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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 14, 2014)
Street roots Feb. 14, 2014 J I __ _ _ _ _ _ ~ 1 Don’t just listen to music — UseMusic • Number of chicken wings sold by Fire on the Mountain on Super Bowl Sunday: 25,653 Portland musician’s innovative website UseMusic.org joins artists with nonprofits for charity BY DEVAN SCHWARTZ • Percent drop in Seattle-area 911 calls during the Super Bowl: 31 • Percent rise in Seattle-area 911 calls after the Super Bowl: 75 • Dollars per container the Port of Portland will pay Hanjin Shipping to keep calling on Portland: 20 • Days after a gun-buyer’s background check before the State Police purge the information: 10 • Number of traffic crashes the Portland Police Bureau responded too during the snowstorm: 302 • Number of “hazard” calls the Portland Police Bureau responded to: 196 • Percentage that emergency calls to Fire and Rescue increased during the snowstorm: 50 S STAFF W R ITER zra Holbrook has already made a name for himself in Portland. He is a a founding member of the Decemberists and has collaborated with numerous Northwest artists. He’s currently planning a second record with his current band, The My Oh Mys. Holbrook, with years of experience playing fundraisers for organizations, such as tiie music nonprofit Ethos, had an idea for a website: UseMusic.org. It was born out of years of his own philanthropic work and a desire to get more people involved to maximize music’s role in fundraising. It works like this: Musicians can upload their songs, with proceeds going to the nonprofit organization of their choosing. Visitors can purchase the songs for sliding scale prices; anything above a dollar is a tax deductable donation. Aside from credit caïd processing costs, 100 percent goes to the E.H.: Once we got the basic concept charity. ironed out; it’s very simple: a website where I had the chance to sit down with a band can upload a song, choose a Holbrook on a windy morning in Northeast nonprofit that that song fundraises for, and Portland. the only thing taken out is the credit card transaction (cost), and we hope to eliminate D evan Schwartz: So how did UseMusic. that over time as well. org get its start and what is the mission o f the It’s been two years since the initial idea. ■ website? T h e first year w as brainstorm in g and th e second year was building the Website. • Number of miles of roadway the Portland Transportation Bureau cleared during the snowstorm: 518 • Number of calls the Portland Water Bureau received for busted pipes during the snowstorm: 904 • The number of shelter beds available, in Multnomah County for people experiencing homelessness: 1,350 • Number of Street Roots issues ' published in 2013:26 • Number of Street Roots covers featuring a female in 2013:7 • Number of Street Roots covers featuring a male in 2013:7 • Street newspapers worldwide: 122 • Street newspapers in North America: 39 • Number of street newspaper vendors worldwide: 14,000 • Number of Street Roots vendors in 2013:460 • Average number of children conceived in the U.S. on Valentine’s Day: 11,000 • Average distance roses travel from production to sale: 5,000 miles Sources: Street R oots; International Network o f Street Papers; K G W ; AccuWeather.com; G a llu p ; F ire on the M o u n ta in ; C ity o f P ortland; Statistic B r a in ; M S N B C E zra H olbrook: The idea has been brewing for a few years and it came out of two converging things: I’ve played music in Portland for 20 years and done many fundraising concerts for various nonprofits over the years, and I love doing them. Musicians, in general, feel indebted to the community they play in and it’s a good way to give back. And though I love doing fundraising concerts, I’ve also found that for the amount of time and energy that gets put in not only by the musicians but the nonprofits, and the pioney upfront for promotion and renting a venue, it’s like the amount of man-hours ; doesn’t seem to equal the amouht of profit that you help raise. Sofor a long time I’ve been feeling like there’s got to bç a more economical way to accomplish the same thing. For a number of yéars I’ve thought about some kind of website that sold music, but I always got to a point where mechanically it didn’t work. Either my idea didn’t work ori we hit some kind of stumbling block. Over the last couple years, seeing Kickstarter and Indiegogo, these crowdsourcing or fundraising platforms, I got kind of reinvigorated. Mainly I was just surprised by how enthusiastic people were to get involved with stuff like that. The public seemed to really get behind this idea of financially backing tilings - whether they were technological ideas or music or whatever. I was taken aback by th a t I wouldn’t have thought the public would be so interested in backing projects like this. I guess I’d accidentally become cynical or something. It was also watching the success of friends funding their records and their short films - that’s when I got the idea to kind of combine those two things and use music. It’s still been two years of trial and error. The public launch was Dec. 21, 2013. D .S .: E xplain how UseMusic.org worked with Bunker, the local web development company? Once the actual build started, we tried to break it a couple times, which we did. The Bunker guys warned us this was coining ... but when people start using it, you find out all sorts of things you never even would have thought of. The guys at Bunker have been doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. . The board is made up of me and four other guys: Matt Garboden isaCPA (certified public accountant) and a good friend. He was involved in The initial brainstorming. Matt has been very good about keeping me on task. Nate Merrill helped organize the Cover Your Hearts fundraising events for the musical nonprofit, Ethos. His day job is running Bunker. We took him out, bought him a couple drinks, pitched the idea, and he was interested in not being a consultant but a board member. Drew Dunn and M art Wyner also joined from Bunker — ahd we knew it was the right team. It’s pretty much my job just to annoy the other dudes and I think I do a pretty good job of that, PHOTO COURTESY OF EZRA HOLBROOK checks. You just put in your contact information and upload a photo. If anybody has any questions, there’s a contact part of the website that emails each of the members of the team, usemusic.org/ contact-us. -D.S.: How are you marketing or trying to 9, g ^ th e wo^d m^aabowtpfyeMusie^org? E.H.: We’re doing a Facebook and Twitter campaign. And we’re actually starting a campaign with XO Publicity (a Portland-based publicity firm) to do a nationwide press campaign — because we realize there are thousands Of nonprofits just in.Portiand and Seattle. Ideally, through a press campaign, nonprofits nationwide will be registering what we’re doing. So we’re really hoping that we can start getting some attention on a bigger scale. Initially, I was just thinking from the standpoint of a musician with songs on my hard drive. This is even more of a win-win than I initially thought of — thé bands are already gettinggood heartfelt promotion from an audience they might hot have otherwise gotten. D. S.: With a resume as long as yours, readers might like to know about your current music projects - whether that’s in performance or in the recording studio. D. S . : For m usicians and charities who are interested, what’s the best way for them to get involved? E. H.: Right now I play full-time in a couple of bands, I have this band, The My Oh Mys, which is kind of my rock band where I’m one of the songwriters. We’re getting ready to make a second record — * hopefully in the next few months. I’m also playing drums with Redray Frazier, who’s an amazing sort of soul singer here in town. Ànd we’re also hoping to record in the next couple months. Music’s a lot of fun and it keeps me out of trouble for the most part. I do Some playing with other folks. I’m playing in Jeremy Wilson’s band for his CD release, which is coming up in March. As a drummer, your job is pretty much never to screw up, which I can’t say I’ve ever actually accomplished, but I try. E. H.: The process is about two minutes to register if you’re a nonprofit or a band. We just need a contact and a place to send Casey N e ill & The Norway R ats have included a song to support Street Roots usem usic. org/charities/3496. D. S.: W W about licensing? ' E. H.: There’s no exclusivity, no publishing or licensing. The band just has to certify that they own the rights to the song. Bands still have 100 percent ownership, they can take it down at any time. When possible, we’re encouraging people to use stuff that is exclusive to them. We’re hoping this becomes a little music boutique, not a music label, but a music vendor -< where most of the music you can only get there. Thank you Street Roots readers for all your support.
