So. 2013:
- We had a ton of fun doing the South by Meltdown showcase during SXSW, and look forward to doing something again this year (details soon!).
- We’re now pretty settled into doing the show in an hour, and we’ve added a couple of stations.
- I’m pretty confident we’ll get on the air here in Austin in 2014, though I of course wish it had happened faster.
- We raised a lot more money via the label than I’d expected, given the fact that we didn’t have any releases (with our year-end donations bringing our cumulative total to over $100,000!).
- We didn’t end up releasing a new Terrible Twos record, and I think we probably won’t. Boo.
- We had more in-studios and interviews than we’ve ever had before; being in a big music city helps. Hopefully we’ll add more and more non-kids’ artists to the list of folks too.
- KindieFest ended. This bummed me out, even though I had decided to scale back my participation anyway. It grew out of a showcase — really just a party — that I helped create the first spring we were on the air, when we were heading to Brooklyn and just wanted to hang out with AudraRox. It had grown into an anchor of the year for many artists and others in family music, almost like a family reunion. The sense of unity and common cause that was there was…really lovely. I will miss it terribly.
On that last topic: As we had in prior years, we partners set aside some money for the next year’s startup expenses. Once we decided to end the event, we each got our share of that money. So I sat down to decide what to do with it. (For the past few years, any money I’ve made from the kids’ music side of my life has gone towards donations — not just the beneficiaries from the label, but from other income as well. So we’ve made some contributions to Liam’s school, for example, which has suffered the same fate as other Texas public schools.)
It didn’t take long to realize that the perfect thing to do with the final dollars I’d get from KindieFest was to honor someone who has really represented the best of the kindie music world — and the spirit of KindieFest: Molly Ledford of Lunch Money.
Molly understood the potential of something like KindieFest better than probably anyone (including myself). She was a constant, happy, engaged, and smart presence, not just willing but excited to share her gathered wisdom with others. She knows that working together will always — always — result in a better scene than working separately. She was a producer on Science Fair and made that record way better than it would have been otherwise (including writing two songs on it). She is a wicked good songwriter and Lunch Money has a vibe that works better than just about anyone else.
And she’s doing a ton of great stuff with Girls Rock Columbia, including writing their theme song:
(Incidentally, I love the “Sisterhood is powerful” line. On my box o’ things growing up (wooden box, built by me and my dad), among the countless bumper stickers was one that said “Sisterhood is powerful,” with a fist/♀ combined symbol.)
So I sent off a few hundred bucks to Girls Rock Columbia today. If you’re looking for a place to make a year-end contribution, could I suggest you do the same? They take PayPal right there on their front page. Or find your local Girls Rock Camp — there are a ton — and send ’em a few bucks.
And maybe head over to Lunch Money’s page and tell them you think they’re pretty swell. If I were starting a family music act, there’s not a single act I’d try to take inspiration from more than them. (Not copy! Just be inspired by.)
Happy New Year, everybody. Love you all.
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