Kelcy Mae. Photo by Elsa Hahne.

UPDATED

“I’m refusing to get a full time job.”

Ask Kelcy Wilburn (a.k.a. Kelcy Mae) what she wants to do with her life, and it’s obvious—music is where her passion lies. “I know that if I get a full-time job, I won’t spend the time and energy that I need to on music and being creative, and that is where I want to be,” Wilburn says.

Wilburn (a former OffBeat intern) struggles to make a living solely as an artist. Today’s economy, especially in the music industry, has significantly narrowed the traditional outlets, and it is harder than ever to find someone to back a record. But hard times encourage creativity, and if you can’t find someone, you find many.

Wilburn and a growing number of New Orleans musicians used a grassroots method to fund their recordings: Take it directly to the fans. For her first album, she simply pre-sold copies at her live performances. “I raised about $3,000,” she says. “I did it at shows, got people to sign up and pay certain amounts, then they got stuff whenever the album came out.”

After graduating from the masters program in creative writing at University of New Orleans, she decided to take the leap from part time to full time with her music, using a new outlet to reach a wider audience for her sophomore effort. “I didn’t use the Internet [last time], so it had to be local. I went with Kickstarter.com this time so I could reach more people.”

Kickstarter.com is a digital marketplace of ideas and concepts for those looking to fund a project of their own or those looking to fund other creative ideas. Started by one-time New Orleanian Perry Chen, Charles Adler and Yancey Strickler almost 16 months ago, Kickstarter has brought the concept of fan-funded projects to the widest audience yet.

New Orleanians are not new to concept. Threadhead Records, a fan-based record label, has been around since 2007. Threadhead uses donations from fans to loan money to artists to record an album. A small portion of the loan goes to a charitable organization and to Threadhead’s overhead costs, the rest is given back to the contributors once the album is released to the public. Paul Sanchez, Alex McMurray, Margie Perez and Honey Island Swamp Band are among the many artists that have recorded though Threadhead.

This isn’t only a New Orleans phenomenon, either. Singer/songwriter Jill Sobule (of the ’90s hit “I Kissed a Girl” fame) also did something similar; she raised money from fans in 2009 to record California Years, and started her own record label based on the same concept, Pinko Records.

Kickstarter differs in its concept. Fans only pledge certain amounts; they are not charged upfront. An artist decides on a goal and has a certain amount of time to raise it (no longer than 90 days), and if the money is raised, then the backers’ credit cards are charged. If not, the project goes dead. In its best cases, it allows the artist to build a deeper relationship with his or her fan base, working directly with them to get the project off the ground.

It is only natural that an idea like Kickstarter would have its roots in a city like New Orleans, made up of hundreds of artists all trying to live creatively. Chen was living in the French Quarter when he first began kicking around the idea. “I wanted to throw a nighttime show at the Contemporary Arts Center during Jazz Fest, (but) it was going to be a lot of upfront money, and I couldn’t stomach the risk,” he says.

That lost opportunity stuck with Chen for years, and he thought of the idea to pre-sell tickets to the show. “If you could get people to commit that they would attend, pre-selling conditionally, then I could use those funds to pay the initial expenses.”

The site builds in incentives for backers, so artists must think of rewards for different levels of money pledged. But, Chen stresses, it must be well thought out and worthwhile. “Make an effort; people will appreciate it. Have a private show you’ll play for them, not just ‘$25, you get a button, $100 you get a T-shirt.’”

The Madd Wikkid. Photo by Elsa Hahne.

Earl Scioneaux III (a.k.a. The Madd Wikkid), musician and sound engineer for Preservation Hall, used the site to pursue a side passion of his: Mixing electronica and more traditional New Orleans music into a blend of new sounds. Scioneaux and Chen were roommates in the Quarter when the concept of Kickstarter first developed, and Scioneaux was one of the first people to use the site.

“In 2001, I got booked to play this Mardi Gras rave and I was mixing in clips of Mardi Gras tunes, and I had this idea to make a record with that sort of vibe,” Scioneaux says. “I quickly realized it would cost more money and had to back-burner it for a while.”

In April 2009, Scioneaux created his Kickstarter project profile and named the album Electronola. In 60 days, he raised $4,100 with his goal set at $4,000. Today, the album is available digitally at Scioneaux’s Bandcamp page, and he is working on physical copies. Scioneaux’s rewards included a music theory lesson for those who donated $35 or more and gumbo dinner and pre-listening party for people who donated $50 or more.

