In addition to Bandcamp’s pledge to support immigrants and refugees, a bunch of artists are donating their record sales to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a US organization that works to defend the individual rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
This past Friday, for any purchase you made on Bandcamp, the service donated 100% of their share of the proceeds to the American Civil Liberties Union, who are working tirelessly to combat these discriminatory and unconstitutional actions. Over 400 bands and labels have volunteered to donate their proceeds to the ACLU and other organizations as well. GO HERE to see the huge list.
The bandcamp action taken in response to Trump’s executive order to close U.S. borders to citizens and refugees from seven predominantly Muslim countries, resulted in collecting over $1 million dollars!
Ethan Diamond, Bandcamp Founder & CEO of Bandcamp, commented:
Like 98% of U.S. citizens (including the President), I am the descendant of immigrants—my great-grandparents came to America from Russia and Lithuania as teenagers and worked in sweatshops until they were able to afford to bring the rest of their families over. Most everyone you speak to in this country has a similar story to tell, because we are, in fact, a nation of immigrants, bound together by a shared belief in justice, equality, and the freedom to pursue a better life. In this context, last week’s Executive Order barring immigrants and refugees from seven Middle Eastern countries from entering the United States is not simply immoral, it violates the very spirit and foundation of America.
Contrary to the assertions of the current administration, the order will not make us safer (an opinion shared by the State Department and many members of Congress including prominent Republicans). Christian religious leaders have denounced both the ban, as well as the exception prioritizing Christian immigrants, as inhumane. It is an unequivocal moral wrong, a cynical attempt to sow division among the American people, and is in direct opposition to the principles of a country where the tenet of religious freedom is written directly into the Constitution. This is not who we are, and it is not what we believe in. We at Bandcamp oppose the ban wholeheartedly, and extend our support to those whose lives have been upended.
As another way of showing solidarity with the immigrants and refugees from the seven banned countries—as well as those impacted by the construction of the Mexican border wall—we’ve compiled a list of albums made by artists from the affected countries (Bandcamp may be incorporated in the United States, but we host artists from every corner of the world). We believe that knowledge and empathy are crucial weapons against fear and intolerance. We hope that, as you listen to these albums, you’ll not only discover some great new artists, but will also gain a further appreciation and understanding for the way music transcends all borders, and remember that, even in the darkest of times, there is more that unites us than divides us.
After a huge success of the action, he added:
“Thanks to everyone who stood with immigrants and refugees by joining today’s fundraiser for the ACLU.
We’ve been inspired and overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from the artists, fans and labels in the Bandcamp community, who rapidly and enthusiastically backed this important cause.
Of course we didn’t do this just to raise money, we also hoped to raise awareness.”
Support The ACLU! – Kevin Seconds from 7 SECONDS has decided to reveal some of his rare tracks and share all proceeds from sales of this album with the American Civil Liberties Union:
He shared the following:
I just put up an album of original songs I wrote and recorded in 2015 that very few people own or have ever heard that you can check out and purchase (full album or individual songs).
There are smart songs, stupid songs, punk rock songs, folk songs…there’s even a sweet little Allyson Seconds song in there that you really should hear.
All proceeds from the sales of album and/or song will go to the ACLU.
If 500 of you buy 1 song for $1, that’s $500 we can donate to the ACLU.
Please support and share if you feel it.
Boston hardcore band SPIRITS offfered a live recording from their European tour this past summer and have put it up on our bandcamp as a pay-what-you-want download (just like all of their other releases) to join the fight for the good cause:
They commented:
Hello friends! / As some of you may have heard, the fine folks over at Bandcamp are going to donate 100% of their revenue share of music bought today (Friday, February 3rd) to the American Civil Liberties Union ( www.ACLU.org ) in light of the disastrous first two weeks of the new President of the United States and his policies towards other humans who share the space and air on this earth with him. Essentially the ACLU is doing everything within their power to stand up to xenophobia, racism, oppression, bigotry, sexism, and the whole list of things that the current administration seems to be infatuated with in a really bad way.
In solidarity with Bandcamp, the ACLU, and with the numerous people out there currently fighting to curb the abuse of power reigning down from ol’ Washington DC, we thought it prudent to try and help out so we dug up a live recording from our European tour this past summer and have put it up on our bandcamp as a pay-what-you-want download (just like all of our other releases). It’s a full show featuring 13 songs and the sound quality is actually pretty decent if we dare say so ourselves. As always, you can download it for free, but we’d really, really urge you to please consider throwing down a few dollars for it as we are going to be donating all of the money we get from the release to the ACLU in perpetuity. That’s right… FOREVER. It doesn’t matter if we raise 20 bucks or 2,000. Every single penny from the download of this live record is going to go towards helping make this world a better place by defending the basic rights of humans both here in the US and across the globe. And on top of all that, for the rest of February we are going to donate every penny we get from ALL of our catalog on bandcamp to the ACLU because why the hell not? We don’t write these songs or put out records to make money and to ‘make it in the biz.’ Never have, never will. Punk and hardcore has always been a place where we’ve all felt welcomed and in today’s climate we’re drastically more concerned with doing what we can to make this world a better place, even if it’s one tiny step (or donation) at a time.
For those of you interested in just straight up donating to the ACLU, you can do so here and if you’d like to take the bandcamp route you can do so here.
There are hundreds of bands, labels, and artists also supporting this cause so if you’d rather support someone else and buy a record of theirs on bandcamp, by all means please do so. The important thing here is that your donations end up at the disposal of a great organization like the ACLU who will keep fighting the good fight with those funds. As always, our songs will always be available for free download.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read through this e-mail. Take care of one another, be kind to one another, reach out to the people you love and make sure that they know how you feel. Build bridges, stand up for what you believe in, and don’t let hatred and intolerance win. We’re always here if you need someone to reach out to and talk to.
All of our love and respect to all of you, always / Spirits
I’M FINE‘s new album “Never Knowing Best” is out everywhere and the band released it via Bandcamp as part of their ACLU donation Friday, as well:
“I’m Fine are a band that wear their influences proudly on their collective sleeves, their sound has a resemblances to bands such as Latterman, Gnarwolves, Cursive and At The Drive In, but that isn’t the end of the story, they incorporate different elements and styles into every track making Never Knowing Best an unpredictable beast of an album. It captures the rage of post hardcore, and this is the style that is at their core, but they straddle so many genres you just can’t pin them down, hints of math rock complexity are incorporated, indie and emo sensibilities pervade and it’s all delivered with a punk DIY ethos.” – The PunkSite.com
