Hi everybody,

I'm running a special offer this month - anyone who sends me a copy of their receipt for Rules to Rock By from a physical bookstore gets a FREE DIGITAL COPY of the soundtrack - but for Kickstarter donors, I'd like to do you one better.

If you call ANY Barnes & Noble or Borders store in your area and simply request that they order the book Rules to Rock By, I will send a digital copy of the album to the email address of your choice for free. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS REQUEST THE BOOK; NO PURCHASE REQUIRED.

(I'm hoping to spike sales at these chains, but the first hurdle is to get as many stores as possible to actually stock the book.)

Some of you might already have the album, so this can be your way of gifting it to a friend.

Also, for EACH AND EVERY call you place (I'll take your word for it, of course), you can gift one additional person.

Send me an email at Joshkfarrar@gmail.com with the recipient's address as soon as you make your call!

Thank you!

Josh

Hi friends,

Hopefully by now every single one of you has received your thank-you package via email or post. If not please let me know - with 93 of you, and the USPS being what it is, you never can be too sure.

I'm writing for another reason, though...if you've read the book, and liked it, would you please steer your friends toward BARNES & NOBLE or BORDERS bookstores to purchase copies?

I just got word from my publisher that while the book is selling nicely at online retailers and independent bookstores (yay!), things are moving more slowly at the big, bad evil CHAIN STORES. I don't mean borders.com or barnesandnoble.com - I mean the actual, bricks-and-mortar locations.

I'm a big lover of the independents myself, but the sad reality these days is that first-time authors who "fail" at the two big chains just may not get the chance to be second-time authors.

If you have a moment and wouldn't mind emailing or Facebooking your friends to urge them to go get Rules To Rock By at one of the B&N or Borders locations, please tell them that if they email me at Josh@rulestorockby.com with a photo of their receipt, I will send them a FREE DIGITAL COPY of the soundtrack.

Thank you for the help...I really appreciate it!

Josh

Hi everybody,

At last I've got all the Rules to Rock By hardcovers I need, and all the CDs I need to send all you kind, generous people your rewards. For fun, I took the photos below of ALL the reward prizes together.

I'll be shipping them this week (except for the ones that need to be signed by the kids...that'll take a bit longer), and really hope you enjoy them!

Take care everyone, and thank you again, so much,

Josh

Hi guys,

Thanks for your continued patience as you await CDs and books...I just saw final artwork for the book and was told there's not much longer to wait, and the CD is 100% complete as well.

In the meantime, please enjoy this video interview between Hunter Lombard, the 16-year-old guitar player who played on about half the record, and Jen Turner, who has played with everyone from Natalie Merchant and Joseph Arthur to Santigold and her current band, Pitchfork darlings Here We Go Magic.

Hunter and Jen got together at my house a few weeks ago, and had an amazing chat (capped off with a nice jam session), and this is the first of several clips we hope to release from their time hanging out together.

Hope you enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch...

Josh

http://pitchfork.com/news/38451-listen-deerhoof-cover-liliput-for-young-adult-book-soundtrack/

Hi friends and supporters,

It's been such a long time since I've updated, but we've been plugging away.

1) The soundtrack's mixed, mastered, and READY TO GO! A short run of CDs will arrive next week, and I'll start mailing them out to donors. (Those of you who have books coming your way, please be patient and I'll send both CD and novel in a single package. Don't have an exact timeline on hardcover availability yet, but it should be soon.)

2) Check out the CD COVER ART (see below) designed by the talented Tayef Farrar! Based on the book cover (also below) by Dani Delaney of Walker Books for Young Readers, the CD cover is a slightly more adult-looking piece that reflects our hope that this music will appeal to all age groups.

3) Hope you enjoy The Bungles' FIRST SINGLE, "Hey Satomi," (press play on the audio link at the bottom of the page) written by me, Chris Daddio and Sivan Gur-Arieh, and sung by Justine Skyers. It's a sonic love letter to our new friends Deerhoof, the internationally acclaimed and wildly innovative Oakland rock band. They gave us feedback on "Hey Satomi" during the writing process, and wound up giving us a great new unreleased track to add to the soundtrack. We're very grateful, as anything new by Deerhoof is sure to garner attention all over the world.

4) While there may be an additional performance or two prior to this, our BIG LAUNCH EVENT has been confirmed for June 23, 2010 at the Housing Works Bookstore in Soho, New York City. It'll be a fantastic evening of readings and songs from the CD sung by our incredibly talented teen singers. You are all invited, of course, and some of you big donors will be getting VIP treatment there. I'll check in with you again before the event, but if you know you are going to come out, please let me know.