Countless New Orleans musicians are using Kickstarter today. Singer/songwriter Kristin Diable raised $15,083 and cellist Helen Gillet raised $2,179, each for new albums. Dirty Bourbon River Show raised $3,067 for touring costs. For artists like Wilburn and Scioneaux in a local setting with a limited fan base, Kickstarter provides the platform to go national.

“Initially it was friends and family, the people I had the quickest access to reach out to,” Scioneaux says. “But then I contacted music blogs and started pushing it whichever direction I could. By the end of it I’d say less than half were people I knew.”

The easiest way to explain the concept is using the album example, but Kickstarter helps fund more than just music. From documentaries to photographs, books to art, anyone with a creative idea can submit an application, and as long as it meets Kickstarter’s few requirements, the project can go live on the site.

Local cameraman and documentary filmmaker John Richie used Kickstarter to push his film, Murder Through the Eyes of a Child, into its final stages. An emotional look at the teenagers in the middle of New Orleans street violence, the film began when Richie met students involved in the Fountain of Youth program and heard their stories.

“As I started talking to them, not only had all of them witnessed murders, but they all were desensitized to it,” Richie says. “I have lived here for 10 years, and I was aware of the statistics, but I never really thought about what they meant. I don’t think most people do.”

Richie set out to record the real-life experiences of the kids he met by having them use the equipment and record themselves opening up to one another about the violence they had witnessed. “We used the Kickstarter money mostly for post-production, organizing the footage by buying hard drives and supplies for cataloging. We have 16 terabytes of footage. Just a 4-terabyte drive costs $1,200.”

Documentaries are one of those projects that many times don’t get made or take years to get made because they cost so much throughout the process and they sometimes lack a tangible outcome. Richie, who needed and raised $7,000 in 90 days, also acknowledged their lack of return. “It’s hard to get people to invest in documentaries because they don’t make money. A lot comes out of your own pocket, and a lot of times you get to a point when you have no funds and you have to stop until you get more.”

For Chen, that is where Kickstarter steps in: “We want to help things that may not have found funding before and things that aren’t about making money—that could never make money.”

Other local projects that have been funded include “Where They At”, a multi-media archive of bounce artists from New Orleans that included a showcase at South by Southwest in Austin, and a photography project of New Orleans cemeteries. The artists behind the New Orleans Treehouse—a group of installation projects in and around trees that people can walk around in and experience personally—are using Kickstarter to build a second exhibition after the first was shut down.

To Scioneaux, funding these creative projects is not about a physical product or outcome. “To me, in the end it’s about people attaching themselves to cool stories.”

Platforms like Kickstarter are offering artists a way to put their ideas into action and let people be a part of them if they choose. Despite a massive economic downturn and the continuing collapse of the traditional record industry, it seems that creativity is exploding. A quick look at the number of Kickstarter projects—most of which get funded—shows people’s willingness to promote the arts.

For Wilburn, having the money to record means the beginning of a new career and a chance to pursue a passion. “It’s been three years since I recorded last, and this is going to be a stepping stone for the future.”

Updated November 8, 12:31 p.m.

The writer confused Perry Chen and Yancey Strickler, who was incorrectly identified as Yancey Strickland. Chen lived in New Orleans, and the memories and quotes formerly attributed to Strickland/Strickler have now been properly credited to Chen.

Their live show at the House of Blues was no different. The show was just about the band and its music, except for some choreographed lighting and a giant fabric backdrop. The first half was material pre-Brothers (their latest album), leaning more heavily on a garage, blues-band sound, with only Auerbach and Carney performing. Songs such as “Your Touch,” “I’ll Be Your Man,” and “Act Nice and Gentle” epitomized the band’s early stripped-down sound.

By Erika Goldring

When it came time for the new material from Brothers, the duo brought in another guitarist and a keyboardist to fill out the new sound. The crowd erupted when the first song off the album, “Everlasting Light”, started off the set of newer material and got even louder for the searing “Next Girl,” an anthem for anyone who has been through tumultuous past relationships. The show ended, though, with the band circling back around to earlier material, a nod to long-time fans.

