June 10, 2012

Review: “Rent Money” by Dent May

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TRACK 1

“Rent Money”

From Dent May‘s Do Things

PAW TRACKS

Liner notes: “I’ve been feeling bad/So I’m gonna find something to cure that heartache,” sighs Dent May, his multiple vocal tracks channeling a heavenly choir.

Behind the music: While the Mississippi native emphasized ukulele on his debut, Do Things finds him in mad-scientist mode, crafting elaborate solo pop epics in sessions at a local venue called Cats Purring Dude Ranch and in a cabin by a cotton field.

Check it out if you like: Experts at dreamy sonic confections, including Brian Wilson and Todd Rundgren (then), and Grizzly Bear and Morning Benders (now).

 

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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