5) A big thanks to CHRIS DADDIO, the producer of the project, who lived hand-to-mouth out here with me in Brooklyn (not really an exaggeration) for four months in order to bring this idea to life. Thank you, Chris!

And thank YOU old friends, new friends, and family, so much, for all your support!

More soon....

Josh Farrar

Hi folks,

This NY Times article is too exciting not to pass on.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/arts/music/11carebears.html...

Rules to Rock By singer Sofie Kapur called "riveting," and RTRB guitarist Hunter Lombard deemed "ferocious!"

Nice...

J

Hi everyone,

Well, the project's been officially over for nearly a week, and funds should be clear and ready for us to collect within the next fourteen days. We are so grateful for these funds, which essentially amount to our mixing budget, plus a few outstanding debts to generous and patient collaborators. Thank you again!

I came across a video today and wanted to share it with you. It features a Dutch teenage guitar player named Cissie. I think she might be a Metallica fan. ;) She is a hardcore shredder, a true virtuoso metal player, and you can witness her prowess on her YouTube channel.

The video is a fan chat between Cissie and Metallica's frontman, James Hetfield, and it offers further proof that Metallica's torturous years of band-therapy were well worth it! James is so kind to this young fan, and really thinks about his responses to her many questions about songwriting and performing. Cissie's so earnest, and soaks up everything he says like a sponge. All she wants to do is learn from the source of her inspiration. And James is cool enough to show her that he, too, is inspired by the artists he enjoys listening to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch...

I never thought about the mentoring aspect of Rules To Rock By until we were well underway, but getting a chance to work with Sofie, Justine and Hunter has been by far the most rewarding aspect of the project. They are so talented, and are very open to suggestions. One little note to them on an element of their performance, and they get it: they're off and running, surpassing our expectations. In short, these girls were a producer's dream team!

And while the dynamics in this video are a bit different - Chris, Kevin and I aren't exactly James Hetfield-level Rock Deities (still working on that) - it really reminded me of the power of mentoring, and the simple purity of learning from a generous teacher. When I was fourteen, my uncle got me backstage at a 1984 R.E.M. concert, and Peter Buck treated me, a doe-eyed fourteen-year-old, with the same respect James offers Cissie here. I'm still grateful for it, and wish I had the video. It would have shown me asking him to sign a brand-new denim jacket, and PB protesting that it was too nice to ruin.

Thanks again, and Happy New Year everyone!

Happy Holidays, everyone!

And thank you for making our holiday so happy by your generous contributions...you have made this project possible, and we are forever grateful.

I will continue to make updates here and there. If you get tired of such news, you can change your notification settings on KS, and the next time you'll hear from me will be when I request your addresses for thank-you packages in the mail.

Please look forward to receiving your rewards in JUNE/JULY 2010. The book comes out on June 22, and we will follow up with music and tickets shortly thereafter.

Thanks again, so much, and Happy New Year!

Josh & the R2RB Team

Backers,
A NOTE ON DOUGH
WE HAVE ONLY 300 BUCKS TO GO!

We've raised $4700 in the last couple months, and the thanks for that is laid squarely at your feet.

You've already done so much, but if anybody feels like increasing their pledge by $5 or $10, who knows, maybe you'll be the one to push us past the finish line! We'd be ever so grateful.

I mean, obviously, we're gonna keep this money. It's no accident that I made the deadline of this project right around Christmas, so that if I were truly desperate, I could guilt some poor relative into chipping in the last couple hundred. But it would be so much cooler if that didn't happen!

Maybe guilting a relative is slightly less sleazy than suggesting that backers dig even deeper into their pockets, but I've been subjected to so many public radio pledge drives over the years, perhaps I've gone numb...

Anyway, thank you for even considering, but please know that I'm grateful for the support you've ALREADY GIVEN US more than I can say. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

A BIT OF DADA WEIRDNESS
This video is pretty wacked.

Marlan Barry, who is the head recording engineer of the Houston Grand Opera, is a good friend and has been the engineer on most of our vocal recordings with the girls. He is also a total freak (in a good way, obvz) as this video proves.

I love the guy, and maybe after seeing this video, you will, too (he is SPOKEN FOR, people, by none other than Straight-Up Rock Star backer Hayley Downs).

