10,000 Maniacs/Max Garcia Conover

The independent route is nothing new for 10,000 Maniacs — as their promotional biography notes, they were “the original indie band,” having released an EP and an album independently on their own prior to signing with Elektra to release their second album The Wishing Chair in 1985., But when they starting laying the groundwork nearly three decades later to work on the album that would become their 2013 release Music From the Motion Picture, they were cautiously optimistic about how things might play out. They used PledgeMusic to fund the record and when the Pledge team told them they could raise $25,000 to make the album, they didn’t believe it. But, in fact, they made that goal and then some, discovering in the process that there was still a sizable fan base out there that wanted to hear new music from the band. This year marks the 30 year anniversary of the release of their breakout album, In My Tribe, and the band will perform most of the songs from it. (Matt Wardlaw)