The Duende Project

If you’ve followed the band’s adventures over the years, you know we participate pretty regularly in a long running series of articles by our friend and veteran journalist Victor Infante.

“The Great Cover Song Challenge” involves musicians who volunteer to create a cover of a song Victor assigns to them — no choice, no appeal — in whatever style they choose to use. Victor sets a deadline, puts together a playlist, and then writes an critical article about the original works and the covers, focusing on what was revealed about the music through the process. It never fails to be enlightening, and we enjoy the challenge.

Sometimes it’s about the work of a given artist (Phil Collins, Air Supply, Madonna), sometimes it’s about a genre (80s movie soundtracks). This time around, we all got to play in the waters of…DISCO!

We were fortunate to pull Sylvester’s “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real), a true anthem of the disco era. We’d tell you more about the process, but the article does a good job about that, as do our notes on the Soundcloud track.

To read the article (and you should, and then listen to the entire playlist too): The Great Cover Song Challenge

To hear our track (and you should, and maybe come hear it live this weekend at Nick’s in Worcester on the 11th, 4-6):

You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)

On July 11 and July 25 at Nick’s, 124 Millbury Street, Worcester. Afternoon sets, 4-6.

Watch this week for more info about a new recording of an old classic cover.

And come see us live. We’ve missed you and will need all your support to make this happen.

Thank you. It’s been a long year and a half. Thanks for sticking by us.

The most recent album is, at last, back on Spotify. Should be returning to all services over the next few days.

A quick note from Tony on all this:

Every day, I see someone saying ‘buy music from Bandcamp, don’t listen to Spotify, etc., etc…”

And every day, I look at our lifetime earnings from various streaming services and compare them to what we have earned on Bandcamp, and there is no contest: Spotify and Apple Music are the most reliable sources of income we have, and have paid us, over the years, FAR more than we ever got from anything on Bandcamp.

We don’t make a ton of money anywhere, but Spotify and the like pay web fees, service fees, and then some. It’s not rocket science to say that obviously, the vast majority of our listeners use those services to listen to music far more than they bother to buy music directly from us and most likely from other artists as well.

We don’t do the Duende Project for money, but I’ll be honest when I say that having its most basic expenses paid for is a good thing.

Do I hate this? Of course. Does streaming pay anyone outside of the biggest acts anything like a living? Nope. Should we be more fairly compensated? Yup.

We live in a society where all art is commodified and devalued if it doesn’t make money. We need an income of SOME sort to put it out there.

As long as people don’t see paying an artist as a valuable thing, we will do as much within the system as we can stomach to keep what we do out there.

Hi all.

Couple of quick notes —

1.
After a long battle with Spotify, we’re folded our tents so to speak and, on the advice of our distribution service, taken down the most recent album, “Incomplete: Demos,” from ALL streaming services.

Never fear though — it’s been re-submitted and over the next week or so, you should see it return to the various sites (except for Amazon, which we just aren’t using anymore).

There was a minor tech glitch with one cut, “The Radioactive Artist,” which had to be re-submitted to Apple Music / iTunes as a non album single. But it’ll be available there. More as they go live.

2.
Wanna see us in action again? Check out a streaming performance recorded at AS220 in Providence back in February! It’ll be available here on Thursday night.

Here’s to looking forward to actual live gigs soon.

3.
Wanna hear a new track? Check out “Mother Of Moons.”

It’s the first Friday in the month…Bandcamp Friday! Buy any track or album from our Bandcamp site today and we get 100%.

In addition, purchase “Incomplete: Demos” and the funds go to a cause of our choice — at this moment it’s the NAACP Racial Justice fund.

Our meager income from sales and streaming has been directly impacted by the recent weird Spotify ban of the “Incomplete” album, so if you can do anything here, it would be great. Thanks.

https://theduendeproject.bandcamp.com/

UPDATE: Nothing’s changed except that we’ve been told that it will take up to 3 months to hear whether Spotify will allow the most recent album, “Incomplete: Demos” to be streamed again. GRRRR. Still have not been given any evidence or reason why we, as well as 750,000 other releases from other artists, have been pulled from streaming other than this bogus “artificial streaming” charge.

That said? All of our other albums are available there and on all other major streaming and download services. We could use the boost — a human, natural boost I might add…

If you are so inclined, we still sell it on Bandcamp. For the moment, we’ve reduced the price on it for the moment to $3. That will stay in place till we figure out our next steps following whatever Spotify decides.

It is still available on all the other services for streaming and download, of course. (Except on Amazon.)

Thanks in advance for whatever you can do.

https://theduendeproject.bandcamp.com/album/incomplete-demos

Also? We recently got together LIVE for the first time since our last live show in February, 2020. Practiced a set for…a SHOW!! We’ll be recording a show for release onto the Interwebs at AS220 in Providence on February 10. Will let you know as soon as we have a screening date.

We’re getting close to some relaxations soon enough, folks. Don’t know what “normal” will look like on the other side, but…let’s keep at it till then.

So…we are still waiting for Spotify and Distrokid to solve the issue of their incorrect and frankly enraging “artificial streaming” complaint against our most recent album, and we’re not making any income off it — which is galling as hell, since we donate any income from it to chosen social justice causes. Right now, it’s the NAACP.

If you are so inclined, we still sell it on Bandcamp. For the moment, we’ve reduced the price on it for the moment to $3. That will stay in place till we figure out our next steps following whatever Spotify decides.

It is still available on all the other services for streaming and download, of course. (Except on Amazon.)

Thanks in advance for whatever you can do.

https://theduendeproject.bandcamp.com/album/incomplete-demos

Just a note…an important one. If you are trying to help us out by streaming our stuff non stop, especially the most recent release “Incomplete: Demos,” please stop.

While we appreciate the enthusiasm, your efforts just got that release removed from Spotify for fraudulent streaming. We know it wasn’t deliberate but…

Thanks.

Livestream event from AS220 in Providence has been postponed till sometime in February. Details to follow.

Also: our latest albums of demos, “Incomplete,” is now available on iTunes, Apple Music, and Spotify.

Wish there was more to report…but there’s not. Stay safe.