From today's New York Times
Sad that artists are reduced to this, but if it's a means to an end and the music gets recorded, then...
Auctioning Off the Past to Make a Future in Music By CHRIS NELSON
Some musicians build on the past for new albums, others bury it. David J hawked his past, piece by piece on eBay, to finance his new CD, "Estranged."
In the late 1970's, David J, the singer and bassist born David Haskins, was a founder of the influential British goth-rock group Bauhaus. Though his next band, Love and Rockets, had a Top 5 American hit with "So Alive" in 1989, he said today's consolidated music industry is not interested in taking risks on performers like him.
"It really flies in the face of the whole spirit of what music should be about," Mr. J, 46, said. "A lot of my contemporaries have been forced to going back into doing it ourselves."
His do-it-yourself method: clean out the garage. In 1999, he ran three auctions on eBay, one each to finance the recording, mastering and publicizing of "Estranged," which will be released on Sept. 9.
Everything from concert set lists to handwritten lyric sheets to guitars from throughout his career went on sale, 60 items in all. Winning bidders will be listed in the liner notes of "Estranged."
Mr. J finished the recording relatively quickly. But it took three years, he said, to find a label willing to release the disc without demanding that he sign over all or part of his publishing rights.
He eventually signed with Heyday Records, an independent label based in Temecula, Calif.
He is one of many independent musicians who have taken unusual steps to raise cash. Alabama's country-rock band Drive-By Truckers sought investments from fans to make their acclaimed 2001 disc, "Southern Rock Opera." The British cult singer Momus enlisted patrons to commission each of 30 tunes on "Stars Forever" from 1999 to help defray the legal expenses of his personal record label Le Grand Magistery.
Today, Mr. J says he owns three souvenirs from his musical past. One, a coffin-shaped bass from the Bauhaus era, attracted a bid in one eBay auction of $6,000, but the buyer never materialized.
While Mr. J would not reveal the final tally raised by his auctions, the highest winning bid was $4,000 — for the lyrics to "Bela Lugosi's Dead."
Mr. J was less than sentimental about his purge.
"Whatever pain was there was buffeted by the checks," he said. "It was very cathartic, which I wasn't expecting."
Kyle Burkhart, 32, of Framingham, Mass., paid $115 for a red silk handkerchief Mr. J used on stage during solo concerts.
"I wouldn't have paid $115 for a handkerchief under normal circumstances," he said. "The fact that it was for the funding of the album definitely made it a lot easier to bid higher." CHRIS NELSON
