Hello friends and welcome to 2018!
2017 was a mighty special year for us and for that, we are quite grateful. Here were some of the highlights:
- Released the first Chapter of our serialized concept album and graphic novel The Front Lines of Good Times. This included a brand new song, It’s a Mess, with accompanying music video where we made a big muddy mess at the Darville Ranch here in Colorado (special thanks to Jimbo Darville for letting us play in the mud!). The release also included a print version of the first Chapter in the story as well as a video-animatic version featuring voiceovers done by all of us! This, of course was only made possible by the support of our generous donors and Patrons who support MF Ruckus via Patreon.com.
- Toured Germany with our new pals from Nitrogods and Kickin Valentina. It was easily our most successful tour to date and an experience we will remember for a lifetime. We played some beautiful clubs and met some truly wonderful people. We cannot wait to go back.
- In one night, we opened for Nashville Pussy, saw Richie and Reed from Speedwolf jam together for the first time since the band’s breakup and met Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedys and LARD fame. He took one of our records home to add to his legendary collection.
- Played The Fillmore auditorium in Denver for our second time opening for Steel Panther. Such an honor to play with such a great bunch of dudes and meet their many enthusiastic and fun fans.
- Got to play 4 gigs in OKC, including shows at The Drunken Fry and The HiLo which will eventually be used in a live recording and mini-doc series to be released on our YouTube channel. To see our this video series when it comes out as well as all the other videos we release, subscribe to our YouTube Channel.
- Recorded a bunch of new songs at Evergroove Studio to be released over the next few years as part of the Front Lines of Good times project.
- Welcomed Tony and his wife Laura to Denver as residents for the next few years while we crank out some new stuff!
We are looking forward to an active and prosperous 2018 filled with lots of great shows, writing new songs and making tons of cool shit.
As mentioned earlier in the email, we are diligently working away at our latest project, The Front Lines of Good Times.
The Front Lines of Good Times is a serialized concept album and graphic novel which takes place in the post-apocalyptic world of the year 2040 where all manner of fun have been outlawed by a bunch of buzz-kill fascists. We released the first chapter in the series just before our recent European tour to a bunch of our best friends, family and most enthusiastic supporters. We sent over 100 VIP laminates out to members of our team as well as our Patreon supporters around the world. These VIP laminates got the bearer and their guest into our release show for free as well as the VIP pizza and beer party in the gallery of 3 Kings Tavern.
We hung out, shot the shit and had an absolute blast. Josh Finley even had original inkings of panels from the comic available for sale which went like hotcakes! Did we sell the place out? No. Not even close. BUT, every single person at 3 Kings that night was there because they loved the band and believe in the project. Everyone there was a mega fan.
We would much rather play a show for 100 of our true-blue, die-hard fans than 1000 indifferent cool kids any day. We could not make this happen without the support of our friends, family and fans...especially those who support us with a small recurrent contribution on Patreon.com.
We do our best to under promise and over deliver when it comes to our people. We go out of our way to make sure our supporters know how much we appreciate them. One of the ways we do this is by loading them up with as much free stuff as we can. Our Patrons not only got copies of the comic, they not only got into the show for free, but each one of them received access to a Dropbox folder containing EVERYTHING we sent to our record label 8 weeks before the general public got to see any of it.
This folder included the original music video and comic animatic files, high quality audio tracks for their personal collection (including an instrumental version of the song), behind the scenes photos, the original comic script and much more.
I won't mince words. We are hurting for support. This project is an enormous undertaking. So far, we are less than one quarter of a way to the budget we need to do this thing right and in a timely manner. I personally show up every single day to write songs and work on the script, we meet up every week to rehearse, we play shows to raise money, we create video content to keep people engaged, but we simply cannot do it without your help.
We believe that to receive generosity, one must extend generosity. And so, in that spirit, we are giving away all the goodies from Chapter One to you, our email subscribers. This is usually something reserved solely for our Patreon subscribers, but we think they will agree that you guys need to see exactly what we are offering people who make the choice to back us up. I'm sure you will agree, as our current Patrons do, that what we give is well worth the small contribution.
So, here it is: Front Lines of Good Times Master Folder
By clicking this link, you will find all of the content from Chapter 1 as well as a sneak peek of some of the recent content we made available for Chapter 2. This includes the script for the Chapter 2 comic and demos of the new song "Making a Killing/You Only Live Forever" with lyrics.
Our hope is that, by seeing what it is we offer in exchange for support and by getting to experience the benefits of becoming a Patron, you will then be inspired to join our team and help us bring this epic vision out from the ether and into reality. Even the minimum pledge goes a long, long way, and as you'll come to see, the benefits just keep adding up.
So, please, enjoy all these goodies we just sent over and if you like what you see and hear, join us by becoming a Patron at www.Patreon.com/mfruckus.
Thank you so much as always!
May 2018 be filled with prosperity and joy for us all!
Aaron Howell
MF Ruckus