Kristin Hersh and Donita Sparks launched a site called CASH Music (Coalition for Artists and Stake Holders) earlier this week that's somewhat along the lines of Radiohead's experiment, but with more tiers of involvement for fans. From initial inspection, this looks like a really well-thought idea.
Only Hersh's latest single is available on the site at this point, but other artists' work should start showing up soon; the site says it "will soon be open to any and all independent artists who want a set of tools to offer their music directly to their audience for collaboration as well as financial support."
The single is available as a pay-what-you-like 256 Kbps MP3 file. Other available formats include 128 Kbps, MP3, and FLAC, and all downloads are available either from the CASH Music server or via a torrent link.
The default asking price for all of this stuff plus liner notes is $3, payable via PayPal -- or you can download it all for free. Some of that cash supports Hersh, and some goes towards building the CASH Music site.
Whatever you choose to pay, you can also download the Pro Tools stems of the song. This means you can remix the tracks, record new parts onto th project, or do pretty much whatever else you want to do with it other than sell it (the song is licensed under the Creative Commons by-nc-sa license, which means users are free to share or remix as long as they include attribution, use the song in a non-commercial way, and share any resulting works under an identical license.) Users are encouraged to upload what they've made from the song to the site.
That's not all. Other options include subscribing to Hersh's music for either $10 per quarter (includes all media, a sticker, a poster, and the her CD when it's done) or $30 per quarter (includes all media, a "Works in Progress" CD, and free entrance with a plus-one into a show by Hersh, Throwing Muses, or 50 Foot Wave).
And if you want to pay more, you can. $500 gets you a visit into the studio to observe Hersh recording; $1000 gets you that plus a Featured Sponsor designation on her next CD; and for $5,000, you'd get both of those things plus an Executive Producer credit on the CD.
Hersh's latest blog post on the site indicates that there's a lot more to come:
"Gradually, over the next weeks and months CASH Music will be revealing it's 'real' self. Other artists will be involved, the final and fully-capable site will be launched and new features will be added -- all incorporating your input and creativity. CASH is a community that in the end will be defined by itself.
What does read-write mean? Maybe as you're listening to "Slippershell", you're inspired to DO something: paint a picture, write an essay, make a video, remix, or even re-record the song. Please do so. And share your work with me and the rest of the CASH community by uploading it somewhere and sending me a link. I'm offering my Pro Tools mix stems to make it easy to work with my recorded material. We will review all the links submitted, I promise. At some point, I'll release the songs I post here in the form of a CD. It's my intention that the CD release should also include lots of the stuff you send me. I think that would be incredible.
We'll be keeping our eye on this one.
