My name is Richard Edwards. I've been making music professionally for something like 14 years. Previously, a lot of this music was made under the stage name of "Margot & the Nuclear So and So's". In 2017, I released my first solo album, 'Lemon Cotton Candy Sunset' and I have another coming in early 2018. Throughout my career, I've engaged with my "fans" in a multitude of manners some might consider "less than conventional". While recording 'Animal!/Not Animal', Margot's now cult favorite 2nd LP's, I would sneak off rough mixes and play them for kids who were part of the now defunct paperkittennightmare.com fan site. Later, I developed a SoundCloud where, for years, I'd put up demos, unreleased recordings, covers, rough sketches and everything in between. A lot of this SoundCloud curation resulted in the last Margot release, a mammoth 5 LP rarities box set spanning all 5 1/2 nuclear studio albums. During the tumultuous writing and recording of 'Lemon Cotton Candy Sunset' and it's imminent follow up, I began live streaming intimate performances from various video streaming apps, where kids tuned in as I worked out the songs since I am often unable to do so live. Which brings us to...

A few years ago I was diagnosed with an often fatal stomach ailment. Thanks to the saints at MusiCares, as well as some amazing friends, I was able to get a proper diagnosis as well as a "cure". As amazing that is (it's awesome to have not died) ever since this illness, about once a year/ year and a half I begin rapidly losing weight again. The doctors don't know why, but they're confident that someday they will figure it out. One of the great bummers of my life is my inability to tour, something I've done my entire life. But the reality is, I can't. I hope someday I will be able to again, but my days of going on unsafe tours because I need the bread or have a death wish are over. I'm a single dad and I'm not into dying young.

So, why now? Why roll all of my sound clouding and live streaming and music releasing into a monthly service? Well, for one, I had an idea on how to program a year that I would be excited about as a fan. For two, as much as I've loved doing the majority of this for free for the past decade +, I need to remain housed and in a perfect world, I need to become, and remain, insured. Like most people, insurance has become tricky and it's even trickier when I'm unable to tour. In an even more perfect world, some of the money could be used to actually record new music (but I'm not getting ahead of myself).

But here's the upside to not being able to tour... I can make way more music, which is what I want to be doing with my time. By doing a monthly thing, I hope I can release much more of it, directly to those of you who like it, for the price of a cup of coffee a month (sorry, I had to). Some of this year's material is as follows.

- 'Animal!/Not Animal' long unreleased La Blogotheque feature film
- Demos from those albums, as well as unreleased rehearsals, artwork, writing, etc.
- A whole mess of unreleased solo demos, recordings, notebook entires and video
- Streams of intimate performances as well as live shows (including the 2018 New Year's Eve audio).

Part of this fan club will also be priority access to colored vinyl (and if we get enough people in here, exclusive fan club only colors/fan club only limited vinyl releases). So you'll be first in line for all releases, big or small, in my musical orbit. For instance, there's a micro release coming out on Record Store Day (like, ultra micro) and my personal 50-75 copies will be averrable for the first 50-75 fan club members who want them. I'll work real hard to make it a fun year and worth the dough.

For everyone else, I will still be spending the majority of my life sharing stuff with you. I don't want anyone to feel left out, only to do something extra for the people who want to make a commitment to supporting this music (because that's kind of the only way to keep the wheels on the bus these days). I never take for granted how lucky I am to have this particular fan base, and because of that I work really hard to make better and better things to reward the devotion. And I love doing it all for free, but papa's gotta eat and live, I reckon.

I'm excited to go on this little journey with y'all (sorry, again, had to).