Kickstarter

This year my goal has been to write and record an album full of  my own songs…a few weeks ago I realised that I was halfway to my goal…and that is where you come in.

My name is Gil Hockman. I am a musician from Johannesburg, South Africa. For most of my working life I have been doing something in the music industry: from working as a radio presenter, photographer, poster-maker, groupie, roadie and journalist to being a promoter, event organiser and eventually owning a live music venue. 

Over the years though, the adventure wore me down and when eventually the live venue closed I decided that I was done the music industry. I was burned out and disillusioned and so I went off into the corporate world and got a real job working as a digital marketer for a recruitment company. Not the best. For two years I stared at a computer, or out the window, wondering what had happened to my life, what went wrong and where all the love had gone. 

Then one day - or over many one days - it slowly dawned on me that there was still one thing that I had not done and that maybe it was actually the most important thing: I had grown up with music and spent so much of my adult life trying to get as close to it as I could but I had never actually allowed myself to try and be a musician. I had always thought that making music was something that other people could do, not me. 

So I started practising my guitar and I discovered that I could sing. I started to play a few gigs and then a few more until eventually I made the leap and became a full-time musician. Each year I have given myself a set of goals. The first year my goal was to play 50 shows. The second year my goal was to play 100 shows and I also recorded my first album called Too Early In The Journey - a collection of covers I had been playing and three songs that I had written myself. With each day and month and year I got more confident as an artist and as a performer and the love and enjoyment has slowly seeped back in.

This year my goal has been to write and record an album full of songs that I had written myself, and a few weeks ago I realised that I was halfway to my goal: I had written enough songs to fill an album. Now I just need to get them recorded, and that is where you come in. 

The cost of producing this album is $5000. It includes recording, mixing, mastering and printing as well as the distribution costs and fees for this Kickstarter project.

I have already recorded the demos for the album and I am ready to go. I am also really proud of the songs that I have written and can't wait to send them out into the world. With a little help from all of you, that will happen soon enough.  

Please take a look at the rewards section and see if there is anything that you are interested in. I hope you can find something that will help me on towards my goal. (I will be designing the cover myself so if you are interested in the T-shirt option see the link below to my poster designs)

And above all: thank you, thank you, thank you. 

Gil

Some links: 

• My website (www.gilhockman.com)
• Soundcloud (soundcloud.com/gilhockman) 
• Facebook (facebook.com/gilhockman)
• Twitter (twitter.com/gilhockman)
• Poster designs (facebook.com/gilgraphic)