me, and I was looking for the answers I thought “new music” might have. It was why I was attracted to the sophisticated music Carla was composing and Ros was playing with the likes of Archie Shepp and Albert Ayler.

And Queen! Well, Queen was just suburban crap, right?

“I’m teaching middle school music where I live in Maine,” Ros was saying. “You’ve got to speak to them in language they understand. Besides, it a great melody.”

It was Roswell’s ability to convey emotion in his sound, and equally make his way around melody, rhythm, and pure sound that made him the go-to guy for such a wide range of musical leaders. He could do it all, and retain his humanity in the process.

All of a sudden I was struck straight in the head with the bogus parameter’s hipness had thrust my way. Here was one of the truly hippest musicians ever saying that he decided what was important, not anyone else. If he was going to like pop, or jazz, or anything else, well damn the torpedoes. He liked what he liked.

That simple, seemingly unmemorable moment changed me. In a completely innocent reaction, a great musician shamed my hipsterness forever, from then on I was going to make my own decisions. If I wasn’t cool, so be it.

And, of course, I’ve been liking “We Are The Champions” ever since.

Thanks Roswell Rudd for the rest of my life.

This “Overture” from Carla Bley’s and Paul Haines’ 1972 Escalator Over The Hill should give you an idea of the beauty and fierceness of Roswell Rudd’s trombone.

And, if you need to refamiliarize yourself with “We Are The Champions”…

We really like Tim Schafer and the Double Fine guys (Psychonauts and Brütal Legend), and here they’re going out on a limb for a videogame they know you’ll like —a classic point-and-click adventure— but, for some reason, the publishers won’t make.

Artist Jeff Lafferty’s got a good personal story. Let’s help him make his movie. Curse of the Wolf’s Heart: A stop motion animated film.

New York is a tougher town for animation than it might seem from the outside. Susan Godfrey is trying to help make it better. Please support her Kickstarter.

Susan’s working to open The Productive, a co-working space in the city where animators have access to quiet, equipment, and creative camaraderie. An experienced filmmaker, producer, and go-getter, she knows what’s important and how to get it done. 

Please try and give all the New York animators a Christmas present.

Here’s a Kickstarter project that’s perfect for everyone who follows Frederator. Yes, I mean *you*!

Beloved by animators everyone, The Phantom Tollbooth is an incredible classic.

I don’t know how many of you have every seen Jules Feiffer speak, but he’s as enchanting in person as his words and pictures are in his books. And, in this clip, Norton Juster, the author, seems just as delightful. Now, thanks to Kickstarter we’ll get to see Norton and Jules revisit the amazing journey of the creation of a masterpiece that changed people’s lives, “the Alice in Wonderland of our time.”

Is Kickstarter the best solution for independent creators? 

“According to Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler, the site has become a serious option for creators seeking cash…the Film and Video category by far the most successful of Kickstarter’s 13 options…”

(via GigaOm)