If the recent Amanda Palmer controversy has accomplished anything-- besides getting some people paid to play their instruments-- it's made music fans take a harder look at the ethics of crowd-sourced funding in artistic endeavors. One subject of the instensified scrutiny has been Animal Collective's Josh Dibb, aka Deakin, who raised nearly $26,000 on Kickstarter in 2009. The funds were to go towards Deakin's trip to perform at the Festival in the Desert in Mali, Africa, the creation of a book and CD, and a charitable donation to TEMEDT, a Mali organization working to help enslaved black Tuareg people.
Three years later, donors have complained that they have yet to receive any of the Kickstarter rewards (book, CD, photographs), and haven't been offered much explanation as to why. Some have accused him of the most extreme Kickstarter infraction-- of using the fundraising platform to bankroll a vacation to Mali-- while others are simply frustrated they haven't gotten their promised gifts.
Yesterday, we spoke to Dibb about his Kickstarter troubles. He talked to Pitchfork on the phone from Animal Collective's tour stop in Dallas.
"I feel sad, but I've set up a situation where that could be the perception and I understand that", he said. "There are a couple things that are being misconceived."
The primary misunderstanding, Dibb told me, is the belief that he received any of the $26,000. In reality, all of that money has gone directly to TEMEDT, he says. "I think the [Kickstarter] was up for a day or two before I realized that I felt incredibly uncomfortable about the idea of asking people to fund a trip for me to go to Africa... that's why the project turned into a charity thing."
Still, the question remains as to why Dibb failed to follow through on the merchandise promised to donors. Why not just throw together some photos and notes and send them out? The answer can be interpreted as unsatisfyingly simple or as logical and justifiable.
"The gifts were supposed to be based around the music that I had been writing at that time, and when I came back, I personally felt really dissatisfied with it," he explained, and spoke of the struggles he's experienced in recording his first solo record and sticking to his self-imposed deadlines. "For me, as an artist-- whether or not people can be sympathetic to this or not-- it's just been a much slower process to do things on my own than with the band."
What Dibb seems especially apologetic about is his failure to provide donors with regular updates about the project, and to ensure that all the donors have received his messages. "I haven't been the best at updating people in the last two years," he said.
He says he sent an update out to Kickstarter donors in late August, but is unsure of which donors actually received it.
From that message:
"I wouldn't want to call it 'writer's block", he said. "A lot of the stuff is done. It's more like fatal perfectionism."
