Sites like Sellaband, Kickstarter, Slicethepie and Pledgemusic have given people in the arts a new way of appealing to fans directly. Each crowdfunding project has different incentives depending on your level of investment: from receiving a production credit to a pre-release download to private concerts to revenue shares – if you’re a fan and you have spare cash, chances are there is something you can get out of it beyond satisfaction.

Since crowdfunding began, it has seen a fair mix of success and failure. Public Enemy were forced to concede that their original $250,000 asking price was too high. Now, nearly 11 months later, the band have raised 80% of their re-adjusted $75,000 price. Duke Special’s Pledge Music finance-raising efforts for three new albums earlier this year received 129% of its asking more modest total.

At the moment, two Irish artists are hoping to follow in Duke Special’s footsteps. Laura Sheeran, a musician from Dublin who has been working on her debut album for the last four years has also signed up to Pledge Music. Sheeran hopes to release Lust of Pig and the Fresh Blood physically in September and, at time of writing, Sheeran has raised 52% of her goal with 19 days left to pledge. Sheeran’s incentives range from a download of the completed album to a gig in a pledger’s house.

Award winning film director Eoghan Kidney has long been hoping to bring his pet project to the big screen. Rogue Moon is a sci-fi novel which was written by Algis Budrys in 1960. Kidney has already secured the rights to make the film and has invested time and resources into the project. Kidney is hoping to create a “low budget high concept sci-fi film” and turned to Kickstarter as an appropriate way of securing additional funds. Kidney is asking for $15,000 over six weeks to raise necessary funds to hire an expert script writer and produce a trailer.

$15,000 seems a lot of money to raise in six weeks but Kidney says he’s just being realistic. “A lot of projects don’t ask for enough, “says Kidney “I think this betrays inexperience and make me doubt they can pull off what they say they are going to do.”

Kidney’s proposition is unique in that, he already has a backer who says they will match whatever money is raised on Kickstarter, effectively doubling every dollar made. Kidney acknowledges though, that crowdfunding projects are in their infancy and there’s a certain element of experimentation with it. “We really want to make this project and we really believe there are enough people out there to get this funded,” Kidney says. “But as Werner Herzog [notorious German filmmaker] said ‘When you’re project is good, the money follows you like a dog with its tail in between its legs.’”

The Ugly Dance
Send your friend a customised interactive dance card now. They’ll appreciate it.
http://theuglydance.com

1,001 Rules For My Unborn Son
Boys need rules. Walker Lamond imparts his worldly knowledge down to his son via the medium of a blog. Now a book.
http://rulesformyunbornson.tumblr.com

Wild Nothing – Golden Haze
A genuine three and a half minutes of ’80s dream pop made in 2010 by Virginian Jack Tatum, Golden Haze is the perfect soundtrack to dancing around your room doing that dance from The Breakfast Club.
Listen at Pitchfork

Kanye and Jay-Z’s surprise EP
Watch The Throne is an impromptu five-track EP from two of rap’s big players with appearances from Bon Iver, Nicki Minaj and Rick Ross. Check Kanye’s Twitter for MP3s.
http://twitter.com/kanyewest

Snow Patrol mashup

Galway bootleg artist Phil Retrospector mixed Jimmy Ruffin’s What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?’ with Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars. P Diddy saw it and put it on his blog. Now, you can hear it too.

http://www.imheremovie.com

Recommended for fans of Glee, Tina Fey, Jimmy Fallon, John Hamm (Mad Men), Hurley from Lost and Betty White.

Even a former pop star, Mark Wahlberg remarked: “The world needs Justin Bieber. Justin Bieber is like a white Tupac compared to a lot of people out there.”

The latest Bieber sensation may be the best yet. A song appeared on the web last week which was Bieber’s hit U Smile slowed down by 800%.

J. BIEBZ – U SMILE 800% SLOWER by Shamantis

As a result of the slowing down, the song is now over 35 minutes long and is closer to the sound of Sigur Ros jamming with whales in a cold icy ocean. While the original is a potent and saccharine paean to a girl’s eh, smile, the slowed down version is a meandering barrage of crashing notes, ambient chord drones, stretched-out reverb-heavy vocals and lulls. It’s actually a beautiful calming piece of music that has more in common with Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson. It’s epic in feeling as well as in length. It’s the musical equivalent of the time-stretching effect in Inception.

There were doubts that the track was legitimate, with many wondering whether this was another 4Chan prank but you can speed the file back up yourself and hear it in its original form. The track is attributed to Shamantis, an ambient artist from Tampa, Florida who did it for fun and who has since claimed after 1.65 million plays, that he’s been offered some record label deals.

It didn’t take any special skill. Using a free open-source program called PaulStretch , anyone can do it and many have. While myopic websites have called it a new genre (eh, it’s not), the track has kicked off a minor revolution in DIY remixing with songs like the rickroll original Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up, Miley Cyrus’ Party In The USA and Wham’s Wake Me Up Before You Go Go getting the same treatment.

That’s not the only Bieber-related audio splurge which happened recently. Back in July, dystopian brooklyn rapper El-P joked on Twitter he would remix a Bieber song if someone sent him an acapella.

The resulting joke track featured Paul McCartney’s Live and Let Die spliced with Bieber warblings. It was awful, but that was the point. The 800% slowed down Bieber track is closer to an ambient masterpiece. Stick it on next time you need to relax.

Cee-Lo – F**k You
The voice of Gnarls Barkley has had his heart broken but rather than wallow in sorrow, Cee-lo’s raising his middle finger to the former partner. The typographic video received over a million views in four days.


The Last Exorcism on ChatRoulette
Users on Chatroulette who encounter a girl about to strip, beware! It’s more than likely the viral from Lionsgate Films for their upcoming movie The Last Exorcism. Clever.

I’m Here Movie
Watch Spike Jonze’s short film centered on the relationship between two shoddily-made robots. In a bright idea, there are a limited number of virtual ‘cinema seats’ available per day to watch the movie.
http://www.imheremovie.com