January 23, 2009

Video: Arcade Fire Cover “Born in the USA” at Obama Staff Ball

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After hearing about all the trouble people had even getting onto the Mall for Obama’s speech on Tuesday, I was starting to feel a little better about watching the whole thing from my comfy couch, instead of, you know, going back in time two years and quitting my job and volunteering for the campaign so that I could have been a part of the festivities. But then I found out about this: playing the Obama Staff Ball on Tuesday night was Arcade Fire, the Montreal combo whose raw, ecstatic 2005 Coachella performance brought me to actual tears. Like Obama getting inaugurated wasn’t enough to start up the waterworks, ballgoers were treated to the Fire doing a mandolin-led cover of Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.,” which you can watch above thanks to Stereogum, but only if you have some Kleenex nearby. If you’re still wondering what the heck I’m talking about with all this Arcade Fire blah-dee-blah, watch a clip of that Coachella performance after the jump. Sniff, I just have something in my eye…

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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