And The Kids'

BJ Goodwin Memorial Fund Grant Application

Dearest Arts Council Board Members, We, And The Kids (Hannah, Megan and Rebecca), are asking the Northampton Arts Council for $550 to help support our trip to Austin, Texas for the South By Southwest Music and Art Festival (SXSW). We feel we fit the criteria for the BJ Goodwin Grant as going to SXSW will 'provide us with an opportunity to further develop our artistic talents', and 'provide us with recognition and affirmation from our peers and the public'. We would aspire, every day, to be the best ambassadors of the Northampton music scene, showing others that we belong to a community that supports and believes in its musicians. We believe our band, And The Kids, embodies the values sought after by the community donors who help make this grant possible. In the following sections you will find information on our band, evidence of our involvement within the local community, and an outline of how participating in SXSW will help us grow and succeed as artists. We will also talk about our plans to document our trip using multiple artistic platforms to show how the Arts Council's contribution is making a difference by helping to send us to SXSW.

Information About And The Kids Some of you might know our band already. For those of you who do not, we are three young ladies living together with our drummer's mother and our two dogs trying to 'make it happen'. We have been playing together for about 19 months now, and in these less than two years total we have been 100% committed to putting the band and our music as the top priority in our lives. To do this, we have given up other forms of employment (though we can occasionally be caught babysitting), and combined all of our resources so we can afford to play music full-time. It is so important to us to focus on our art and to do it sustainably. We share one phone, one car, one house, and have even lived at a campsite in tents for three months while rehearsing in a rented storage pod, just so we could practice and work on music all the time. We are also so fortunate to be based in Northampton, a consistently extremely supportive community. We have always believed that the best way to make our band succeed is to build slowly, work hard, be grateful and put the songwriting first. With this philosophy in mind, in less than two years we have managed to release two EPs, both of which debuted to sold-out and age diverse audiences at the Iron Horse. We have produced a music video with the help of a network of other local artists we have connected with. We have toured with Rubblebucket, Lake Street Dive, Mother Falcon and Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside. We have been picked up by 525 Worldwide Music, Inc. for worldwide management (Mavis Staples, Trombone Shorty, Lake Street Dive). We have also played our own shows in venues throughout New England and the greater region every weekend for the past 9 months. We have residencies at Rockwood Music Hall in Manhattan, Toad in Cambridge and Radiobean in Burlington. Currently, our goals are to record and release our first full length record over the next 6-8 months. We also plan to get a booking agent, and to continue to develop our regional fan-base and our artistry.

People in Northampton Want to See Us Succeed Northampton is very supportive of the arts, and we are very grateful for this. For our entire first summer as a band, we spent much of our time busking downtown on Main Street as an acoustic group. Playing on the streets has brought us a lot of fans – beyond our expectations. These fans have been extremely loyal. Aside from selling out the Iron Horse twice, we have also sold out Bishops Lounge and the Parlor Room, and we have played for some of our biggest audiences at the Green River Festival, Shea Theatre, Calvin Theatre, and the Academy of

Music. We have been on the cover of the Valley Advocate for winning Best New Band of 2012. All because Northampton supported us. There was even an article written by James Heflin romanticizing the unanimity of the vote for our band1. We have three songs playing on WRSI, a couple of which were nominated for Song of the Year. Our song Promise You, off our introductory EP Nothing Came First, came in 4th place. The River has specifically been such a key roll in connecting us with the Northampton community. They promote our shows whenever they can, and they are always interested in helping us to spread the word about what is next for our career. Joan Holiday specifically said that she sincerely hopes that we get noticed at SXSW, and hopes we will bring her as our date to the Grammy Awards when we go. Turn It Up! has played us on their radio program on The River, and the owner said in an article in the Advocate that we were the most popular local record at Christmas time. When we were living outside during the summer, the community supported our choices and put us on the cover of Preview Massachusetts Magazine in an article about our unconventional living situation, and why it's fun to make music in the woods. The community has followed us on Twitter, liked us on Facebook and watched our videos on Youtube. And for their support, we are eternally grateful.

How SXSW Will Help Us Improve Our Band's Career So let's just come right out and say it: South By South West might be the most important music festival for us to attend as a young band. It is a place where talent is scouted, celebrities are met, and industry and personal connections of all kinds are made - not to mention it's a warm winter getaway for us northerners. This festival holds so much clout that to have attended it at all will add value to our resume. Our manager is currently looking for the right booking agent for us, and so these types of additions to our resume are increasingly more important. Going to SXSW shows a potential booking agent that we are committed to our music and to our band, and that we are working as hard as possible to make great music and to share it with others. This will also help show them how serious we are about our art. Two agencies that we are already in contact with will be hosting networking events that we will be attending at SXSW. Aside from adding to our resume, we hope to gain inspiring experiences, a bigger and stronger social and professional network, and new fans. During the festival, we have booked two electric shows, and we will also be bringing our acoustic instruments for busking to the general public. We plan to sell our album to help pay for our trip and to bring our music to a wider fanbase. We are going to do an “in-studio” session with former River DJ Bill Childs, which will be aired on The River for our fans in Northampton. We will also be seeing concerts and spending a lot of time together as a band, and these are truly inspiring experiences. The inspiration of experience becomes a vital part of being an artist when we are trying to create new material for our first full-length record. We will also be exposed to new music and new sounds. We're also going to be spending a lot of time with our friends in the band Mother Falcon, and we always receive a lot of wisdom from our more experienced peers about touring, recording, and generally the experience of being part of a band.

Our Budget – Why We Need $550 We are going to be gone about 20 days – 10 days for the festival and 5 days of driving to and from Austin. We will be travelling around 4,000 miles and our car gets on average 21 miles per gallon. If we estimate that gas costs $3.55 per gallon we are estimating that we will need $700 for gas alone. We also estimate that we will need $350 for food and light accommodations. So right now we would be in the red by around $1050 for our trip. If the Arts Council could fund us $550, we only need to make $200 from tip jars at our shows, merch, and busking, which we believe to be feasible.

1 Art in Paradise: Lend an Ear The happy surprises of the Grand Band Slam http://www.valleyadvocate.com/article.cfm? aid=15687

Documentation of Our Trip for Y'all to See We want to share our positive experience at SXSW with the Arts Council and the Northampton community at large, because we'd like to help facilitate the warm fuzzy feeling that goes all around when people can see how they've helped someone they care about. We are bringing our videographer, Nemo Allen, who made our music video and has shot other promotional and live footage for us. He will be an integral part in helping us to document our trip. We will post videos online and tweet and tag the Arts council, and stay connected through social media as much as possible. Our link with DJ Bill Childs will also help facilitate our hometown connection while we are away. Basically, we will try and stay connected in creative and personable mediums as much as we possibly can, so that the Arts Council can really share the impact they are having on a group of artists (us) from the community, even across the hundreds of miles it will take us to get to Austin, Texas. Please consider supporting us, and thank you so much to all of you that have already extended your support to our band. We are so lucky to have a municipal Arts Council like you :) Love always, And The Kids

Online Material andthekidsmusic.com facebook.com/andthekidsmusic andthekids.bandcamp.com twitter.com/andthekidsmusic www.525worldwide.com/

Official Music Video @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MupDkG_jX_4 Featured Live Video @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7lAc0FG94I Selected Press

@ http://www.andthekidsmusic.com/press.html