Possibly the best thing about the set, though, was the honesty with which the music was presented. The entire set was a constant stream from song to song—no superficial conversations with the crowd or musings about life. If you need more evidence, watch Carney: he wears thick prescription glasses normally, but takes them off for most of the show so he can focus solely on drumming and not the audience.

For The Black Keys, it’s just about the music—pure, unadulterated rock ‘n’ roll. And don’t worry if you missed the show this time—Auerbach promised repeatedly they’d be back.

Update 12:46 p.m.

Erika Goldring’s photo was added to the story.

Mesrine: Killer Instinct

In addition to La Belle et le Bête, which is a black and white film from the 1940s, the festival also features a two-part thriller, Mesrine: Killer Instinct (2008) and Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1 (2008), based on the life of Jacques Mesrine. A criminal mastermind, Mesrine is played by Vincent Cassel, the French fiend (the Night Fox) of the Ocean’s Twelve crew.

Also featured are two dramas, Mademoiselle Chambon (2009) and Le Pere de Mes Enfants (The Father of My Children [2009]), both of which follow families in turmoil. Parlez-moi de la Pluie (Let it Rain [2008]) is a dramedy about a French feminist politician whose life falls apart while being filmed for a documentary by an inept cameraman and reporter.

For a full synopsis of all of the films, trailers and schedules, visit the New Orleans Film Society’s Web site, www.neworleansfilmsociety.org. Tickets are $6.50 for NOFS members and $8.50 for general admission.

“We are dedicated to live music, and not just tired cover bands,” co-owner Earl Bernhardt says. “We want to bring in more variety.”

The larger room in the main Tropical Isle now features a centered music stage, with the musicians on a raised stage behind the bartenders. To ensure that the out-of-reach musicians still get tipped and patrons can request songs, the owners installed a pneumatic delivery system like the ones used at banks.

Next door, in place of the old Tropical Isle Beach Club is the new Bayou Club, where the scene is decidedly more Louisianan. Complete with a fiber-optic ceiling that mimics a bayou night sky, the Bayou Club featured Waylon Thibodeaux, Bruce Daigrepont, and The Can’t Hardly Playboys from Lafayette during its opening weekend.

Bernhardt admits that after the fire, which was caused by a careless, cigarette-smoking employee, he and co-owner Pam Fortner thought seriously about not rebuilding. “The building was in desperate need of updating and reinforcing,” he says. “The whole shell had to be rebuilt to get the building up to modern codes.”

Bernhardt and Fortner used the incident to completely re-vamp the location, adding the new sound systems, better dining options, and more variety in music. “We wanted the new bar to be tastefully done, so we can shoot for a more mature crowd.”

“We are dedicated to live music, and not just tired cover bands,” co-owner Earl Bernhardt says. “We want to bring in more variety.”

The larger room in the main Tropical Isle now features a centered music stage, with the musicians on a raised stage behind the bartenders. To ensure that the out-of-reach musicians still get tipped and patrons can request songs, the owners installed a pneumatic delivery system like the ones used at banks.

The opening weekend features Amanda Shaw, Brent Burns, Vince Vance and the Valiants, and Brandon Giles, a pianist in the Jerry Lee Lewis mold. “We want to bring people from all over the Gulf Coast,” Bernhardt says.

Next door, in place of the old Tropical Isle Beach Club is the new Bayou Club, where the scene is decidedly more Louisianan. Complete with a fiber-optic ceiling that mimics a bayou night sky, the Bayou Club features Waylon Thibodeaux, Bruce Daigrepont, and The Can’t Hardly Playboys from Lafayette during its opening weekend.

Bernhardt admits that after the fire, which was caused by a careless, cigarette-smoking employee, he and co-owner Pam Fortner thought seriously about not rebuilding. “The building was in desperate need of updating and reinforcing,” he says. “The whole shell had to be rebuilt to get the building up to modern codes.”

Bernhardt and the owners used the incident to completely re-vamp the location, adding the new sound systems, better dining options, and more variety in music. “We wanted the new bar to be tastefully done, so we can shoot for a more mature crowd.”

Still, the rest of the world just sees Bourbon Street. While the national spotlight with Treme may change that, for now the only way for an outsider to find this strange (not seedy) underbelly of New Orleans culture is New Orleans: The Underground Guide. Billed as the guide for “tourists who don’t want New Orleans marketed to them,” it is in fact the beginning of the marketing of this sub-culture.

