Hello Sponsors!

It's been about 2 months since Under California Skies was released and we are finally getting around to our sponsor videos that we owe a couple of folks. Here is the first video and I will continue to post more over the next few weeks.

This one is dedicated to Thomas Dryden and features Marlana "Marie" Sheetz.

Magic by Colbie Caillat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch...

Keep passing along our new album Under California Skies to friends. The link to download it is:
http://andrewheringer.bandcamp.com

-Andrew

Hey Everybody,

We released the new album online for free about two weeks ago at:
http://andrewheringer.bandcamp.com

The response to the album has been really positive and we have already had over 1000 downloads from bandcamp.com so far. A lot of that is thanks to folks who have reposted the link on facebook, twitter or forwarded the link on to friends.

If you have anyone who you think might enjoy the music - please help us by continuing to spread the word. It is thanks to your donation that we are able to give the album away for free and it is our hope that we can reach many new people who haven't heard the music before now because of that.

tell your friends about the free album at http://andrewheringer.bandcamp.com !!!

-Andrew

Hey There,

I wanted to let everyone know about the new date for our official CD release concert. The show will be on September 4th at 8pm at Fusion Yoga Studio in Sacramento, CA. I will start to email all donors about how many tickets they would like for that evening. There will also be a backyard BBQ before the show for donors. More information regarding that to come.

We will be putting the finishing touches on the album, titled "Under California Skies," in the next two weeks. The album will be available to download online shortly afterwards. Attached below is the first track from the album, "Roads." It is not quite the final product but it is close enough to share. This whole album is a very personal one lyrically and "Roads" is no exception. It deals with the concept of home; the comfort home brings as well as the uncertainty that comes when home is hard to pinpoint. Musically, the song is a combination of our acoustic and full band sound which is reflected in the sound of this album.

Thanks for your continued support and patience as this album slowly nears completion.

-Andrew, Kellen, Arlyn, Jason & Jonathan.

We are starting to put some of the finishing touches in place for the album release next month. Here is a sneak peak at the album art. The cover art was done by an amazingly talented friend of mine, Rick Jones. View more of his work at: http://www.papercuts.us

We did it! A huge-gigantic-no-words-can-possibly-express-our-gratitude thank you to the 142 people who have sponsored our new album this last month.

We are currently mixing the album and putting some of the final touches on the tracking. Our goal is to have the new album done by late July. We will be sending out the signed CD's, T-shirts, etc. somewhere around early August. I apologize for the wait but we are going to take the next month to make the best album we can and the support from the 142 has made that possible! Thank you sponsors for making it possible for us to dedicate the proper time and energy to making this our best album yet.

Once we get the new FREE album up on our website, we are hoping you will join us by spreading the word to your friends & family. By releasing it for free, our goal is to have as many people as possible download our album. Who knows how many downloads we can get? (exciting thought!)

Our CD Release is set for August 14th in Sacramento, CA. We hope you can join us. We are planning to make it one of our favorite "in-the-round" style concerts.

-Andrew, Arlyn, Jason, Jonathan & Kellen

It is currently 4 am on the morning of Saturday, May 29th. I can't sleep. To be honest, the lack of sleep is due to the fact that I am completely overwhelmed by the generosity of my friends.

Sometime ago, I decided that this new album was going to be different and it wasn't going to have the same old CD release. Lots of musicians/bands have played around with the concept of free music and I wanted to jump on this train. I threw around so many ideas of how to release this album that my close friends and family stopped picking up my phone calls (for a couple of days at least, they do pick up now).

On May 15th of 2008, I heard an interview on NPR about a women who had a fan supported album. I know the exact date because I went immediately to my phone and took notes. Her friends/fans had helped her raise the money to record a new album and she gave them gifts at certain sponsor levels. I thought why not take this to the next level; if an independent artist can raise the money to have all the recording costs taken care of – WHY NOT RELEASE THE CD FOR FREE?

I believe that the current ability and opportunity for anyone to be able to access your music easily through the internet is something that needs to be taken advantage of for independent artists. Yes, we put lots of hours into recording our album. Yes, artists can make money of the sale of their CDs BUT most artists spend years just paying back their record label for recording costs. We have no budget for advertising, marketing campaigns or publicists so we are turning our album into our promotional tool. The payoff is the opportunity for anyone to be able to get our music, hear the songs and one day come experience our music live.

As of 4 hours ago, our album reached the funding goal we set out for. We still have 12 days left for sponsorships – anymore sponsorships at this point would allow us to put even more time and effort into the new album.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for getting behind my crazy idea to release this album for free and for supporting independent musicians who are working their tail off to be heard in a world of too many independent musicians trying to be heard. More importantly than this album being free, I believe that the musicianship, songs and sound of the recording itself is above and beyond anything I have done previously. Thank you for allowing us to put the needed time and effort into making this new album the best it can possibly be.

Off to try and sleep,

-Andrew

ps - i will start posting exclusive backers only pictures and video from the recording process in the coming days.