A message from Duke

 

As Duke Special I have been touring and making records constantly for the last 16 years and during that time, the music industry has changed beyond recognition.  Over the years I have self-released records, been on major labels, smaller independent labels and have also used crowd funding models to release my work. 

I have loved all these different stages of my career, but i felt it was time to do things a little differently. I have used the Pledge Music model a couple of times to release records and was blown away by the support and encouragement which those campaigns created.  This was a model in which people pledged different amounts in exchange for exclusive experiences and items all with the goal of being able to bring out a new record at a high level and to do all the things such as promotion, radio and TV plugging, manufacturing etc. which a record label traditionally did. For the most part this worked really well, though these campaigns were concerned with a particular release.

 

So, here’s the idea behind advocate....

 

I set up advocate to see if people would become a patron of Duke Special. this wasnt just for a one-off release (though i also used the site to crowdfund the album 'hallow') but rather on an on-going basis.  The concept is one that many artists use nowadays; you choose a price point which suits you and in exchange you WILL get access to exclusive items, recordings or experiences every month. The packages are billed on a monthly on-going basis and this income enabled me to be more creative from home, instead of having to tour away from home so much. I still want to release more records and continue to do a limited amount of touring, but this new idea felt like a better fit for where I currently am in my life.

 

I am hugely grateful to everyone who signed up to be a Duke Special patron when this was launched in 2016 & i hope everyone enjoyed the exclusive content they were able to access through the subscriptions. however, i recently decided that i had to put this all on hold for a while, as i now find myself too busy to provide the content and felt that i couldnt give it the attention it deserves. it may be resurrected in the future, but for now, i am just offering the exclusive one-off single items through the advocate site.

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Thank you for all your support

 

Duke Special x