The guide is written for the most part by Michael Patrick Welch, with some snippets by other local authors, musicians and rappers (Andrei Codrescu, Geoff Douville, Renard Bridgewater a.k.a. Slangston Hughes to name a few). It is also, for the most part, poorly organized and edited. In their defense, though, that is exactly how the scene they are trying to describe is: poorly organized and edited.

The guide describes a section of New Orleans society that is at one point into electronica and then hardcore bounce rap, brushing off “tourist” places and then stumbling into Chris Owens’ Club, but the concept is clear: enjoy your daiquiri but don’t forget about the funky up-and-coming St. Claude Arts District.

The intentions are good—teach people about the alternatives to Bourbon Street and the Quarter—but it’s downtown-centric to a fault, finding bohemian fun almost exclusively in the Quarter, Treme, Faubourg Marigny and Bywater.

That aside, this guide draws attention to some of the coolest underground scenes in the city: speakeasy parties with Quintron and Miss Pussycat, the naked swim parties at Country Club and bounce jams by transsexual Katey Red. They also include some of the more popular scenes like burlesque shows, the plethora of festivals (food and music) and the Big Easy Rollergirls.

Interviews pepper the guide with the likes of rapper Juvenile, Ponderosa Stomp creator “Dr. Ike” Padnos and New Orleans Musicians’ Hurricane Relief Fund Coordinator Jordan Hirsch about their favorite places to go and their time living here. There is also a great section that rips gutterpunks and the new “fauxbeauxs” a new one.

Essentially, New Orleans: The Underground Guide is a crash course in New Orleans culture. More guides are to come, according to the author; hopefully they will form a cohesive set, because honestly, it will probably take an Encyclopedia Brittanica-length set to describe all New Orleans has to offer.

When Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans, his thoughts flew to the music scene. “We had some musicians that were displaced up in Kansas City,” he says. “That’s really where things got going, talking to them and listening to their nostalgic stories of New Orleans.”

He approached Renew Our Music, which would later fold into Sweet Home New Orleans. “I’ve got this mobile repair shop, and I want to come down and fix horns for free,” he told them.

“They were immediately all over it.” Corrigan and a co-worker Mark Farmer came down in 2007. The trip was financially more jarring than he expected, so for the second round, which took place last month, he had to wait a little longer. This visit, he brought a friend, Justin Orr, with him and received help from SHNO, who covered their gas and hotel bills. Corrigan also received aid from a local non-profit in Kansas City called Music for Jeremy’s Cherubs, a group that donates instruments to children. They collected instruments to donate to New Orleans musicians whose instruments might be beyond repair.

Kenneth Terry of the Treme Brass Band appreciated Corrigan’s work on his horns and offered his own time to pay him back. “This guy is doing a hell of a job,” Terry says. “If he needs me to play for a benefit to raise money to pay him for fixing all these horns for free, I’d do it.”

Corrigan and friend Justin Orr arrived in town May 11, worked all day for two days in a row (the second of which was a 12-hour day), during which time they saw 65 musicians and worked on more than 200 horns. They visited Helen Cox High School the next morning to repair and hand out instruments, and headed home that afternoon. As music lovers, they also hit the Maple Leaf, Candlelight Lounge and Vaughan’s.

Despite the hectic schedule, the guys seemed to enjoy every minute of it, and so did the musicians.

“It was the coolest thing in the world,” Corrigan says. “If there was somebody cooler than Santa Claus, that was us.”

The festival will feature three stages of local music including Bill Summers and Jazalsa, Benny Turner, Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes, Ernie Vincent and the Top Notes, and BeauSoleil with Tab Benoit. [NOTE: In the Weekly Beat, we reported that Honey Island Swamp Band would be performing as well. They're not; we regret the error.--ED.] The music on Friday will last from 5 to 9 p.m. (giving everyone time to get off of work), and continues all day Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday.

Bayou Bicycles on Toulouse even entices bike riders with beer — they host a pub crawl before the music starts on Saturday. “It’s like a second line on bikes; they visit different neighborhood watering holes to make it more fun to ride your bike,” Jared Zeller, the Bayou Boogaloo’s director, says.

The festival’s location at the end of Jefferson Davis Highway also makes it more accessible for bike riders. “Jeff Davis has the only bike path that crosses I-10. That makes it the safest route to take,” Zeller says.

