2014 wrap-up | Clicks of past, present and future

Happy Holidays from Portland, friends. It's come that time of year again, when I try to get my head around the year that's ending. A time when I re-read these posts from the end of 2011, 2012 and 2013 and remember what a fool I was in the past, every moment until today. Gosh, past Angela was sure ignorant and silly, wasn't she? Glad that's all over.

What happened in 2014?

• This is an easy one this year: KICKSTARTER HAPPENED. BIG TIME. Fans, friends, followers, and listeners (and some random curious parties) backed us for over $80,000 in a Kickstarter, making all of the below things possible, and basically funding our amazing, huge year in music.
• Aubrey quit her job so we got to make music ALL THE TIME. Seriously, my guest room is our studio now, and we've been there ~40 hours a week all year (when we're not somewhere on a stage.)

• We posted more than 50 videos on YouTube new songs, vlogs, livestreams, and covers, including one with dinosaurs and three with the crowd-participation help of y'all.
• We recorded an album with the AMAZING Mike Phirman & released it to really awesome reception... it sold, reviewed and generally was better than our previous albums. It has theremin on it!

• We played at 17 conventions, hosted variety shows, and did several tours for a total of more than 70 concerts. Highlights included: Pat Rothfuss asking us to open for him on his book tour stop in Portland, drinking Magic card smoothies with Cards Against Humanity, our first musical journeys to Arizona, Norfolk and Orlando, signing more than 10 cat keyboards for children (and adults), receiving amazing handmade gifts, meeting a couple-now married-who met at one of our shows in 2011, and playing at the Halloween wedding of another amazing pair of nerds.
• Our music was added to Pandora, played on the Dr Demento show (including his funny 25 for 2014!), nominated for a Logan Award and featured on io9, BoingBoing, Cosmo, Bitch, Nerdist, plus our episode of Tabletop aired!
• Our YouTube channel got over the 10,000 subscriber mark (and, for my own future reference: 8,000 Twitter friends, and around 6,000 on Facebook and the mailing list.)

All of those memories were jogged by checking our blog and social media from the past year. What I actually remember are a lot of airplanes, a lot of days in the studio fulfilling kickstarter rewards (especially the crayon drawings and cover songs, those took the longest), and I remember the absolutely exhilarating weeks of the Kickstarter—watching the number of backers continue to rise, the terrifying moments before we hit "launch" when we didn't know what would happen, the amazing emails from people willing to make hand-made crafts for rewards... AGH YOU GUYS IT IS SO HARD TO EXPLAIN. We do this THING, this music THING, and we never expected it to be our lives, and now it is, every single day. We are so (for lack of a better word) BLESSED with wonderful support for us, for our honest-weird songs and our honest-weird selves. Hearts to you.

2015? What's the plan?

Great question. Music, is the answer.

• BIGGEST FIRST: We are launching a Patreon campaign, a pledge-per-song crowdfunding project, to support the band's continued existence through songwriting and cover song videos. What is Patreon? Read all about it here. Look for a video soon--but yes, the page is already live and ready to rock and you can pledge now! (You won't be charged until after we post our first video in January). We had a song vault for Kickstarter backers to access our crowdfunded STUFF, and the Patreon is a similar concept but MUCH more streamlined. Backers can support our music-making, and in exchange get mp3s, plus some bonus things. Please post Patreon questions in the FAQ.
• We will record and release an EP of music about history, science and strong female characters.
• Touring will happen. We don't have dates yet, except a few conventions and a lot of gigs in Portland, but we are looking at once again putting a multi-band EVENT tour together. Let's hope!! We are HOPING to go to Europe as well. If you wanna say "hey come to my town," please do that at this link.
• Lastly, we've been wheeling on a few more things: non-music video projects, an occasional crappy webcomic, music business blogging, and those will show up more in 2015 as well to various extent. Plus, things we don't even know about yet, likely. That seems to happen with you guys. :)

Every time a concert has people at it, every time people tune in to our monthly livestream, every time I think about that crazy Kickstarter, I feel warmth in my cold angry heart. We are so happy that something about our music makes some lovely people want to support our music happening. And as long as you want it to keep happening, and we can write songs, well—here we will be. We're going to make music that aims to be honest, empowering, usually funny, and occasionally kid-friendly. And we're going to travel where we can and tell you all that you're great. Cause you are.Thanks so much, humans (and cats and dogs, in that order). We <3 you.-Angela (and Aubrey)The Doubleclicks