Anyway, I had an idea that maybe, just maybe, if we recorded a bunch of human-made animal sound effects, they'd find a place on the cover we're doing of Miike Snow's "Animal." That idea is on the back burner, but this video isn't. Check out Marlan's command performance. He started this session behind the boards, but demanded to come in and PERFORM!

Marlan taught me a thing or two about COMMITTING TO THE PERFORMANCE with the various howls, growls and hisses on display below.

Thanks everyone!

Josh

This is just for fun...

Yair Evnine is probably the best guitar player I actually know and can claim as a friend.

For the first time in the recording process, we encountered a guitar part that was a little too tricky for me or Chris to handle, so we called in Yair. (Plus, he owns a slide!)

Yair's here right now doing the slide part on "No Aloha," by The Breeders, but I asked him to show us his Clapton/Page/Bloomfield classic guitar licks.

I probably read just as many issues of Guitar Player Magazine as Yair, but I never learned how to play guitar like this. (Yep, I'm jealous.)

Thanks Yair, one of the many great musicians helping this project come to life!

Hello everybody!,

A few quick words...
ONLY 500 BUCKS TO GO!
Wow, I really thought I had tapped every single friend already, but some awesome people have risen up from nowhere in the last four or five days to bring us WITHIN 90% OF OUR GOAL.

Thank you so much, new backers. Your support means so much, I'm really grateful, and can't wait to give you your thank-you gifts as they become available.
NEW SOFIE INTERVIEW
We did a background vocal session at my home studio last weekend, with Chris mixing and directing, Sofie doing an amazing job at the arduous task of overdubbing nearly a hundred individual vocal lines, and me barking out random comments from the safe confines of the couch.

Tayef interview Sofie at the end of the session for her thoughts (vid attached)...

Thanks for your continued support!

Josh

P.S. Chris and I are getting along fine! The stuff last time about the food fight and the rhythm-guitar-skills insults was pure fiction...

Hey folks,

A couple quick things:

1) Digg us!

As we get closer and closer to the finish line, I'm looking for ways to spread the word. Digg is one of them. WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO DIGG US? If I can get a couple hundred friends/contacts to vote for this project, a LOT of people will get a chance to experience what R2RB is all about.

http://digg.com/music/Help_Tween_Girls_to_Rock_Out

2) Follow us on Twitter!
www.twitter.com/rulestorockby

I'll tweet about the project here, with a mind to not simply regurgitate these updates, but I'll also tweet and post stuff of general interest: music and movie news, etc.

thanks again for your continued support,

J

Thank you everyone, so much, for getting us to within 80% (oops, I almost typed "08%" which would have sucked) of our goal!
WHAT WE'RE UP TO
This week we've been working on mixes and preparing for a background vocal session with Sofie at my home studio in Brooklyn. We'll shoot some video and pics of that and post it for you guys.

Chris and I have been getting a little cranky with each other, which is not cool, but sometimes that's how things go when you're working on a project with a good friend and spending way too much time together. Chris, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to start that food fight in my kitchen. And I didn't mean to scream all those playground insults at you. And I forgive you for saying that unprintable thing about my rhythm-guitar playing. (You are EQing Hunter's guitar right now, have no idea I'm writing this, and may never know I'm writing this since you don't get these updates!)
ONE STEP CLOSER TO A REAL BOOK
One very cool thing happened this week: the GALLEYS of Rules to Rock By came in, and they look pretty cool! I've never published a book before, so seeing this thing start to actually LOOK LIKE A BOOK is awesome. (Thank you Stacy and Marissa!)

Those of you who became an INDUSTRY EXECUTIVE, imagine the picture below in hardcover, and you get the idea.

More soon...thank you so much for your support and please continue to tell your friends R2RB is something worthy and exciting to support!

take care,

Josh

Okay, I think I can only upload one video at a time.

The other update shows Justine talking about why she likes Santigold (who, by the way, changed her name from Santogold to Santigold, or the other way around, I can't remember, in order to settle a copyright dispute, I think).

This one shows Sofie talking about the hardest song she sang Saturday.

Did I mention that this was our best session yet and totally rocked?
Oh, and this:

We don't know how many tracks we're going to include on this record, but of course the outcome of this Kickstarter thing may well have a huge impact on the final track listing. That's right, THE MORE YOU GIVE, THE MORE YOU GET.
Please email 3-5 friends the Kickstarter link so we can rock this thing and cut as many tracks for you guys as possible: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1944134307/my-tween-indie-rock-novel-is-complete-help-me-fun
Thank you so much...without you, none of this would be happening!!!

Josh