Bayou Boogaloo is not just about the music, though; it is about the people who attend. The festival was created by the MotherShip Foundation during thepost-Katrina recovery period to give residents a chance to relax andreinvigorate the recovery effort. MotherShip’s goal today is to improve the quality of life for locals by promoting the arts, recreation, and culture.

Bayou Boogaloo also emphasizes community and sustainability by ensuring as little disruption and mess as possible for the neighborhood around it. Organizers ask that food vendors to abide by zero-waste guidelines, which include using disposable products that are recyclable or compostable to reduce the festival’s impact on the local environment.

Bayou Boogaloo is trying to grow its sustainability efforts as the technology becomes available. “Right now we are using donated mobile trailers from South Coast Solar that have back-up batteries, so we can operate the stages along Dumaine Street with solar energy, but there aren’t any tech vendors with solar stages in the area,” Zeller says. “Maybe I’ll just build my own solar stage.”

Dave Gonzales and Mike Barfield

Both are steeped in the tradition of country music, but neither seems to be satisfied with its simple beat. Instead, their new band, the Stone River Boys, blends ’50s R&B, funk, and country into what they like to call “country soul” or “country funk.” The Stone River Boys play Chickie Wah Wah tonight at 8 p.m., and iTunes actually classifies their debut album, Love On the Dial, as R&B, but  not many R&B bands employ a pedal steel guitar.

To Barfield, their sound is a natural development of the sounds they grew up listening to. “Radio back when I was younger was not quite as compartmentalized, and I think most musicians like a lot of different styles. People have the idea of it being more separate than it really is,” Barfield explains.

In the same breath he mentions James Brown, Charlie Parker, and Hank Williams, Sr. To further prove his retro leanings, some of his favorite artists today include the Dap Kings and Amy Winehouse (pre-tabloid firestorm, though) for their re-interpretation of older styles. “That might cause some stir in my band, but I like some of the things she’s done,” he says.

Before the Stone River Boys, both Gonzalez and Barfield, who were long-time friends, were delving into separate bands and sounds. While Barfield was doing more funk (“cracker funk,” he jokingly calls it), Gonzalez was leaning more country-soul with the acclaimed group the Hacienda Brothers. Before the tragic death of co-founder Chris Gaffney from cancer in 2008, the Hacienda Brothers were on their way to national fame. They had been nominated by the American Music Association for “Group of the Year” in 2007 and played Tipitina’s in 2005.

Barfield joined with Gonzalez for a benefit tour to raise money for Gaffney’s medical bills, but after the tour  Barfield and Gonzalez realized that they needed something to keep them going and that they had a good sound.

Both in mourning, they put to bed the Hacienda Brothers and formed the Stone River Boys. “We didn’t keep the name, not like some bands do. I think that would’ve made me feel weird,” Barfield says.

When it comes to their brand of country, though, don’t expect much Taylor Swift or Kenny Chesney.  “Country has a different meaning than it used to. A lot of people associate it with what is going on now, and we aren’t really a part of that mainstream scene very much. We are more retro than that.”

In a chance meeting that could only be the work of the muses, they ran into Garland Paul and Sam Price at the Boom Boom Room, and in an attempt to keep busy and make some extra cash, HISB was born.

“We were just thinking, it would be great if there were a couple other New Orleans guys that we could team up with while we have our nights off from playing our regular gig,” Mule says. “Everybody needed something to do.”

The Boom Boom Room let them start a weekly gig on Sunday nights. “That became our rehearsal time,” Wilkinson adds.

Now, almost five years later, HISB has a second album, Good to You, two Best of the Beat trophies, and a gig on the Fais Do-Do Stage.

“The Fais Do-Do has a lot of Americana, which is really the best way to describe what we do,” Wilkinson says.

“That’s to me what New Orleans music is about,” Mule says. “It’s not just about jazz, blues, funk; it’s about everything.” With that in mind, the band augmented its lineup for Good to You.

“We brought in the pedal steel on a few things; we brought in the same horn section. It’s a mixed bag,” Wilkinson says.

The band’s success means no more scrounging for extra gigs.

“We’re happy that we have enough work that we don’t have to do that, we get the opportunity to focus on one thing,” Wilkinson says. “Everybody played in a lot of different bands before this, but now we are all coming together for this thing. We see it working.”